I've pondered the situation at Virginia Tech since I heard it on the news yesterday. What would push someone to commit such a heinous act? How long had Cho Seung-Hui been plotting the killings? Did he have any friends, or did he only have acquaintances? Could many of the deaths have been avoided had they closed down the campus after the first shootings in the dormitory?

As I pondered some of these questions while talking to a friend, she replied, "It doesn't really matter. There's nothing we can do about it now." I was startled to hear such a fatalistic reply. When such an atrocity happens, do we just bury our heads in the sand and hope it goes away and will never happen again, or do we attempt to find out more information that might help us prevent such a tragedy next time?

Was it a sense of powerlessness that caused Cho Seung-Hui to act? Sometimes our misguided anger stems from a sense of feeling powerless. Reports say Cho was a loner who was labeled by some students as "the question mark kid" after putting down a question mark where he was supposed to sign his name in a British Lit class.

My friend yesterday proceeded to say that "nowhere feels safe anymore, but what do we do? We still have to send our kids out to school, so we are stuck when it comes to putting them at risk."

I disagree. I think that when a tragedy happens, we can regain our sense of power by acting. This is clearly shown by Zenobia Hikes, vice president for student affairs, who said,

"We will move on from this. But it will take the strength of each other to do that.We want the world to know we are Virginia Tech, we will recover, we will survive with your prayers."

Whether it is discussing safety plans with our children's schools or discussing it in a family night with our children, parents around the country can regain a feeling of control from a horrific situation. What you might feel is best for your children, I might consider overreacting, and vice versa. The important thing is not that we judge each other's responses, but that we actually do something to regain our feeling of control over our lives.

It's equally important to teach our children how to gain control in a situation that may be horribly frightening to them. Kelsey, my co-blogger wrote a wonderfully informative post on how to help children cope after a tragedy. Many adopted children come from some pretty horrific situations where they had no control. If every home in America were like a scene from Father Knows Best, we wouldn't have a foster care system. Since many had no power over what happened to them in their former homes, they might attempt to exert power over others in their new adoptive homes.

My newest son told me through an interpreter that he was quite happy to leave his orphanage because the older and bigger boys picked on him on a regular basis. He didn't have parents to advocate for him or stand up to bullies for him. He was pretty much on his own and he felt powerless by it.

As a result, I have seen him attempt to exert power in situations over siblings where it is totally unnecessary, but for some reason gives him a sense of being in control. It isn't done in a malicious way, but it is clear he was used to a pecking order for many years, and sees a need for a pecking order within his family as well.

What I am trying to teach him is that Mom and Dad are in control and will take care of not only him, but his siblings as well. He doesn't need to boss younger siblings around. He just needs to be free to be a child.

When I face a difficult scenario, because I have chosen to act rather than merely wring my hands and say "there's nothing I can do about it anyway", I hope to teach my son through modeling behavior that we really can regain control of our lives if we choose to be proactive...and being proactive is a much better solution that turning our sense of powerless into anger and violence toward others.

Virginia Tech Massacre

Five Steps to help you deal with your Anger

Photo Credit