Ronald R. Brill of Green Valley is founder and director of the Coping Skills for Kids & Brain Works Project.

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Opinion by Ronald R. Brill

Discussions and legislation to allow guns in schools to prevent violence seems to miss an important point. Twelve years ago I began researching and in 2000 completed a book describing the preventable causes of school violence and how perpetrators justify their murderous acts. I concluded that simple preventive education policies in schools are necessary to quell the urge to violence that troubled teens use to avenge their emotional wounds.

Since schools have a captive audience they have the opportunity to help all students learn basic and safe methods to achieve greater coping competence.

A school psychologist friend says we seem to be raising a nation of emotional wimps simply overwhelmed by everyday emotional challenges. Too many of today's youth feast on violent media to stoke their burning desire to get even rather than simply learning skills for safely getting over peer cruelty so common today. Neuroscience research using functional brain imaging reveals the source of this confusion: Emotional pain is processed in the same part of our brain that registers physical pain.

Virtually all school mass murderers were students who possessed a perverse justification for their murderous rampages. They simply felt entitled to avenge the wounds of rejection, humiliation and betrayals instigated by peers. Why else would they return to their school to punish innocent students and school employees with indiscriminate violence? They simply couldn't deal with common but painful experiences that overwhelm their hormone-induced teen hypersensitivity to emotional pain.

Why do troubled teenagers choose to act out their reign of terror at school? For too many teens today, school represents a source of humiliating emotional pain, bullying and social cruelty. According to National Education Association estimates, more than 160,000 students a day stay home from school for the above reasons. These student absences also add to mounting school funding shortfalls.

More guns will not address the above factors. But an ounce of preventive education might.

Moreover, today we have powerful education technology to help students develop safe and healthy coping skills and tools. We first need to recognize the source of teenage angst that leads to their thirst for revenge against innocents in their schools. The coping crisis of today's teens can be remedied.

To better prepare students for their turbulent teenage years will take a strong school/parent partnership and more easily available education resources. More education resources for coping skills must be easily available at home and school.

The time to introduce healthy and safe coping skills is during preteen years in fourth, fifth and sixth grades when coping brain patterns are still flexible. Recent research concludes that brain development is nearly complete by age 11 or 12 — much earlier than previously thought.

Results from more than 40 classrooms projects I've directed in Northern California and Southern Arizona the past five years show many preteens are reporting difficulty dealing with their anger and sadness. And this is before their teenage years.

I'm betting that today's kids will take advantage of Internet initiatives offering free coping skills information, quizzes and interactive learning. Internet coping skills resources for pre-teens, their parents and teachers represent a 21st century life-skills education revolution. The need is great and time is short.