BTS.talk: Kids Breaking My Heart

PODcast: Kids Breaking My Heart
I think it would be better if they were home in front of their computers blast it! (Yes I realize I'm ranting)

length: 05:39
file: btstpod_1093.mp3
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status: live (at time of posting)

[edit on 12/18/2005 by Relentless]

I'm so sorry, that's so sad.

I doubt the parents know and if I were in your shoes, I would do everything possible to inform the parents.

Why are kids like this? There are no consequenses, that's one reason. Either the kids or the parents should pay for this.

Either that or they should get a really good dose of what it feels like to have their own personal property destroyed...

[edit on 18-12-2005 by Benevolent Heretic]

I think you're right about the no consequences part BH - the deputy as much as told me that they wouldn't even try to find them.

As for me tracking down the parents, if I still lived there I would, but I don't want to do anything if it could impact the new owners any further.

I can assure you the parents have no idea. I've known kids who've done the same thing. Vandalizing propety that isn't theirs, just because they're bored.

It's a shame, but it happens.

--Kit.

You should have thrown some of those frozen eggs at them when you had the chance.

I'm serious, we need to go back to the day when the grandmother, like my grandmother, would make us go out and pick a switch so they could give us a serious beating with it.

Someone should start a podthread on this so we could seriously discuss the issue of disciplining children. Then we need to make the results mandtory listening to all the parents out there.

Who's up to the challenge?

Love and light,

Wupy

As a child myself.. well, not so much any more... I'm 18 now, almost 19. But ever since I was 12 or 13, seeing everything going on around me with other kids, I have pretty much agreed with what mrwupy is saying. Kids need some discipline. Which is kind of a weird thing to say, when you are a kid yourself. I wish teachers had the ability to just slap kids upside the head when they start acting like little assholes. Actually (at least here), they actually do have the ability to exercise the right of a "reasonable parent", but none of them will, because of the possible consequences.

The fact of the matter is that kids don't fear their parents any more, parents fear their kids. Things have gotten so ridiculously PC that you can't even yell at your kids any more, let alone physically discipline them. Which drastically needs to change... because if it doesn't, things are definately going to get worse before they get better.

Needless to say, if I was ever sitting inside and saw a kid come up and start vandalizing my house, I would run out and lay a beating on them. And I'd advise anyone else in the position to do the same. I wouldn't care if there was three feet of snow outside and I was in my bare feet; the adrenaline would keep me going long enough. lol.

KIDS THESE DAYS!! (I'm serious. And this is coming from a kid myself. That's bad.)

Need to find someone on ATS who is a lawyer and figure out what our fullest extent of disciplining other people's children is.... especially when they are trespassing and vandalizing private property. My assumption would be that if it's your property, you could use any means necessary to get them off.

[edit on 18-12-2005 by Yarcofin]

Originally posted by mrwupy

I'm serious, we need to go back to the day when the grandmother, like my grandmother, would make us go out and pick a switch so they could give us a serious beating with it.

I am sorry that you had such a gruesome grandmother. She even let you pick a switch to hurt you the best she can with it afterwards?
Unbelievable, what a sad childhood. Education with fear is a bad thing.

If we are responsible parents (or teacher) half the battle is won. The other half is helping children follow our footsteps.

If children are taught to welcome responsibility, they can approach life with an energetic eagerness to grow and accomplish.

Gruesome?

Mr. Whupy's grandmother was the type of guardian who instilled discipline

I have no doubt that Granny Wupy was also a loving, nurturing grandmother. She proved she loved young Whupy by whupping him when necessary.

God says to spare the rod is to spoil the child.

TC, despite the religious justification, that's just common sense. Fastest way to make sure your kid ends up a crappy person is to spare the rod.

Relent, hearing about your troubles makes me sad.

I suppose the case that this could be mischief over, but ...still, I'm afraid the officer was straight up with you. The odds of the police expending any amount of effort on this are minimal, but if they are caught on something else and alreayd in police custody...well, I suppose you can add humiliation to the hurt by going in and kicking up a fuss about the vandalism. Odds are, you'll be able to get some charges pressed.

Long shot, I know, but better than nothing.

DE

If someone even tried to do that to my house I would simply pull a gun, with absolutely no intent to shoot, and I would say, "Get off my property." If thats what it takes then thats what I will do. Afterwards I would seriously booby trap my house.
Motion activated flame throwers hidden in garden ornaments, minute landmines placed around the yard, a couple of bb guns set to go off when someone trips a wire, stuff like that. I'd make it so if they tried to break in to my house, or try and damage it they'd be having nightmares for weeks. Now, nothing that would seriously hurt them, but just inflict pain. Now, if your wondering, the flame throwers would only give a medium sized spirt of flame, and the land mines would only be enough to damage their shoes and scare the heck out of them.

Relent, I feel your pain. If I knew where they lived and I could get there I'd make their lives a living hell for a few days. Honestly, thats the only way kids will learn in todays day and age. They only learn what to do and what not to do through physical pain, emotional pain, isolation, and fear. I'll tell you why too. Its because they don't have a set of moral values!!!!! I would think that their parents are trying to teach them some but they have too much exposure to the outside world to listen to their parents.
Those are my thoughts anyway.

Peace out,
Void

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
God says to spare the rod is to spoil the child.

That can be taken to an extreme. Trust me. While I'm all for disciplining children and starting early to set boundaries, too many is the time my legs, butt and back carried bloody welts for days from an extreme beating from my father and all I heard was "Spare the rod and spoil the child." I don't even remember what the punishment was for most of the time. Makes me sick to my stomach to hear that phrase.

There should be something about "abuse the rod and damage the child."

Sorry, that's off topic, but I just wanted to point out that just as leniency can ruin a child, so can the other extreme.

Obviously, I am not talking about abusing the rod, and neither was God.
I assure you, I did never abuse the rod, and my son does not behave that way. A person like Relentless will never have to worry about one like my son.

PODcast: Kids Breaking My Heart (reply 1)
How should people discipline children, anyway? How do we teach them to respect?

length: 06:19
file: btstpod_1100.mp3
size: 2965k
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PODcast: Kids Breaking My Heart (reply 2)
Should I do This? I have an idea, please tell me what you think. Might it make a difference?

length: 09:31
file: btstpod_1101.mp3
size: 8638k
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I definitely think you should write the letter. If I were in your position, I probably would let the parents and other neighbors know who you are, but not where you live, if that's possible.

I know it's not your house, but think how it would be if it was. If someone knew who did it and didn't do or say anything... I know if I was the new owner, I'd sure appreciate it.

I have been in a situation where, for the good of the neighborhood, I sort of put myself on the line and I have never regretted it and I'd do it again.

It's really terrible that they're so young! What are they going to be doing by the time they're 17?

Good luck and keep us updated.

Here's my letter. What do you think? Should I send it?

Dear Neighbors:

Some incidents have occurred in the ****** area recently that have broken my heart. My husband and I came from NY in 2001 and love this little city of ours, but it’s not going to be the wonderful place we feel it is for long if someone doesn’t do something.

We recently sold our ****** home and moved to another section of town. We never had any problems when we lived there. However, just prior to moving, a house was being constructed next to our lot. A few kids (young kids) were enjoying the newly laid foundation and hanging out with their skateboards and some music. They got a little rowdy and started messing with the plumbing lines on the site. They were asked to move on by my husband, and cautioned about harming the property but he was flatly ignored. Another neighbor chased them out afterwards.

My question to the parents of these children is – whatever happened to respecting your elders?

Anyway, we moved out of our beautiful home, but your new neighbors (who are lovely people by the way) had not yet moved in. We were stopping by to check on the house for them. On Saturday, December 17th the children were back. The walls of the house under construction are now up. When we arrived on Sunday our home had been vandalized by large chunks (A LOT) of concrete thrown through the screen into the pool and on the deck, and also some sort of target practice had occurred against the garage door, with a rather daunting pile of concrete chunks left as evidence.

So, under the assumption that those of you with children would be as horrified as I was to see what these basically good kids have done, I propose the following:

Talk to your kids! Straighten them out now! It also wouldn’t hurt if a few of the parents who might realize their kids were involved, for their sake mostly, to get together and have your children offer some sort of restitution to your new neighbors (What kind of a greeting is this?). I don’t think the monetary damage is beyond making the children work off the debt, but at least make them apologize for heavens sake, even with an anonymous card. In fact, since the damage to the house under construction is probably more extensive, I would almost recommend this route.

Now as a further precaution as to why you need to get your kids clear on respect of other people and their property, I have something to say to those of you who don’t have children but enjoyed (as we did) having them in the neighborhood.

Don’t waste your time trying to intervene if you see this type of activity in the future. This is not the world we grew up in where the children care if an adult admonishes them, and it may in fact lead to further retaliation just for fun. Call the ******* immediately and let them confront the kids and chase them off.

For the record, this is not a 911 call. You need to use the non-emergency number which is ***-****. This number has a recording but if you dial 0 you will get a person, even on the weekend. Use it!



Sincerely,

(Used my former Title in lieu of my name)

P.S. I do not want to see any young child arrested for bad judgment and being bored, but I guarantee you will have worse problems than that if you don’t teach them a lesson now.

Thank you for your consideration

P.P.S I think I should share from my past experience in NY. There was a serious crime (almost cost a kid his life) that the kids filmed. The children were called in with their parents and told what had occurred. The parents flat out asked their kids in front of the officers if they were involved, and the kids told their parents no. The parents told the officers their kids don’t lie to them so they had the wrong kid. Then they were all shown the tape. What a wake up call. Kids are kids, they lie when they are cornered or when they feel trapped, they are only children, not saints. Love them, trust them, but don’t be naive.

Final comment: Please don’t use this incident to gossip and blame other peoples children behind your neighbors back. It won’t help and it serves no purpose. Take care of your own.

I am cc’ing the Sheriff with this letter. They should know who I am and I leave it in their judgment (and give my permission) to pass on my contact information to any parent who seriously wants to discuss this with me. I am not including my name here for obvious reasons, to just be harassed by people who don’t get it.

I can't tell you what you should do, I can only say what I would do and I have already done that. It's a good letter. Good job. Good luck.

It's a well written letter, but.....

I'm not sure it will make a blind bit of difference. I can probably guarantee you at least half the parents who read this letter will take it as a personal afront against themselves.

You can probably guess yourself that many parents would not believe their little angels get up to such bad behaviour. The other half will probably trot out the usual litany of excuses such as nothing for the kids to do (pass the buck), working too hard to spend time with their kids (pass the buck) or it is the bad influence of some other neighbour's kids (pass the buck).

Well, keep us posted about the response, if any.

Double Post!!

[edit on 19-12-2005 by howmuchisthedoggy]