10 Year Old Girl Dies After Fight At School

While the shooting in Chardon, Ohio continues to grab the nation’s attention, buried under the headlines on cnn.com is “Girl, 10, dies hours after fight at school.” 

In an all too common occurrence, two fifth grade students planned a fight after school last Friday.  The girls, ten and eleven years old, met in an alley near their school.  Surrounded by classmates, the girls fought for less than a minute and parted ways.  One of the fighters returned to school immediately after for a scheduled tutoring session.  There were no reports of the fight until after the girl complained of not feeling well and went to the hospital.  6 hours after this planned fight, 10 year old Joanna Ramos died of blunt force trauma to the head.  Grief counselors will be at the school and the fate of the 11 year old girl is uncertain at this time. 

Any YouTube search of “(insert school name here) fights” will often lead to a multitude of cell phone videos of students fighting.  While onlookers cheer and instigate the fighters, there is often no regard for safety.  Kids as young as elementary age throw each other to the ground, kick each other in the head, and slam each other’s skulls into the pavement.  Usually only after a clear advantage is gained will the onlookers break up the fight, or simply separate the fights for another round. 

In this case, there was about a 15 minute window for these girls to leave school, fight, and return to school and act as if nothing happened.  It is time for parents to wake and realize that kids, even as young as 10 years old, even girls, are capable of planning and carrying out dangerous plans without considering the consequences.  It is very cliché to say that kids are growing up in a different time, but it is a point that many do not seem to understand.  Our kids reside in a secret world.  Cellular phones and social networking have helped fuel not only the imaginations of these kids but their rage as well.  Just ten years ago, schoolyard disagreements were often forgotten about overnight.  With the advent of texting and instant messaging, kids get home after school, disappear into their online worlds, and the disagreements evolve.   They are never given the chance to die.  Unfortunately, many parents praise their kids for their technological savvy.  Many of those same parents do not know the ins and outs of texting and social networking, and they do not take the time to learn.  If a parent allows their child to partake in social networking and the freedoms associated with a cellular phone at a young age, extreme diligence and scrutiny must be paid to those accounts.  It is not an invasion of privacy for a parent to monitor their child’s activity, especially on a phone or internet service they pay for!