And they also become President of the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
Bubba too. Unfortunately, the plural of anecdote is not data. Statistically, children of single moms fare poorly. I am curious as to the degree that it is different beween single fathers and single moms.
> Statistically, children of single moms fare poorly
That doesn't mean there's a causal relationship, of course.
It's also possible that third factors (poverty, etc) tend to cause both "single-mothership" and "poorly faring kids." [Indeed, it seems fairly likely.]
This may be politically incorrect to say right now, but I think the genes associated with mental illnesses that have a tendency to lead to violence will be phased out by a future generation sometime within this century and the next. We'll soon enough try gun control. That won't stop mass killings. Then we'll try increased mental healthcare access. That won't do much because we'll struggle with the Constitutionality o…
There is almost no mental illness with data that links it to genes. Schizophrenia, for instance, has no data showing a genetic cause and plenty data linking it to environment. Oliver James is lovely to read on this, if you fancy.
That's not true. There are dozens of candidate genes for Schizophrenia. None have been linked conclusively, probably because none of them are entirely responsible.
I think the general agreement in the field is that genetic abnormalities are necessary but not sufficient to cause Schizophrenia. If you are going to crack, it's usually because you are genetically predisposed to it and in the right environment to trigger the disorder.
Using Schizophrenia as an example, there are plenty of mid-20's males that are in stressful environments...but don't become schizophrenic. A minority of those males will have a genetic abnormality that predisposes them, and they start hearing voices.
Well, the boy is indeed very naughty. But his behaviour or temperament is very likely to be caused by the environment he is livening in (ie. his family and social background).
One obvious inappropriate thing his mom has done is that the mom chooses to threaten the son when he did anything wrong. Threatening only creates fear. And fear is no good, because it will most likely make the son more rebellious. An alternative would be love and care. To have a deep talk with the son, to find out what the root cause of his rebellious reaction is and to help the son cope with the society better may be a bette method. When America has an alarmingly high psychiatric problem rate, it is clear that most of them are not caused by genetics, meaning, they can be changed for good.
Surely, the mom has tried to talk to the son. But the depth of the talk is questionable, simply because when the mom finds it urgent to have a serious conversation with the son, the son may have already developed a distrust against the mom, and the talk can be very difficult.
When the mom gives up to call the police, even the 13-year old son may yet to have a serious mental problem, he will develop one.
Again, total prevention is a straw man. No-one is claiming that total prevention is an achievable goal. (Massive) reduction is. I am a pilot. It is said the FARs (Federal Aviation Regulations) are written in blood. We still have fatal accidents from time to time, but they have been reduced by an almost incredible amount, especially considering how much air travel has increased. Yeah, you could argue that the fundamen…
I'm not throwing up my hands and saying do nothing. I'm suggesting that we address the fundamentals , which in this case is mental illness.
What I am saying is that mental illness is not the fundamental issue of the case. Somebody going mental with a nerf gun just isn't the same sort of problem. At all.
> Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. There are crazy people in every country on earth, many (most) of which have worse "health care" systems than the US; yet only in the US do kids shoot other kids with automatic weapons. I very much doubt it has anything to do with mental health (nowhere else in the world are young children medicated for being kids to such…
When you comment on something as serious as this you should have your facts straight. Automatic weapons are highly regulated in the US, and no automatic weapon has ever been used in a school shooting to my knowledge.
You're right: automatic weapons are regulated in the US (but I did not claim otherwise) and they have indeed never been used in a school shooting (I misspoke; I meant semi-automatic weapons, not machine-guns).
But my point is that if you make weapons difficult to buy and difficult to own, then they are less likely to be used by crazy people to do harm. The situation about machine-guns verifies this.
What's more
- school shootings, including this last one, most often use "semi-automatic" weapons (because that's the most efficient weapon that's easily available)
- the number of fatalities is a direct consequence of the efficiency of the weapons used
> My naive non-american mind Does this sentiment not exist where you are from?
My mother's family traveled all over Europe while she was growing up, and she picked a new boyfriend in each new school. She told me, she just never really considered not having a boyfriend, even if everyone involved knew it was pretty temporary. So it's not a purely US thing.
Well, the romantic relationships you have in middle/high school are quite different from the ones you cultivate in college and later in life; my point referred more to the latter.
But the CT shooter was never in trouble with the law and wasn't known to have any violent tendencies. And most people are not like the OP blogger: they aren't going to turn in their child to the authorities. A schizophrenic may not ever have violent tendencies. Then, one day a voice tells them to kill everyone. Meanwhile, someone without a mental illness has a moment of rage and threatens to kill a guy at a bar. Do w…
>What were the environmental factors behind Lanza and Holmes (Aurora)? Both came from upper-middle class backgrounds. Both grew up in idyllic environments with "normal" parents with careers and health insurance. This is, of course, the crux of the matter. Clearly there is something in America's environment that makes us far more prone to this sort of thing than other places, with or without gun control. Identifying w…
In my opinion, this is the correct way to think about the problem, but you should go deeper, and keep in mind that cultural traits aren't solely good or solely bad - they might be both good and bad, like a prescription medication with side-effects.
Elsewhere in this thread I wondered if American dynamism and individualism produces individuals both great and vile - and that America tempered the 'vile' segment with moral education and community ties that's since gone on the decline. That's my culturally-based theory, but I'm sure we can find other plausible ones as well.
> “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. I remember doing that. > He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work. I remember that. > A few weeks ago, Michael..threatened to kill me I did that too. She forgot to mention the time(s) he threatened to run away. (I'd be surprised if he didn't.) After a marathon of transfers, expulsions,…
Re handwriting: If you are still into improving your handwriting, buy yourself a fountain pen. It makes it a lot of fun to experiment with new characters and drastically alter your handwriting. I've always had meh handwriting. Not horrible, but not pretty either. I've been slowly converting my scratchy characters over to smoother, more flowy characters with embelleshments, since fountain pens make it so easy to play.…
Hand writing is a big thing here in India. And generally many super intelligent kids lose out to mug pots because of hand writing.
Coming to my case, I consider any one who boasts about great hand writing a loser.
The moment I stopped writing exams I started giving a damn about hand writing. Hand writing improvement initiatives were the biggest things I hated in school. It was a exercise in futility.
Looking back I feel like somebody was forcing a back end engineer into learning HTML.
It's something that we hear a lot. My naive non-american mind believes that it's not about finding a girlfriend, but finding the right person. It's preferable to have your life together for the former, but I'm not sure it makes much of a difference for the latter.
> My naive non-american mind Does this sentiment not exist where you are from?
Definitely not as much.
In my experience, people in the US in their 20s (both during and post university) tend to be more in the mindset "I want a relationship" (and they're actively looking for one, using dating sites, personal networks, etc.) or "I don't want a relationship" (in which case they actively avoid it); whereas in France and European countries, people tend to be more neutral by default and then hop into a relationship when the right person comes along.
Those are just my observations though- they could well be skewed.
Bubba too. Unfortunately, the plural of anecdote is not data. Statistically, children of single moms fare poorly. I am curious as to the degree that it is different beween single fathers and single moms.
Mental disorders don't go away when you have two parents.