Where's

[cacophony]

this is being discussed everywhere and i'm damn lazy. so i'm just going to copy and paste what i said elsewhere:

watch the pbs documentary "raising cain" sometime. it's about the early childhood development of boys and girls, and the way we react to some of the ways kids act out their development. i don't know that i think it's entirely abnormal for kids to entertain violent imagery. studies have found that kids who aren't even exposed to violent media will still draw pictures of people getting stabbed or play war. that age, in particular, grapples with the concepts of mortality and injury. i don't know that i would find it all that unusual if they found out that the kids were TALKING about it, or that they'd even written about it.

i think what's wrong here is that they encouraged each other to bring the objects to school, to impose that level of reality on the concept. it seems doubtful that they would have followed through, but it's disturbing enough that they put such concrete reality to the concept.

i have to wonder if there isn't a group dynamic aspect to this. meaning, it's not 9 kids who are really messed up. but maybe one or two who are really messed up, and for those kids the line was crossed from exploring fantasy and acting out reality. for the other kids i have to wonder if it ever left the fantasy realm.