"Good Kids: Difficult Behavior" - How can we avoid school violence?

"Good Kids: Difficult Behavior" - guns replacing school bells?

How possible is it, realistically, to avert school violence/tragedies? Is a crisis looming in America's schools? In the past two years alone, students have committed at least 25 reported homicides and caused hundreds of injuries to fellow students and teachers in the hallways and playgrounds of America's schools. According to experts, the phenomenon could reach crisis proportions.

In just one week we have witnessed two such tragedies involving teen violence in our schools. A 15 year accused of killing two and wounding 13 at Santana High School in suburban San Diego and most recently, a 14-year-old girl shot a female classmate in Williamsport, PA. Could these types of incidents be avoided? And what should our schools be doing?

After reading Joyce Divinyi's third printing of her book, "Good Kids, Difficult Behavior: A Guide to What Works and What Doesn't" (www.thehumanconnection.net), she describes the behavior signs and symptoms of emotionally vulnerable or volatile students. Further, she identifies educators who are the most likely targets for violence. A nationally certified counselor with over 20 years' experience, Ms. Divinyi has helped defuse potentially violent students and can recognize the danger signs.

Joyce Divinyi points out that most of the students responsible for the school shootings that occurred throughout the country in the past two years had a common set of identifiable characteristics. She believes that these tragedies may have been prevented had educators received training on how to identify and effectively deal with emotionally volatile and potentially dangerous students. Her theory, called the E-T-A Method, explains that these students behave purely on emotion (E), by-pass the thinking (T) process and act (A) without awareness of the ultimate consequences.

"Today's children have been robbed of an age of innocence. They are exposed on a daily basis to situations and circumstances that most adults never experienced during their childhood," said Ms. Divinyi. According to studies by the American Psychological Association, if a typical child, ages 3 to 12, watches 27 hours of television each week, he or she will view 800 murders and 100,000 acts of violence."

"Good Kids, Difficult Behavior" unlocks the mystery of how emotions are powerful and are an important part of a child's decision-making process. One hundred percent of the violent incidents that have been reported in the national media began with a person-to-person conflict. The ability to understand and control one's emotions while choosing to act appropriately is what is called mature behavior. Children are not born with this ability; they must be taught to manage their own emotions as well as their behavior. The E-T-A method is a practical technique for even the most non-responsive and hostile children.

Ms. Divinyi shows the importance of children being able to engage they're thinking processes before they act. Punishment alone will not work to deter or prevent bad behavior. Inappropriate behavior automatically requires more teaching, not more punishment. Ms. Divinyi's techniques are so effective that they are used in college curricula on campuses from New Hampshire to California.

"Joyce Divinyi's views on choice and consequences are wonderfully useful and smart," said Gavin de Becker, the best-selling author of The Gift of Fear and Protecting the Gift. "For me, the section about identifying a child's strengths are worth the price of admission all by itself -- but that happens again and again in this book full of great wisdom."

Ms. Divinyi has an Atlanta-based private practice in individual and family therapy and is the owner of The Human Connection (www.thehumanconnection.net), a company dedicated to understanding and changing human behavior. She has trained parents, professionals and employees of Fortune 500 companies in behavior management and in strategies for communicating with difficult people.

In The Atlanta Journal-Constitution May 27, 1999. (Learning To Spot The Signs Before Kids Do Violence, By Shandra Hill.) Shandra mentions how Divinyi has taken her training to several schools throughout metro Atlanta."Teachers stayed after school in order to get the training to help them respond effectively to troubled kids," she said. One of her most popular programs was "Creating Safety: How to Identify and Intervene with the Potentially Violent Student."

"The violent incidents are always triggered by emotional issues," said Divinyi, referring to school shootings in Littleton, CO; Paducah, KY; and Jonesboro, AK. All could have been prevented, she believes, if more adults knew how to recognize what she calls discipline-resistant kids. "Teachers" are trained to teach; they're not trained to deal with troubled, anguished students," she said. "It's not possible for them to automatically know.

The key point, Divinyi offered, is for parents to recognize the role they play in their children's lives.
"You will be the number one influence in your child's life," she told the group. "What kind of influence you will be is the choice that parents have to make. That's your challenge and your choice."

Why can't we solve this chronic problem of youthful violence? Educators and parents are seeking viable answers with the help of experts like Joyce Divinyi before gun shoots rings replace school bell rings.

Other articles for reference on teen violence:
http://www.thehumanconnection.net
http://www.schoolcrisisresponse.com
http://www.ulv.edu/~comms/gallery/schools/teachers.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/national/101100/zero_tolerance_mand.sml - fox news article.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/School_Violence