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The upwelling of violence this past weekend prompts us all to think about solutions. In my view there are three key components which, if addressed, would make a huge difference in our drug, violence and other crime problems.

  Number one: some parents aren't doing a good enough job.

It isn't enough to identify parents as a problem. Blaming and lecturing them does little beyond raising feelings of guilt. First of all, some parents are doing a good job. Parents of every stripe are succeeding; two parent families, single parent families, extended families. Likewise, parents of every type sometimes fail. Of course, some family structures face greater challenges and run greater risks, but the common thread in parenting problems is parenting skills. And because most parents learn their parenting style from their own parents, bad habits as well as good, are passed from generation to generation. Also, with so many poor and even destructive modes of parenting being spread via television and music videos, the good lessons from parents, and some model teachers, are overshadowed.

If we agree that we have a parenting problem, we must intervene, and the intervention must be non-discriminatory and universal. Of course, some parents (even some groups of parents) may choose to continue their existing parenting styles. That's the way it ought to be; it's not possible to force a parenting style on anyone. However, we can provide any parent - every parent - with an array of parenting skills for them to choose from, rather than only and unconsciously using what they got from their own growing up situation.

Solution: Every potential parent would learn structured parenting skills as part of their formal education regime, starting in elementary school.

Number two: People are stressed out (bored, uptight, insecure). Bermuda used to be known as the Isles of Rest. Former Senator and Fidelity CEO Arnott Jackson observed over thirty years ago that Bermuda was becoming instead the Isles of Stress.

In an Island such as ours where the population density is higher than virtually any other place on the planet, we should expect, and attempt to deal preemptively with, stress and its affects on social life. Our typical stress solution is medication, almost invariably applied after the fact. Pre-emptive stress reducers like meditation and yoga are gaining in acceptance but not commonly understood. It should be noted that celebrities as different as entertainer Oprah Winfry and film director David Lynch have got behind using Transcendental Meditation (TM) as an effective means of cooling down the emotional temperature in schools and communities. Research over the last forty or more years has proven TM effective for reducing stress while increasing mental and physical performance.

Solution: Make proven stress-reduction techniques available to schools and families.

Number three: Violence is escalating. One of the results of being stressed out is resorting first to violence when conflict occurs. For over thirty years I have observed escalating rage in our young (and not so young) people. In settings from nursery schools to households to our roadways to the parliament, stress and anger are building up and bursting out.

The problem is that people with conflicts are choosing violence as the primary way to resolve them. We need to give our people the choice and the skills to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. Methods of Conflict Resolution abound. They need to become as commonplace as school uniforms.

Solution: Include Conflict Resolution as part of the life-skills instruction in all schools. Unfortunately, it has become common in our community to shoot down any solution that doesn't arise from the "in" group. The above are not necessarily the best solutions, nor the only ones. However, they are proven, practicable, make common sense and have the potential for long term fundamental resolution of these most serious problems. My recommendation would be a research-based pilot study (or studies). If they don't work, we'll have lost nothing. If they do, we'll have gained a lot.

Note: Stuart Hayward has experience with the methods he is suggesting - he practices Transcendental Mediation (TM) and was a teacher of the technique for 25 years, helped train 20 local teachers of Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) in the 1980's, and initiated and led an Island-wide seminar on Conflict Resolution in 1991. (more information about TM can be found at: www.truthabouttm.org, and about PET and Conflict Resolution at www.etia.org

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