{"id":4269,"date":"2026-09-04T11:17:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T11:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/mida-me-opetame-noortele-vagivallale-vagivallaga-reageerides\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T12:05:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T12:05:51","slug":"mida-me-opetame-noortele-vagivallale-vagivallaga-reageerides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/mida-me-opetame-noortele-vagivallale-vagivallaga-reageerides\/","title":{"rendered":"What are we teaching young people by responding to violence with violence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author: Lisett Rajangu<\/a>, MT\u00dc Sa Suudad Project Manager<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When talking about young people and violence, it is very difficult today not to think about what happened recently in Viimsi. The attack on a 17-year-old girl probably affects many. Such incidents inevitably cause anger, sadness and fear and bring with them a lot of questions: how can young people behave like this, what is going on in their lives, where were the adults, and how can we prevent such situations in the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are all legitimate questions. Yet we often stick to the first layer, that is, what we see. We see the violence, the victim, and those who hurt them. We rush to define the latter as violent, bad, uneducated, dangerous. But this is where an important question arises for me: can we also see the person behind the behavior?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a resident of Viimsi and I also want my home to be safe and for our young people to be protected. At the same time, my professional background gives me the opportunity to look beyond the first layer in such cases. As a master's degree holder in child protection and working daily in an NGO that supports young people who are experiencing or have experienced risk behavior<\/a>, I have learned to see the reasons and circumstances behind behavior that may not be apparent at first glance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is in no way meant to justify a violent act or to reduce responsibility. A serious act must have consequences and responsibility must remain. But the goal should not be just to react to a specific incident, but to actually prevent something similar from happening again. To do this, we must be able to look a layer deeper. In addition to the question \u201ewhy did he do it?\u201d we must also ask \u201ewhat led him to do it?\u201d It is by looking at these reasons that we can begin to prevent, not just deal with the consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is always a story behind behavior.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I have not met any young person who decided one morning that they were going to be violent. There can be a long and complicated story behind the development of violent behavior. It can be the experience of exclusion or loneliness, a home environment where violence has been common, or bullying by peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of these experiences, some young people may become so attached to peer approval that they will prove their strength, courage, or willingness to confront others in order to maintain their place and belonging. Others may have accumulated a large amount of difficult feelings, frustration, anger, and unspoken words. Without the skills to notice, articulate, and safely express their emotions, violence can become a way to convey something for which there are no words. Often, these stories have not involved an adult who has taken the time to really explore what is happening to the young person. \u201eWhy did you do that?\u201d and \u201eWhat happened to you before that?\u201d are two very different questions. The first focuses on the act and responsibility, the second seeks to understand its context. Both need to be presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have seen in my own life how quickly violence can become normal. When fighting is commonplace at home, at school, on the street, or among friends, a young person learns that strength gives status, that respect comes to those who are stronger, and that showing vulnerability makes you look weak in the eyes of others. If you are in such an environment long enough, you adapt to what is seen around you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And perhaps the most important question is why does a young person feel like they have to fight all the time? What is he afraid of? What is he trying to prove to others? What does he get from this group? Why does aggression feel safer to him than vulnerability? These questions help us understand where change should start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are we teaching young people with our reaction?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For me, what happens after such incidents on social media is telling. It is understandable that people feel angry. Society must condemn violent acts unequivocally and clearly. The victim must receive protection and support, and the people who committed violence must be held accountable for their actions. But alongside justified outrage, we often see labeling, mockery, humiliation, desires for revenge, and calls for violence in the comments. But what are we teaching young people with this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We say that violence is not the solution, but we respond to violence with verbal violence and a desire for revenge. We say that young people need to learn to regulate their emotions while adults get angry in a way that we would be ashamed of when we talk about young people. We talk about empathy without trying to understand the reasons behind the young person's behavior. I understand where this reaction comes from. When someone hurts another person, we want justice. We want the act to have consequences and not happen again. But responsibility and humiliation are not the same thing. Consequences and revenge are not the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Condemning violence does not mean we have to become violent ourselves. Young people watch us not only when we teach them something, but especially when we ourselves are angry, disappointed, or feel that someone has done something unforgivable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They see how we deal with someone who has made a mistake. They see whether we can remain human even when another person has done something very bad. They see whether setting boundaries means putting the other person down, or whether we can say \u201ethis behavior is not acceptable\u201d without saying \u201eyou are hopeless.\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If our message to young people is that violence is wrong, how do we justify our own verbal violence in commentaries? If the goal is to ensure that young people learn something from all this, then we should instead show them how to make different choices in the future. It is our responsibility to set an example so that they learn: we must be responsible for our own behavior, conflicts can be resolved differently, we can learn to manage our emotions, and we must respect other people's boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We too often only realize we are young when something has happened.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Estonia, young people often only seek help when the problem has become big enough that someone has to intervene. There has been a fight, someone has been hurt, the school can no longer cope, the police have to intervene, or the young person comes into the interest of child protection and the legal system. Then we ask why no one did anything before. This is an important question, but in addition to it, these should also be asked: did anyone notice at all before? If they did, did they intervene? Did the young person get help? Did anyone really take an interest in them or was their main focus on controlling their behavior?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How we ask largely determines how a young person experiences help. A young person may be surrounded by many professionals at the same time: child protection, school, support specialists, psychologist, psychiatrist, police and sometimes the judicial system. They may all do their jobs well and genuinely want to help. However, the young person's own experience may be that everyone is talking about them, making plans for them and making decisions about them, but few are talking to them. If a young person perceives help as control, punishment or another prescription, they may no longer accept help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young grow in the environment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But the responsibility cannot be placed solely on specialists. Nor can everything be blamed on the parents or the young person themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A young person grows up in a family, school, friends, on the street, on social media and in society as a whole. All of these environments teach them something about relationships, how to resolve conflicts, what it means to be strong, how to treat someone weaker than you, and how to behave when someone makes a mistake. That is why I have been thinking more and more about the fact that children are not just a mirror of their home. Children are a mirror of the entire society. They reflect what they experience around them: both safe and unsafe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a young person repeatedly experiences exclusion, labeling, humiliation, or the feeling that they are being judged without them, they learn something from this. When adults around them resolve conflicts through force, intimidation, or control, they may come to believe that this is just how the world works. This does not mean that every violent young person\u2019s behavior can be explained by one reason. People\u2019s stories are different. But it does mean that we cannot look at a young person without considering the environment in which they grew up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prevention starts before someone gets hurt<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If we really want to reduce youth violence, our actions cannot begin until something has happened. We need to ask much more uncomfortable questions than who is to blame. A young person needs relationships, a sense of belonging, and the knowledge that they have real influence over their lives. They need adults who are interested in them even when nothing is wrong. They need the opportunity to talk without every conversation turning into an interrogation. They need boundaries and safety at the same time, and the opportunity to make mistakes without making mistakes becoming their identity. If these needs are not met, the young person will start looking for them wherever they can find them: sometimes in a group of friends, sometimes in a gang, sometimes in conflicts, and sometimes through aggression. In this way, the approval of the group can become much more important than the advice of any adult. Looking at the Viimsi case, I do not want to say that these young people were not aware that their actions were wrong. But perhaps we are capable of accepting two truths at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That violence is not acceptable. And at the same time, a young person who uses violence needs more than just condemnation. These ideas are not mutually exclusive. Or perhaps addressing them together provides an opportunity to really talk about responsibility and prevention. If we want a young person to be responsible for their behavior, they must have the opportunity to learn. If we want them to learn empathy, they must also experience it. If we want them to resolve conflicts without violence, they must see adults around them who can do this. And if we want them to stop humiliating others, we must also stop humiliating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our reaction is also a mirror of society<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the question is not just what is happening to our young people. Maybe we also need to ask what is happening to our society? What relationships are we creating? What behaviors are we normalizing? What language are we using? How do we treat someone who has made a mistake? These are not just questions for child protection, schools, or the police. These are questions for all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before writing the next comment, we might pause for a moment and ask ourselves: is what I am saying now part of the change I want to see in young people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because if we want young people to be less violent, we must be willing to look at how we ourselves respond to violence. If we want them to be less judgmental, we must look at our judgments. If we want them to listen, we must learn to listen. If we want them to be able to deal with their emotions, we must show them how to do it. And if we want them to be able to see the person in another person even when they are wrong, we must be willing to do the same.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After what happened in Viimsi, legitimate questions arise, but by responding to violence with anger, we teach young people something completely different than what we want to say. Lisett Rajangu writes why, in addition to asking \u201cwhy did he do it?\u201d, we must also ask \u201cwhat led him to do it?\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[37,32,34,39,36],"class_list":["post-4269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogipostitus","tag-markamine","tag-noored","tag-taiskasvanud","tag-turvalisus","tag-vagivald"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4269"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4350,"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions\/4350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasuudad.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}