As the country pours out its empathy for the latest shooting victims, we all ask ourselves the question: "Why do events like this happen?"
I believe the root cause is our nation's fetish with self-esteem building and our collective failure over the last 30 years to teach our children how to empathize with one another.
I am a counselor in a residential treatment program that works with kids who have a vast array of personality disorders. I go to work with the knowledge that if my coworkers and I are not effective in the messages we are sending to the students we work with, any one of them has the potential to produce the scene that was witnessed Friday in Newtown, Conn.
Recently I asked the middle-school students on the team that I work with why they were on the team. Although I got a variety of answers, the general theme was, "I am here for myself."
I then asked myself: "How on earth is this team supposed to function properly if every member is there only for themselves?" It caused me to reflect upon not only the messages that these kids had received but also the messages that my peers and I received while growing up in the 1990s and 2000s.
As I look back upon the inflated grades that my peers and I received, the constant praise and adulation we were given by our leaders, and the award buffets that would occur constantly, it becomes painfully obvious that the overriding message being sent was that we were important. Not collectively, but individually.
The principle being applied was that if you build up a young person's self-esteem enough, they will become resilient and wildly successful.
After bearing witness to so many of my peers -- males in their 20s -- gunning down their community members, I have come to the conclusion that this principle has failed us as a society.