Be Careful Little Eyes...

 "The typical adolescent of any ethnic or economic group witnesses on television more than 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other violent acts by the time he or she enters seventh grade" (Thompson, 2006, p. 261).

Talk about a startling fact.

When I first read this months ago for one of my classes, I went immediately to my social media outlets and put this up for everyone to see. It absolutely blew my mind. No wonder our kids are so desensitized to violence today! And if our kids are, surely we are as well. After reading this statistic, I immediately started to pay more attention to the kinds of things to which I was exposing myself on a regular basis, even if it was only on television. I've tried to make a conscious effort to change the channel if things start to get gory or violent, and I've definitely noticed a change in my response when it comes on. I have a significantly lower tolerance for it now, which, admittedly, wasn't ever very high to begin with... (I will pass out from any decent amount of blood or anatomy discussion-- no joke, I had to drop anatomy in high school because I almost dropped off the lab stools from a discussion about ligaments and tendons in my first class).

Why does this matter?

Because "violence is perhaps one of the most pervasive and serious threat to the mental health and well-being of youth in the United States. Young people are disproportionately represented as both victims and perpetrators of violence. National school-based data indicate that violence, especially bullying behavior, is prevalent in many schools" (Thompson, 2006, p. 249).

and

Because "without the opportunity to process random acts of violence in the media, youth become desensitized and begin to have destructive social expectations and a proclivity for aggressive behavior" (Thompson, 2006, p. 261).

What are your students seeing? Are they being exposed to violence at home, on tv, in video games, etc? Let's help protect our students and children from the consequences of exposure to violence, both in media and in person.

Source:  Thompson, R. (2006) Nurturing future generations: Promoting resilience in children and adolescents through social, emotional and cognitive skills. New York, NY: Routledge.