To turn out well, teenagers need involved parents

Every Thursday I head to a local elementary school to tutor a second-grader in reading. I walk into the foyer and get “buzzed in.” I wear an ID badge so I am identified as a visitor. Like many, I won’t be able to erase the scene of Newtown, Conn., from my mind for a long, long time.

I am not a psychiatrist, but a parent. The one constant of many of these shootings is the shooters are male and in their late teens or 20s. They are all described the same way: loner, socially awkward. Some come from broken homes; some may have a mental defect.

These same types of kids were around when I grew up, and I never feared going to the movies, the mall or to school. What is the difference?

Kids are being raised by technology. They watch violent movies and television shows and play video games for hours on end and become desensitized to violence. These shooters don’t just wake up one day and say, “I think I will go shoot people today.” It is carefully calculated.

They can research anything on the Internet and lead their own private life through a cellphone. My teenage sons will say, “We don’t want to go shoot up a room full of people after we play video games.” That’s because they have a mom and dad who hold them accountable for what they do.

We eat a family meal together three times a week. They have parents who pay attention to who their friends are and follow them on the Internet. They have a group of friends that they hang out with, and we know the parents. There are start and stop times for video games. We pay the cellphone bill and monitor it. They are forced to go play outside.

With divorce so common, often one or all of these ingredients are gone from the equation, and kids are left to raise themselves.

The answer is not with gun control. The Newtown shooter tried to get a gun from a store and was denied. If someone wants a gun, they’ll get one.

You don’t just stop being a parent when your kids become teenagers or head into the world in their 20s. This is when they need us more than ever.

The young victims of the shootings will never have this chance.

Whether one goes to school with someone who is “different” or has a child who is, someone just needs to pay attention.