"Trained to Kill" - Desensitizing the Mind to Violence

"Trained to Kill" By Lt. Col. Dave Grossman Christianity Today, August 10, 1998 Are we training our children to kill? I am from Jonesboro, Arkansas. I travel the world training medical, law enforcement, and U.S. military personnel about the realities of warfare. I try to make those who carry deadly force keenly aware of the magnitude of killing. Too many law enforcement and military personnel act like "cowboys," never stopping to think about who they are and what they are called to do. I hope I am able to give them a reality check. So here I am, a world traveler and an expert in the field of "killology," and the largest school massacre in American history happens in my hometown of Jonesboro, Arkansas. That was the March 24, 1999, schoolyard shooting deaths of four girls and a teacher. Ten others were injured, and two boys, ages 11 and 13, are in jail, charged with murder. My son goes to one of the middle schools in town, so my aunt in Florida called us that day and asked, "Was that Joe's school?" And we said, "We haven't heard about it." My aunt in Florida knew about the shootings before we did! We turned on the television and discovered the shootings took place down the road from us but, thank goodness, not at Joe's school. I'm sure almost all parents in Jonesboro that night hugged their children and said, "Thank God it wasn't you," as they tucked them into bed. But there was also a lot of guilt because some parents in Jonesboro couldn't say that. I spent the first three days after the tragedy at Westside Middle School, where the shootings took place, working with the counselors, teachers, students, and parents. None of us had ever done anything like this before. I train people how to react to trauma in the military; but how do you do it with kids after a massacre in their school? I was the lead trainer for the counselors and clergy the night after the shootings, and the following day we debriefed the teachers in groups. Then the counselors and clergy, working with the teachers, debriefed the students, allowing them to work through everything that had happened. Only people who share a trauma can give each other the understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness needed to understand what happened, and then they can begin the long process of trying to understand why it happened. Virus of Violence To understand the why behind Jonesboro and Springfield and Pearl and Paducah, and all the other outbreaks of this "virus of violence," we need to understand first the magnitude of the problem. The per capita murder rate doubled in this country between 1957 when the FBI started keeping track of the data--and 1992. A fuller picture of the problem, however, is indicated by the rate people are attempting to kill one another--the aggravated assault rate. That rate in America has gone from around 60 per 100,000 in 1957 to over 440 per 100,000 by the middle of this decade. As bad as this is, it would be much worse were it not for two major factors. First is the increase in the imprisonment rate of violent offenders. The prison population in America nearly quadrupled between 1975 and 1992. According to criminologist John J. DiIulio, "dozens of credible empirical analyses . . . leave no doubt that the increased use of prisons averted millions of serious crimes." If it were not for our tremendous imprisonment rate (the highest of any industrialized nation), the aggravated assault rate and the murder rate would undoubtedly be even higher. Children don't naturally kill; they learn it from violence in the home and most pervasively, from violence as entertainment in television, movies, and interactive video games. The second factor keeping the murder rate from being any worse is medical technology. According to the US Army Medical Service Corps, a wound that would have killed nine out of ten soldiers in World War II, nine out of ten could have survived in Vietnam. Thus, by a very conservative estimate, if we had 1940-level medical technology today, the murder rate would be ten times higher than it is. The magnitude of the problem has been held down by the development of sophisticated lifesaving skills and techniques, such as helicopter medivacs, 911 operators, paramedics, CPR, trauma centers, and medicines. However, the crime rate is still at a phenomenally high level, and this is true worldwide. In Canada, according to their Center for Justice, per capita assaults increased almost fivefold between 1964 and 1993, attempted murder increased nearly sevenfold, and murders doubled. Similar trends can be seen in other countries in the per capita violent crime rates reported to Interpol between 1977 and 1993. In Australia and New Zealand, the assault rate increased approximately fourfold, and the murder rate nearly doubled in both nations. The assault rate tripled in Sweden, and approximately doubled in Belgium, Denmark, England-Wales, France, Hungary, Netherlands, and Scotland, while all these nations had an associated (but smaller) increase in murder. This virus of violence is occurring worldwide. The explanation for it has to be some new factor that is occurring in all of these countries. There are many factors involved, and none should be discounted: for example, the prevalence of guns in our society. But violence is rising in many nations with draconian gun laws. And though we should never downplay child abuse, poverty, or racism, there is only one new variable present in each of these countries, bearing the exact same fruit: media violence presented as entertainment for children. Killing is Unnatural Before retiring from the military, I spent almost a quarter of a century as an army infantry officer and a psychologist, learning and studying how to enable people to kill. Believe me, we are very good at it. But it does not come naturally; you have to be taught to kill. And just as the army is conditioning people to kill, we are indiscriminately doing the same thing to our children, but without the safeguards. After the Jonesboro killings, the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Juvenile Violence came to town and said that children don't naturally kill. It is a learned skill. And they learn it from abuse and violence in the home and, most pervasively, from violence as entertainment in television, the movies, and interactive video games. Killing requires training because there is a built-in aversion to killing one's own kind. I can best illustrate this from drawing on my own work in studying killing in the military. We all know that you can't have an argument or a discussion with a frightened or angry human being. Vasoconstriction, the narrowing of the blood vessels, has literally closed down the forebrain--that great gob of gray matter that makes you a human being and distinguishes you from a dog. When those neurons close down, the midbrain takes over and your thought processes and reflexes are indistinguishable from your dog's. If you've worked with animals, you have some understanding in the realm of midbrain responses. Within the midbrain there is a powerful, God-given resistance to killing your own kind. Every species, with a few exceptions, has a hardwired resistance to killing its own kind in territorial and mating battles. When animals with antlers and horns fight one another, they head butt in a harmless fashion. But when they fight any other species, they go to the side to gut and gore. Piranhas will turn their fangs on anything, but they fight one another with flicks of the tail. Rattlesnakes will bite anything, but they wrestle one another. Almost every species has this hardwired resistance to killing its own kind. When we human beings are overwhelmed with anger and fear, we slam head-on into that midbrain resistance that generally prevents us from killing. Only sociopaths--who by definition don't have that resistance--lack this innate violence immune system. Throughout human history, when humans fight each other, there is a lot of posturing. Adversaries make loud noises and puff themselves up, trying to daunt the enemy. There is a lot of fleeing and submission. Ancient battles were nothing more than great shoving matches. It was not until one side turned and ran that most of the killing happened, and most of that was stabbing people in the back. All of the ancient military historians report that the vast majority of killing happened in pursuit when one side was fleeing. In more modern times, the average firing rate was incredibly low in Civil War battles. Paddy Griffith demonstrates that the killing potential of the average Civil War regiment was anywhere from five hundred to a thousand men per minute. The actual killing rate was only one or two men per minute per regiment (The Battle Tactics of the American Civil War). At the Battle of Gettysburg, of the 27,000 muskets picked up from the dead and dying after the battle, 90 percent were loaded. This is an anomaly, because it took 95 percent of their time to load muskets and only 5 percent to fire. But even more amazingly, of the thousands of loaded muskets, over half had multiple loads in the barrel--one with 23 loads in the barrel. In reality, the average man would load his musket and bring it to his shoulder, but he could not bring himself to kill. He would be brave, he would stand shoulder to shoulder, he would do what he was trained to do; but at the moment of truth, he could not bring himself to pull the trigger. So, he lowered the weapon and loaded it again. Of those who did fire, only a tiny percentage fired to hit. The vast majority fired over the enemy's head. During World War II, US Army Brig. Gen. S. L. A. Marshall had a team of researchers study what soldiers did in battle. For the first time in history, they asked individual soldiers what they did in battle. They discovered that only 15 to 20 percent of the individual riflemen could bring themselves to fire at an exposed enemy soldier. That is the reality of the battlefield. Only a small percentage of soldiers are able and willing to participate. Men are willing to die, they are willing to sacrifice themselves for their nation; but they are not willing to kill. It is a phenomenal insight into human nature; but when the military became aware of that, they systematically went about the process of trying to fix this "problem." From the military perspective, a 15 percent firing rate among riflemen is like a 15 percent literacy rate among librarians. And fix it the military did. By the Korean War, around 55 percent of the soldiers were willing to fire to kill. And by Vietnam, the rate rose to over 90 percent. The Methods in this Madness: Desensitization How the military increases the killing rate of soldiers in combat is instructive, because our culture today is doing the same thing to our children. The training methods militaries use are brutalization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and role modeling. I will explain these in the military context and show how these same factors are contributing to the phenomenal increase of violence in our culture. Brutalization and desensitization are what happen at boot camp. From the moment you step off the bus you are physically and verbally abused: countless pushups, endless hours at attention or running with heavy loads, while carefully trained professionals take turns screaming at you. Your head is shaved, you are herded together naked and dressed alike, losing all individuality. This brutalization is designed to break down your existing mores and norms and to accept a new set of values that embrace destruction, violence, and death as a way of life. In the end, you are desensitized to violence and accept it as a normal and essential survival skill in your brutal new world. Something very similar to this desensitization toward violence is happening to our children through violence in the media--but instead of 18-year-olds, it begins at the age of 18 months when a child is first able to discern what is happening on television. At that age, a child can watch something happening on television and mimic that action. But it isn't until children are six or seven years old that the part of the brain kicks in that lets them understand where information comes from. Even though young children have some understanding of what it means to pretend, they are developmentally unable to distinguish clearly between fantasy and reality. When young children see somebody shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, or murdered on TV, to them it is as though it were actually happening. To have a child of three, four, or five watch a "splatter" movie, learning to relate to a character for the first 90 minutes and then in the last 30 minutes watch helplessly as that new friend is hunted and brutally murdered is the moral and psychological equivalent of introducing your child to a friend, letting her play with that friend, and then butchering that friend in front of your child's eyes. And this happens to our children hundreds upon hundreds of times. Sure, they are told: "Hey, it's all for fun. Look, this isn't real, it's just TV." And they nod their little heads and say, "okay." But they can't tell the difference. Can you remember a point in your life or in your children's lives when dreams, reality, and television were all jumbled together? That's what it is like to be at that level of psychological development. That's what the media is doing to them. The Journal of the American Medical Association published the definitive epidemiological study on the impact of TV violence. The research demonstrated what happened in numerous nations after television made its appearance as compared to nations and regions without TV. The two nations or regions being compared are demographically and ethnically identical; only one variable is different: the presence of television. In every nation, region, or city with television, there is an immediate explosion of violence on the playground, and within 15 years there is a doubling of the murder rate. Why 15 years? That is how long it takes for the brutalization of a three-to five-year-old to reach the "prime crime age." That is how long it takes for you to reap what you have sown when you brutalize and desensitize a three-year-old. Today the data linking violence in the media to violence in society are superior to those linking cancer and tobacco. Hundreds of sound scientific studies demonstrate the social impact of brutalization by the media. The Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that "the introduction of television in the 1950's caused a subsequent doubling of the homicide rate, i.e., long-term childhood exposure to television is a causal factor behind approximately one half of the homicides committed in the United States, or approximately 10,000 homicides annually." The article went on to say that ". . . if, hypothetically, television technology had never been developed, there would today be 10,000 fewer homicides each year in the United States, 70,000 fewer rapes, and 700,000 fewer injurious assaults" (June 10, 1992). Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning is like the famous case of Pavlov's dogs you learned about in Psychology 101: The dogs learned to associate the ringing of the bell with food, and, once conditioned, the dogs could not hear the bell without salivating. The Japanese were masters at using classical conditioning with their soldiers. Early in World War II, Chinese prisoners were placed in a ditch on their knees with their hands bound behind them. And one by one, a select few Japanese soldiers would go into the ditch and bayonet "their" prisoner to death. This is a horrific way to kill another human being. Up on the bank, countless other young soldiers would cheer them on in their violence. Comparatively few soldiers actually killed in these situations, but by making the others watch and cheer, the Japanese were able to use these kinds of atrocities to classically condition a very large audience to associate pleasure with human death and suffering. Immediately afterwards, the soldiers who had been spectators were treated to sake, the best meal they had had in months, and to so-called comfort girls. The result? They learned to associate committing violent acts with pleasure. The Japanese found these kinds of techniques to be extraordinarily effective at quickly enabling very large numbers of soldiers to commit atrocities in the years to come. Operant conditioning (which we will look at shortly) teaches you to kill, but classical conditioning is a subtle but powerful mechanism that teaches you to like it. This technique is so morally reprehensible that there are very few examples of it in modern US military training; but there are some clear-cut examples of it being done by the media to our children. What is happening to our children is the reverse of the aversion therapy portrayed in the movie A Clockwork Orange. In A Clockwork Orange, a brutal sociopath, a mass murderer, is strapped to a chair and forced to watch violent movies while he is injected with a drug that nauseates him. So he sits and gags and retches as he watches the movies. After hundreds of repetitions of this, he associates violence with nausea, and it limits his ability to be violent. Every time a child plays an interactive video game, he is learning the exact same conditioned reflex skills as a soldier or police officer in training. We are doing the exact opposite: Our children watch vivid pictures of human suffering and death, learning to associate it with their favorite soft drink and candy bar, or their girlfriend's perfume. After the Jonesboro shootings, one of the high-school teachers told me how her students reacted when she told them about the shootings at the middle school. "They laughed," she told me with dismay. A similar reaction happens all the time in movie theaters when there is bloody violence. The young people laugh and cheer and keep right on eating popcorn and drinking pop. We have raised a generation of barbarians who have learned to associate violence with pleasure, like the Romans cheering and snacking as the Christians were slaughtered in the Coliseum. The result is a phenomenon that functions much like AIDS, which I call AVIDS--Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome. AIDS has never killed anybody. It destroys your immune system, and then other diseases that shouldn't kill you become fatal. Television violence by itself does not kill you. It destroys your violence immune system and conditions you to derive pleasure from violence. And once you are at close range with another human being, and it's time for you to pull that trigger, Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome can destroy your midbrain resistance. Operant Conditioning The third method the military uses is operant conditioning, a very powerful procedure of stimulus-response, stimulus-response. A benign example is the use of flight simulators to train pilots. An airline pilot in training sits in front of a flight simulator for endless hours; when a particular warning light goes on, he is taught to react in a certain way. When another warning light goes on, a different reaction is required. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response. One day the pilot is actually flying a jumbo jet; the plane is going down, and 300 people are screaming behind him. He is wetting his seat cushion, and he is scared out of his wits; but he does the right thing. Why? Because he has been conditioned to respond reflexively to this particular crisis. When people are frightened or angry, they will do what they have been conditioned to do. In fire drills, children learn to file out of the school in orderly fashion. One day there is a real fire, and they are frightened out of their wits; but they do exactly what they have been conditioned to do, and it saves their lives. The military and law enforcement community have made killing a conditioned response. This has substantially raised the firing rate on the modern battlefield. Whereas infantry training in World War II used bull's-eye targets, now soldiers learn to fire at realistic, man-shaped silhouettes that pop into their field of view. That is the stimulus. The trainees have only a split second to engage the target. The conditioned response is to shoot the target, and then it drops. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response--soldiers or police officers experience hundreds of repetitions. Later, when soldiers are on the battlefield or a police officer is walking a beat and somebody pops up with a gun, they will shoot reflexively and shoot to kill. We know that 75 to 80 percent of the shooting on the modern battlefield is the result of this kind of stimulus-response training. Now, if you're a little troubled by that, how much more should we be troubled by the fact that every time a child plays an interactive point-and-shoot video game, he is learning the exact same conditioned reflex and motor skills. I was an expert witness in a murder case in South Carolina offering mitigation for a kid who was facing the death penalty. I tried to explain to the jury that interactive video games had conditioned him to shoot a gun to kill. He had spent hundreds of dollars on video games learning to point and shoot, point and shoot. One day he and his buddy decided it would be fun to rob the local convenience store. They walked in, and he pointed a snub-nosed .38 pistol at the clerk's head. The clerk turned to look at him, and the defendant shot reflexively from about six feet. The bullet hit the clerk right between the eyes--which is a pretty remarkable shot with that weapon at that range--and killed this father of two. Afterward, we asked the boy what happened and why he did it. It clearly was not part of the plan to kill the guy--it was being videotaped from six different directions. He said, "I don't know. It was a mistake. It wasn't supposed to happen." In the military and law-enforcement worlds, the right option is often not to shoot. But you never, never put your quarter in that video machine with the intention of not shooting. There is always some stimulus that sets you off. And when he was excited, and his heart rate went up, and vasoconstriction closed his forebrain down, this young man did exactly what he was conditioned to do: he reflexively pulled the trigger, shooting accurately just like all those times he played video games. This process is extraordinarily powerful and frightening. The result is ever more homemade pseudo-sociopaths who kill reflexively and show no remorse. Our children are learning to kill and learning to like it; and then we have the audacity to say, "Oh my goodness, what's wrong?" One of the boys allegedly involved in the Jonesboro shootings (and they are just boys) had a fair amount of experience shooting real guns. The other one was a nonshooter and, to the best of our knowledge, had almost no experience shooting. Between them, those two boys fired 27 shots from a range of over 100 yards, and they hit 15 people. That's pretty remarkable shooting. We run into these situations often--kids who have never picked up a gun in their lives pick up a real gun and are incredibly accurate. Why? Video Games Role models In the military, you are immediately confronted with a role model: your drill sergeant. He personifies violence and aggression. Along with military heroes, these violent role models have always been used to influence young, impressionable minds. Today the media are providing our children with role models. This can be seen not just in the lawless sociopaths in movies and TV shows, but it can also be seen in the media-inspired, copycat aspects of the Jonesboro murders. This is the part of these juvenile crimes that the TV networks would much rather not talk about. Research in the 1970s demonstrated the existence of "cluster suicides" in which the local TV reporting of teen suicides directly caused numerous copycat suicides of impressionable teenagers. Somewhere in every population there are potentially suicidal kids who will say to themselves, "Well, I'll show all those people who have been mean to me. I know how to get my picture on TV, too." Because of this research, television stations today generally do not cover suicides. But when the pictures of teenage killers appear on TV, the effect is the same: Somewhere there is a potentially violent little boy who says to himself, "Well, I'll show all those people who have been mean to me. I know how to get my picture on TV too." Thus we get copycat, cluster murders that work their way across America like a virus spread by the six o'clock news. No matter what someone has done, if you put his picture on TV, you have made him a celebrity, and someone, somewhere, will emulate him. The lineage of the Jonesboro shootings began at Pearl, Mississippi, fewer than six months before. In Pearl, a 16-year-old boy was accused of killing his mother and then going to his school and shooting nine students, two of whom died, including his ex-girlfriend. Two months later, this virus spread to Paducah, Kentucky, where a 14-year-old boy was arrested for killing three students and wounding five others. A very important step in the spread of this copycat crime virus occurred in Stamps, Arkansas, 15 days after Pearl and just a little over 90 days before Jonesboro. In Stamps, a 14-year-old boy, who was angry at his schoolmates, hid in the woods and fired at children as they came out of school. Sound familiar? Only two children were injured in this crime, so most of the world didn't hear about it; but it got great regional coverage on TV, and two little boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas, probably did hear about it. And then there was Springfield, Oregon, and so many others. Is this a reasonable price to pay for the TV networks' "right" to turn juvenile defendants into celebrities and role models by playing up their pictures on TV? Our society needs to be informed about these crimes, but when the images of the young killers are broadcast on television, they become role models. The average preschooler in America watches 27 hours of television a week. The average child gets more one-on-one communication from TV than from all her parents and teachers combined. The ultimate achievement for our children is to get their picture on TV. The solution is simple, and it comes straight out of the suicidology literature: The media have every right and responsibility to tell the story, but they have no right to glorify the killers by presenting their images on TV. Reality Check: Sixty percent of men on TV are involved in violence; 11 percent are killers. Unlike actual rates, in the media the majority of homicide victims are women. (Gerbner 1994) In a Canadian town in which TV was first introduced in 1973, a 160 percent increase in aggression, hitting, shoving, and biting was documented in first- and second-grade students after exposure, with no change in behavior in children in two control communities. (Centerwall 1992) Fifteen years after the introduction of TV, homicides, rapes and assaults doubled in the United States. (American Medical Association) Twenty percent of suburban high schoolers endorse shooting someone "who has stolen something from you." (Toch and Silver 1993) In the United States, approximately two million teenagers carry knives, guns, clubs or razors. As many as 135,000 take them to school. (America by the Numbers) Americans spend over $100 million on toy guns every year. What Counts: The Complete Harper's Index © 1991) Unlearning Violence What is the road home from the dark and lonely place to which we have traveled? One route infringes on civil liberties. The city of New York has made remarkable progress in recent years in bringing down crime rates, but they may have done so at the expense of some civil liberties. People who are fearful say that is a price they are willing to pay. Another route would be to "just turn it off"; if you don't like what is on television, use the "off" button. Yet, if all the parents of the 15 shooting victims in Jonesboro had protected their children from TV violence, it wouldn't have done a bit of good. Because somewhere there were two little boys whose parents didn't "just turn it off." On the night of the Jonesboro shootings, clergy and counselors were working in small groups in the hospital waiting room, comforting the groups of relatives and friends of the victims. Then they noticed one woman sitting alone silently. A counselor went over to the woman and discovered that she was the mother of one of the girls who had been killed. She had no friends, no husband, no family with her as she sat in the hospital, stunned by her loss. "I just came to find out how to get my little girl's body back," she said. But the body had been taken to Little Rock, 100 miles away, for an autopsy. Her very next concern was, "I just don't know how I'm going to pay for the funeral. I don't know how I can afford it." That little girl was truly all she had in all the world. Come to Jonesboro, friend, and tell this mother she should "just turn it off." Ten Nonviolent Video Games The following list of nonviolent video games has been developed by The Games Project (1999). These games are ranked high for their social and play value and technical merit. Bust a Move Tetris Theme Park Absolute Pinball Myst NASCAR SimCity The Incredible Machine Front Page Sports: Golf Earthworm Jim Fighting back We need to make progress in the fight against child abuse, racism, and poverty, and in rebuilding our families. No one is denying that the breakdown of the family is a factor. But nations without our divorce rates are also having increases in violence. Besides, research demonstrates that one major source of harm associated with single-parent families occurs when the TV becomes both the nanny and the second parent. Work is needed in all these areas, but there is a new front--taking on the producers and purveyors of media violence. Simply put, we ought to work toward legislation that outlaws violent video games for children. There is no constitutional right for a child to play an interactive video game that teaches him weapons-handling skills or that simulates destruction of God's creatures. The day may also be coming when we are able to seat juries in America who are willing to sock it to the networks in the only place they really understand--their wallets. After the Jonesboro shootings, Time magazine said: "As for media violence, the debate there is fast approaching the same point that discussions about the health impact of tobacco reached some time ago--it's over. Few researchers bother any longer to dispute that bloodshed on TV and in the movies has an effect on kids who witness it" (April 6, 1998). Most of all, the American people need to learn the lesson of Jonesboro: Violence is not a game; it's not fun, it's not something that we do for entertainment. Violence kills. Every parent in America desperately needs to be warned of the impact of TV and other violent media on children, just as we would warn them of some widespread carcinogen. The problem is that the TV networks, which use the public airwaves we have licensed to them, are our key means of public education in America. And they are stonewalling. In the days after the Jonesboro shootings, I was interviewed on Canadian national TV, the British Broadcasting Company, and many US and international radio shows and newspapers. But the American television networks simply would not touch this aspect of the story. Never in my experience as a historian and a psychologist have I seen any institution in America so clearly responsible for so very many deaths, and so clearly abusing their publicly licensed authority and power to cover up their guilt. Time after time, idealistic young network producers contacted me from one of the networks, fascinated by the irony that an expert in the field of violence and aggression was living in Jonesboro and was at the school almost from the beginning. But unlike all the other media, these network news stories always died a sudden, silent death when the network's powers-that-be said, "Yeah, we need this story like we need a hole in the head." Many times since the shooting I have been asked, "Why weren't you on TV talking about the stuff in your book?" And every time my answer had to be, "The TV networks are burying this story. They know they are guilty, and they want to delay the retribution as long as they can." As an author and expert on killing, I believe I have spoken on the subject at every Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions Club in a 50-mile radius of Jonesboro. So when the plague of satellite dishes descended upon us like huge locusts, many people here were aware of the scientific data linking TV violence and violent crime. The networks will stick their lenses anywhere and courageously expose anything. Like flies on open wounds, they find nothing too private or shameful for their probing lenses--except themselves, and their share of guilt in the terrible, tragic crime that happened here A CBS executive told me his plan. He knows all about the link between media and violence. His own in-house people have advised him to protect his child from the poison his industry is bringing to America's children. He is not going to expose his child to TV until she's old enough to learn how to read. And then he will select very carefully what she sees. He and his wife plan to send her to a daycare center that has no television, and he plans to show her only age-appropriate videos. That should be the bare minimum with children: Show them only age-appropriate videos, and think hard about what is age appropriate. The most benign product you are going to get from the networks are 22-minute sitcoms or cartoons providing instant solutions for all of life's problems, interlaced with commercials telling you what a slug you are if you don't ingest the right sugary substances and don't wear the right shoes. The worst product your child is going to get from the networks is represented by one TV commentator who told me, "Well, we only have one really violent show on our network, and that is NYPD Blue. I'll admit that that is bad, but it is only one night a week." I wondered at the time how she would feel if someone said, "Well, I only beat my wife in front of the kids one night a week." The effect is the same. "You're not supposed to know who I am!" said NYPD Blue star Kim Delaney, in response to young children who recognized her from her role on that show. According to USA Weekend, she was shocked that underage viewers watch her show, which is rated TV-14 for gruesome crimes, raw language, and explicit sex scenes. But they do watch, don't they? Education about media and violence does make a difference. I was on a radio call-in show in San Antonio, Texas. A woman called and said, "I would never have had the courage to do this two years ago. But let me tell you what happened. You tell me if I was right. "My 13-year-old boy spent the night with a neighbor boy. After that night, he started having nightmares. I got him to admit what the nightmares were about. While he was at the neighbor's house, they watched splatter movies all night: people cutting people up with chainsaws and stuff like that. "Every parent in America desperately needs to be warned of the impact of TV and other violent media on children. But the TV networks--our key means of public education in America--are stonewalling." "I called the neighbors and told them, 'Listen: you are sick people. I wouldn't feel any different about you if you had given my son pornography or alcohol. And I'm not going to have anything further to do with you or your son--and neither is anybody else in this neighborhood, if I have anything to do with it--until you stop what you're doing.' " That's powerful. That's censure, not censorship. We ought to have the moral courage to censure people who think that violence is legitimate entertainment. One of the most effective ways for Christians to be salt and light is by simply confronting the culture of violence as entertainment. A friend of mine, a retired army officer who teaches at a nearby middle school, uses the movie Gettysburg to teach his students about the Civil War. A scene in that movie very dramatically depicts the tragedy of Pickett's Charge. As the Confederate troops charge into the Union lines, the cannons fire into their masses at point-blank range, and there is nothing but a red mist that comes up from the smoke and flames. He told me that when he first showed this heart-wrenching, tragic scene to his students, they laughed. He began to confront this behavior ahead of time by saying: "In the past, students have laughed at this scene, and I want to tell you that this is completely unacceptable behavior. This movie depicts a tragedy in American history, a tragedy that happened to our ancestors, and I will not tolerate any laughing." From then on, when he played that scene to his students, over the years, he says there was no laughter. Instead, many of them wept. What the media teach is unnatural, and if confronted in love and assurance, the house they have built on the sand will crumble. But our house is built on the rock. If we don't actively present our values, then the media will most assuredly inflict theirs on our children, and the children, like those in that class watching Gettysburg, simply won't know any better. There are many other things that the Christian community can do to help change our culture. Youth activities can provide alternatives to television, and churches can lead the way in providing alternative locations for latchkey children. Fellowship groups can provide guidance and support to young parents as they strive to raise their children without the destructive influences of the media. Mentoring programs can pair mature, educated adults with young parents, helping them through the preschool ages without using the TV as a babysitter. And most of all, the churches can provide the clarion call of decency and love and peace as an alternative to death and destruction--not just for the sake of the church, but for the transformation of our culture.

http://www.primallyinspired.com/prevent-flu-naturally/

How To Prevent The Flu Naturally

Learn how to prevent the flu naturally using a simple remedy that’s been used for thousands of years!

One of my favorite and most effective ways I’ve found to prevent the flu naturally is using THIS Germ Fighting Essential Oil Blend (comparable to “Thieves” from Young Living).

Flu Season is upon us and I wanted to tell you about a remedy that’s been working wonders keeping my family flu and cold free.  My family has been around a handful of people with colds or the flu and we have managed to stay flu-free so far with this Germ Fighting Essential Oil Blend. I even accidentally drank after one child who had the flu and did not get the flu!

If you keep reading, I’ll tell you exactly how to use this blend, how you can make your own or where to get it so that you can help prevent the flu naturally. We use the Germ Fighting Blend when we are around a large group of people. Or we use it immediately after we’ve unknowingly been in contact with someone who is sick. We also use this at the first sign of a sore throat, runny nose or other cold symptoms and our symptoms disappear within a few hours. I hope you have similar success!

History of this Germ Fighting Oil Blend

The history of this germ fighting, bacteria killing natural remedy is fascinating. The story happened all the way back in the 15^th century when many people died of the Plague. Thieves would prey among the dead and dying, robbing them of their belongings, but somehow the robbers never managed to get sick themselves. A group of four thieves finally got caught in France robbing plague victims. In exchange for a lighter sentence, they had to confess how they never contracted the plague despite being around the very sick and dead. They revealed their secret at trial. Apparently, they rubbed themselves with a special blend of oils, known today as THIS germ fighting blend.

This special germ fighting blend is comprised of 5 special oils known for their extremely powerful anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-septic and anti-fungal properties:

• Clove
• Lemon
• Cinnamon Bark
• Eucalyptus
• Rosemary

You can buy this Germ Fighting Oil already pre-blended (I, personally use THIS one) or you can easily make it yourself! 

Want to make it yourself? Recipe for Homemade Germ Fighting Essential Oil Blend

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon Clove Essential Oil 

1 Tablespoon Lemon Essential Oil

2 teaspoons Cinnamon Bark Essential Oil

 2 teaspoons Eucalyptus Essential Oil

 1 teaspoon Rosemary Essential Oil

Instructions:

Blend oils together and pour into dark, glass bottles that have a dropper (like THIS). Store in a dry place away from sunlight. 

Before applying to the skin, you must dilute the blend with a carrier oil. I like to use melted coconut oil (THIS is where I get mine) as my carrier oil because of the added anti-bacterial properties, but you can use any oil you prefer. Many people like using sweet almond oil (find HERE). Dilute 20 drops of your thieves oil into 2 tablespoons of your carrier oil.

If you plan on ingesting this blend or using it on your body, please make sure that you are using 100% pure oils that are specifically designed for therapeutic use. Many of the cheaper oils available at places like the health food store are typically NOT safe for ingestion. The oils I have linked to are the ones I personally use and are chemical free and designed for therapeutic use.

How To Use This Germ Fighting Blend To Prevent The Flu Naturally

• Dilute with a carrier oil and apply to your body. Many people like to rub it on the bottoms of the feet or on the chest area. 
• Diffuse 10 drops in a diffuser (like THIS) to kill airborne bacteria.
• Put a few drops in water, tea or beverage of choice and drink daily.
• Add a drop to your toothbrush before brushing your teeth.
• Mix 1-2 drops in a teaspoon of raw honey (also very effective for coughs).
• Add 5 drops to ¼ cup of water and use as a disinfecting spray (spray down doorknobs, toys, computer keyboard, remotes, etc.).

Don’t forget to Pin this on Pinterest!

Want to find other ways to prevent the flu naturally? Read my article HERE

Do you use thieves oil? Or do you have any other tried and true remedies to prevent the flu naturally that you could share? 

What The Wild Things Are

Understandings of Self, Awareness, and Mental Health in an Ever-Changing World

by Samantha Smithstein, Psy.D.

Are today’s youth even more self-absorbed (and less caring) than generations before?

Have kids today stopped caring about others?

Published on June 5, 2010 by Samantha Smithstein, Psy.D. in What The Wild Things Are

Earlier this week, Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, released her results on a study analyzing and comparing empathy among college students over the last 30 years. The results? The "biggest drop in empathy" in recent history. She writes, "College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago."

Find a Therapist

Search for a mental health professional near you.

Find Local:

• Acupuncturists
• Chiropractors
• Massage Therapists
• Dentists
• and more!

In related survey research, psychologist Jean Twenge has labeled the current generation of young people the "iGeneration," or "Generation Me". In her books she describes how young people today "take it for granted that the self comes first," and has labeled this time a "narcissism epidemic," stating that we are "living in the age of entitlement." Konrath and O'Brien link the self-absorption and lack of empathy together,calling the current generation "one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history... It's not surprising that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding devaluing of others."
There are some who argue that this description fits most teens and young adults and is appropriate to some degree for everyone in this developmental phase of life. However, both researchers compare similarly aged kids from other generations and the difference is striking.
This difference raises the question of why? Researchers Konrath and O'Brien hazard a few guesses, most related to the increase in exposure to and use of media. For example, many in this current generation have had repeated lifetime exposure to violent video games and films, and there is a growing body of research suggesting that violent video games (and perhaps films) are a cause of increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, and feelings, and a decrease in empathy and prosocial behavior across both gender and culture. Additionally, the researchers surmise that the ease of having (and ignoring or dumping) online "friends" may make it easy to tune out when they don't feel like responding to the distress of others, and may carry over offline as well. They also add that the inflated expectations of success fueled by "reality shows" creates a socialenvironment that encourages self-focus and works against slowing down and listening to someone who needs a bit of sympathy.
Obviously, any statements about an entire generation are not true of every person in that generation. Clearly there are young people today who are deeply empathic and caring. But the general trends and statistics are alarming, and it would behoove those of us in a position to influence today's youth to pay attention and be proactive about it while we can. Paying attention to the forces that influence children and young people so that they can grow up to be empathic is not only better for them, but ultimately better for us all.

photo: Maybe they aren't all bad: these college kids have just donated the clothing off their back. (Erich Schlegel/AP Images for AXE)

Why are the youth of today so rude?

They have no conversation, don't listen and refuse to take an interest in anyone else... a survey reveals that this generation has few manners. How did it happen, asks Thomas Blaikie?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3653126/Why-are-the-youth-of-today-so-rude.html

Young people have always been rude, far ruder than anybody else. It goes back at least as far as Jane Austen. Remember how, in Emma, Frank Churchill left all the doors open, exposing poor fragile Mr Woodhouse to a draught? Even the Queen, aged 19, knocked off a policeman's helmet on VE Day, so she once told the writer Hammond Innes.

But the young of today are worse than preceding generations. This is the depressing conclusion of a survey by the Left-wing think tank Demos.

Employers questioned say that graduate recruits lack ''soft'' skills; they don't know how to have a conversation, aren't very flexible, don't listen properly and don't know enough about customer relations or even how to be polite to customers. These attributes, employers say, are more valuable than degrees - or would be if young people had them.

It is, however, the degree of rudeness that especially bothers employers. According to the Demos survey, the past 10 years have seen a noticeable deterioration.

We've all heard about it, either at dinner parties or through direct experience. We've known about the graduate recruits who, six not very impressive months into their first job, are demanding to be allowed to set up and run their own branch of the business.

Or, the young whippersnapper who is kindly taken out for a welcoming lunch by their new boss. What do they do? Glance at the menu to find the most expensive thing (these types are known as ''lobsters'' after their favourite choice) and then precede to bore the well-meaning boss rigid with a blow-by-blow account of the latest antics on Big Brother.

Rudeness becomes blazingly apparent when anybody tries to confront the young person about their conduct. A common response to the mildest telling-off is: ''I'm sorry I seem to have upset you", as if it were all the other person's problem and the wretched youth need take no responsibility at all.

And if you were to go as far as suggesting to a young person that, in order to participate in conversation generally, he or she really ought to know who the Prime Minister is or what is meant by ''the Establishment'', you will be greeted by purple-faced outrage worthy of a pre-war colonel, albeit with a rather different vocabulary.

No, the young have never been so complacent, pleased with themselves, demanding, unco-operative and downright rude - and seemingly unaware of it. Everyone over 35 has long suspected this. The Demos survey proves it. So, if you feel that you haven't really got going with complaining about them, now's your chance.

But, hang on a minute. I don't want to spoil the fun but shouldn't we try to be fair? Social ineptitude, lack of confidence, shyness, intense self-absorption - these are the afflictions of the young. To some extent they can't help it. They just don't have enough experience, awareness of others and knowledge to cope. We mustn't make unreasonable demands upon them.

Nevertheless, the question remains: why are they so much worse? To some extent it is surprising. After all, education nowadays is less competitive (no more exam results in rank order pinned on the notice board for all to see) and school-children are formally assessed at GCSE not just for their speaking skills but for their listening ones as well.

A lot of schoolwork is done in groups and teams where pupils are encouraged to co-operate with each other, yet employers are complaining that new recruits can't work in teams.

The sad truth is that a lot of the ''teams'' at school aren't teams at all, but one poor sucker doing all the work while the others flick through the latest Heat magazine.

There is also no escaping the brutal results-driven, league-table culture in schools and universities from which new graduate employees emerge. Ultimately, pupils know that their performance is the only one that matters.

Often, encouraged by their parents, they see school as a service; they are the consumers. When they are not banging on the staff room door, demanding extra help, they are e-mailing their teachers at dead of night, making further demands. It is not surprising that they transfer this attitude on to their employers; what are they there for but to provide them with the job interest and financial reward that they require?

This basically selfish approach explains other failures highlighted in the survey - lack of creativity, for instance. An inability to talk to people (so vital in the workplace - or at least it was before e-mail), on the other hand, arises first and foremost from the failure of parents to provide their children with a grounding in basic manners.

Many middle-class parents appear to believe that ''manners'' are some kind of appalling spiritual restriction on their darling child's individuality. How dreadful that little Ben or Zoe should have to take a polite interest in Aunt Marge's adored collection of house plants. In many households a separatist regime is operated where the children either eat in another room or appear at the table only intermittently during meals. They don't talk to adults, they don't ask or answer questions, they have no small-talk, they don't learn anything; they are stuck in the narrow perimeters of their own interests and experience.

Indeed, childhood is one long self-indulgence. It's no wonder that, thrust into the workplace, confronted by all kinds of different people, new recruits are completely at sea. They have no idea of how to take an interest in something just because somebody else is interested in it.

Education and parenting are also at fault in producing many young people with a boffin mentality. They are encouraged too much to pursue their own interests. General knowledge is frowned upon. The result: a young person who knows all about the dolphins or how a desalination plant works but is still, as Jane Austen said of Mrs Bennett, a person of ''mean information'' - pig ignorant in other words.

It could hardly be any worse, but there's more. ''Youth'' culture has never before been so markedly divided off from mainstream culture. Big Brother is the shining (and, at times, horrific) example but there is a mass of television, music, even literature, aimed specifically at under 25s that the rest of us have never heard of.

The new survey undoubtedly reveals a big problem. We know now why offices all over the country are unsatisfactorily divided along age lines as they never were before. But, awful as they might seem, don't blame the young people. At least not entirely. It's not all their fault. And, as the Demos concludes, it's up to employers to find a way to solve the problem.

• Blaikie's Guide to Modern Manners by Thomas Blaikie (4th Estate) is available for £10 plus £1.25 p&p. To order, please call Telegraph Books on 0870 428 4112

Aqeedah Book - Q&A - Part 2

Aqeedah Book - Q&A - Part 2 by Nasrin Akther

GOLDEN POLICY OF BROOKLYN COLLEGE

The Golden Policy of Brooklyn College by Nasrin Akther

س و ج في تعليم العقيدة للناشئة والمبتدئين

س و ج في تعليم العقيدة للناشئة والمبتدئين 1&2 by Nasrin Akther

Natural Expectorant Remedies for Phlegm

Natural Expectorant Remedies for Phlegm

Several naturally available substances have properties of an expectorant. They help to push out phlegm.

An expectorant thins out the mucus and helps to expel it from the bronchial tubes and lungs. This helps to make breathing easier. It is very important for an affected patient to expel mucus. Coughing helps to clear the mucus buildup in the chest and the lungs. It makes breathing easier. If you have common colds, flu, bronchitis, sinus congestion or pneumonia, it is necessary to get the phlegm out of the system. 

Licorice

  Source: Wikimedia Commons: Erin Silversmith

 Licorice

Licorice is a root which has been used for culinary and medicinal purposes for centuries. Licorice tastes sweeter than sugar. It has anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antispasmodic properties. It is also a very good expectorant. Licorice helps to break down the thick phlegm and push it out. It can also help to soothe the irritation due to the inflammation in the respiratory tract and throat. It is advisable to drink licorice root tea twice a day to make the best use of its expectorant properties. 

Garlic

Garlic has several medicinal properties. Garlic can be used as a steam inhaler. Garlic based cough syrup can be prepared by grating a garlic and mixing it with a teaspoon of honey. It would help to thin and push out the phlegm. Garlic is a decongestant as well as an expectorant.

Onion

Onion is a natural decongestant and an expectorant. You can eat raw onion slices. It is very easy to do so if you develop a taste for it. Grated onion can be combined with grated garlic and honey to be more effective.

Eucalyptus Oil

Apply eucalyptus oil or Vicks to your chest and rub it vigorously so that some warmth is generated. This will be of great help thin out and loosen the phlegm. 

Ginger

Ginger is a natural expectorant. Drinking ginger tea 3 times a day can help to loosen the phlegm and expel it. Add grated ginger to water and boil it. Strain it after it cools and it is ready for drinking. Honey can also be added to ginger tea as it is also an expectorant. It will sweeten the tea and add to its taste.

Steam

One of the best methods to get rid of phlegm is to inhale steam from a vaporizer. Moist air helps to loosen the phlegm from the air tubes and expel it.

• Elevate your pillow so that the phlegm does not get back to the lungs.

• Drink lots of water as it thins out the mucus and helps its expulsion.

• Hot spicy foods like chilli peppers help to loosen the mucus.

• Hot tea will also help to loosen the mucus.

These are some of the natural expectorants which will help you to get rid of phlegm.

Don’t 

If you have phlegm in your air tubes and lungs it is essential to stop smoking. Smoke can irritate nasal passages and aggravate the problem. Certain over the counter expectorant syrups, suppress mucus are available. Don’t over use them. 

References

health911.com:  Coughs

umm.edu        :  Eucalyptus