Sometimes I observe a sense of confounded inexplicability behind the questions asked about school shootings. “How could they possibly do this?” etc. I want to offer two things: some ideas on what could be up for these kids, and also a clear conviction that the problem is not mysterious or unsolvable. This distinction is important to me because a problem is never solved until people believe it is solvable. Before that, they cry and throw up their hands but don’t get down to work. A willingness to change things generally comes after a certainty that things can in fact be changed, and the change will be better than the current situation.

So. Why would a kid shoot his classmates?

I would guess they have unmet needs for meaning, hope, belonging, acceptance, connection to something greater, choice, contribution, and connection.

Many of these kids have all their “sustenance” needs met – but not the real life-giving needs named above. I think “basic needs” for human go beyond food and shelter – we need a lot of emotional needs met to feel OK. I think studies have shown that emotional abuse can be worse than physical abuse – emotional neglect is worse than physical neglect.

I don’t see these incidents as isolated or strange. I see them as symptoms of these needs not being met by our culture in general. Kids, especially teenagers, don’t have much of a context to deal with the pain of all those human needs not getting met, and yet they feel that pain keenly. Our culture doesn’t encourage admitting that these needs aren’t met – and talking about them openly–and brainstorming solutions that would meet them. If you’re a teenager, and don’t know any of those needs will ever get met – let alone even have a consciousness that those need are there – and are just swirling in the pain and confusion of them not being met – that is a very desperate place to be.

That’s why I am a fan of NVC, because it can really change our culture to be one where everyone’s needs are met in profound ways – and the first step is learning to have a consciousness around needs in general – that they exist, that pain and violence are a result of them not being met, and that by talking about them, two of our deepest needs can be met: connection/empathy and contribution to each other’s wellbeing.

This clarity about the cause of suffering is essential. Without understanding the cause of something, it is very difficult to remedy it.

I also value NVC for humanizing “otherness” – seeing these kids as human, as kids in a great deal of pain, not inexplicable, but rather extreme expressions of the desperation any of us might feel in a similar situation. If we can own their expressions of pain as echoes of our own, then we can start to understand each others’ pain, and from that understanding, create healing and new ways to address these needs.