Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Hi Kathy:
I'm certainly glad that you are back. <BG>
I couldn't agree with you more about the laws taking a lot of the
authority out of the parents hands. Other than protecting children from
abuse, which definitely should be done, I think the authority to punish,
reward, etc should be completely in the parents hands. Unfortunately it
isn't any more.
I have seen parents who are terrified to punish their kids for fear of
reprisal from the law. And that shouldn't be.
But parents should be responsible for what their kids do from the time
that they are born until they reach 18, IMO. Our parents were.
Of course you are going to have that kid that no matter what you do or
say, he/she is going to do whatever they want anyway. And there is help
out there for those parents. My parents had to have my sister declared
incorrigible in order to get that help. But it worked.
If you could listen to some of the phone calls my husband has every
night with parents you would see that there are a lot of parents who
just don't give a damn. They have no idea where or what their kids are
doing, and as long as they aren't bothered, they don't care.
Riverside has set up a program where the parents are responsible
financially for any damages that their kids do. And it has cut the
graffiti down 50%. The kids are still punished but the parents either
pay for the damage, or spend time in community service to pay off the
damages.
When kids don't go to school, and the parents are given multiple
warnings of this, and they still don't attend, the parents are fined,
and can be jailed. This has also helped. Only one parent has gone to
jail, and she had numerous warnings before that happened.
Some parents aren't like you or I where they make sure that their kids
are where they are suppose to be, and not doing things that can get them
into trouble. Some have no idea where their kids are at midnight. And
I am talking about 11-12-13 year olds. :(
Of course the person who commits the crime should be held liable. But
if something were done to make sure that the kids had a little bit more
respect for authority, and a lot more supervision, then maybe there
wouldn't be any murders, etc to be held liable for. Unfortunately some
times the law has to step in and make some parents responsible do what
they should be doing all along.
Just my opinion on this.
Sue
>
> Oh what a fun thread to come back to! (VBG)
>
> First problem I see with your suggestion Sue is this, what if the
> parents have done everything they can do? Are you still going to hold
> them accountable for the actions of the children? You have put yourself
> btwn a rock and a hard place here, this is why. We have a lot of laws
> protecting children, as there should be but in doing that we also have
> taken the authority out of the hands of the parent's where it belongs.
>
> If you should try to punish your child you could now face charges of
> child abuse, and the kids know it, I have seen countless parent's say
> they can't punish their children if they do the child will call social
> services and turn them in for child abuse. So my question is what do you
> suggest these parent's do? What if they have done all they could and the
> child just won't listen? What do you do then?
>
> Perhaps we could try something new instead of laying the blame on
> everyone but the person committing the crimes, why don't we just lay the
> blame where it belongs on that person and that person only. There comes
> a time when we are all responsible for our own actions. If your
> responsible enough to kill someone your responsible enough to face the
> punishment for that crime.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
