Q: More and more, I keep hearing about children and teens being involved in shootings, stabbings and the like. What has caused many members of the younger generation to be so violent?

A: Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in research to answer that question. The findings are startling. In addition to the violence children have seen on television and in the movies, and apart from the drug wars they have witnessed, the tendency toward violence is a function of the neglect and abuse so many have experienced. That is especially true of those raised in the inner city. What has been learned is that millions of children, many of them born to drug- and alcohol-dependent parents, have been subjected to unimaginable deprivation. They were left in cribs for days with dirty diapers burning their buttocks and legs. Some were hit repeatedly, or they were scalded or starved. Many were sexually exploited from their earliest days – some even in infancy.

If they survived, they grew up on the streets with no adult guidance and care. At night, they slept in bathtubs to avoid bullets sprayed from drive-by shootings. If this description sounds exaggerated, talk to social workers or police officers who work every day in the slums of large cities.

What does it do to a child to experience intense pain, fear and deprivation at a very early age? The answers are beginning to come in. What has been learned is that kids who go through these traumas in the first year or two of life produce high levels of stress hormones, notably cortisol and adrenaline. Those substances put the body on an “alarm reaction state” in order to cope with the crisis at hand. But in a small child, the brain is a vacuum cleaner for stress-related hormones. The human neurological apparatus is bombarded with chemicals that shouldn’t be there in a child that age. The result is impairment of the boy’s or girl’s thinking apparatus and emotional development.

What I’m saying is that many of today’s abused kids can kill and destroy without pangs of conscience because they are literally brain-damaged. They don’t feel what you and I feel. They can’t empathize with helpless victims the way they should, because the emotion of compassion flows from cognitive functions that no longer operate.

I am not excusing their violent behavior, of course. The bottom line is this: We are paying a terrible price for the disintegration of the family and for the victimization of children. Any society that doesn’t protect the most vulnerable in its midst can expect to suffer at the hands of those abused individuals when they get old enough to strike back.

Q: Our junior-high boy is the most disorganized kid I’ve ever seen. His life is a jumble of forgotten assignments and missed deadlines. What can I do to help him?

A: Educational consultant Cheri Fuller considers massive disorganization to be the most common cause for school failure, above both laziness and poor study skills. Show me a student’s notebook, Fuller says, and I’ll tell you whether that individual is a B student or a D student. An achieving student’s notebook is arranged neatly with dividers and folders for handouts and assignments. A failing student’s notebook is usually a jumbled mess and may not even be used at all.

Some children are naturally sloppy, but most of them can learn to be better organized in the elementary school years. Once they enter junior high, students may have as many as five teachers, each assigning different textbooks, workbooks, handouts and requirements from various classroom subjects. It is foolish to assume that kids who have never had any organizational training will be able to keep such detail straight and accessible.

If we want them to function in this system, we need to give them the tools that are critical to success. You might consider having your child evaluated to see if he has attention deficit disorder or some temperamental characteristic that makes it difficult for him to organize. When you’ve determined what he is capable of doing, work with an educational consultant or a school psychologist to design a system that will teach him how to live a more structured life.