Responsibility when kids break the law. (Split thread)

[Duke]

How do you blame some and not others? You can't tell what constitutes a good parent until they are forced to deal with their kids problems.

[twinkle]

That is so true. It's impossible to make a law for everyone. Not all parents talk to their children and not all children are open towards their parents.

Some need encouragement, others need a stronger father figure, other simply must be spanked to get the idea. The only thing all those parents have in common is that they spend their time COMMUNICATING with their kid.

Maybe they should make a reform and parents ought to have some compulsory classes and attend them at school with their child. A class called: getting to know one another.


My father used to drink. I always knew where he kept it, where the cigarettes were, the coffee, etc. It never even crossed my mind to drink it.


Mom has a theory: the education of a child is made untill the kid is 5. It's at that time you have to teach him not to lie, to listen to your every word, to respect you and your values. If he/she gets older than 5 and you didn't get through to him/her, forget it. Later on it's like talking to walls.


I have lived my childhood during communism. I grew up in those agitated times after the revolution, but drugs, gangs, violence were completely ABSENT from my reality. I'm worried that I won't be able to understand my child, his needs, his temptations since I have never been exposed to any of these...

[Star]

Originally Posted by Duke

How do you blame some and not others? You can't tell what constitutes a good parent until they are forced to deal with their kids problems.

that's exactly why i don't agree with putting the parents to blame in ways of fines and/or jail time. What needs to change is the law for the youth. simple. Until that happnes, we will always have these problems with kids.

twinkle...you can't spank an older kid. spanking might work when they're little and controllable, but not once they reach past the age of 8 or 9. The way you discipline your children change as they get older.

I grew up north of ontario where it was pretty isolated from all the really bad stuff. There weren't any gangs or kids killing kids or heavy drugs. The worse thing i did when i was a teen was drink beer and wine and smoked a marahuana joint twice. Violence consisted of a one on one fist fight after school inside a circle of peers. There were no guns or knives involved. Probably because the law was a lot stricter when it came to kids then it is today. Today, kids have no fear of anything; especially authority figures. Why would they be?

When kids are taught in school that they have all the rights in the world at the age of 12 and if we slap their hand, we can go to jail, why wouldn't they take advantage of that? The law turned our kids into little monsters by giving them all these rights that they weren't ready to receive at such a young age. by doing that, they removed our power of control and left us standing there with our arms up in the air asking ourselves, "what the f... happened to my kid?" It happened that fast with my daughter. it was like from one day to the next.

I really know the youth criminal act very well since i've had problems with my daughter for the past 3 1/2 years. They went and changed again about 1 1/2 years ago and made it even more retarded. We, as parents, REALLY do have no control over our kids and neither do legal authority figures. the youth act is a really big joke and an insult to parenthood.

[Samson]

I have lived my childhood during communism.

Then essentially your views on this subject are then very interesting:

Under communism, the state ("law" if you want to call it that) accepts responsibility for everyone's behavior (including children?).

Is this better than parents being responsible for their children?

[twinkle]

you're a cutie, Sam, LOL!!!!

In the communism I lived under, everyone had the same right to be f*cking poor, hungry and educated, .

There was no food in the stores, because the Eastern Europe was isolated from the trade by the rest of the world as if they were contaminated.

It was weird, my parents and their friends were so unhappy and unpleased and they had to keep quiet or else they were risking prison - yes, indeed, there were traitors everywhere.


The thing is, I believe there certainly was some degree of crime, but it was never revealed to the population. There were no drugs because all the black market was trying to sell vegetables. Sad but true.


The State, responsable???? LOOOL.

there was one SUPREME organism: the Party. And the Party was always Right, was always Good and Caring. It did no mistakes as it was blessed with a perfect leader. We were living the "Golden Eve".

All that is true.

Criminality... hum... let me think about that... I honestely don't know. I have never ever heard of such a thing before. The first time I heard of serial killers was during my teen years. We were totally kept in the dark about pedophiles, sociopaths, etc. It's like that part of the society was asleep.

Only gypsies would gang up. Socialising with them was very badly regarded.

Of course, right now, we have perverted after the revolution (1989). Money, local gangs, even drug dealers, I'm sure...

I have never in my life seen any type of drug. Or tried... It's hard, for me it's unthought of. It would never even have crossed my mind.

[Merika]

Twinkle.....You probably grew up more stable because you had REAL life problems to deal with. Many teens today are melodramatic about everything ....because quite frankly....they have no real life worries.

My daughter gets totally depressed over stupid stuff like......she doesn't have a cell phone and isn't going to be getting a new car when she turns 16. Her only real problem is that she needs to learn how public transportation works....so she can get herself a job. HAHA!

[twinkle]

Merika, I have never met your child, but I see my bf and his sister and boy, you are soooo right!

Unles you see your parents handling real hard times and care (for instance, my sister feels no remorse in spending all her money on her own and not buying my parents anything for Christmas) for it, you just can't appreciate it. You can't. They don't have that reference point.

So I don't know if they're to blame... I have no idea. I mean they have to fight temptations much bigger than I did. I didn't have MTV or Discovery Channel to watch all day. Therefore I chose to read. Yes, there are lots of kids my age who didn't do that either and now are really being hit on, but that's another story.

I didn't have any chocolate at all, so staying fit was not that difficult - didn't have oranges either.

I had my friends and was protected from all evil outside, but when I first left my country I was stunned... Yes, I am richer in experience right now, but I can confirm you that I had a much tougher time coping with reality than most kids living in Western Europe or USA ever will. It's a cultural shock and I know no one to love it.

[Duke]

I'm not sure if I mentioned jail time for parents, if I did then it was a slip. I'm still standing firm on the fining of parents however. The fact is that someone has to be responsible for a bad kid. If the law won't hold the child responsible then the next people in line are the parents/legal guardians.

The problem today is that no one is held responsible and that's ridiculous. I do think the law needs to be changed on how to deal with problem kids but until that time, who is to be held accountable if it's not going to be the child?

Again, my focus is fix the laws, but, not all parents are good parents star so they need to be involved in one form or another. If it's not fines then what is it? The only way to get many parents attention is by sticking your fingers in their wallet.

[Merika]

When Sn00py was given a resitution amount...I was the one the court knows is having to pay the amount since he's too young to hold a job. Now, he's turning over his birthday money this year (all but a little of it) to go towards his restitution balance.....but I have the responsibility of the majority of it...as all parents do in a situation with a minor.

If your daughter gets off with a group of friends and gets caught shop lifting, as many kids do, her mom and you would be responsible for the amount of resitution. Why should you also be fined? What are they going to charge you with....being a bad parent?

[Samson]

Why should you also be fined? What are they going to charge you with....being a bad parent?

Well, like you mentioned. These kids aren't usually acting out because of necessity (they aren't starving and stealing chickens), but more out of boredom, peer pressure, whatever good parents better be either paying more attention or paying more fines. The buck stops with the parent, and the sooner we get over the ambivalance about holding parents substantially accountable, if not completely responsible, the sooner we can begin to reverse the trends that are causing Columbine-like happenings.

[Merika]

Well Samson....that would be like me saying that since the state requires me to send my child to school.....IF my child skips decides to leave that campus to skip ...then why shouldn't the school and teacher be fined?

IF, as a parent I obey the law in getting my kid there....why can't they seem to be able to KEEP them there?

I wouldn't expect them to...because they CAN'T. Neither can I....especially since I wouldn't even be the adult present.

[Star]

[quote="Samson"]

The buck stops with the parent, and the sooner we get over the ambivalance about holding parents substantially accountable, if not completely responsible, the sooner we can begin to reverse the trends that are causing Columbine-like happenings.

that's a very nice fantasy. parents being fined is not going to stop the kids from doing what they want whether it's legal or not so how is that any kind of solution? It isn't.

Merika's right. If people can quickly blame the parents for their child's bad behaviour then we in turn should blame teachers for not being able to keep them at school in the first place.

The fact is the law stops all of us from taking control of our children. Stricter punishments on the kids would mean that kids would learn something other then getting a slap on the wrist and going out and doing the same thing again and again.

Please explain how a child will learn anything if the parent is fined or charged? I haven't heard an explanation that makes any sense as of yet.

[Samson]

Please explain how a child will learn anything if the parent is fined or charged?

OK.

1. Parent is fined
2. Parent makes a Choice "A" to do nothing to modify their child's behavior, despite the countless resources available, or Choice "B" to begin to pay attention to their primary responsability and enlist every available resource to modify their child's behavior.

Both choices "cost" something, but if someone is not willing to expend the resources, then it would probably be a good idea not to become a parent.

Of course, this, if anything, is a "fantacy" since obviously there are many people that should not be parents. Unhappily there is no "test" that identifies these people so that we can have them sterilized.

So, we do the next best thing, and have laws that link the observable product of poor parenting (children whose behavior is unlawful) to unpleasent consequences for the parent. The hope is to encourage GOOD parenting that will change the behavior of BAD kids.

Interestingly, what if, despite all the good parenting techniques that have been consistantly reinforced, the kid still screws up? Say she writes a note at school listing all the teachers she plans to torture to death between the Honor Society meeting and Choir practice?

In this scenario, the kid is expelled from school. Parents have to invest some time, effort, and probably dollars finding an alternative to the free public education they enjoyed. The parents are punished as much if not more than the kid.

I say GREAT!!! I hope everyone that reads this has a nice long, very freakin' serious little discussion with their kids about what is right and wrong and what the very firm consequences of what "doing wrong" will be. Its WAY TO LATE to set aside "moral relativism" after children begin coming to school with automatic weapons and live hand grenades, and all the victims' parents, husbands, children, etc. have to listen to after the smoke has cleared is a lot of excuses from the killers' parents about how they couldn't be held responsible because...........


drum rolllllll........

THEY'VE ONLY LIVED WITH AND NURTURED THEIR KIDS FOR THE PAST 13-17 FREAKIN' YEARS AND NEVER SAW IT COMING!!