As with countless of you, I am shocked at the senseless killings, abuse and crimes being committed, many by children and young adults. I often wonder about their family lives. What led them to commit such heinous atrocities?

I read about fifth-graders creating a hit list of schoolmates, babies literally shaken to death, or the stabbing of a person out of anger. Where is the reverence for life? Where are their parents? Surely there are many good parents whose children choose to or were influenced by friends to make poor decisions.

But some children’s role models are parents or parental figures who do drugs, are alcoholics, refuse to find a job, or abuse. They are absent. There are no curfews, no boundaries, no rules, no love. We need parents to teach their children these things.

In our local school district, they have traits of the month: respect, responsibility, citizenship, caring, fairness, honesty, diligence, trustworthiness, courage, integrity, generosity and gratitude. I wonder if these principles were modeled and talked about in the home, would our jails have fewer inmates, would bullying go by the wayside, would there be more respect for life to bring about a more responsible and exemplary generation? I wonder.

Mindy Wright

Spokane Valley