# 11 - Prevention

     Prevention is better than cure. Prevention is the safest way that we can stop schooling, without hurting anybody.

     Since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting incident happened, a lot of suggestions about stricter gun control laws emerged. Is gun control law the only way that we have? The answer to my question was provided by the CNN ,it was entitled “10 ways to putbrakes on mass shootings in schools” which was written by Nicole Saidi.

     I read her article and try to think of what she is trying to say and I realized that these suggestions can really help only if we will listen. Some of the ways on how we can put brakes on mass shootings in schools:

·              Improve mental health care. “Pushing the blame onto guns diverts it from where the real need is…”

·              Focus on parenting. “The best way to reduce violent outbreaks is by teaching our children kindness, empathy and love. Take the time to be a parent.”

·              Watch out for one another. "You can't fix the problem by casting these people out as another. They're us, and we're them."

     These are just simple things but it can really reduce the shootings by doing it. It is better to act than to react to those things we knew for ourselves has a remedy. We can’t save people when they’re already dead, we can only take the incident as a warning for us to learn that the next time this kind of incident will happen we must be more prepared.

     We may not make the gun laws stricter but we can do these things to prevent another school shooting. Change doesn't have to start as a big but it can start as a little and be more effective in the end.

# 10 - What is the influence of relationship to psychology

     Relationships are like chemicals, once they have an interaction they’ll definitely react to each other. It’s now up to us if we’ll have a good or bad interaction with them; we just need to be accountable of the result. It’s a matter of good mixture or in short, a matter of good relationship.

     Mr. Eliot Smith wrote in his article at Psychology Press entitled “chapter 11: close relationships” that, relationships influence our feelings, behaviors, and physical and mental well-being. In this article, he provided examples on how relationship affects, some examples are: intimacy, social support, and health.

     Social support increases physical health and psychological well-being because it offers opportunities for self-disclosure, companionship, and enjoyable interactions. We should give social support to the mentally challenged person so they will not feel that they are alone.

     Influencing can also be affected by our genders; women are more likely to provide emotional support, whereas men offer problem-solving advice. Therefore, women are good emotional supporters that’s why mothers should be more supporting to their kids especially when their kids are in special condition. When people are under stress or ill, emotional support is more helpful.

       In conclusion, relationship affects our psychological being so in order to have a peaceful life with the mentally challenged persons around us; we should always have a good relationship with them. Most chemicals explode because of bad mixture and we don’t want it that way.

#9 What are the causes of mental illness to school shooters?

           “We all have something in common”, this is a famous quote that we can all relate to. In connection to school shooting incidents they also have something in common such as: the shooter is mentally challenged. Some people may believe it, but who do you think can kill people randomly if he’s normal?

            An article by Pat Risser entitled “What is “Mental Illness”? Not What Caused Newton" at the website of Mad in America, helped me on this research. Every school shooter experienced neglect, abuse or/and even trauma in their lives, these things also made them common when it comes to their traits. Mr. Risser also stated that, “they all had taken psychiatric drugs that are known to sometimes cause heightened homicidal or suicidal feelings.”

             Mr. Risser was also able to provide his own feelings toward this problem. One example is this “There are no excuses to justify the sad and unfortunate taking of life in Newtown, but I can’t help but wonder if there might not have been a different course if Adam had something to balance and mitigate some of the despair.”

              Like what Mr. Risser said, What if there’d have been a system that had trauma sensitive peers who knew what it’s like and made a caring connection? I can only imagine that this tragedy could have been avoided and Adam would have chosen another path that wouldn’t have been so full of despair and violence. Perhaps in a life with choices and options and hope and not a life of trauma, psych drugs and despair, force and coercion, Adam would have chosen a different path and this tragedy could have been avoided. We have to change for a better future.

We can reduce their feeling of despair; the change must start in us.

               During their despair and hardships, we are all a part of it. We may be the bully, the cause of their trauma or even the one who abused them. This only means that we may be the reason why school shooters exists, maybe we are really the problem not them. We just have to make sure that we create good relationship towards them to avoid such unwanted behavior from them.

                

                We may have something in common but this particular thing differs on how we treat mentally challenged people because we should always treat them right.

#8 The Link Between Mental Illness and School Shooting.

    What is the link between school shooting and mental illness?

            Do you think a normal person would just gun down innocent kids without a reason? No. Therefore, a school shooter is also a mentally challenged person since a normal person is incapable of doing such crime. In connection, I read an article entitled “Violence and Mental Illness: Is there a link?” by SerenaCareaga at the website of KUOW.             

            She interviewed Dr. Jennifer Stuber to ask some questions and Dr. Jennifer Stuber was able to answer questions concerning the link between school shooting and mental illness. Some examples of the questions and their answers are:

What are the connections between violence and mental illness?

 One symptom that carries the potential for increased violence is threat override, which is a hallucination that can tell a patient to do something that could potentially be violent.  More important than mental health status is the past history of the individual or how the person was raised as a child.

When is it important to a story to report on a person’s mental state?

            Media organizations should expand coverage to contextualize mental illness to the scope of the individual's experience. One relevant topic about mental illness that the media should include in coverage is about the mental health system, particularly when there is a system failure.

            Dr. Jennifer Stuber was also asked about”What stories would you like to see coming from the press?”She answered and said that,” We have found that very sad, tragic incidents like the one in Newtown, Connecticut, become an opportunity for learning. It is an important opportunity for news organizations to take a look at their coverage for ways to tell more positive stories or to use a more balanced approach.”

             To conclude this matter, I want to quote a phrase from Ms. Kate Donovan’s article “Here is a terrible thing. The only thing that could possibly cause someone to do such a terrible, tragic thing is to have This Disorder…” I just want to say that, we just have to make a balanced approach to this kind of person to avoid violence.

Chapter 1

Rico, Geriza Joy R. ABMA 123
“School shooting a social problem because of mental problem”

Chapter 1 

Introduction 

A. Background of the study.


     Shootings have happened all around the United States. One kind of shooting that became a public outcry is school-related shootings or school shootings. Despite the raising incident of school incidents, school is still considered as the safest place for kids compared to their home and neighborhood. But whether school is a better place or not, school shootings have happened, is happening and will happen not until we find a way to prevent it.

     School shootings have killed a lot of innocent people and left a lot of hopeless families. Although it catches the public’s attention, it is still aren’t enough to wake their sleeping thoughts about how dangerous this thing can be. According to Mr. Glenn W. Muschert, “At the turn of the millennium, school shootings were an ascendant social problem, often because the events garnered public interest, which contributed to the perception that school shootings were a new form of violence occurring with increased frequency and intensity.”

     Most school shooters have mental illness and almost all of those shooters are under medication. One part of that medication includes psychotropic medications or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Mr. Gregory Patin stated in his article in examiner.com entitled: Mental illness, medications and school shootings: Preventing another Sandy Hook that “According to statistics on gun violence, these drugs may be even more dangerous than the firearms.” The website also provides a list of school shooting incidents that involves the shooter’s intake of SSRIs medicine such as Prozac, Xanax, Paxil, Ritalin, Luvox, etc.

     Here are some examples of school shooters that have mental illness: Steve Kazmierczak, age 27, he had been on Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac. Off course the most recent shooting incident and considered as the second of the most dangerous school shooting incident in the United States of America is Adam Lanza, age 20, Fanapt, a controversial anti-psychotic medicine.



     These mental illnesses are caused by bad relationship; almost all of the school shooters have a bad relationship with their loved ones. Like Adam Lanza, “he had a troubled relationship with her mother, with children, and, most importantly, with himself.” (An article from examiner.com entitled: Why Adam Lanza killed innocent children?)


     Instead of blaming our society about this problem, this paper aims to show you the relationship we have can cause mental illness to some people. This paper also aims to show what kind of relationship can make a mentally challenged person into a school shooter.

B. Statement of the problem.

     What kind of relationship can cause mental illness?



C. Significance of the Study.



To the parents with mentally challenged kids.
     This paper can help you love and care for your kids more, develop tighter relationship with them and show them that you really care for them. This paper can also remind you that you need to stay strong for your kids.



To the readers.
     Facts and information about school shooting may get your attention and may intrigue you. This paper can show you the risks of having a bad relationship with a mentally ill person.



To the future readers.

     This paper aims to wake our sleeping insights about school shooting and to help each other on how to prevent this from happening. This paper can provide you a lot of information regarding those things.



D. Scope and Delimitation

     This paper focuses on the consideration of us having a better relationship with a mentally ill person. Those persons are considered as fragile so we must always take care of them or else if they suddenly burst can harm us and our society.









E. Methodology.



Descriptive method will be much seen in this paper because I aim to describe and discuss what kind of relationship can cause mental illness.



F. Definition of Terms.



School shooting – an incident in which gun violence occurs at an educational institution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting)



Mental illness – any disease of the mind; any various disorders in which a person’s thoughts, emotions, or behavior are so abnormal as to cause suffering to himself, herself, or other people (Collins English Dictionary)



SSRIs medicine – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor; used to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders (Medical Dictionary)

What kind of School shooter is Adam Lanza?

     Categories in topics, things and etc., makes it more easier to the user to understand what the writer or the owner wants to convey. While in school shooting, its categories makes it more easier for us to classify the perpetrator.

     As I was researching for my paper, I came across to a website named Holology this website was made by Freydis. I find his website very helpful for my research because he's been researching about school shooting for 14 years so my source is really an expert in this topic.
    
    There are two categories of school shootings : Class A - This kind of shootings are perpetrated by the school's very own or I mean to say that the student is the one perpetrating his own school. Most school shootings that have happened are perpetrated by Class A shooters.
Class B - This kind of shootings are perpetrated by the outsiders meaning the shooters has not anything to do with the school.


     Adam Lanza belongs to the Class B which is very rare for a school shooter because most of the school shooters belongs to the Class A.

The Mother's Negligence.

     Knowing that Adam Lanza has a history of autism, did his mom took good care of him? Since his parents was divorced on 2009, and his brother went on a university for four years, Adam and Nancy stayed on their £350,000 house. Being a single parent, Mrs. Lanza needed to work for her sons, that's why she have not a lot of time for Adam.

     We all know that there is a special kind of parenting when it comes to a mentally challenged person, but did Nancy Lanza fulfilled this in her son's case? I read an article in Autism Support Network entitled The 10 commandments of parenting a child with autism by Tyneise Seaborough, some of the commandment are:  You shall seek out therapists. Even though Mrs. Lanza tried to seek a therapist, it was too late for his sons' medication. You Shall establish at least two appropriate toys to play with. In Mrs. Lanza's case, she chose a gun to be his sons toy which so inappropriate for a mentally challenged person.