[Winona Online Democracy]
Hello Duane (Peterson),
Thanks for your comments. I agree with your many good points.
I don't think we should in any way force parents to take those kinds of
classes but I do think we should do everything we can to make parents want
to attend and make it both affordable/free and conveniant to attend.
It would take a small evolution in community ethics and caring to make it
happen but it's possible. We would have to realize that not all government
is big and corrupt (the same can be said for businesses). There is place
for local communities and local governments to do things to allow people to
help fellow community members.
As to the comparison to the agriculture based society, they are difficult
to make because we are comparing apples and oranges in so many ways. I was
raised on a farm until I was ten when the farm went bankrupt. I was raised
differently than many of today's youth. I had one set of grandparents and
cousins within a half mile of our house and most of my family lived within
a 20 minute drive. Neither of my grandmothers worked outside of the home
and most of my aunts did not either, of course some would consider farm
work as ten jobs. Today's world is very different than those days.
One thing that I think is desperatedly needed is for us to take a good long
and hard look at our so called "average" work week. Many countries in
Europe are already moving to shorter work weeks. One of the planks in the
Green Party Platform is enacting a policy to allow people to have more
family, volunteer, religious, civic, personal, and education time by slowly
reducing the work week to 32 hours or less. (Thats' a big topic in and of
itself.) Unfortunately, these topics are not discussed in our very limited
and compartively conservative political discourses, especially when you
compare our political conversations with those of Europe and the rest of
the world. Those countries have many more political parties and much wider
and diverse set of ideas to debate and choose from.
Everything is so linked together.
Dwayne Voegeli
---------------
>Dwayne, you are right on. Community efforts need to be at the front end of
>the problem. The Courts and law enforcement always deal with the back end
>of the problem when disaster has already occurred. The courts are not
>equipped to handle prevention except as a deterrent. The strongest
>influence on teen drinkers are the parents. Parents are most effective if
>they have discussed the problem before the child begins to drink. Each
>family may handle the problem differently but each should deal with it.
>Parent education may be a good way to go. In court I saw a lot of parents
>(again on the back end of the problem) doing a bad job of parenting. There
>are a host of reasons for this, but if it becomes a societal problem,
>society may need to intervene with educational programs to help teach
>parents how to handle their children with problems of various kinds. The
>front end of this problem is when two young people decide to get married.
>The Catholic church has a program of education for couples that wish to be
>married in the church. I am sure that other churches do something similar.
>Do they all have a component on raising children and dealing with how to
>discipline children and how to communicate with them at different ages.
>I have a crazy theory about how our forefathers and foremothers learned how
>to parent. In those earlier days we had an agricultural society. Everybody
>learned how to handle animals. To teach an animal to do what you want it to
>do, you have to have clear commands and you must be consistent. Otherwise
>the animal gets confused and does not respond to your commands. In those
>days it was a necessity to know how to deal with animals in order to make
>them work for you. They knew that and dealt with children the same way.
>They were at least consistent and children knew where they stood. It was
>not perfect and there were bad examples of poor discipline of both children
>and animals, but the basic idea of the person in charge being consistent was
>rooted in society. Thus, we had a greater percentage of children staying
>out of trouble. It's just my crazy theory, but an interesting speculation.
>Duane M. Peterson
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Dwayne Voegeli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 10:05 AM
>Subject: [Winona] drug & alcohol prevention
>
>
>> [Winona Online Democracy]
>>
>>
>> Hello Everyone,
>>
>> I agree with Scott Lowery's points on looking at the front end of the drug
>> and alcohol problem instead of just the back end when legal consequences
>> have to be and should be applied. As a High School teacher, the problems
>> of drug and alcohol use are huge. The larger issues of character
>education
>> and community/civic disentegration are even more important but we rarely
>> seem to have a chance or ability to discuss those issues.
>>
>> We have many under utilized resources in our community that could be used
>> to fix these issues before they become problems.
>>
>> We have ideas for mentorship programs, we know we need more counselors,
>> support groups, and early intervention groups, there are teachers (like
>> John Ruggeburg at WSHS) and community members who are locally and
>> nationally known in the fields of character education, etc.
>>
>> It seems that many solutions are there. They sit idle on the shelves half
>> baked.
>>
>> What we lack is the committment and education to make these plans happen.
>> If the committement and education is there, the funds should follow...even
>> in today's current tax cutting frenzy atmosphere.
>>
>> Maybe some kind of community wide task force should be created for a
>> limited amount of time with the express purpose of coming up with concrete
>> actions.
>>
>> What do others think?
>>
>> Dwayne
>>
>> -------------
>>
>> >Mime-Version: 1.0
>> >Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 22:23:52 -0600
>> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >From: Scott Lowery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> >Subject: [Winona] drug & alcohol prevention
>> >Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >Precedence: bulk
>> >
>> >[Winona Online Democracy]
>> >
>> >First, it's obviously not news to anyone working with at-risk teens that
>> >this is a huge issue, and that it's one that is connected to other huge
>> >issues. I only have time for a general observation and a quick thought
>> >about one prevention approach.
>> >
>> >The general observation: it is naturally tempting to look first to
>> >increased legal consequences. Bear in mind the cost of incarceration and
>> >the incredible logjam that exists in courts and corrections. We could
>> >theoretically get involved in some fairly intensive, "deep-end"
>> >intervention services and still be much less expensive than sending kids
>> >away.
>> >
>> >One approach: for the past two years, Family Services Collaborative money
>> >has funded chemical dependency counselors on-site at two off-campus,
>> >alternative school settings for teens. My experience has been that the
>> >counselors are in very high demand, and that they can't ever seem to
>catch
>> >up with each of the kids who wants to meet with them or participate in a
>> >group. I don't know whether there is any funding for this to continue
>this
>> >year. It seems to me that approaches like this are very cost-effective,
>and
>> >yet it seems to be a rare event to have "front-line staff" cross over
>> >agency borders, with the firm, on-going funding and thoughtful
>supervision
>> >needed to develop a successful program. Why is that so rare a thing?
>> >
>> >Scott Lowery
>> >461 Sunnyview Drive, Rollingstone MN 55969
>> >home phone: (507)689-4532
>> >school phone: (507)453-3888
>> >home email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >school email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >
>> >"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time." James Thurber
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >----------------
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>>
>>
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>> This message was posted to the Winona Online Democracy Project.
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