Kids Serving Life

[Patroklos]

They would rather spend their time goofing off, and since they aren't responsible for their schooling, they given no reason not to.

Well now you have stumbled onto the true source of the problem, which is the lack of short term ACCOUNTABILITY for their actions. Students are responsible for their schooling, behaviour, sexual choices, etc. We can'd directly force them to do any of that stuff. The problem is we delay the accountability for there actions (both good and bad) until 18 when we kick them out on the streets.

Trust me, if I came home with an F, got suspended from school or knocked up my gf at 14 accountability would be swift and exacting. Consequently I wouldn't do it again.

Guess whose job that is?

[Jon Miller]

Teenagers are adults though, and as such holding their parents accountable for them causes issues between them (including teenagers just ignoring their parents, which happens often). Additionally, since they are adults, they aren't going to respond as well to someone holding responsibility over them rather then responsibility for themselves.

The last 100 years has shown the failure of the current treatment of teenagers, why do you need more proof?

The education can be acheived in 14 years that we now do in 18. As such, since 18 yearolds can be financially responsible for themselves now, 14 yearolds can be if we change how we do education.

College doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, a requirement for everyone. So the fact that some one academically qualify is no big deal (and isn't now).

JM

[Jon Miller]

Parents are accountable for their 4 and 6 yearolds. Everyone but the worse parents acheives this.

Parents, even the best of them, fail at being accountable for their teenagers. That is because their teenagers are adults! Not kids!

Forcing against biology is just causing needless social problems.

JM

[Patroklos]

Teenagers are adults though, and as such holding their parents accountable for them causes issues between them

Yeah, issues like them not bringing home another F report card or getting kicked out of school again.

You really have this backwards JM, the reason we are seeing the problems here is because parents are not holding their children accountable, not because they are.

There is no consequence for a kid doing bad in school, so most don't care. Your solution is obviously to kick all nonperforms to the street if they don't perform like the real world?

The last 100 years has shown the failure of the current treatment of teenagers, why do you need more proof?

Seems to me the problems started when parents relaxed their iron grip on their children around the 50's onwards. As soon as our kids were given an opportunity to run amuck, guess what happened?

The education can be achieved in 14 years that we now do in 18.

What planet do you live on? Our kids are failing with the curriculum the have now, and you want us the double it? When is the last time you spent an hour with a 10 year old?

As such, since 18 year olds can be financially responsible for themselves now, 14 year olds can be if we change how we do education.

[Patroklos]

Parents, even the best of them, fail at being accountable for their teenagers. That is because their teenagers are adults! Not kids!

My parents didn't. Around 14/15 I grew tired of them being accountable for me and everything that entailed so I took the reigns and regulated myself. That doesn't mean my folks didn't have an overwatch, but as I proved I was responsible the restraints loosened. You earn responsibilty JM, thats how the real world is.

Forcing against biology is just causing needless social problems.

Thats great. I am happy to know you will be moving to PA and tilling the feilds with the Quakers when you decide to raise your children. Or maybe you will start a hunter gatherer tribe in Brazil.

The modern world isn't natural, which is why we tend to frown on our children having kids as 11.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Patroklos



What planet do you live on? Our kids are failing with the curriculum the have now, and you want us the double it? When is the last time you spent an hour with a 10 year old?

I can tell you, it is because they aren't working at it.

And 10 yearolds worked at things (factories, farm work) 100 years ago.

In fact, I know a very few who do now.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Teenagers have a biological need to be indepdent. Their biology is telling them they are adults, but our society isn't allowing them to be so. As such they are miserable, and they show indepdence in what ways they can (by rebelling) (which are generally in such areas as irresponsible sex or substance use).

I see no reason why we must refuse them this need to be indepdent. In a capitalst society, indepdence depends upond finance, and there isn't even a reason for teenagers to not be financially indepdent.

We see more and more irresponsible bahavoir going into the 20s, and 20 yearolds become less and less financially indepdent. This crime against our young adults will continue, and will cause soceity to become more miserable for everone, as long as we fail to recognise the central issue.

JM

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Patroklos
You were responsible, but not accountable. There is a big difference. And if you think you are "independent" in the military you are missing the point. The idea is to have every crutch available to you when you fall down, the real world isn't like that.

I fail to see how that is important to major direction of the discussion.

And I was accountable, as in - if there would be troubles voting or any inaccuracies - I would probably get sacked / imprisoned. These were elections for the Israeli parliament + head of state.

You mean like going out after the street lights come on at ten? Earning an allowance through chores at thirteen? Driving at sixteen? voting at eighteen? Starting with small things and working your way up is how it works now.

I mean like getting chores at home, and being left to run their own schedule by parents. I mean like stop having the parents totally running the kid's life.

I mean like getting to choose a percentage of one's classes in school.

I mean like being allowed to vote at 16-18, and being allowed to drink at 16-18, and being allowed to have sex and / or make a family at 16-18.

Being allowed to get a serious job at 16-18 too.

I repeat, do you remember the kids you went to high school with?

Of course I do.

Most of them really began improving themselves after suddenly becoming responsible for stuff.

Being a stupid ass punk is a luxury that people allow themselves when they have nothing better to do. Only the worse kind continue to become utterly irresponsible adults / parents. The rest will only benefit if society demands more from them in an earlier stage.

If you think you were up to AP Calculus/Engish/Biology at 12 go right ahead, but you are looking back at your youth with rose colored glasses.

Actually I had an excellent level of English when I was 13.
And I started learning calculus and basic mathematical theory (numner theory, groups theory, functions theory eyc) around the same age, and was a great student until very recently.

Unless we are going to assume their parents are still paying for that, which defeats the whole point.

It doesn't.

[Mr. Harley]

Uh, guys, you're missing something. Two out of the five young me in the report came from Hideously abusive environments. They are not learning responsibility, or any other similar life skills. They are focused on survival, pure and simple. Like the boy whose stepfather would take him into the bathroom to beat and rape him (read the story - I seperate abusive acts from violent acts).

The offenders that are abused have an utterly warped sense of responsibility and accountability. To them accountability means being abused for the slightest infractions (as well as randomly or routinely, depending on the environment). How many of you could deal with being beaten for the slightest infraction. It creates no sense of responsibility, only fear. Germane to the original post on how to avoid these kids - identify abusive situations early on. Of course you need to do it without false alarms that screw up healthy families.

Your discussion is very good in arguing over the best way to bring up healthy adolescents, and I agree with many of the statements. It's just for the kids that are abused it has NO relationship to their expenience. We haven't even discussed that there are also control issues - again read the one where the mother used control and sexual abuse to manipulate him and keep him isolated - that again make these kids INCAPABLE of normal lives without massive intervention.

That last reason is why I am very mixed. Kids like this are DANGEROUS. I do not believe they should be punished per se when they kill their abusers, but I do believe society must be kept safe. A high security mental institution, with accounatabliity for results, would be best. I just cannot see the current US electorate choosing that, both for the "Tough on Crime" aspect as well as the expense (skilled mental health care workers are paid a fair bit extra for working with these clients due to the fact that building trust and the other necessities for successful treatment means dealing with them in less than totally secure environments).

[Patroklos]

I suppose we really shouldn't hold school shootings against them either, they were only acting out agianst the bullies and peer abuseres.

[Arrian]

Good post (Mr. Harley).

I don't think he's saying the kids have no responsibility in the matter whatsoever. But come on...

-Arrian

[Jon Miller]

I think that a lot more people should be in mental institutions in the US today. People who are messed up from abuse lead that list.

JM

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Patroklos
I suppose we really shouldn't hold school shootings against them either, they were only acting out agianst the bullies and peer abuseres.

Doesn't really matter, does it? Most school shooters kill themselves.

[Mr. Harley]

Arrian - thank you for reading what I actually said.

Patroklos - I stated only when they kill the abusers who were their caregivers. There is a substantial difference between killing the kid who beats you up and a stepfather who rapes you daily. At least I hope you will grant that.

Plus, when schools ignore terrible abuse, and the parents (though sometimes the parents HAVE tried and been ignored) also, the children can go through living hell. Depending on the situation, etc. an isolated number go postal. Chegitz makes a very good point. Most school shooters kill themselvers. Since attempted suicide is considered under the DSM IV as a hallmark of serious depression, successfully doing it pretty much tells you they were mentally ill.

They were a couple of isolated mega-shootings where this was not the case, and the pathologies involved may have been much more similiar to the issues many of you have brought up reference how children are raised. But most of the school shootings that ended in suicide indeed came from constant, unrelenting abuse ignored by school authorities. These kids found death preferable to living, but unlike your normal suicide (which is most common among adolescent males with access to firearms) they decided to take their abusers with them.

Just like the kids who shoot their uber-abusive parents - these kids are deadly dangerous due to their mental illness. However, since the compounding factor is abuse combined with clinical depression, the prognosis would in general be better than the adolescents abused since childhood. Sadly, since they so often suicide, it's moot.

For those adolescents who killed without remorse, and without depression, not just their abusers but members of the general school population - that is a textbook sociopath. The prognosis is worse than the adolescent abused since childhood - sociopaths are almost never rehabilitated (my wife corrected me you don't even discuss "cure" and sociopath), but they can be trained to give the right answers and to be clever about the heinous crimes they commit. You really do ned to lock them up for life.

[thesilentone]

Great post Harley. I know most penal systems DO recognise when people have committed crimes in large part due to horrendous upbringings, it just makes me sad when so many ignore the psychologists reports and just sentance them to life in the worst prisons where they have no hope of a better life.