Violence as a Paradigm

Violence as a Paradigm in Our Society: Its Effects on Child Development: 

Violence as a Paradigm in Our Society: Its Effects on Child Development Linda L. Nosbush Understanding the Early Years

At-Promise Paradigm Shift Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003: 

At-Promise Paradigm Shift Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003 Motivated by Fear Define Success as having more education, money, power, achievement, and influence View children in light of what they have and don’t have: assets and deficits Motivated by Love and Caring Define Success as contributing positively to the moral and social fabric of society View children in light of who they are created to be

At-Promise Paradigm Shift Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003: 

At-Promise Paradigm Shift Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003 Contribute to children’s success by adults’ offering them provisions or programs that protect them from adversity Contribute to children’s success by adults’ cultivating and modeling their own positive character as they build trusting relationships with children; recognizes that adversity is necessary to that process

At-Promise Paradigm Shift Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003: 

At-Promise Paradigm Shift Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003 Emphasize protecting children from failure and salvaging lives damaged by adversity Emphasize using adversity to construct character and facilitate success in young people

At-Promise Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003: 

At-Promise Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003 A Adversity provides a catalyst for a child’s character growth and is essential to success T A Trusting Relationship with a caring adult helps a child interpret adversity and develop promise character

Character Traits  Grow out of the Intersection of Adversity and Trusted Relationship in the Child’s Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003 Life: 

Character Traits Grow out of the Intersection of Adversity and Trusted Relationship in the Child’s Adapted from Stuart & Bostrom, 2003 Life P Perseverance empowers us to endure adversity and sustain hope R Responsibility for our actions keeps us from blaming others and teaches us that our choices have impact O Optimism gives us lenses of hope through which we can see positive possibilities in the midst of pain M Motivation from identity inspires us to live as individuals created uniquely not as labeled by our assets or deficits I Integrity guides us to live honorably even when no one is looking and even when life hurts S Service humbles us by shifting our attention away from ourselves and onto the needs of others E Engaged Play facilitates rest, healing, intimacy, and joy

Police-Reported Drug Crime Rate: 

Police-Reported Drug Crime Rate Risen an estimated 42% since the early 1990s Now stands at a 20-year high 75% drug-related incidents in 2002 involved cannabis offences 72% were possession offences Cannabis offence rate has risen 80% from 1992-2002 Police reported 93,000 incidents related to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in 2002 66%s were for possession 22% were for trafficking 12%invovled importation and production

Trends in Drug Offences and Role of Alcohol and Drugs in Crime: 

Trends in Drug Offences and Role of Alcohol and Drugs in Crime

Cannabis: Is it as Harmless as they say?: 

Cannabis: Is it as Harmless as they say?

Provincial Rates – 2002Rate of Drug-Related Incidents: 

Provincial Rates – 2002 Rate of Drug-Related Incidents National Average – 295/100,000 Highest in British Columbia at 544/100,000 Rates in BC have been above the national average for the last 25 years Second Place – Saskatchewan at 351/100,000 Saskatoon – 306/100,000 Regina – 198/100,000 Third Place - New Brunswick – 343/100,000 Since 1993 all provinces have shown an increase in the number of drug offences reported by police: New Brunswick largest increase – 134% Saskatchewan – 97% Quebec – 81%

Young Adults and Adolescents Highest Rates of Drug-Related Offences: 

Young Adults and Adolescents Highest Rates of Drug-Related Offences Young adults 18-24 had the highest drug-related offence rate – 860/100,000 people Youth aged 12 – 17 had the second highest drug-related offence rate – 645/100,000 people Rates for both cannabis possession and cannabis trafficking offences were highest in the 18-24 group followed by the 12-17 group Young adults 18-24 recorded the highest rates of cocaine trafficking and possession.

Homicides Involving Drugs: 

Homicides Involving Drugs 1992-2002 – 684 homicides in Canada were reported to be drug-related, representing 11% of all homicides during that period Cocaine involved in 60% Cannabis 20% Heroin 5% Other unspecified drugs 15% 26% of all drug-related homicides were gang-related Provincial Incidence British Columbia – 29% Quebec – 29% Ontario – 24%

Drug-related IncidentsCourt Cases: 

Drug-related Incidents Court Cases Adult Criminal Court Survey: 2001/2002 for eight provinces and one territory 9% of all adult criminal court cases Equally distributed between possession and trafficking Youth Court – 7% of cases 5% for possession 2% for trafficking

ViolencePresident Bill Clinton, 1999: 

Violence President Bill Clinton, 1999 Our children are being fed a dependable daily dose of violence – and it sells! It desensitizes our children to violence, and its consequences By age 18 a child will have seen 200,000 dramatized acts of violence 40,000 murders Half the video games a typical seventh grader plays are violent Children steeped in the culture of violence become desensitized to it and are more capable of committing it themselves

Summary of the Research on TV Violence1997: 

Summary of the Research on TV Violence 1997 Nearly 40% of violent incidents on TV are initiated by characters who possess qualities that make them attractive role models 33% of violent programs feature ‘bad’ characters who are never punished More than 50% of violent incidents feature physical aggression that would be lethal or incapacitating if it were to occur in real life At least 40% of violent scenes on TV include humor 60% (up3% from 1996) of TV programs contain violence and more than 60% of violent incidents involve repeated behavioural acts of aggression Youngsters who watch 2 hours of cartoons each day are exposed to 500 high-risk portrayals of violence per year that teach aggressive behaviours TV ratings tend to attract many children to very violent, inappropriate programs by alerting kids to their existence.

What Helps Violence Proliferate?: 

What Helps Violence Proliferate? Poverty Institutional Racism Child Abuse Drug Abuse Media Violence “We have managed to lessen the rate at which violence is successful in killing people…we have only failed to lessen the rate at which we attempt to kill each other; we have precipitously increased it” (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999)

Negative Effects from Screen Violence: 

Negative Effects from Screen Violence Increased Aggression In behaviour and attitude (TV violence has increased 780% since 1982 and Teachers report nearly 800% increased of aggressive acts on the playground 22 year longitudinal study (Eron & Huesmann) Amount of TV watched at 8 years of age predicted The seriousness of criminal acts for which they were convicted by 30 Punished their own children more severely Their children’s degree of physical aggression Centres for Disease Control and University of Washington If TV technology had never developed there would be 10,000 fewer murders each year in the US, 70,000 fewer rapes, and 700,000 fewer injurious assaults

Negative Effects from Screen Violence: 

Negative Effects from Screen Violence Insensitivity to Real Life and Screen Violence Less outraged Callousness toward brutality More justifications for violence Unwillingness to intercede Invites viewer to enjoy the feel of killing, mutilation, beating As insensitivity rises, there is hunger for increased levels of violence – It’s like an addictive drug

Negative Effects from Screen Violence: 

Negative Effects from Screen Violence Fear More distrusting Exaggerate the threats of violence that really do exist Nightmares & difficulty sleeping Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Long episodes of anxious behaviour Creates need to be hyper-vigilant Distorts concept of reality, changes values Tragic Spiral: perceived need for guns, creates violence, reinforces ‘need’ for guns

What Our Children are Learning:Violence, Mayhem, Murder: 

What Our Children are Learning: Violence, Mayhem, Murder Exposing children to violent media images is ‘abuse’ similar in effect to physical or sexual abuse, or living in a war zone (Dr. Poussaint, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School) Saturate children Increasingly more violent play Media-induced violent images become the sole source for children’s play fantasies; the play is no longer inner-directed and originally created Kids can’t place the graphic visual images and emotions in an understandable framework Children are unlikely to pick up the subtlety of the images Negative motivations Punishment that occurs later Suffering of the Victims

Upsetting Young Brains: 

Upsetting Young Brains Violent or aggressive people have decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex Leading to troubled thinking and problems in the left temporal lobe Leading to a short fuse

Upsetting Young Brains: 

Upsetting Young Brains Young brain is very vulnerable to stimulus from the environment Wrong kind of stimulus can cause permanent damage Displaces appropriate experiences necessary for healthy brain Alters the brain’s alert system causing more hyperactivity and impulsive behaviours The low brain stays ever on alert because it is the seat of the survival instinct; it can become preoccupied with danger When this happens the cerebral cortex, or seat of rational thought is hard-pressed to function optimally Reactivity of the Brain Stem Hearts race, eyes bug out, breathing comes in gasps – the brain’s alarm network As the violence escalates, noradrenaline gauge rises in a constant state of readiness Easy to startle Quick to blow up Over stress and over-stimulate due to vigilant monitoring of violent environment

Upsetting Young Brains: 

Upsetting Young Brains When children start off in an alarm state with high noradrenaline and impulsive behaviour, they often revert to low noradrenaline levels and calculating behaviours Brains in a constant hyped state get worn out and sociopathic behaviours result Children may be deliberately trying to conquer their fears of vulnerability and victimization by desensitizing themselves through repeated exposure to horror movies Screen Violence affects children They come to need a daily dose of media violence They build an immunity to violent imagery becoming incapable of producing socially acceptable emotional responses (Harming is fun, ‘natural’ and the ‘right’ thing to do)

Upsetting Young Brains: 

Upsetting Young Brains Hearts can be desensitized when minds stop making connections Developed mind with a well-equipped imagination and the potential to visualize that gives us the capacity for compassion Developed thinking function for understanding

Upsetting Young Brains: 

Upsetting Young Brains To make humans continue doing something naturally repulsive you make it fun for them (classical conditioning) Children come to associate horror with their favourite soft drink, candy, girlfriend’s perfume, birthday party celebration Our brain solidifies the link between pleasure and violence

Upsetting Young Brains: 

Violence Immune System exists in the brain but the conditioning from violent media creates an ‘acquired deficiency’ in this system: AVIDS (acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome) Weakens appropriate cognitive, emotional, and social development, causing more children to become increasingly vulnerable to other violence-enabling factors in our society such as poverty, discrimination, drugs, and the availability of guns Become increasingly vulnerable to conditioning Their attitudes, behaviour and values change as a result Upsetting Young Brains

Upsetting Young Brains: 

Violent Video Games Interactive nature enables you to pull the trigger, to inflict the damage: you are controlling the action; it’s a whole new level of invovlement Player experiences feelings of mastery and control Play is calibrated to player’s ability level Player receives immediate and continual feedback Player can escape life and immerse themselves in a constructed reality where they are totally in control Modeled after military killing simulators Upsetting Young Brains

Upsetting Young Brains: 

What we’re telling children: Slower paced, less emotionally arousing screen fare is boring Arouse instead of awaken Excite instead of examine Splatter instead of study How to deal with it Process – take steps to remedy; dividends huge Perception – kids are taking their cues from us Power – how can we help our kids acquire a quiet, inner knowing of self-confidence and self-respect Perspective – don’t over react and don’t ever think the game is lost Upsetting Young Brains

The Response is Ours: 

The Response is Ours Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute a world and a future are created by our actions, decisions, attitudes or lack thereof! Let’s grow a future we can be proud and a legacy we’ll be pleased to pass on to our children! The future is in our hands!