Would an approach that avoided violence not have led to a better outcome?
Dominion students are all kinds of messed up. The potential for violence in a 17 yo male Dominion student is high... *Any* 17 yo male Dominion student.
I have teenagers. I am very interested in how one might handle this situation without risking one's life. If I know one of my child's friends may be violent, how might I address that without triggering that violence?
ETA
I can't control other people's actions or reactions, I can only control my own. In discussing how to avoid this type of result, with two people dead and one in critical condition, two families messed up for the rest of their lives, children who will never get over this, it necessarily comes down to what I could do differently in a similar situation.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
#1) We never thought that our wayward one would hurt anyone, however, we feared he may become troubled enough, through depression spells, that he'd harm himself, so #1, we took the firearms out of the home except for one each. These were secured, and ammo secured separately. No
bonding through target practice. Period.
2) I'd have called the other parents, instead of emailing. I'd have asked if we could have a sit down. Just the four of us, at a local restaurant, and calmly explain that their son was coming in through our windows at night. That we'd talked to our daughter, and we'd like for it to stop. Yesterday. Based on the two kids history, neither of us needed to be grandparents.
3) If I had the money, I'd have installed a Brinks system (or something similar). I'd only allow my spouse and I to have the disconnect code. Those systems are awesome. I wish I had one!
4) If they weren't comfortable meeting with me, then I'd ask the school to call a parent teacher meeting. I would not have gone into the meeting armed for bear, and slinging names. I'd have tried to have gone into the meeting, open to listening to them, about what they thought they could do, and their concerns, so they'd be open to listening to me, and mine.
#5) I'd definitely tell them, that if we caught him on the property w/o our invite, we'd call LE and have him escorted off.
I sympathize, greatly, with the family who lost their loved ones, I also feel for the parents whose son has done this. It's terrible and the boy is going to prison, if he recovers to that point. He was willing to kill himself over his obsession with her and she was willing to let him in b/c of her obsession with him. These were likely kids who didn't have a lot of friends, outside of that school, b/c they got disconnected from their old ones when they went to the Alt. School. Both families, I think, underestimated the relationship, and the kid's lengths that they'd go to, to keep seeing one another. There's likely some diagnoses here that we just will not know about. Diagnoses that caused impulsiveness, defiance, obsession, etc... in both kids.