Post by Warkitty on Mar 25, 2013 15:10:14 GMT -5
I've been entertained in what spare time I have by the little discussion between PM and JiT in here. At least I was till this morning when I read one commenter stating that parents should be charged when their kid does something wrong.
I get it. I do. I understand all too well the urge to blame parents when kids go bad. The urge to assume that somehow the parenting was lacking. They didn't discipline, or didn't pay attention or something. It's a thought I've had when reading about kids going on shooting sprees (where were the parents? Didn't they know their kid was planning this? We've all heard the cry.)
I've seen first hand that isn't always the case.
In the extended family, one aunt had three kids, an uncle had one. Same side of the family. The three never had much discipline, never were held to standards and always someone made excuses for them. One, I have very slim hope for as he's trying desperately to get a tech degree. He's the only one of the three not currently or formerly incarcerated (theft in one case, theft with a weapon in the other).
The single child? He was disciplined, faced the consequences of every action, had parents involved in his schooling in an attempt to give him the best start, and last year he shot them both, then himself. Despite years of therapy and medication to help him manage the chemical imbalances he suffered.
As a relative outsider to their daily lives (hey, there's a good 1000 miles between us) I'd have put money on one of the other three being the ones to kill someone, up to and including their mother.
I fail to see how blaming the parents would have done any damn good in this one. Sure, the two that have done time you could try to make a claim it's their raising, but I posit that some people are born unbalanced, and sometimes there really isn't anything we can do to fix that.
I get it. I do. I understand all too well the urge to blame parents when kids go bad. The urge to assume that somehow the parenting was lacking. They didn't discipline, or didn't pay attention or something. It's a thought I've had when reading about kids going on shooting sprees (where were the parents? Didn't they know their kid was planning this? We've all heard the cry.)
I've seen first hand that isn't always the case.
In the extended family, one aunt had three kids, an uncle had one. Same side of the family. The three never had much discipline, never were held to standards and always someone made excuses for them. One, I have very slim hope for as he's trying desperately to get a tech degree. He's the only one of the three not currently or formerly incarcerated (theft in one case, theft with a weapon in the other).
The single child? He was disciplined, faced the consequences of every action, had parents involved in his schooling in an attempt to give him the best start, and last year he shot them both, then himself. Despite years of therapy and medication to help him manage the chemical imbalances he suffered.
As a relative outsider to their daily lives (hey, there's a good 1000 miles between us) I'd have put money on one of the other three being the ones to kill someone, up to and including their mother.
I fail to see how blaming the parents would have done any damn good in this one. Sure, the two that have done time you could try to make a claim it's their raising, but I posit that some people are born unbalanced, and sometimes there really isn't anything we can do to fix that.
