Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994 TAG: 9403220017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A new Gallup Poll, released the other day at the start of an American Medical Association conference, confirmed numerous other reports on the prevalence of violence in children's lives. "Many of our young people are at great risk in places where they in all expectation should feel the safest - at home and at school," said George H. Gallup Jr.
Are our children growing up scared? You bet they are. In another recent poll, conducted for Newsweek and the Children's Defense Fund, more than half the children surveyed said they were afraid of violent crime against them or a family member. They were afraid of being shot, or attacked, or abducted, or being sexually molested, or getting AIDS.
In its 1994 State of America's Children Yearbook, the Children's Defense Fund cited psychiatrists and social workers' reports of inner-city children as young as 10 who "think about death all the time. They plan their own funerals - what they will wear, the kind of floral arrangements and music they want." The CDF Yearbook also quoted a doctor who said this:
"American inner-city children are exposed to such heavy doses of extreme violence they exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder like children in war-torn countries such as Mozambique, Cambodia and Palestine. They become sad, angry, aggressive and uncaring after exposure to continuous violence, and often have trouble with school work because, having been forced to develop energy-absorbing psychological defenses against their fears, they lack the psychic energy required for learning."
But fear of violence is not the exclusive purview of children in big-city ghettos. It's not just sapping the psychic energy of kids in Los Angeles who sleep in bathtubs to shield themselves from stray bullets coming through the windows.
Fear is spreading in the lives of children everywhere, even suburban neighborhoods of the Roanoke Valley.
We don't pretend to have solutions. Reasonable gun-control laws could help, along with keeping violent offenders off the streets. So would support for family values and involving parents more in schools. A school curriculum focusing on non-violence. And more frequent use of the off button on the TV - where violence crosses the screen every six minutes.
Perhaps what's also needed is a new kind of neighborhood-watch program, in which residents get together and make a new commitment - not simply to keep an eye out for each other's property, but also to look out for the safety of children.
Every neighborhood where there are youngsters, especially youngsters on their own for much of the day because their parents are away at work, ought to identify and designate safe havens for kids. These can be the houses of trusted stay-at-home neighbors, or maybe a corner grocery-store in sections where such slices of Americana still exist. But every neighborhood should have places where children can run for help if they feel they're in danger.
Neighborhood schools and churches can also do more to provide safety zones for children. They could keep their doors open beyond their traditional "business" hours, and arrange to have trusted adults on the premises to counsel and protect children who are in trouble - or who're just plain scared and need to see a friendly, reassuring adult.
Mostly, adults who care about children need to pay a lot more attention to children's concerns - be it "monsters" who may be hiding in closets, or playground bullies who might beat them up or bring a gun to school. We need to protect children not only from violence itself, but also from the terrors and emotional scars it is spreading among our youth.
by CNB