Barbara Feldman: Virginia Tech Massacre Leaves Me Nearly Speechless

At Shaping Youth, we focus on media (and marketing's) impact on kids so it made sense that we address this horrific incident in context.

There has been much "woulda-coulda-shoulda" talk with blame games/sensationalism hither & yon, so we chose instead to provide some 'coping skills' strategies for kids, parents, and educators to weather this maelstrom.

Hope this helps some of your readers, Barbara. Here's Shaping Youth's Media Coping Skills piece: http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=387

I was shocked and saddened by the events at VT. I believe that instead of pointing fingers and accusing different sectors of society of not doing their jobs, maybe we need to look at society holistically and each do our part to create a better emotional and physical environment for people to live in. We are a wasteful society in relation to products, food, and people's emotional well-beings. So many younger people today have warped views of the world and their place in it. They believe that the world owes them respect and an opportunity to verbalize their feelings and opinions, but do not apply these same principles to themselves. They do not have to take other's views and opinions into consideration, nor do they have to practice the same respect toward others. This is the ideology that must be eradicated before things can become more positive in our country.

It is a tragedy. Its questionable who would be responsible to see that this person got help. The ones who would know him the best and know what is wrong would be family. It would be hard for school officials to step in and see to it that someone got help. Teachers are not psychiatrists. What is this world coming to? That's easy. Jesus gave signs of the last days in Matthew chapter 24. Also we are warned that things would get criticl in 2 Timothy 3:1-5. There it says the 'last days would be critical times hard to deal with' and people would be 'fierce without self-control and without love of goodness'. We are living in the last days the Bible foretold, and there is no point wondering what the government should do about it. God didn't give them the power to handle it. Isaiah 9:6-7 says that peace would only come from Jesus' rule, the Kingdom we pray for in the Lord's prayer. So we have to wait. Its a great time to make sure we are good students of the Bible. At least we can gain comfort from knowing there is a better hope for the future.

I felt heart broken on watching what had happened this posses a question to me where is the world going if poeple can kill others just because of poverty? Is this the end of the world or Jesus is on his way?I pray for those who were affected in this massacre.

Annette from Uganda

My heart and prayers goes out to those families. Also God's grace for the students going back. This is terrible for such a blessed nation.

I was heart broken when I went to the New York Times website and read the news. I'm astonished and ashamed that this could happen in our country.

My husband said it the best and simplest. I'm embarrassed of our country.

Everyone has rights but the people who do what is right. Something has to change and quick!

It was horrible.

My hearty condolences to the bereaved families. May God help them.
Why don't we observe The PEACE DAY. The 'peace' I mean is peace not only between countries, but between, socieyies, communities, families, individuals,as well. And all and above, between people and their Mother Earth.
Let's have peace with ourselves to be able to have peace with our surroundings.

This was the most horrible tradgedy.I cannot understand why someone so distraught was reported and nothing was done.What is wrong with our system? I have one child at SLU, in Hammond, Louisiana and I can't imagine this happening to her. She is my life, and she has not lived hers. So to all the parents and loved ones at VT my heart and prayers goes out to you.