I just watched a video on You Tube that got under my skin. It's a CNN news clip of a 7 year old boy in Florida who decided to take his grandmother's car out for a spin because he was pissed at his mother. If you watch the story, there's a part where the kid is asked by a cop if he should be punished and he says not seriously, "...like no video games for a whole weekend..."
{grumble}
I won't fault the grandmother. In today's society, it seems grandparents are often foster parents for children whose parents want to party into the wee hours of the night or act as if they don't have kids. The grandparents pick up the parenting slack. I want to make it clear that I don't know anything about this family or what their situation is. What I DO know is that the child obvious knows the punishment will be lax. There is a point in the video where the grandmother (who is now responsible for the mailboxes (federal offense) and cars that the little brat hit as well as the repairs to her own SUV) rightfully says "...if I thought they wouldn't take me to jail, I'd whip his behind right now!"
Bravo grandma!
I want to make it clear that I in no way support beating your child. I was probably only hit once or twice in my life and one of them I was old enough to stop the incoming slap and anger my mom even more. My mom believed more in depriving me of fun, TV, games etc. to get her point across and this method seems to have worked with me. I also want to state that I am not a parent. For all of you nodding your head and getting ready to type "that's why I don't understand" keep your comments private. Simply put, I don't think this discredits my opinion in any way. Besides, you need a license to fish, but any two morons can have a child. I have to wonder where the parenting was when this kid was younger. I would never think to do anything like this because I was taught at an early age that there are consequences for actions. The kid even says he wanted to do it because "...it's fun, it's fun to do bad things."
Exactly where do you draw the line between child abuse and parenting? If this kid had been taught the right lessons in life, OK. I see where the "time out" might be the right solution. But this little brat totaled grandma's car just to do something bad.
Insert grandma's slap here.
The state shouldn't punish her, they should commend her. I would just hope it wasn't too little, too late. Instead, they are choosing to file grand theft auto charges against the kid in the hopes of getting him "help."
Times are rough. Gas costs are high and many people are losing their houses. Bush's economic stimulus checks are instead being used to keep food on the table.
I think the tax payers would prefer grandma to take care of it...
(Click the article title to see the original video on You Tube)
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Damn you Tave! Stop giving me topics top rant about! The answer is not punishment but discipline. Discipline your child and you won't be forced to punish. Learning the difference between the two might take a second but the rewards are endless. And yes, I'd have whupped his little ass. Oy, thank god for fibroids.
I've got to tell you I can't agree more. I have the same issue with this. If that kid pulled that shit back in our day he would have been dead and nobody would have blinked. I long for the days when parents didn’t sue the cops for harassment or misconduct because they brought you home after they caught you in the middle of a bunch of monkey business. The cops dropped you off and if you were allowed to live your ass was still stinging three days later and you had a whole bunch of no nothin’ to do except think of about it because your weren’t going to see the light of day for weeks if not months. When wee-me got a smack when I fucked up - guess what - I didn't fuck up again. By the time I was 6 my Nana could stop my mischief in its tracks with a glance. I never messed around when cops were involved because my momma told me one thing – ‘Cops bring you home I will deny you and let you rot in jail.’ to this day I don’t know if it was an empty threat but I can guarantee you that I never found out because not only did it scare me to death but more importantly I respected my mother and wouldn’t do that to her.
I am so positively tired of this super over protected generation. Everybody wins, nobody keeps score, and you are considered precocious if you are disruptive and not a troublesome pain in the ass that should spend the rest of the day in the corner. The corner is damaging to the self-esteem. You know what else is? When you are a ‘grown-up’ at your first job and you get called out at the staff meeting for being an unprofessional self-indulgent moron and you walk away still not understanding why nobody cared what the fuck you had to say.
Hi - I'm a friend of Betty's (so blame her) and she forwarded this to me and I read it and loved it. And of course I have an opinion on everything (um.. I mean, I AM friends with Betty so this should be understood) so I just had to post something here. SO...
I DO have two kids so I feel I am especially qualified to answer this question. And while I don't hit my kids, I am very good at making their little lives miserable when they have screwed up. I have actually once taken every single thing out of my son's room except his bed and his lamp and made him earn his toys back one by one because he had made such a crappy error in judgement. And you know what? James is a really good kid - very polite and well behaved. Because he knows anything less does not fly in our house. You don't have to beat a kid to make their life hell - actually I prize myself on my creativity in making their discipline very personal and relevant in a way that plain corporal punishment can't be. I mean, once the sting fades and eventually they are too big to hit and what then? Not that I have a personal issue with other people spanking their kids. So really the key here is discipline and enforcing rules. Which is another thing that makes parenting hard. You make the rules and you have to live by them all the time. Exceptions have to be just that - rare exceptions. Which is tiring and frustrating and annoying MANY times. But that is how you end up with a child who isn't a brat who takes off in a car because he was annoyed!! (BTW, my son who is 8 and therefore OLDER than the boy in the article, heard the article and his eyes became the size of saucers - not only is the idea of such a level of defiance shocking to him but "that is so dangerous! He could have hurt someone!" Not that he as a child or we as parents are perfect, but COME ON!! I hate the way child rearing is going these days and I have to live in the trenches.
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