How Getting More Involved with Your Kids Can Prevent School Violence

This article isn’t about pointing fingers at parents and blaming them for every act of violence that goes on in our schools, what it is about is the importance of being involved with your kids and the impact that it can have.

The sad reality of many of the cases of school violence is that the parent’s didn’t see it coming. Often the parents of students who get violent in school express disbelief that their child could be capable of such things.  They often say that they were caught completely off guard and didn’t see anything beforehand that would indicate a problem. But in these same cases, further investigation often leads to early warning signs that were present before the incident but went unnoticed as such. And it isn’t just certain behavior and warning signs that could have alerted someone to the problem. There are various factors that can contribute to this sort of thing and make a child more likely to become violent. Things like living in an environment of domestic abuse or having a bad relationship with parents, having been abandoned by a loved one or feeling as if they were. There are also things circumstances like poverty or being in crowded classrooms or feeling like they don’t belong somewhere.

Getting involved with your kids really can prevent school violence and other crimes because it gives you the opportunity to know your child better and have a better grasp on where they go and what they’re doing. It gives you the opportunity to spot problems with anxiety or depression and can give you a clearer picture of their social skills which could be impacting they way they interact with others at school. Getting involved with your kids also helps them to feel safe and secure, loved and wanted—all things which greatly impact their character and who they become as they grow. This also gives your child the chance to learn to really trust you so that they can feel comfortable coming to you with problems before they escalate. Things like bullying, drug or alcohol abuse, gang involvement and other serious issues will be a lot easier to come to you about if they feel they can trust you and count on you.

Never underestimate the power that your involvement as a parent has on your child. Even a teen who may seem defiant and completely uninterested in being close to his parents will manage to absorb your influence and make better choices because of it. Children with parents who are involved are less likely to get bullied and picked on and are a lot less likely to hurt others. Do your part in helping your child and preventing school violence.