Coulee News - Printable Version

Story originally printed in the Coulee News or online at www.couleenews.com

Published - Thursday, October 05, 2006

In search for reasons, let’s not stereotype troubled poor kids

Issues and Answers by BILL WINEKE

I expect that if we looked closely, we would find an Eric Hainstock in every school district in Wisconsin.

Hainstock is the high school freshman in Cazenovia charged with shooting and killing Weston High School Principal John Klang on Friday morning.

He is a troubled young man from a troubled home who has had all sorts of difficulties in the past with school authorities and who, authorities said, was physically abused by his father. He is a young man who spoke to friends of wanting revenge.

That’s all very sad, but it isn’t very unusual. There were troubled kids from troubled homes in the school I attended. There are troubled kids from troubled homes in the schools your children and grandchildren attend.

How many of those young people are likely to take a gun to school and murder classmates or teachers today, tomorrow or, even, next year?

Probably none.

These events are so incredibly rare they make national news. The last time a student actually shot a school employee in Wisconsin was in 1998; the last time a school authority was killed in Wisconsin was in 1995.

There have been some close calls. A few weeks ago, three Green Bay teens were arrested after allegedly plotting a massacre and, over the years, some students around the state have been found to have loaded firearms either on their persons or in their vehicles at school.

I don’t mean to make light of the danger.

But we might want to be a bit careful in ascribing Friday’s tragedy to the troubled past of the young man involved. If you look at school shootings around the country, you don’t find a pattern that would suggest the kids involved necessarily come from bad homes or from homes with troubled parents.

By definition, a kid who comes to school and harms either teachers or fellow students is a troubled kid. But troubled kids come from “good” homes with affluent parents as well as from “bad” homes with absentee parents.

Hainstock, it seems, lived in a home without curtains, a home that was surrounded by abandoned vehicles, a home perhaps without much love.

There are lots and lots of troubled kids who come from such homes and who have troubles with authorities in our schools today.

Some of these kids will, no doubt, go on to become troubled adults. Some will have problems with alcohol and drugs. Some will end up in jail. And some will overcome their problems and go on to become doctors and clergy and university professors.

In our sorrow over events like those in Cazenovia, we want to do what we can to avoid future tragedy. We look for patterns. We look for warning signs. We rearrange the tea leaves of rational concern and irrational fear.

But we don’t want to start stereotyping troubled kids as being potential murderers, and we particularly don’t want to start stereotyping troubled poor kids as potential murderers.

Our kids have enough problems to face as it is. Most of them are going to struggle through and become fine adults.

We want to help them in those ways we can. We want to provide them with mentors and counseling and with all kinds of support. When we find a troubled kid, whether he or she comes from a fine family or from a barely-functioning family, we want to help.

We needn’t be afraid of our own children, however. Sad as events in Cazenovia are, they are also exceedingly rare and are virtually impossible to predict.

Lots of kids come from bad homes. Our task is to do what we can to help them become the kind of parents who create good homes.

Reach Bill Wineke at bwineke@madison.com or at (608) 252-6146. Read Bill Wineke’s Blog at www.madison.com/wsj/blogs.