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Jane

Gilgun Summary This brief article explains how it happened that a trusted nanny may have stabbed and killed a toddler boy and a six year-old girl in her care. This article applies to the alleged killer only if she actually did the killings. The ideologies of violence that are part of the article apply to whoever did the killings. About the Author Jane F. Gilgun, PhD, LICSW, is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. Professor Gilgun has done research on the meanings of violence to perpetrators, the development of violent behaviors, and how persons overcome adversities for almost 30 years. She has many articles, books, and childrens stories available on Amazon and other booksellers and for e-readers such as Kindle, iPad, and Nook. rushed by lifes circumstances, a nanny may have killed a toddler boy and a six year-old girl. The nanny was found unconscious with stab wounds to her throat and the children dead in a bathtub. Yesterday. She now is in a medically induced coma. Maybe someone else did the stabbing. The police cannot ask her. Left behind are a brother of the children, distraught parents, distraught grandparents, and parents across the country terrorized because they have nannies or others who take care of their children. What is behind such horrific actions? If the nanny is the murderer, then its her belief system, just as belief systems are behind every act of violence. The ideas apply to her if she is the killer or to any other person who killed the children. The importance of ideologies applies to anyone who commits violence. In this case, the 50 year-old nanny was depressed and angry. Life had been unkind for a long time. If she killed the children and harmed herself, she could no longer bear feeling as she did. She would have believed that the way to deal with her depression and anger was to kill little children and then herself. Like other murderers, she would have had tunnel vision. She would have been so focused on her own rage and what to do about it that she would not have thought

Nanny May Have Killed Young Children: Ideologies of Violence Triumph

about consequences for the children and their families, for other nannies, and for parents everywhere. When she comes out of her coma, she is likely to be distraught at what she has done, fi she did the killings. Other beliefs will flood back in. Too late. As the media probes into her background and if she is the killer, they will find she has a history of trauma that she never dealt with, that she had been exposed early and for a long time to ideologies of vengeance and physical violence, and that she has had recent negative life events. Theyll also find that she was a kind and loving person to almost everyone who knew her. If she is the killer, her story is the story of every person who commits acts of violence. Most people who commit such terrible acts appear to be like most everyone elsekind, considerate, and all the rest. We cant see inside of them. When the going gets tough, deep-seated beliefs about violence as a way to deal with rage and hurt overpower beliefs about kindness and love. People who commit violence believe that harming others and the self are what they must do to redress the wrongs that theyve experienced. They have not experienced long-term relationships with others where they can work through the meanings of events in their lives. They never developed protective mechanisms that dissolve thoughts of harming others that arise when the going gets tough. The rest of us cant read minds. We trust people who care for our children. I hope the parents of the two children are not blaming themselves. They could not know the nanny would do such things, if she did. They were close to her. They trusted her. If she did it, she was blind with rage and acted out deep-seated ideologies while ignoring ideologies of love and care that she also undoubtedly had. People who commit violence have ideologies of violence. They act them out. Nothing within them stops them. Reference Gilgun, Jane F. (2012). The logic of murderous rampages and other essays on violence. Amazon. Kleinfield, N.R. and Wendy Ruderman (2012). Life was in chaos for nanny accused of killings. New York Times, October 27, 2012. A1, A17.

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