Thursday, June 12, 2014

School Shootings - How to Solve it Mom's Way

School shootings make me sick to my stomach.  Just say the names - Columbine, Newtown, and I want to cry.  School violence is horrible, whether it is shootings, knife fights, fist fights.  But how did we, the nation, get to this point?  I don't know.  But I can tell you, that the way to solve it is to take a holistic view of the nation, and not point fingers that it is because of the guns, or it is because of the lack of mental health services, or the stigma of mental illness, or society, or the lack of parenting, or electronics, or whatever. 

The problem is here, and we, as a nation, and the people of this nation need to solve it.  Before you go any further, the solution involves time and money.  Your time and my time and your money and my money.  I am willing to pay for it, because I can't continue to watch kids shoot each other.  Because I can't continue to watch kids cry that they saw their friend shot to death in school and because I can't continue to watch another mother/father/family member cry that they will never (never, never, never) see and hold a loved one again, who was under the age of 18.  I can't keep watching our kids be the victims of violence in SCHOOL.

Yes, we have a gun issue - and it isn't just a control issue.  Yes, people are able to get guns easier than I can get my son ADHD medication.  If you have a gun (legal or not), please, please, please don't keep your gun loaded and unlocked.  We need to teach all of our children never, ever to touch a gun without adult supervision.  We need to teach all of our children and teenagers that taking a gun out of the locked case is WRONG and DANGEROUS. 

Please lets teach our children how to resolve conflicts without violence.  Lets teach this at home, in the school, and our leaders of this nation (Congress) need to start solving all of our problems, without grandstanding.  We need to discuss the issues at hand and come up with solutions.  All politicians need to know that they aren't going to get their way 100% of the time, and without compromise our nation is losing the battle - the battle of unemployment, the battle of gun control, the battle of affordable health care, the battle of keeping state and religion separate.  For every issue there are many views, but we have to come together and solve these problems.

Having two kids in school, I can see that they are learning some AMAZING things, including how to work in groups together and how to solve conflict (at the mediation center in my daughter's second grade classroom).  However when the standardize test is weeks away, the schools start test prep, and there is NO conflict resolution teaching.  There is no discussion of a theme of a class read book.  It is test prep time, but that is another topic for another day.

We, the nation, not only need to make health care affordable and accessible, but that includes mental health.  Because I live in a wealthy community, I know of many health care professionals who had to stop taking health insurance because they rate of reimbursement was embarrassing.  One health care professional told me that she got paid $60 per hour from one health insurance company (with the patient paying $30 and the health insurance company paying her $30).  It is embarrassing that she has an advanced degree, but was getting paid $60/hr by the health insurance company, even though her expenses were greater than that because she practiced in Massachusetts. 

Other mental health workers that don't accept health insurance can charge $200/hour (session), and who can afford that - the wealthy.  Where does that leave the average Massachusetts worker?  With no access to mental health care.  If you are lucky enough to find a mental health professional, that accepts your health insurance, it could be months to get a first appointment.

In the meantime, the people that need the mental heath care are part of our community.  They need help, and some have tried to access it, only to be denied.  In Massachusetts, the number of mental health beds in the pediatric department across the state have shrunk to alarming numbers.  If we don't  help these kids, where will they go as adults?  If we don't pay for affordable mental health care now, what is the cost later?  The cost is not just dollars.  The cost is our children's lives.

We need to solve the school violence issue, but it just isn't the NRA. We all need to help solve this problem.  If the NRA went away tomorrow, we still have a problem with kids shooting (and killing kids) and that is our community's problem.

We, the adults, of the community need to solve this very real problem.

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