Effects of Gun Violence on Children and Youth

[otohara]

Last edited Fri Apr 19, 2013, 02:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Exposure to gun violence can traumatize children and youth not just physically, but emotionally as well. Studies have documented that young people exposed to gun violence experience lasting emotional scars. Some children may develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can affect brain development. The psychological trauma of gun violence may lead some children to arm themselves "for protection," or desensitize them so that they feel less hesitation about engaging in violent acts.

Psychological Impacts Associated with Exposure to Gun Violence

Young people who are exposed to gun violence may experience negative psychological impacts in both the short and long term. For example, a recent study of rural third- through eighth-graders indicated that children exposed to gun violence reported significantly higher levels of anger, withdrawal, and posttraumatic stress.5 The problem is exacerbated when youth get caught in a cycle of violence: Those who witnessed at least one incidence of gun violence reported significantly greater exposure to other types of violence, higher levels of aggression, and less parental monitoring than their peers.5 Exposure to gun violence also can desensitize youth to the effects of violence and increase the likelihood that they will use violence as a means of resolving problems or expressing emotions.

Sleep Distortion and Withdrawal

Research shows that exposure to violence can cause intrusive thoughts about the traumatic event and sleep disturbances.6 Therefore, it is not surprising that children and youth exposed to gun violence commonly experience difficulty concentrating in the classroom, declines in academic performance, and lower educational and career aspirations.7,8 Other outcomes associated with exposure to violent trauma include increased delinquency, risky sexual behaviors, and substance abuse.7,8

http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=42&articleid=166§ionid=1068



Violent Events Have Long-Term Effects on Children

If the struggling economy hasn't made it tough enough to keep food on the table and clothes on the family, and if the hectic pace in Los Angeles hasn't made all of us more than a little agitated, what ought we be telling our youngsters to try to calm them and offer them some kind of sense and solace about the continuing violence that dominates the headlines?

Yes, it's true that the number of violent crimes in our country may be nearing historic lows, but parents still must look into their children's anxious faces, comfort them about bad dreams and seek to explain some inexplicable highly publicized recent incidents.

What to do with or say to your kids after a 24-year-old gunman dresses up in SWAT gear and opens fire on a packed Aurora, Colo., theater audience at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, a mass homicide in which a dozen people, including a 6-year-old girl, die and 58 others are wounded?

How do you start to talk about a white supremacist who guns down seven people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, or the shoot-out near Texas A&M that left three dead or the gunplay on the streets of New York near the Empire State building, a crime that left a gunman dead and nine wounded?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-d-braunstein-md/children-ptsd_b_1901651.html

Children’s Defense Fund Highlights Effects of Gun Violence on Children
Data analysis: More preschool kids dead from gunfire than police

In a report released this month, the Children’s Defense Fund has analyzed recent national data on gunfire deaths and produced some alarming figures on child casualties.

The report also criticizes a wave of new state gun-rights laws that the Washington D.C.-based advocacy group argues put children in ever more peril.

The nonprofit advocacy group dedicated its report, “Protect Kids, Not Guns 2012,” to Florida teen Trayvon Martin, who was shot dead in February by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

George Zimmerman, 28, disregarded police advice and followed the unarmed Martin, 17, because Zimmerman thought the boy looked “suspicious.” Zimmerman killed Martin, who was walking to his father’s girlfriend’s home, during a confrontation and claims he acted in self-defense.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/27/8536/childrens-defense-fund-report-kids-gun-deaths-new-gun-laws

[otohara]

1. Nobody Cares

if we have generations of traumatized children/adults in Murika.
Guns R our Priority.

[pipi_k]

2. Same thing

happens to children exposed to domestic violence.

I should know. I lived through it for years, seeing my parents going at each other day after day.

Seeing the marks on my mom's throat where my father tried to strangle her. Seeing her swollen face where he broke her jaw with a beer bottle.

Not being able to sleep at night while they were up arguing in the other room.

Trouble in school. Nightmares...anxiety...panic disorder which persists to this day, 50+ years later.

Not wanting to stay in the house because of the arguing, yet being afraid to leave because who knows what I would find when I came back home.


Both of them dead? One of them?

Day after day after day, year after year until they finally divorced when I was 13.

Most of it fueled by my dad's alcoholism coupled with prescription tranquilizers.

If I had my way, I would BAN alcohol. It has ruined the lives of too many people I know. Killed many of them before their time.

Um, so not to minimize the effects of gun violence on children, but it's not the only kind, and yet I don't hear anyone speaking out against that type of abuse on kids, who probably number more than kids who are exposed to gun violence.

[otohara]

3. Yep, My Childhood Was Fueled w/ Alcohol, Verbal

abuse and constant suicide threats from my parental unit.

I also remember moving my bed into my mom's room when Richard Stark killed eight nurses in Chicago. I was terrified even though we were no where near Chicago.