Why Are Metro Students Making School Threats?

After the deadly shooting in Florida last week, there have been eight reported school threats in the Oklahoma City metro. 

02/16/2018 Related Story: Schools Across Oklahoma Receive Threats

And the question is: why?

Without talking to each individual child making the threats, Kevin Sonntag, Director of Counseling at Sunbeam Family Services, said he couldn’t say exactly why there's been a surge.

“I think one of the things that it tells us is that our kids are asking for attention,” said Kevin Sonntag, Director of Counseling at Sunbeam Family Services. “And we live in a very busy world and I think it’s easy to overlook them or for their needs to seem like an inconvenience. Certainly not always, but often that’s exactly what they’re asking for is just somebody to pay attention.”

Sonntag said threats of violence can come for several reasons, like feeling pain and wanting others to feel it too.

“Sometimes it’s a cry for help,” he said. “It’s saying, ‘well, if you’re not going to listen, then I’m going to make you listen.’ But sometimes it’s just a feeling of being a victim, a feeling of powerlessness and it’s an attempt to sort of right the wrongs that they feel have been done to them.”

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“Often, we get focused on trying to figure out the ‘why’ and that’s the hardest question to answer,” Sonntag told News 9. “What we need to focus on in the meantime is making sure that everyone is safe – getting the right people involved and asking the right questions to get that child help.”