<p>But, SewHappy, we don’t really know the specifics of this person’s upbringing. While early abuse and trauma can lead to decrease in empathy (as well as other deep scars), most people who suffered abuse as children do not go out and become mass killers. And, we do not know if the killer in this instance had been abused as a very young child… </p>
<p>It is hard to ever make sense of these tragedies, yet we do need to somehow “make sense,” at least with regard to deciding individually and collectively on a course of action… and to decrease the likelihood or frequency of recurrence… What can we do to get help to little children and parents to optimize early social development, which will help our society overall, and may decrease the number of severely affected/disaffected young adults (whether or not early childhood events are relevant in this particular instance)? What can we do to provide early and ongoing mental health support and preventative interventions with adolescents and young adults? </p>
<p>In addition to feeling so much sorrow for all of these children who were traumatized in this event and even more for the parents who lost their beloved babies, I also have empathy for the brother of this young man who lost his mother and brother (and whose family name is now linked in our national memory with this horror).</p>
<p>It is a sobering prelude to this holiday season, yet I do wish all of you peace and joy in the presence of your families this winter break.</p>
<p>I’ve read various articles on personality and conduct disorder and I had the feeling that they were organic problems. Environment certainly shapes us but it might not all be environment.</p>
<p>On decreasing mental health problems - decrease the rate of maternal influenza.</p>
<p>Do any of the proposed laws confiscate weapons that were obtained legally? </p>
<p>NBC News Is reporting that Lanza had an altercation the day before with school staffers. The nature of the altercation was not mentioned, whether it was physical, verbal or what the subject of the dispute was.</p>
<p>BCEagle makes a good point that there are often organic correlates for some of these personality/conduct problems… As well, there likely are environmental correlates, and early environment (physical and emotional, including in utero) also lead to changes in how a person’s brain functions and develops, so the physiological and the social influences are intertwined in early childhood. Causality is complex, multifaceted… It would be interesting to know what percent of the variance is accounted for by any one or even all of these risk factors, controlling for overlap among the factors. Often times, in human behavior, even consistent correlates only account for a small amount. Much as we want to understand, we are still left with the mysterious and unfathomable…</p>
<p>Though this is just the very beginning, the family dynamics are beginning to seem strange. The older brother hadn’t seen his brother in two years? The father found out through a reporter at his home, even though the older brother posted stuff on his facebook page that it wasn’t him and told at least one friend that he thought it was his brother. Why didn’t he reach out to his father?</p>
<p>There are also several studies showing that marijuana use increases the possibility of developing schizophrenia. Unfortunately, I fear we are moving the wrong direction on that as well…</p>
<p>They haven’t seen each other in two years. </p>
<p>If something unusual and upsetting happened, I don’t think either of them would think to call their father first. He’s often unreachable during the work day. Also, each of them has other people they would contact first (just as it appears that the older brother contacted his housemates).</p>
<p>I don’t see anything particularly strange about the family dynamics. There may indeed be unusual features to the family’s interactions, but I don’t consider the things you mentioned to be conclusive evidence of that.</p>
<p>Written by a close friend who ran a school for years…
“Parents, you must demand armed guards at all schools. The state has an obligation to keep your child safe at school and the only way to do that in a gun culture like ours is with guns. If you present a united front and insist that schools employ armed guards, you will succeed in protecting your children. Locked doors alone will not do it and at present, your kids are NOT safe at their school, they are at the mercy of the next lunatic who has access to a gun.”</p>