In the wake of another tragic school shooting (the 28th of this abbreviated academic year, according to the New York Times), we again find ourselves searching for answers and, too often, coming up empty. Once again, there are lives lost, and young minds forever altered. Video evidence suggests that, though the surviving students may have saved lives, the fact that they carry the canon of red flags at the ready suggests a loss of innocence that cannot be recouped.

This time, though, it seems, we the public feel some remote possibility of justice. After all, we have a shooter who has survived, perhaps due to cowardice or a lack of time to take his own life given the rapid response. We have a gun.

And now, it seems, we have the parents, dead to rights.

In fact, as I write, my timeline is filled with news that the parents of the alleged shooter are being charged with involuntary manslaughter. Posts and tweets carry a sense of anger, relief and indignation I feel myself. These are, after all, the parents who neglected the signs of trouble that very day. These are the parents who supplied a lethal, high-powered firearm to their fifteen-year-old. We even have text evidence of these parents taking their son’s homicidal fantasies lightly, ignoring a cry for help as blatant as, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” Yes finally, we have proof of parents abetting their murderous son (and it’s always sons, isn’t it?).

Appearing to flee their home in the immediate wake of the tragedy is serving to fuel our outrage against them that much further.

This time, finally, maybe we can collectively experience a sense of closure in the wake of a school shooting that has eluded us time and time again. Maybe we’ve discovered the answer.

Lock. Them. Up.

And I get it. Working with young people who experience enormous anxiety just going into the school building for fear of an active shooter, on any given day, I want this epidemic to end as soon as possible. And regardless of any other variables at play, I firmly believe no civilian needs an AR-15, for any purpose, ever. Always a long shot, but perhaps this story will serve to move the needle with the NRA, tightening restrictions on gun laws and availability of semi-automatic weapons. I’d be on board with that agenda all the way.

No easy answers
And from the breaking news, this current debacle has been a failure on so many fronts. Parents, teachers, administrators, and possibly even law enforcement ignored red flags. Only the kids in the video seemed to catch on.

In this case, it would seem, the parents definitely seem to carry a great deal of responsibility, justifying our judgment and disdain.

If only these situations were consistently so cut and dried.

Now, many of us feel that parents of school shooters have historically received an unwarranted free pass. Instead of charging them, the legal system has at times suggested that parents of perpetrators have suffered enough and will have to live with the guilt and shame of their child’s notorious actions for the remainder of their lives. On top of all that, the argument goes, charges would be cruel.

But for those of us who work with teenagers, parental culpability in school shootings can be far more complicated.

Homicidal ideation
Over the past several years, we’ve drawn a clear distinction between suicidal ideation, or thoughts of suicide, and actual intent to hurt oneself. Clinically, it’s an important one, as talk therapy can help to ease ideation, but intent with a plan requires immediate action on the part of a clinician to ensure the safety of their patient.

In my field, far less attention is given to the counterpart, homicidal ideation. The same metrics of intervention apply to both. But in the past decade or so, I have found that more and more teens experience homicidal ideation than previously. Sometimes, they will talk specifically about a wish to blow up their school or kill a particular student because they’ve been bullied by them, or ignored by them, or otherwise turned down by them. This is strikingly common.

If that teen is in therapy, we can almost always help those clients better identify the essence of such thinking. Sometimes, they feel threatened. Other times, they are hurt deeply by a peer’s actions, or inactions. They are upset because they feel they’ve been ignored or ostracized. Once these feelings are identified, they can be placed in an appropriate context. We can come up with action steps to mitigate the feelings, and perhaps even drive a connection in place of a misunderstanding.

We are trained to ask the questions to tease out these thoughts. We work to create a space safe and comfortable enough for a teenager to tell us what they may not be willing to tell another person on the planet. Often, the circumstances need to be just right for a teenager to disclose something as deep, private and conflictual as homicidal ideation.

And if a teenage therapy client expresses homicidal intent, the protocol for a therapist is abundantly clear. In essence, it’s a 911 call, and staying out of the way.

At home, parents do not often have the luxury of such open, trusting communication, nor do they have thee training to support it. In fact, most parents are busy working through some tricky markers of adolescence, including pushing against the rules, differentiation from family norms, and some risky behaviors when out with friends.

Even when a teen shows signs of depression and anger, the distinction between normal teenage emotion and something far more dark, pathological and dangerous is difficult to identify. Sentiments like “I’m going to kill that kid for embarrassing me” or “I’m going to blow up the school” drive less alarm than they used to as they become a more ordinary part of the teenage vernacular. Most parents gut check these types of statements with a, “You can’t talk like that or we will have to take it seriously.”

Usually, that’s that.

Once the crisis feels averted, parents are appropriately eager for therapy to focus on those stressors that brought their child to that type of thinking in the first place. After all, a child with homicidal ideation must be suffering a great deal, and no parent wants to see their child in that degree of psychic pain.

What we learn from all of this is that an enormous gulf lies between homicidal ideation and homicidal intent with a plan. Therapists are trained to tease them apart. Parents are not.

What parents don’t see
In fact, parenting a teen today is tricky for all they cannot see in their childrens’ lives. They are rarely privy to their interactions with friends and peers, for example. This interaction tends to take place on screens and social media platforms parents are typically unfamiliar with, often behind closed doors. Any self-respecting teen knows a dozen tricks to hide these interactions from their parents.

Parents also don’t see how their kids interact, or isolate, when at school, or out with peers. I’ve worked with some kids who are not engaged at all socially but leave the house and walk around town rather than talk to their parents about their loneliness. As far as the parents know, their child is enjoying a robust social life.

A case study from Columbine
A few years back, I watched an interview with Sue Klebold, mother of notorious Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold. I recall wanting her to prove her negligence and implicate herself in the complicity of mass murder. At the least, I wanted her to acknowledge that she willingly chose to look the other way.

Turns out, she seemed like a totally normal mom, though heartbroken and confused. She described Dylan in detail, sharing anecdotes and photos and journal entries that would suggest a parent very much in touch with her son. She seemed to know he was feeling somewhat disconnected socially and was seeking solace in a friendship she wasn’t sure was a positive influence for him. But parents have these concerns all the time. She never could have anticipated what her child was planning based on that scant evidence.

In the wake of that interview, I received a flood of referrals from parents concerned that their son could be the next school shooter. Luckily, once put through the homicidal ideation/intent screening described above, none of them were. But it was clear to me that parents felt ill-equipped to make the distinction.

What can be done
It seems as if everyone has some thoughts about how to prevent future school shootings from the perspective of the faculty and staff themselves:

“Armed police officers at every door of the school. A good guy with a gun is the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun.”

“No police presence at school is needed at all. Just the presence of that gun suggests violence to the student body.”

“Metal detectors.”

“Anonymous tip phone numbers.”

“More social work and psychology staff.”

These are all ideas we’ve been considering. But none of them offers guidance to parents. So, thinking upstream a bit, what can parents do in the name of prevention?

What parents can do now
I wish parents were offered a set of classes in psychology and therapy early in the lives of their children. So often, I want my parent clients to act as de facto therapists for their kids. Honestly, doing so is not too difficult. With your teenagers, I just encourage you to make time to take off the parent hat and just hang with your kid. You don’t have to talk – just be there. They may say it’s weird, but if you are judgment-free and agenda-free, at least sometimes, your child will get that you are an ally, and is far, far more likely to open up to you when he or she needs to.

Given that so much of the lives of our teens takes place on screens and behind closed doors, I strongly urge parents to find new ways to connect with their kids. I believe that the stronger that connection, the more likely your child will be to let you know he is hurting or needs help. I fully recognize this is easier said than done, but I encourage you to be relentless and overt here. Let your kids know, “I want to get to know you and understand your world. And if you are ever sad or scared, or if there is anything you need from me, I want you to know I’m there for you no matter what.” In order to ensure that message is heard, and the Emotional Bank Account well in the black, this is a message you will need to repeat earnestly and often.

And finally, if you see a dramatic change in your child’s behavior (grades drop, friend group changes radically or disappears, attitude changes), seek out a therapist, a therapist qualified to work with teenagers, a therapist your child truly likes and trusts. This is an underutilized parenting tool that can save lives, period.

So many variables contribute to the intensity of emotion, availability of firepower, and set of circumstances that drive school shootings. But it cannot be stated enough that more involved parents can serve as a crucial point of prevention.