‘What Columbine Has Taught Us Is That Parenting Goes Only So Far’

Columbine and the numerous other student shooting sprees of recent years have shown that excellent, ordinary and extraordinarily bad parenting can all result in the same tragedies. That isn’t to say we should stop trying to parent as consistently, fairly, sensitively and evenhandedly as we are able.

Still, there are no ownership manuals when it comes to children. As parents, we can only try to do the right thing.

We read Spock and attend a church, mosque or temple. We involve our children in sports and take them to the beach, the mountains, museums and concerts. We read to them every night and volunteer at their schools. We teach them manners and morals, hoping our children will learn how to behave in our multicultural world.

We assume that in following these “rules,” we will produce well-adjusted, well-behaved and academically proficient children. But that is not always the case.

Take Kip Kinkel of Springfield, Ore. His parents, both schoolteachers, seem to have followed the “rules” of responsible parenting. They took family ski vacations, helped Kip with his homework and, to sublimate his obsession with guns, enrolled him in a firearms safety class.

They encouraged him in the areas where he excelled--karate and math--and got professional help for him when he displayed a learning disability and antisocial behavior. They were deemed “impressive parents” by a local psychologist. Yet their son, at age 15, is accused of a deadly high school shooting spree. Kip allegedly killed his mother, his father and two students, and wounded 25 other classmates, in May 1998.

Last month in Michigan we had another tragic school shooting. A playground spat resulted in a 6-year-old boy shooting and killing his classmate, Kayla Rolland. In this case, the boy’s parents did not follow the “rules.” News reports say his mother, evicted from a rented house, left her son with an uncle who drank, sold drugs and kept guns loaded and lying around in plain sight. Here, it is easy to attribute the tragedy to bad parenting.

The case of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold is less clear. Despite several brushes with the law, juvenile court reports show that local authorities did not consider them a threat and, in fact, predicted their success in life. Both boys came from what seem to be stable, middle-class homes. Their parents were married and worked in professional occupations.

Some people have faulted the parents for failing to notice a shotgun in one of their son’s bedrooms. But most of us with teenagers know how important their privacy is to them. We all walk the fine line between respecting our children--giving them incremental freedoms that will eventually lead to responsible adulthood--while continuing to pay close enough attention to be able to stop immature, dangerous or inappropriate behaviors.

What Columbine has taught us is that parenting goes only so far. No matter where you look in this world, there have been and will always be troubled youths who channel their anger in unhealthy ways. As parents, we must never stop trying to follow effective parenting techniques and to identify and treat children who cannot handle their anger. Those things are in our control.

What is not in our control in America today are the tools used to express this rage. The years we spend laying the groundwork for responsible behavior and teaching our kids how to deal with their feelings are easily negated when a child has such unbelievably easy access to firearms. Only in America can anger so easily be turned into a murderous rampage.

Diana Dixon-Davis is a mother of three sons in Chatsworth.