by The fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Harry Pitman in London shocked people internationally and highlighted, far from the first time, the terrible issue of youth violence.
The trend is not limited to the UK. Just a few weeks earlier, eight high school students were arrested on murder charges in Nevada after beating a 17-year-old boy to death. In Toronto, Canada, last year, a group of teenage girls were arrested after killing a homeless man; the two oldest among them were 16, the two youngest only 13 years old. These are not isolated examples.
What drives such an attack? The easy assumptions are that it’s a matter of “bad kids”, poor parenting, lax punishments, all in a permissive culture. Or, perhaps, some people are genetically programmed to be violent. While such views may be easy to dismiss or satisfy our sense of moral outrage, they have nothing to do with reality. As with any living creature, humans develop in an environmental context. To understand what causes youth aggression and, more generally, the rise in youth mental health and behavioral problems, we need to examine the context. We have to face the fact that many children and young people in today’s world grow up and function in a traumatic environment, an environment that affects them – the wound is the original meaning of the word trauma. Such wounding can occur if children are hurt in their families of origin, by parents who were themselves hurt when they were young, or who were bullied at school, or who were over-influenced by culturally accepted violent examples and even celebrated.
All too often, today’s parents struggle to provide for their own children emotionally and physically
Loving mothers and fathers can hurt children in perfectly “normal” families who are less obviously, but no less, incapable because of their own stress — personal, relational, social, economic , political — meet the needs of their children for healthy. and consistent emotional nourishment. All too often, today’s parents struggle to provide for their children emotionally and physically when isolated from the traditional supports of extended family and community.
As children spend less and less time in the presence of nurturing adults and more and more in the company of another, they come under peer influence — that is, under the influence of fellow creatures who are only capable of immaturity to model and does, with good will. , a young person’s needs for affection and loving acceptance cannot be met, these are the most basic requirements for healthy development. The unmet needs of young creatures can lead to deep emotional frustration. This is crucial. “Frustration is the engine of aggression,” said Canadian developmental psychologist Gordon Neufeld.
Are there “aggression genes”? Yes and no. There are certain genes that may increase the tendency towards aggressive behaviours. But prejudice is not the same as predetermination. As studies in humans and other primates have shown, the effect of these genes is completely neutralized by nurturing parenting – indeed, given warm emotional environments, people with such genes can be less aggressive nor their peers who do not carry these DNA markers. . Among monkeys, differences in aggression were determined by whether or not the young were reared by their mothers, or only among their peers. As two French scientists pointed out, people are “genetically determined without being genetically determined”.
There is no scientific doubt that the effects of trauma are more pronounced in fostering mental challenges and behavioral dysfunctions such as violent outbursts, even if that information is largely removed from teachers, legal personnel and medical practitioners. Unfortunately, their training largely ignores the developmental sources of human problems. “The evidence for a link between childhood misfortune and future psychiatric disorder is about as statistically strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer,” writes eminent British psychologist Richard Bentall. And not just statistically. Traumatic experiences even affect the structure and neurobiology of the developing brain, as proven by multiple studies. Again, this is information that most professionals who deal with troubled youth do not train. They are then left to try to correct behaviors — through, say, rewards and punishments in schools. Or, in the case of physicians, by prescribing medications that can, to some extent, control symptoms (if they work, which is far from always, and if they do not have adverse consequences, which are far from uncommon). Whether such measures work or not, they do not address the root causes and, therefore, cannot promote healthy development. All such dynamics play out in a world of increasing social inequality which itself is a driver of ill health, mental and physical, and aggression. Inequality has inexorably asserted itself around the world, and most notably in Britain. In the words of two leading British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, “recognizing that inequality means that it increases school shootings, bullying, levels of anxiety, mental illness and consumerism because it threatens feelings of self-worth”.
Addressing the crisis of our youth required an understanding of trauma and a rethinking of how we raise and educate children in today’s broken culture.
Gabor Maté is a retired Canadian physician, public speaker, and author, most recently, of The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
Hear exclusive interviews with Gabor Maté and Sam Harris in the first two episodes of the Evgeny Lebedev podcast. Search for ‘Brave New World Evening Standard’ and hit ‘follow’ on your provider, or listen to the interview with Gabor Maté below.
