by Melissa Jerez

Created on: March 16, 2009

When something bad happens, everyone wants to blame everything else but themselves. We blame other people and other things because we don't want that responsibility. It's immature to do because if you don't take responsibility, then no one else will and if no one else will, then the root of the problem could never be found. It's easy to blame violent TV shows, movies and video games for school shootings on campuses or children acting out dangerous stunts because it's so circulated in our media. We think to ourselves if they see it then they will certainly do it and that's not always the case. When I was 7 or 8 I watched wrestling and I played video games like Mortal Kombat. I've never acted out a single act of violence depicted in those video games or wrestling moves because I knew better than that. I knew better than that because that's what my parents taught me. I learned from a young age that video games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat are just video games. My mother didn't like that I played them, but she knew better to let me know that "Hey, if you try this out you can kill someone and killing a person is very bad so be careful."

Most of the people I know played the very same video games I did and watched the same TV shows I did. They're all good people and have never beaten someone up with a sword or stabbed anyone or tried a shouriken on their mother. People who kill are people with problems that have either not been diagnosed yet, or have been but they didn't get the treatment that they needed. Society is quick to jump the gun and blame anyone before blaming themselves. Parents need to start doing what they are supposed to be doing: parenting. There's a difference between parenting and babysitting. Personally, I think most parents as of late are starting to babysit their kids. They watch over what they do and make sure they don't get into trouble. If their kids do get into trouble, they scold them until they think the kids have learned their lesson. Guess what? That way of parenting isn't going to help your kids from shooting up a place. When you're parenting, you watch your child's behavior but keep a close distance. If they get into trouble, you tell them WHY they got into trouble in the first place, and try to have your child see the error of their ways. You don't punish them for getting into trouble. You try and understand WHY they got into trouble, why they did what they did.

People are scared to actually parent because if their kid does something bad, even after all their work into helping their child, then they get blamed. In this case, it's not the parents fault. It's not their fault because there was obviously something that slipped through the cracks, something that they couldn't see. A good parent is not perfect, but if parents really wanted their kids to stop being so violent, then they need to sit down with their children and tell them that it's wrong to kick someone in the face, instead of having the media do it for them.

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