EDITORIAL — Kids, violence, and conversation

Incidents involving violence and kids don’t seem to be as “isolated” as they used to be.

There were at least two incidents this month. The first happened last February 10 when a 15-year-old student was killed after he was stabbed by a fellow Grade 10 student in Baseco, Manila.

CCTV footage shows the 16-year-old suspect waiting for the victim then stabbing him during a fight.

The second happened last February 17 also involving a 15-year-old victim and a 16-year-old assailant, this time in Floridablanca, Pampanga.

Police said the two students had an argument that later escalated into a fistfight during a school activity. When someone intervened, the suspect grabbed a knife from his bag and stabbed the victim in the chest, resulting in his eventual death.

Not too long ago President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the concerned government agencies to thoroughly look into the cases of violence in school premises. This after a 14-year-old Grade 8 student of a public school in Parañaque was stabbed dead by her male classmate for refusing to lend her makeup kit last March, after two Grade 8 students were fatally stabbed by three fellow students outside their school in Las Piñas City last April, and after a man came into the school of his 15-year-old girlfriend and shot her before shooting himself in Nueva Ecija last August.

So why are kids getting more violent and what can be done about it?

One thing that might help is for parents to get into their kids’ business.

In his homily during a national conference on family and life in Butuan City, Butuan Bishop Cosme Damian Almedilla said there is “a growing crisis of dialogue within families.”

“People live under the same roof but not in the same heart anymore. They speak but they do not listen,” he was quoted as saying in an online news report. He said something as simple as talking, as simple as a home conversation, would help.

True enough, many young ones may lack guidance from parents who might be just “there” physically but actually absent in their lives where it matters most.

Summer vacation is coming, and with it comes the free time many of our kids expect to have. It’s also the time when many of them go unsupervised. This could mean disaster for those who easily fall under the sway of bad influences.