Maturity Levels

Reading this post by Kim reminded me of something I had been kicking around in my head a bit.

The reason there is so much violence among young people today is their lack of maturity. Sometimes you'll hear "kids grow up quick these days" or some such hogwash. The exact opposite is true. Kids today don't have to take responsibility for anything any more.

Going through school they are protected from getting their feelings hurt by "speech codes" from kinder all the way through grad school. There's no fighting, no 'rasslin, no playing tag or dodgeball. You'd probably get expelled for dipping a girls ponytail in the inkwell.

Because of this, kids take any form of criticism as a personal attack, and, many times, respond physically. The reason for this immature behavior is because it is a natural response, one you learn to control. Of course, because they've never been allowed to "take it out back", they don't know how to control that urge. They don't know the consequences. Here's a quick story:

Back when I was a teenager, we were all gathered because one of my friends was going to fight a guy. They were going to use boxing gloves. So, waiting on the others to arrive me and another friend put them on to fool around a bit. It didn't last long. I hit him once in the side, he hit me upside the head, and that was it. We learned a valuable lesson that day: even with boxing gloves on, getting hit hurt.

You're not so keen on mixing it up once you know how it feels. You learn, and maybe adjust, your "fight or flight" response.

Learning about violence is part of growing up, a part most kids are not learning on their own. They see images on Tee Vee and figure that's how it is, so they don't think twice about beating someone with a ball bat, or using a knife or a gun.

It's time to replace what sounded good with what worked*.

* To paraphrase Thomas Sowell.