A baby is born with certain instincts to ensure its survival. It demands food, warmth, to be close to its mother and love. Given those, the baby will thrive. Watching a new-born lamb and the ewe snickering to the baby demonstrate this bond. Cows mourn the loss of their calves when they are taken away so we can have the milk. 

From birth humans learn. They learn by example, by copying the behavior of others, especially those important to them. This is how humans become socialized into their community. Most adults have been frustrated by a child who appears to disregard the need to conform to their society’s rules.  

It has almost become a joke when adults say to children do as I say, not as I do. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding in how children learn. Adding that an enormous amount of human communication is non verbal, it is easy to understand why children behave as they do. They follow what they see and perceive rather than what they are told. 

A child who lives in a violent environment will learn to be violent. It’s the way to survive. Survival is the most important job a child has because their job is to become adults and produce the next generation to maintain the species. The violence can be bullying by parents, siblings, school mates or other adults. It can be images in the home of how the adults behave towards each other. The violence demonstrated in so-called ‘exciting’ films, video games and stories teach children graphically about what damage one human can do to another. Like fairy tales this might seem all right to do but in a fictitious story, no one really comes to harm. These images are in reality a threat to the survival of the child because it is distorting the role the child, then adult, has to play. Most soldiers have to be taught to kill and are then left with that knowledge. As a result many who return from violent combat end up homeless and unable to fit into society. Soldiers are usually the best ambassadors for peace because they know the consequences of war. 

One of the results of mistreatment to children is that they end up angry. It may not manifest itself overtly but the shortness of temper, the irritable response to an apparent neutral comment, demonstrate a level of anger in the individual which is high. When this is taken to extremes, the person might stop caring about the results of their actions. This creates a dangerous situation because that person then becomes unpredictable. 

Violence is a learned behavior not something with which individuals are born.