The Monsters We've Created

Just when I think I can't see or hear about anything worse than the sadness that already exists in the world, today I read that a 16 year old girl was stabbed to death in the halls of her high school allegedly because she turned down a request to go to her school's prom. She was an athlete and a scholar, and she had her whole life ahead of her. She went to school this morning just like every other morning, and her life ended. What has happened? I am amazed that any child these days can even function in school having these horror stories hanging over their heads. What kind of generation are we raising that they have no regard for human life, even their own? When I was in high school, and yes, I realize that was more than 30 years ago, but the worst thing I had to worry about was taking a test I hadn't really studied for. I was never afraid at school. I knew my share of assholes and jerks and drama causers, but I was never afraid for my life. Stop and think about that for just a minute. School has become a place where our children can get killed. And I'm going to probably ruffle a few feathers here, and I am not trying to stir up a debate. This is just my observation, my opinion. Banning things is not going to help. We need to start raising our children to respect others and respect themselves. How someone could so easily take someone else's life without any regard or thought of consequences to the young girl, her family, himself or his family. I'm not saying that there is a simple solution to this out of control problem, but what I am saying is that we have to start at the beginning as parents as mentors. We need to teach at the very start that there are consequences to our actions and stop making excuses for bad behavior. If we excuse small things, that leads to letting bigger things go, and soon we have created the monsters who think nothing of stabbing a fellow student because things didn't go their way.