Later, we sat together at the kitchen table. We both felt awful. I apologized for losing my temper. Dylan apologized for forgetting Mother’s Day, and volunteered to help me prepare dinner. That afternoon, he went out to buy me a card and an African violet planted in a tiny watering can. It was a perfect gift; I love miniatures, and we’d collected some together when he was little. We hugged. I thought it was okay, although I noted he’d only signed his name to the card, instead of saying “Love, Dylan.”
Of course I wished we hadn’t fought, particularly on Mother’s Day, but I felt justified. Aren’t you supposed to confront your kids when you feel like they’re straying off the straight and narrow? I feel differently about that fight now. I know that hugging my son and telling him I loved him wouldn’t have stopped him from hurting himself and others. Still, I wish I had taken his hand. Sit down with me. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Instead of telling him everything he was doing wrong, or what he had to be grateful for, I wish I’d listened, and validated his pain. If I had to do it over again, I’d tell him, You’ve changed, and it’s scaring me.
But I wasn’t scared. I should have been, but I was not.
? ? ?
I can now see there was a great deal to be concerned about in Dylan’s junior year.
In the background, there was the worry of Tom’s illness, financial uncertainty, and friction between Tom and Byron and me. All these factors increase the risk of depression in the vulnerable. Dylan’s arrest and the bullying he was experiencing at school are both social factors associated with a higher risk of depression and suicidality. His increased irritability and an uncharacteristic lack of motivation were signs of depression, though these seemed well within the parameters of what a parent could expect from a teenage boy. He carefully hid his alcohol use—another risk factor—from us. Every time we felt truly concerned about him, he’d go out of his way to reassure us that everything was okay.
So how does a concerned parent parse out the difference between garden-variety adolescent behavior (“He’s so lazy; he’s got such a crappy attitude; she’s such a drama queen”) from real indicators of depression or other types of brain illness? The crucial question raised by a story like mine is how to tell when actions or words indicate something worrisome.
There is no fail-safe answer; in fact, these are some of the most troubling unresolved issues in the field of behavioral medicine. But Dr. Christine Moutier of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention teaches medical students and physicians to pay attention to changes: in sleep patterns, expressions of anxiety, shifts in mood or usual patterns of behavior, or in a teen’s “personality.” Taken individually, these may indicate nothing more than a stressful week, but a constellation of changes may signal a more serious problem. Junior year, Dylan went from being the kid I didn’t have to worry about to the kid I was worried about all the time. After sixteen years of no trouble at all, suddenly he was in conflict with the authorities at his school, with us, with other kids, and ultimately, with the law.
Dr. Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI profiler and a forensic behavioral consultant, authored the FBI report “The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective,” shortly after the tragedy. She warns against relying on a kid’s self-reporting and advises parents to look at behaviors. If something seems inconsistent or inexplicable, get another pair of eyes on the problem, and don’t allow yourself to be mollified.
Loving our kids makes us more susceptible to ignoring disturbing behaviors, or explaining them away. This is especially true when the kid in question is “a good kid,” and when we have a good relationship. It’s a fight to see these behaviors clearly, and to act when we notice something. But you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t.
If you’re worried, Dr. Moutier advises, seek expert help. If the child is okay, hearing it from a therapist will make you feel better; if there is a more serious problem, a therapist is more likely to recognize it, and can help.
Dylan did not want to get help. His journals show he was trying to manage his problems by himself. Given this aspect of his personality (and his innate stubbornness), I’m not convinced I would have been able to force him to see a therapist; even if I had gotten him to the office, he would have been perfectly capable of sitting there in sullen silence for an hour. I asked Dr. Langman, who specializes in adolescents, what he suggests to parents whose child won’t cooperate; he told me he asks the parents to come in. Often a conversation with them is enough to determine whether further intervention, such as contacting a child’s guidance counselor at school (or even law enforcement) is necessary.
Dylan promised he’d turn his life around, and then he did. According to Dr. O’Toole, that recovery might have been a sign in itself, one especially common among young women in abusive relationships. As soon as a parent moves to intervene—“I don’t want you seeing Johnny anymore”—the girl returns to actively managing their impression of her.
There are, of course, no guarantees a child will be okay, even with professional help. Eric’s parents did send him to a psychiatrist after the arrest, and he began taking medication—none of which stopped him from putting into motion the events of April 20, 1999.
These days, when I page through one of my old diaries and read an entry like “Dylan crabby when reminded to feed the cats,” part of my brain howls: How could you miss that?! Didn’t you know depression often presents as irritability in adolescent boys? I did not, and I am not alone. Somewhere out there in America right now, a suburban mom is pointing with exasperation at two hungry, hopeful cats threading around the ankles of a teenage boy who has forgotten to feed them. Chances are, that boy will grow up without event to lecture his own teenager over a pair of empty cat food bowls.
But for some percentage of families, this will not be the happy outcome. Some unlucky mix of a child’s vulnerabilities and the circumstances that trigger them will combine to set off a much darker cascade.
CHAPTER 14
Pathway to Violence
Dylan’s Senior Year
Robyn pinning a boutonniere on Dylan the afternoon of their senior prom, three days before the shootings.
The Klebold Family
It has always been my feeling that one of the great tragedies of Columbine is the fact that yourselves and the Harrises shared nothing of your own lessons from Columbine. That is, you’ve failed to respond to the questions so many parents in the world have: What signs of hatred and despair did you see? What warning signs did you miss? Were you a family that ever spent much time at the dinner table together? What did your son talk about? What would you have done differently in raising Dylan?…
The most nagging question to me involves what your son hid from you. I’ve heard a number of people say that teens can be very good at hiding items (e.g., bombs and guns) and secrets from their parents. I don’t disagree with that. But this was not just a case of hiding things. Your son was so angry and distressed and hateful and so troubled that he wanted to kill hundreds of his classmates. Hundreds! How in the world could you not have seen that your son was THAT hateful and troubled? How did you become so disconnected that you did not see this disposition of his? How could that happen?!?
I think you could do a great service if you were to speak publicly about those lessons. Sure, it would be very difficult for you to do so. Painful, yes. Might people say you were terrible, neglectful parents? Sure. But obviously many say that already. To me what’s most important is that the pain you might encounter by being open and speaking publicly could not possibly be worse than the pain you’ve already experienced in losing your son in such a tragic way, not to mention the guilt associated with doing nothing as repentance.
—Excerpt from a September 2007 letter from Tom Mauser, the father of Daniel Mauser, one of the boys killed on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School