IV. Identifying Solutions

H. Reducing the Effects of Television Violence

Paramjit T. Joshi, child psychiatrist and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center’s Office for the Prevention of Violence, provides the following advice to help parents set limits on their child’s television viewing: “We need to be up front. A good way is to keep a diary of the kind of shows a child watches. Go through the log and discuss the programs with your child. Was there something good about it? What did they enjoy? If you explore these shows, it will be a conversation instead of a parent coming down heavy-handed and setting the rules. Maybe you can decide together that some program wasn’t such a great idea if the child had a nightmare after watching it.” Dr. Joshi also recommends similar treatment with video games, movies and other forms of media.

In determining the age appropriate aspect of a show, “Never give more than the child is ready for. This may mean careful monitoring when older siblings are making viewing choices.” Dr. Joshi also discourages TV’s in children’s bedrooms.98

Some national efforts may also help parents to make more informed decisions when supervising TV viewing:

“Voluntary TV ratings that debuted in October [1997] provide both an on-screen age-advisory and information about program content. A TV-Y7FV rating, for example, indicates fantasy violence in children’s programming and recommends that viewers be at least 7 years old, and a TV-14-V denotes violence in general programming suitable for an audience over 14 ... In September, the E/I rating was launched. This is a rating “indicating educational or informative programs for children, and the new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requirement that stations air at least three hours per week of such programs. It is hoped that stations will respond with better (including nonviolent and noncommercial) shows for children, and that families will eagerly and easily find them.”99

National efforts to improve safety on-line are also in the works. Potential protections include: “filters available from software or Internet service providers, ratings of sites, and selected sites set aside for children. Many who want to safeguard children see such tools as an important supplement to legislative regulation - especially given that the Supreme Court struck down, on First Amendment grounds, the indecency provisions in the Communications Decency Act of 1995.”100

I. Gun Control

It is sometimes difficult to discuss gun control in rural Vermont settings where hunting is a part of our way of life, but gun control is a component of any responsible plan to reduce school violence. “Advocates must continue to stress the clear connections between guns and deadly violence by and against children. No child should be able to obtain a gun at home or in the community. Laws to regulate guns are urgently needed, and advocates of such measures must not be silenced by the powerful pro-gun lobby.”101

Access to guns is an enormous responsibility, and our laws should reflect this. “The sale and ownership of [guns] must be regulated as least as aggressively as cars and driving are.”102

i. Church Groups Taking Leadership Role in Gun Control

“In a strong statement on individual responsibility and guns, the top policy making body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has passed a resolution calling on the denomination’s 2.6 million members to move toward removing handguns and assault weapons from their homes. This resolution ... follows a three-decade stream of declarations by several major Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish organizations favoring restrictions on handguns and assault weapons ... The Presbyterians’ resolution is aimed at helping church members to ‘develop community strategies and create sanctuaries of safety for our children.’”103

ii. Product Liability

Lawsuits, modeled after those filed against the tobacco industry, have been filed against manufacturers of assault weapons. The product liability issue is based on the belief that “some guns that are being sold are unreasonably dangerous.”104 Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell has taken aggressive steps to deal with guns in his city. “In 1994, Rendell appointed a handgun violence committee to check the flow of weapons onto Philadelphia streets .... Rendell has also threatened to sue gun manufacturers to retrieve some of the money city health care facilities spend on victims of gunshot wounds.”105

iii. Voluntary Removal of Guns from Homes with At-Risk Children

As advocates work to change things at the national level, there are things that can be done on the local level, or even on the individual level. If a child is at risk, suicide prevention and mental health crisis response teams often talk to family members to find out if guns are available in the home. If a parent, grandparent, or some other person close to the child has a gun, the response team member tries to reach an agreement that the gun would be removed until the child stabilizes.

V. Conclusion

As Vermonters, we want schools to be safe environments where our children can achieve well academically and develop well socially and emotionally. Violence in any school reflects a larger societal problem. Efforts to prevent it, therefore, simply must reflect the interrelationship among the school, families, and the larger community. A community-wide effort to reduce youth violence can have a long-term effect of reducing school violence. Without a collaborative community effort, schools will not be able to reduce, much less minimize episodes of violent behavior.

A diverse body of community members can bring insight and ideas to discussions about school violence. The various programs and resources listed in this report can help bring practical, thoughtful, and effective ideas to reality for individual Vermont communities.