How stupid our laws are getting??

[973beachbum]

Apr 26, 2011 20:38:17 GMT -5 oped said:

So we should fine and lock up the kid?

Yes! If this is the kid doing the cutting on his own. And at 15 it probably is then put him in a Juve home and force him to go to school there. At least then it is accomplishing what is ostensibly sought though all this.

If the system doesn't care if he actually gets an education then why bother putting the mom in jail in the first place? All this does is put 4 more kids in the foster system and strain an already strained jail system.

Am I the only person who notices though that the school system decides how these things play out.. If they had put the child in jail then the school district would have to pay for the child's schooling in jail. But by putting the mom in jail they don't have to pay a dime out of the districts pocket.

[zibazinski]

Schools have accountability for enrolled students. Usually the truant kids are those teachers and fellow students are glad to be gone but that is neither here nor there. The law is the law. You can bet if handouts were based on attendance and behavior in school, there'd be better attendance and behavior in schools. Do any former teachers ever have the experinece that poorly behaved children are NEVER absent? That's because their parents don't want them home, either. Just one bad apple can spoil a whole class and that is just wrong.

[whoisjohngalt]

They are not setting up rules for parenting. They are setting up rules for attending school.

Of course they are. If they were setting up rules for attendance only, they would punish the child and child only, ESPECIALLY at HS level.

I am not going to go into the debate of attendance, bc I personally think that it's the worst measure of anything, whether you are talking about funding or learning. Just bc you are physically in school, it doesn't mean you are learning, so the only benefit I guess is that school gets money.

To punish a parent, and severely punish a parent for this is just another example of lack of logic and common sense in the education system.

On a side note, I never said that I think "merit pay" is a good idea or that teachers should be evaluated based on students' grades

Lena

[Firebird]

Oh wow. This is ridiculous. Having your parent in jail is just going to encourage the kids to continue not to go to school (unless there's some sort of arrangement where you have to go to school in order to get your parent out of jail).

My DF was jailed for truancy in high school - just for a couple of days, then he was released with the understanding that he would go back if he didn't show up.

[ty]

Apr 27, 2011 10:38:26 GMT -5 Firebird said:

Oh wow. This is ridiculous. Having your parent in jail is just going to encourage the kids to continue not to go to school (unless there's some sort of arrangement where you have to go to school in order to get your parent out of jail).

My DF was jailed for truancy in high school - just for a couple of days, then he was released with the understanding that he would go back if he didn't show up.

[Firebird]

There is typically a history of absolutely no structure (bedtime, homework time, etc) nor any clear expectations about going to school or education being important. When a parent spends 15 years of a childs life putting their own needs above that of their child (example: dragging 4 school age kids to WalMart at midnight on the first of the month because they got their food stamps and NEED to buy food) and I could give a million other examples of this, what do you expect? Of course there are exceptions to this, but, they certainly are in the minority, IME.

Yes, but how does jailing the parent help matters? If the kid is that unstructured, they're just going to be relieved that they have even more freedom now (unless, as I said, they have to go to school to get Mom out of jail because I don't think most kids would want to be the reason their parent was in jail).

[zibazinski]

Remove the child from an environment that contributed to the idea that not doing your job is okay. Going to school is a job like any other. Expectations, rewards, and consequences. Perhaps the "parent" might not mess around with the others in her family knowing that jail awaits.

[zibazinski]

Besides, if I ended up in jail because my kid was doing this, there would be punishment for it, not just a "talking to-time out" crap. That, of course assumes I am a good parent with a bad kid who needed rules reinforced again. Lousy parents might move to a less strict school district.

[Firebird]

Apr 26, 2011 20:46:47 GMT -5 @ty said:

Apr 26, 2011 20:38:17 GMT -5 oped said:

So we should fine and lock up the kid?

Actually the kid need a tracking ankle device put on him instead of tossing the parents in jail. This way they can be monitored where they are during the day like in school. Parents get a key to put it on them before heading to school and then the truant officers can monitor them.

Easy fix for the problem rather than tossing the parents in jail.

Love this idea.

For one - how much does our parenting really have to be regulated?? Bc then we should be starting WAY before children get to school age. We should start with people having children period. If you don't think that Mary will be a good parent, force her to have an abortion. But if we oh so famous for saying "it's a free country" than how dare we punish parents for a certain way of parenting. YOU might think education is important, but may be Mary does not.

So very true. If we're going to regulate parenting to this extent, we need to start way sooner than age 15.

[zibazinski]

Isn't it amazing that we, as a society, have regressed to the point that it is okay to not be a good parent? That it's okay for your child/children to run wild and be poorly behaved? Where's the shame in a lot of behaviors that are shameful? Morals, decency, just doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not because you'll be punished if you don't.

[zibazinski]

Frankly, if you aren't capable of taking care of a child, then you have no business having one. If you get pregnant, you have two choices but I, for one, am tired of lousy parents just breeding like there's no tomorrow on my dime. Don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em.

[Firebird]

Frankly, if you aren't capable of taking care of a child, then you have no business having one. If you get pregnant, you have two choices but I, for one, am tired of lousy parents just breeding like there's no tomorrow on my dime. Don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em.

I agree with you completely (DF and I were just talking about this last night - as a population control measure, you could have only one or two children unless you showed evidence that you could financially support more) but we always come back to the question of how in the hell you'd enforce such a thing. Mandatory abortions? That'll go over real well with the pro-lifers. You can't even force birth control without hampering religious freedom in some cases (Catholics, for example, are not supposed to use any birth control method other than NFP).

So, I have no idea how you'd make that happen. Obviously, if it was that important to you to not get pregnant and forced into an abortion you could be abstinent - but I don't see that going over big in our do-whatever-you-want culture ;D

[whoisjohngalt]

Isn't it amazing that we, as a society, have regressed to the point that it is okay to not be a good parent?

Out of all the things that we, as a society regressed in, I don't think parenting is one of them.

We ARE spoiled, with no boundaries and no morals, so of course it will be translated into our ideas of what is appropriate for our children.

But again, monitoring parenting skills is no one's business, ESPECIALLY not the school's.

Also, you said you would punish your kid if you ended up in jail. I would like to know how. What would you do? (not being snarky, just curious)

Lena

[zibazinski]

Depends on the age actually. Different things work at different ages.

[whoisjohngalt]

Well, OP was talking about 15 yr old.

My 2.9 mo old told me today that he won't listen to me, bc he "needs" to do the things that he "needs" to do. I have no idea if he actually understood what he was saying, but needless to say that won't fly with me very far. However, my options are what to do are still very limited.

I would imagine with a 15 yr old the options are even more limited.

Lena

[Deleted]

Apr 27, 2011 11:03:31 GMT -5 Firebird said:

Frankly, if you aren't capable of taking care of a child, then you have no business having one. If you get pregnant, you have two choices but I, for one, am tired of lousy parents just breeding like there's no tomorrow on my dime. Don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em.

I agree with you completely (DF and I were just talking about this last night - as a population control measure, you could have only one or two children unless you showed evidence that you could financially support more) but we always come back to the question of how in the hell you'd enforce such a thing. Mandatory abortions? That'll go over real well with the pro-lifers. You can't even force birth control without hampering religious freedom in some cases (Catholics, for example, are not supposed to use any birth control method other than NFP).

So, I have no idea how you'd make that happen. Obviously, if it was that important to you to not get pregnant and forced into an abortion you could be abstinent - but I don't see that going over big in our do-whatever-you-want culture ;D

You enforce it through tax code. Kid 1 - tax credit. Kid 2 - no additional tax credit, but you get Kid 1's still. Kid 3+ - no tax credit at all including kid 1's.

Cut off the tax credit gravy train

[Firebird]

Good start, mmc, but what about all the social welfare programs designed to reward as many kids as possible? The problem with cutting those back in a similar manner is that it transfers the suffering of the parents' bad decisions onto their helpless kids.

[Deleted]

My 2.9 mo old told me today that he won't listen to me, bc he "needs" to do the things that he "needs" to do. I have no idea if he actually understood what he was saying, but needless to say that won't fly with me very far. However, my options are what to do are still very limited.

I would imagine with a 15 yr old the options are even more limited.

This is what I struggled with with my teenagers. How do you MAKE someone do something? Sure, you can impose consequences after the fact, but I can't figure out how you force someone to do something in the first place, besides using physical force or the threat of immediate bodily harm. Then that's a whole nother issue.

All the know-it-alls that tell me what I should make my kids do, get confused when I ask them to tell me exactly how to do it.

[zibazinski]

It's the same old tired line that gets trotted out every time someone says stop paying parents who spew out children they can't support. Guess what? They either will support them or they won't have them or they will lose custody of them. As far as a fifteen year old, you take away privileges and if that doesn't curtail bad behavior, you send them to "boot camps." My Mom's step son was sent to one because he was causing trouble at home and she wasn't going to deal with it. 3 months there was LONG ENOUGH for him to "see the light." Came home a much better human being. Sometimes people need to realize the world does not revolve around them and perhaps they should be a bit grateful for what they do get.

[flopsy]

i skipped "communications" once because i have a fear of speaking in front of groups and cannot do impromptu speeches/debate for the life of me. i guess my parents are lucky that i was never tempted to play hookie since they sent me to school almost 30 miles away from home that was also a few miles from anything.

in most cases i believe the truant is the one to blame and fail to see how fines are jailing a parent will change anything.

[NoNamePerson]

I skipped EVERY Wednesday while in the 10th and 11th grades. I only went on Wednesday if I had test or exams.

It always surprised me that no teachers caught on but I went to a pretty large high school.

[qofcc]

I skipped EVERY Wednesday while in the 10th and 11th grades. I only went on Wednesday if I had test or exams.

It always surprised me that no teachers caught on but I went to a pretty large high school.

How were your grades and did this affect the rest of your life? I'm just asking because I skipped a lot of school too and I turned into a productive member of society. I also graduated 10th in my HS class. I skipped a lot of classes in college too, but I maintained a 3.0 GPA for the year I went (I finished my degree by taking equivalency tests 20 years later). Once I started working, I started showing up because they PAID me to.

I think the punishment (if there is one) should be on the kids, but I guess it depends on their grades, what they're doing when they're skipping and how the parents feel about it. If they're doing OK in school and not behaving like juvenile delinquents on the days they don't go, then I'm not sure that they need to show up just so the school gets aid$. If they're failing classes, then that's a natural consequence. If they're off being juvenile delinquents there should be natural consequences for that. I don't think skipping school in and of itself should be a jail-able crime.

[NoNamePerson]

Apr 27, 2011 14:41:25 GMT -5 qofcc said:

I skipped EVERY Wednesday while in the 10th and 11th grades. I only went on Wednesday if I had test or exams.

It always surprised me that no teachers caught on but I went to a pretty large high school.

How were your grades and did this affect the rest of your life? I'm just asking because I skipped a lot of school too and I turned into a productive member of society. I also graduated 10th in my HS class. I skipped a lot of classes in college too, but I maintained a 3.0 GPA for the year I went (I finished my degree by taking equivalency tests 20 years later). Once I started working, I started showing up because they PAID me to.

I think the punishment (if there is one) should be on the kids, but I guess it depends on their grades, what they're doing when they're skipping and how the parents feel about it. If they're doing OK in school and not behaving like juvenile delinquents on the days they don't go, then I'm not sure that they need to show up just so the school gets aid$. If they're failing classes, then that's a natural consequence. If they're off being juvenile delinquents there should be natural consequences for that. I don't think skipping school in and of itself should be a jail-able crime.

I was A - B student. I loved studying and learning. I just thought going on Wednesdays was the pitts. I didn't skip much in college but I loved college courses. I turned into a productive member of society and I always showed up for work on Wednesdays cause they paid me too. I am retired and I still love learning new things

Of course, I never told my son of my "Wednesday National Holiday" decree

[Deleted]

Every year when I register my kids for school, I get hassled because I refuse to fill out the application for free/reduced lunch. One lady got really upset with me this year. She explained that the schools get money according to how many students are on these programs. I told her that's fine, but I KNOW my family won't qualify because I'm over the income limits, so I'm not putting all my business on the application. She wanted to argue with me about it, I just laid the blank application on the table and walked off.

I know it takes money to run schools, but sheesh!

[Firebird]

I in no way shape or form was financially prepared for either of my children, but I started making changes from the day I knew I was pregnant,

In my mind, that's the difference tbird. So many people get pregnant and just go on like their life ISN'T about to change enormously. It's one thing to not be prepared and then rise to the opportunity - it's quite another to not be prepared and let the challenge drag you even further down than you were before.

My $0.02.

[whoisjohngalt]

Any time I hear "population control" the first thing I think of is Hitler - he was very big on that.

Lena

[whoisjohngalt]

Yes, yes and yes!!!

[Firebird]

The first thing I think of is the fact that we've got a fairly small world and we're filling it up awfully fast :-)

[Firebird]

Birth control is here. Many loving wanna-be parents can't find a baby to adopt. Greatly reduce/eliminate welfare and once again - becoming a parent is going to be a hard, life changing decision.

Again though - it's the kids who suffer for that if the parents choose not to step up to their responsibilities. It's not like people will have fewer kids they can't support, they'll just have unhappier kids.

And I personally think that if you make enough stupid choices, you should forfeit some of your freedom to continue making stupid choices. If you got six DUIs and they hadn't yet taken your license away, wouldn't you say that they SHOULD have?

[whoisjohngalt]

That might be true, but I haven't heard any reasonable ways to fix that yet, although for US, I do like Tbird's way A LOT!!