Are you teaching your children to fear police or life in general? People react differently when they’re fearful. If you have a bad experience you may develop a fear, but there’s other ways to develop fear. Small children are not born to fear, it’s learned. If a child is constantly told to fear something or someone, they learn to be fearful. This could be a justifiable fear or a manufactured one.
People run from fear or situations they believe to be dangerous. So if you fear police you may choose to run even if good sense tells you to stay put. Situations become volatile when poor decisions are made. I imagine police become fearful as well. They learn fear in the same way as others. Would you walk down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood without fear? Not likely. What would you do as a police officer if you felt your life was in danger?
It’s not hard to imagine that young people learn fear from the news. Kids see news about police brutality and they learn to fear. The interpretation that this is common is implied by the news media, because the media is fueled by bad news. No rational person can justify the death of an innocent man by the hands of the police, but we don’t always have the full story. The news media blinds us with facts that do not always tell the whole story, because it’s seems to be more important to be the first to break the story. Once the public is wrapped up in the breaking story their opinion is already formed. The additional facts presented may not be considered.
If you pile one fear on top of the other, a person will eventually learn to fear life itself. Maybe instead of teaching fear we can teach compassion. “Just Saying . . . “
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