PANEL: YOUTHS NEED LIFT

Paul Schniedermeyer recently admitted to his young son that he was a geek when he was in school. The son was amazed. "You're popular," he said.

Schniedermeyer wondered why he thought so. It was because his father was invited to go to work every day. "To him it was a social event," Schniedermeyer says.

Building relationships between parents and children and between teachers and their students can help defuse the kind of conflict that led to the recent tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado, parents and professionals alike say.

Schniedermeyer, director of Children and Family Service with the Community Counseling Center, was one of the professionals and parents who got together Wednesday night to discuss how to handle the kind of conflict children encounter. The panelists consisted of educators, law enforcement officers and counselors.

The program titled "Youth in Conflict, Responding to the Threat" drew about 25 people to Southeast Missouri Hospital. It was sponsored by the hospital's Generations Family Resource Center, the Community Counseling Center and Caring Communities.

Dr. Bradley D. Robinson, a psychiatrist, said aggressiveness in young children is one of the early predictors of poor outcomes such as drug abuse. But intervention programs can't make all the changes that are needed, he said. "It's the relationship building. Somebody took the time to build a positive relationship with the kid.... That's the core."

Jackson schools superintendent Dr. Howard Jones fears that the value of life isn't being conveyed to children. "Somebody has to tell that child he or she is important," he said.

While the violence is occurring at the schools, educators on the panel said it isn't starting there.

"I don't think the schools can be the solution," says Dr. Dan Tallent, superintendent of the Cape Girardeau School District.

"I know too many kids who don't have adult role models."

When students get into trouble, "what's often missing is a caring, loving environment at home," said Jones.

"I am seriously concerned about the lack of a safe, secure environment for children in our country," Jones said.

While 15 schools in the United States have had fatal shooting incidents since 1995, Jones pointed out that in 1996 alone more than 1,000 children died from child abuse.

"Every night there are children going to bed in fear," he said. "School remains one of the safest places for kids to be."

Jones said Jackson schools currently have no classes specifically dealing with diversity issues. Cpl. Barry Hovis, the Cape Girardeau Police Department resource officer stationed at Central High School, does talk to classes at the school about diversity issues.

The panelists said Cape Girardeau is ahead of Jackson on that front because it is a more diverse community at this point.

Audience member Gail Jones, a preschool teacher at Christian School of the Young Years in Cape Girardeau, said workshops about handling conflict are the most popular at the educational conventions she attends. "With 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds, the issues already are aggression and fitting in," she said.

It's essential for teachers to have the time to develop relationships with their students, to watch "the way they play together and work together," she said.

One audience member ascribed the problem to too little love and attention and too much freedom. Denise McDowell, a second-grade teacher at North Elementary School in Jackson, said she thinks helping children in conflict is "a three-way street."

Parents must give teachers more support, the media must help calm the current hysteria about school violence, and schools need to create more conflict resolution classes, she said.