What on earth would lead an 18-year-old boy from a top class to stab his teacher and show no remorse? In this interview transcript, originally published on the mainland blog Territory, host Wenjun speaks with Jiang Peirong, a Taiwanese psychologist and Christian, about what might have led to this shocking event. Was it the thousands of hours spent reading Kung Fu novels? Lack of parental involvement? Or was there a deeper root that needs to be addressed?
Jiang goes on to share from her perspective and years of counseling what she sees as the foundational issue that gives rise to such disturbing behavior in young people.
The following is a transcript of an audio interview with marriage, parenting and etiquette expert Jiang Peirong. Jiang is also the author of two best-selling books, Peirong’s Mommy Bible and Raising a Well-Rounded Child.
Interview by host Wenjun, transcribed by Lu Jing and Guo Wei.
In early December an 18-year-old boy from Shaodong County, Hunan province stabbed his teacher to death in front of his own mother. His mother said, “I would rather you killed me, too!” He responded, “If they hadn’t seized my knife, I would have killed even you.” This boy used his mobile phone to read hundreds upon hundreds of Wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) novels, becoming intimately connected to these internet stories, yet hardening his heart and distancing himself from real human relationships.
What Brought about Such a Desperate State?
Wenjun: In October of this year in Shaoyang prefecture, three minors broke into a school on a looting rampage, beating a female teacher with a wooden board. The teacher ultimately died. On December 4, in the same county, a high school student who had just reached 18 years of age stabbed his teacher right in front of his mother. According to statistics reported in the media, there were thirteen such acts of violence by students against teachers this year.
Jiang Peirong: This is pretty horrifying—to see that teaching is now a dangerous profession.
I am curious as to whether or not anyone investigated the family background of these children.
Thinking back over my many years of counseling, the source of the problem can only be uncovered if one reviews the life of the family, the environment in which the child grew up, relationships the child had with siblings, parents, and the people closest to him. From there it might be possible to uncover any revelations about where things got derailed.
Wenjun: What do you mean by things getting “derailed?”
Jiang Peirong: “Derailment” refers to the reality that any human’s greatest need during the first few years of life is to form attachments with parents or close caretakers. This is what we refer to as an “attachment relationship.” Any problems that arise in the course of building this relationship can lead to a variety of difficulties.
Wenjun: Xiao Long (pseudonym) stabbed his teacher right in front of his own mother. This is a boy whose grades tended to fall somewhere in the upper-middle ranking of his class, and his class was one of the top ranked classes in the school. However, he had recently flunked two classes. Out of a sense of responsibility, the teacher contacted Xiao Long’s family and asked them to bring the boy in.
This is when the stabbing occurred. His mother cried, “I would rather you killed me too!” To this Xiao Long responded, “If not for the fact that my knife was seized, I would have killed you too!”
Jiang Peirong: When I saw this news report I felt incredibly sad for the whole family. They must have been so proud to see their son enter one of the top classes in the school, and probably sacrificed everything for him only to be left with nothing but tragedy.
Many Weixin fans asked me, “How do we look at this? How could there be such a cold-blooded animal?” My reaction was not anger or contempt or even to look down on the child, but instead I felt so grieved for this young boy, because any child who is rejected or ignored for long periods will ultimately die a death of the heart. He not only stabbed the teacher, but also wanted to stab his mother! At this point he no longer has feelings, his heart has been dead for so long—this was just my first reaction.
Wenjun: After the incident, a reporter asked Xiao Long “Do you have any regret? Do you feel sorry for what you did?”
Xiao Long replied, “There is nothing to regret. I’ve done what I’ve done. I don’t know my teacher’s family, why should I feel sorry?"
How could he be so heartless?
Jiang Peirong: It seems that this child attended a top school in the city away from home, living nights in the dorms, and having little apparent interaction with his parents. Calls from his father just brought the question “how are your grades?” or the admonishment, “study well.” Conversations such as these give no rise to emotional connection or relational attachment.
Disconnected from People, Addicted to Online Novels.
Wenjun: Recently the news brought up an additional point related to the killing of this teacher. Xiao Long spent countless hours on his phone, reading martial arts novels. He could polish one off in just three to four days, and had already consumed more than one thousand of these novels.
You just mentioned the attachment problem. However, this child spent incredible amounts of time on the internet, living in a fantasy world of fighting and death. What sort of influence do you suspect this had on the situation?
Jiang Peirong: This habit replaced the structures of his inner world divorcing him from reality. I made a video introducing the so-called “Rat Park” experiment. Left alone in a cage, mice would do whatever necessary to suck up drug laced water. However, when the mice lived in a “paradise park” where they experienced good relationships with other mice, they didn’t seek out or become dependent on the mood-altering water.
So Xiao Long became dependent on his relationship with these e-novels. Without them, he couldn’t survive, and in this state he lost all connection with the real world and real people around him. As a result, he now lacks the ability to feel empathy for others and is out of touch with reality. This is why I said that his heart has already died, because at a neurological level he has no way to connect with or experience sympathy for others.
We need to understand that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is connection. Humans are social animals—we were created for relationship.
If we don’t experience a close relationship within our family we will seek out that connection with material things, with drugs, or with a multitude of other possible options.
Wenjun: Parents today feel helpless to control this issue of smartphone addiction among children.
Jiang Peirong: Sure, I often encounter this problem. But the solution is not to send children to military school or to lock the child up. In fact, the most successful way to deal with the problem is to teach parents how to play with their children, how to interact with them. In this way they can establish a close relationship. Parents can join their children in playing Monopoly, board games, cards, and so on.
After their child is born, many parents aren’t sure how to actually raise the child, or how to build a relationship with their child and meet the needs of his or her heart.
In fact, what children need most is to establish a close relationship with their parents and family members. The solution is not just to set up various rules to restrict behavior. In society we have lonely people who become addicted to gambling. What they need is not to be locked up in prison, but instead to repent, enter a group where they are accepted and loved, and to begin once again to build close relationships.
Wenjun: So what you’re saying is that Xiao Long never developed close relationships with his parents, but instead became attached to these e-novels. So he did have a relationship of sorts, but it developed in the wrong direction.
Jiang Peirong: Yes. I don’t know what sort of rules or system of values this fantasy world ran by that would cause a person entrenched in this world to become so cold as to feel nothing when he killed another person.
This is a truly fearful thing, because we have no way to control the kind of internet world that lonely people connect into.
Parents: Do Not Use Shortcuts to Satisfy Your Child, or You Will Pay the Price.
Wenjun: Have the three teenagers in your home faced this kind of temptation towards online games?
Jiang Peirong: Our children did get drawn into the very popular “Seers” game at school, as well as others. Their father joined them in playing these games a few times and eventually they became bored and went looking for new games.
I think that perhaps our children have a certain resistance to these temptations because our family enjoys playing together. We interact a lot at home, where we have a cabinet full of games. As a result, the temptation of video games isn’t quite as strong.
I’ll use another example that we often use in counseling couples who have gotten off track. Each of us has a need, a need that can be met by our spouse. If the marriage develops problems, and there is no way to connect on the most basic needs of intimacy, a person will go looking for alternatives. However, if you can find satisfaction within your marriage, why would you look for substitutes? These substitutes become mere junk food.
Another metaphor—we as humans were created to need food. When we are filled with healthy food, we don’t run after junk food.
Likewise, these internet games are a substitute for true relational connections.
Wenjun: Is it possible that these substitutes are more fun?
Jiang Peirong: In order to engage in healthy relationships, intimate relationships, we must make an investment as well. Many people are lazy, preferring not to put out the effort but instead seeking out relational substitutes.
Many parents these days feel very irritated by their children. They think, “All day I work and do this and do that. I’ll just hand the phone or iPad to my kids.” It is just this sort of parent who comes to me complaining that their child is addicted to video games. Actually, it’s the parents themselves who have enabled their children to develop these shortcuts to satisfy their needs. They have used soul junk food to satisfy the deepest needs of the child, and won’t spend the time to teach the child how to develop healthy habits.
Wenjun: Just now you said “shortcut.” That indicates that if we want our children to develop healthy relationships, it will cost us something. That is, there is no shortcut to take on this road, and a parent might find it exhausting.
Jiang Peirong: When we start to take responsibility for our children, researching how to spend the time we have, enjoying this time instead of seeing it as a burden, this hard work and responsibility becomes our blessing.
We can’t just let them go live with elderly family members and then go off to play and do our own thing. In order to see the blessing, we must put forth the effort.
These days there are many opportunities to take shortcuts. You can hire a nanny or get help from the elderly, or you can babysit them with electronics—the opportunities for parents and children to build a solid relational foundation are greatly reduced.
Children Can Play, but They Must Understand Self-Control.
Wenjun: Today’s parents speak about play as if it’s something in opposition to success and learning.
Jiang Peirong: Right. Because we are always looking at the test scores that are ever before us.
We must step back and look at our lives with more of a long-range perspective. Actually, a love for play is a wonderful partner to help us make it safely to the end of life.
Why?
Because playing is part of our human nature, and yet we find families sparing no effort to squelch this tendency.
Wenjun: So right! We don’t let children play because we want them to focus on their studies so that in the future they can make their fortune and become successful people.
Jiang Peirong: Learning, at its core, is a kind of pleasure. But when we turn the purpose for learning into making money we twist its value.
There is a pastor, John Piper, who says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
We were created to experience satisfaction and joy.
Why do we have this feeling that acquiring satisfaction and joy is a kind of sin? I really don’t know where we got this idea.
In our home we like to say that we play musical instruments, not that we study the piano, or practice the piano. These are two different ways of looking at things. Music is meant to be enjoyed; we are to revel in the joy of making music.
Wenjun: It seems that both healthy and unhealthy relationships have the ability to satisfy humans. Some people think, “the so-called unhealthy relationships satisfy me, and they are more intense and faster, so what is the difference?”
What kind of relationships do you need to establish in order to be healthy?
Jiang Peirong: There is a verse in the Bible that says that anything is permissible for me but I will not be mastered by anything.
This is a principle our home often turned to. If I put so much time into playing my instrument that my enjoyment of playing separates me from relationships with others, this instrument is now my master.
At this point it has become an unhealthy relationship. Anything can be this way. Narcotics after surgery are greatly needed; however if we abuse them, they actually become our master and we begin to depend on them. Without them, we can’t live.
Wenjun: In fact, in the final analysis, we must set our children free from an addictive state. We don’t rescue them by engaging them in some new addiction.
Jiang Peirong: Yes, once we have established a healthy relationship within the child’s family, our goal is to guide him to master himself, and to teach him self-control. What is self-control?
For example, when our eldest knew it was time to apply for college he had many tests, and so for a season he shut down his Facebook account.
He took the initiative to turn it off, because he realized how much of his time it consumed.
Or, for example, when Kai En’s girlfriend said, “I need you to spend more time with me.”
Kai En said, “Right now I need to pay more attention to my grades.” So over the course of many difficult conversations they made the decision to break up and turn their focus back to their studies.
At this time they had to release an addictive thing in their lives, this relationship. Although for a time this was understandably very painful, it was necessary.
In the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we find a principle that, behind every “no” is a greater “yes.”
It is very difficult for me to say “no” to the temporary temptation before my eyes unless I have a bigger motivation. I think we need to be more far-sighted, looking to see what will have the greater benefit for our lives. When I look with these eyes, I will be more willing to say “no” to the shortcut before me, because in the long run this shortcut will actually bring me harm.
Nothing Is More Important than My Child’s Connection to God.
Wenjun: Yes, I am thinking of this child, Xiao Long, who was in the top class in his school. He indulged in these e-novels, yet there were likely those among his classmates who worked desperately to get good scores. Is this not also a possible kind of addiction?
Jiang Peirong: Yes, in fact each of us has a variety of addictions—some that are helpful to us and others that do nothing for us. When I was in high school and college my addiction was the praise of others. I really only knew what other people wanted me to do, not what I wanted to do.
Wenjun: These are things we adults must be constantly learning as well.
There are so many things to attract the attention of a child; things that are so easy to become addicted to. How then can we help our children? Do you have any specific recommendations?
Jiang Peirong: As humans we can become addicted to all sorts of things. My husband likes joke, “if only you were addicted to me, then you wouldn’t have to be busy with all of these other things!”
But, in fact, each of us was created with a hole in our hearts. We grasp at all sorts of things to try and satisfy this need, but at the end of the day, unless we develop a relationship with the one who created us and understands the vision for why we were created, and how much we are loved, this hole will never be completely filled. We will constantly seek substitutes to fill the emptiness.
My greatest desire for children is this: That they themselves build a relationship with their creator. In this way their life will have a guarantee for the future, as well as a sense of direction so that they won’t lose their way.
Ultimately, humans were created to enjoy God, to know that God takes pleasure in us, that he enjoys us, and that he loves us.
So once we have built a healthy relationship with God, this relationship is eternal, and we don’t need to worry so much about the potential for our children to get caught up in unhealthy things, because we know that God is constantly with our child and leading him or her.
In the same way, if we have God in our lives, and if we understand how precious this life is, we will learn to love and cherish ourselves.
When we have truly met this need, we will go out and do what it beneficial for ourselves and others.
Wenjun: Xiao Long will definitely be punished by the law. Is there any hope for a child who has gone this far?
Jiang Peirong: This reminds me of something that happened in the US a number of years ago (actually, there are many such examples) that I found very shocking. A man raped more than 30 women and then killed them. He was put on death row, and while he was waiting to die the founder of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson, personally went to the prison to visit this criminal. Dr. Dobson led this man to believe in Jesus, but there was an immediate backlash from society of people who said that this sort of person was unworthy of entering heaven, and did not deserve salvation.
After this man came to faith, he was willing to do many interviews in the media, repenting of his crimes, and apologizing to the families of the victims. In making penance for his errors, this man showed a true reversal in his life. In the few years before he was executed, he did a number of good things for society.
So I would say that Xiao Long’s life need not necessarily be completely defined by the terrible sin he has committed. There is a possibility of redemption.
Does our society have a person like Dr. Dobson, who would be willing to go to prison and visit Xiao Long? Someone to express concern and help him to understand that the needs of his heart cannot be met by these e-novels, but that there is a God who is waiting for this prodigal son? Is there someone who would be willing to do this sort of work?
Who among us is willing to accept this challenge?
Original article: 别让手机成为情感关系的替代品——高中生杀老师访谈蒋佩蓉 (Territory)
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