Fighting the fears haunting our kids

My wife Gena's and my hearts broke when we heard about the mass shooting in Maine this past week in which at least 18 were murdered and 13 more were wounded. Please pause again to reflect upon these precious souls, and pray for the victims' families and the wounded who are right now fighting for their lives in hospitals.

This domestic tragedy is earth-shattering on top of Israel's massacre of 1,400 more innocent lives (including 33 Americans) by the terrorist group Hamas just a few weeks ago. As a result of the ongoing conflict, the Middle East is teetering on World War III.

And what are the children of the world thinking? They're afraid, and they need our assurance.

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I know Halloween week is loaded with fun and frights, but I keep thinking there's also no better time than now to help our kids overcome the fears that proliferate their lives, culture and our world.

Sixty years ago, in 1960, researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported that the greatest fears of grade school children were: 1) animals, 2) being in a dark room, 3) high places, 4) strangers, and 5) loud noises.

Thirty years later, in 1990, kids were afraid of the following: 1) divorce, 2) nuclear war, 3) cancer, 4) pollution, and 5) Being mugged.

Roughly 30 years later still, in 2018, Pew Research discovered that 42% are afraid of being a victim of a random mass shooting (up from 16% in 2015), and 57% of teens worry about gunfire erupting at their schools.

To prove just how far-reaching that mass violent crime fear has grown, consider that one of the top-selling back-to-school items are bullet-proof backpacks!

If we could parse the profiles of mass murderers, maybe we might be able to prevent more future killings and reduce the proliferation of fear haunting our kids. Granted there's no one-size-fits-all profile or solution, but there are some common attributes authorities have deduced from decades of study.

Psychiatry Today explained some general profile attributes of mass shooters over the last 50 years: "If there is one predominant theme … it is anger and revenge. … [They] tended to be socially awkward and avoidant, and often isolate themselves with few if any friends … tend to have experienced dysfunctional family situations or experience a lack of effective adult supervision, mentoring, or oversight."

As former FBI Agent Steve Gomez said, "The signs can start at a fairly early age. … [The shooters] tend to show that they're outcasts in society. They just have difficulty establishing and maintaining friends and social relationships. And oftentimes you find that as a result of that they are either being bullied or are a bully."

If we are to fight the increase of mass shooters and simultaneously bring more peace (instead of fear) to the hearts of kids and students everywhere, we need to help every child return to a sense of community, social connections, family, faith and inner self-worth.

Protecting and building up younger generations is the reason Gena and my greatest missions in life is our nonprofit organization, Kickstart Kids, which instills character through karate in middle school students across Texas. Kickstart Kids also provides a strong sense of community through their peers and mentors (our instructors) as well as helps establish greater core values in our kids.

Seventy percent of the kids in our program are Latinos, and gangs are constantly trying to recruit them. But we will not allow anyone to participate in the program if they are a part of any gang. Kickstart Kids has provided for young people an alternative and safe haven from gangs, and that is one more reason we believe it should be in every state across the nation. But because the program is not yet available outside of the Lone Star State, let me recommend a few other resources as well for the rest of the country.

Church youth groups and other groups like the Boys and Girls Clubs of America also do a great job of instilling love and self-worth in our young people. They strive to give them purpose and meaning, and in the case of church youth groups, even help them understand why God created them and their purpose for life. The presence of these life-enriching community gatherings and their leaders are desperately missing from the lives of most young people today.

Of course, no one can replace the power and influence of a parent or guardian. We need to realize any other person is a far second to what we offer our own children by our unconditional love, value and security. Parents' words can empower future leaders in their kids or inflict indelible harm in their hearts.

There are two things young people today can definitely learn from parents, mentors and older generations. The first is the power of facing their fears with courage and faith. The second is finding true happiness and contentment outside of a quick temporary fix or high.

That's why Gena and I always encourage adults (including of course parents, guardians and grandparents) to return to the core mission of instilling value, community and faith in every child. We all need to invest more time and energy to inspire these character traits in young people. Nothing can replace quality and loving time and attention from someone who cares.

A perfect example of this was found a few years ago in one of our fellow Texas citizens.

A 30-year old man with special needs, Chris Barrington, who functions at the level of a 6-year-old, was wandering alone for two days on the streets in Waco, Texas. He had no known immediate family when police officers questioned him, but he did remember the name of his junior high school teacher, Michelle Girard.

Girard taught Barrington for four years at Gatesville Junior High School, but hadn't seen him in over a decade. Authorities called her up, and she came running to help and do what she could for Barrington.

"He deserves a good life. He's had a hard life," Girard told KWTX.

"I said, 'what happens if I don't take him? Will he get in a group home?' They said, 'no, he'd go in to an institution,'" Girard said. "I said, 'Not on my watch he's not.'"

"He's never had a birthday present, a birthday party, he's never had Christmas, Thanksgiving, nothing," she said. "So this year is going to be full of firsts."

After she discovered his father was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away on Aug. 1 – something that precipitated his homelessness, Girard applied for guardianship of Barrington.

Barrington could have been lost in the shuffle of homelessness and judged wrongly for his mental ineptitude. Who knows? He might have become desperate and done something even he wouldn't have wanted to do. His brain disorder could have led him from surviving to stealing and much worse. But his sixth grade teacher's love and sacrifice saved the day instead. What an inspiring story!

Michelle Girard's loving actions reminds me of a verse in the Bible: "Perfect love cast out all fear." That's true of her love. That's true of God's love. And love and security are the key kids today need more than anything.

If a lack of love and happiness are contributing to the demise of young people and even American homes – and I believe it is – I highly encourage people everywhere to master the art of being loved, content and happy by reading the latest books by my friend and prolific author Randy Alcorn.

In particular, he's recently released a small but powerful treatise (also good for young people), "Does God Want Us to Be Happy?," and its larger parent book, "Happiness." (Both are discounted through Randy's website epm.org.) There's lots of wisdom in these books that parents and kids are missing and can benefit from.

Randy's book on "Happiness" is one ginormous resource to discover yours and others' true happiness and meaning, as well as to regain health and balance in our souls, households, communities and nation. It explains how to find happiness outside of consuming and collecting material goods, outside of money and the other typical things the world values.

I also encourage people to listen to Randy's Happiness audio and video messages and check out the resources on his Happiness blog, where his series of Happiness articles are available free of charge. Check out this one: "Should we want our children to be happy?"

We need to help our kids understand that evil exists in every human heart, but that God can give us the power to overcome it by love, doing good and having faith and courage. Until we deal with these core issues of humanity, we labor in vain, as Patrice Lewis, founder of the exceptional Rural Revolution, concluded in one of her insightful and motivating WND columns: "Why mass shootings will continue."

Like with the actions of our Kickstart Kids instructors or teacher Michelle Girard, young people are won back from a culture of fear one by one. Won by one! And such should be our goal every week: to positively influence and inspire at least one young person to a higher vision and standard of living, to know they are deeply loved and valued by God and others. Can you imagine if we all made that our goal?

Edward Everett Hale could have been speaking for all of us when he said: "I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will."

Even more, don't ever forget the wisdom of Edmund Burke, who said, "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing."

As the Good Book says, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

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