Responsibility when kids break the law. (Split thread)

[Samson]

I hate to burst your bubble but you NEVER know how your kid will turn out when he/she turns 12 or so.

Never said I could predict the future.

I said I'd take my chances, do my part, and be ready to receive consequences, including fines, if my kid exhibits sustained and consistantly documented (which by the way, includes my signature confirming that I've been part of the due process) behaviorial problems.

Its called taking responsibility. I don't have a problem with it. I'm not going to try to dig up a few exceptions so that I can avoid accepting this responsibility.

I'll say it again: Moral relativity has become a slippery slope which has disallowed social norms in favor of catering to the few acceptions. If parents put forth a fraction of the effort of whining about their innate inability to take responsibility for their kids into actually parenting, then we'd all have a much better society. Utopian goal? Perhaps, but what about the alternative. No goal, simply avoidance and denile, doesn't seem to be working very well.

[Duke]

What percentage of the population are you referring to here when you talk about denial, bad parenting, etc.?

[Merika]

I don't know Samson....it's easy to judge until you've walked a mile in someone else's shoes.

I've raised my kids for 7 years without financial help from their deadbeat Dad. I've had to work long hours and live on a tight budget which didn't allow for all kinds of extracurricular activities. My kids don't get to go to the circus each time it comes to town and sometimes...they haven't gotten new shoes everytime they need them either. I didn't have the time, nor a wife, to drive them to Little League or pamper them through school. There are time they couldn't have a friend spend the night....because I didn't have the food to feed anymore other than my two.

My daughter's school had a bomb threat last week, the house across the street was broken into Sunday morning....and yesterday they found a dead body at the elementary school. You don't live in my reality and have no understandinf of it.

Cut your income in half, don't have a wife to help with the kids and see how rosey it is in trying to raise them.

[Samson]

What percentage of the population are you referring to here when you talk about denial, bad parenting, etc.?

Why? Writing a book? 1%, 5%, or 10%? what does it matter?

In my experience with about 1500 kids over a 5 year period it has been only about 2% of parents that 1. had kids that had consistant and sustained behavior problems and 2. refused to constructively intervene to change these behaviors.

Merika, there are lots of parents that have circumstances similar to your own that manage take responsibility for their children's behavior. I'm not debating that raising kids is either "rosey" or not depending on your circumstances. This is immaterial to the degree we accept responsibility for their behavior, and the accountability we should have for it.

We either accept responsibility or we make excuses. Belive me, I've heard plenty of excuses

[Duke]

No but thank's for being an arse about the question.

I think this post has seen as much debate as it's going to see. I think we can all agree to disagree on this one.