I have children and I have to agree with Needs2know. Parents often are responsible for their kids behavior. I know a ten year old who will surely be in jail by the time he’s 15. Why? Because nothing is ever his fault. It was the other kids doing it, the teacher ( 6 of them so far) picks on him for no reason, the Scout leader ( 4 or 5 of them ) doesn’t like him for no reason, etc.I work with parolees, and it is amazing how many parents are still making excuses for their adult children
Dr Knowit- I’m not going to say parents should be held responsible if their kid breaks into a store, but you know, someone is going to eat the loss. How about the more common situation of an actual child (not a teenager,over whom parents have much less control)causing damage while playing,say by crashing a bike into a car or breaking a window with a ball? I remeber seeing a case on one of theose court shows a couple of years ago which stunned me. A kid broke a window, and the neighbor was suing the father for the cost of the new window.The father’s defense essentially was that his son was responsible, and he was making the son pay the neighbor back. Good in theory, but why should the neighbor have to wait over a year, so the kid could pay him back at the rate of $1/week? I would have paid for the replacement and then made the kid pay me back.
Pthalis- there are good parents with great kids - except for one and vice versa. What you don’t often see are good parents with bad kids -except for one. I mentioned above that I work with parolees,and that a lot of their parents are still making excuses for adult children.Generally, the parents most likely to make excuses are those who have more than one child in the system. I always hated situations where two or more siblings were on parole, because it was a good bet that if they got into trouble, I’d be hearing from the parents how it wasn’t their son or daughter’s fault.
I have no problem at all with the attitude that parents need to be responsible for their parenting. I would never advocate anything else, and I take my job as a parent to be the most important (as well as rewarding) job I will ever have. What I take issue with is that whenever something happens there are folks ready to demonize the parents.
I certainly understand when people say “Why didn’t the parents do X?” There are plenty of parents out there who don’t care enough about their responsibility to their children, and post-game quarterbacking is easy to do. But there shouldn’t be the kind of condemnation that automatically equates the kid doing something wrong with terrible parents. In the end, a parent has the duty to do all that he or she can do to be a good and effective parent, and that is what they should be judged on, not the deeds of their children. Put yourself in the place of a parent who has tried everything they could and still failed. Do you think that anyone in that situation needs more condemnation heaped upon them?
It’s one thing to say “Parents often are responsible…,” and another thing entirely to say “[Parents are] ultimately responsible for their behavior until they are adults.”
Funny Doreen you should mention the kid and bike thing.
It happened to me this Summer. My son who was 8 at the time came barreling out of the adjacent driveway only to encounter my neighbor’s 18 year old daughter pulling away from the curb. He scraped up the side of her car, which she had only had a month. I went ahead and turned it into the insurance, they covered it. It was a little over 500 bucks. Her insurance wouldn’t touch it, saying that it was his fault. Although I’m not entirely sure they even inquired. She is 18 after all and was moving at the time. Probably afraid that her insurance would go up and it’s already high.
My son had no business riding his bike out into the street that way. He’s been punished before for riding in the street. Of course he does cross the road there a lot, his little friend lives a few doors down on the that side. Anyway, I took his bike away for a week and thanked our lucky stars that he wasn’t hurt. The insurance issued the girl a check. And guess what! She never fixed the dent. She used the money to make one of her car payments. I’m not entirely sure I agree with that, but I know people do that kind of thing all the time. Anyway, it was no longer my responsibility by then.
All you have to do is watch Judge Judy a couple of times if you want to see people who refuse to be responsible or teach their children the same values. I know a lot of people make fun of JJ but she makes a lot of good points. I was watching her one afternoon and the parents were in court with their children. The plantiffs child had been bitten by the defendants dog. They were seeking the cost of the medical bills, the child had recieved stitches. I was tripping on this one! The defendant (mother) was very hostile. Her oldest, a boy of 12, had been babysitting his younger sister after school. The the plantiffs child was playing with them in the yard. The little girl had let the dog get out of the house. He was supposed to stay locked up. Evidently the dog had bitten before, another child about 3 months prior. Anyway, the dog ended up biting the child and she recieved stitches. When the injured child’s mother talked to the dog owner she had initially agreed to pay for the damages. But the plantiff wanted the dog put in quaranteen. So she called the authorities to ask about the proceedure. When they discovered that the dog had bitten again they issued a citation, and the dog was ordered put to sleep. The defendant was pissed! She kept yelling about how this woman caused her “family pet” to be put to sleep. Judge Judy tickled the shit out of me. She told the woman something to the effect of…“Don’t you see what’s wrong with this picture? You have child, dog, child, dog…If my kid had been bitten I would have done the same thing. Who wants to run the risk of their child getting sick with rabies? The child is more important in this instance and you had a responsibility to secure a dog that you knew would bite.” Naturally Judy found for the plantiff and she even stated that the woman had not asked for enough money, she would have granted damages. That silly dog woman pissed her off good. Tickled me but it demonstrated just where some people’s priorities lie. Still amazes me even though it shouldn’t.
I still distinctly remember getting out of bed at 1 a.m. one cold winter night to the sound of my daughter saying, “Mom…?” Her car slid down a very icy hill, ran over someone’s mailbox and got stuck in a snowbank. By 3 a.m., my daughter and I had dug her car and the mailbox out of the snowbank. I then left a note inside the mailbox explaining that we didn’t want to wake them in the middle of the night and left my name and phone number with instructions to let me know how much we owed them to repair the damage. Never did it enter my mind that we were not responsible for the actions of our daughter(s).
My daughter gained at least these experiences from this incident: (1) Even if no one is looking or watching, you do the right thing. (2) Even if you couldn’t prevent it, you then correct it. (3) Kindness can be returned.
You see, when the homeowners found my note in their mailbox, I “restored their faith in humanity” and they refused any reimbursement whatsoever. They only called to thank me! Why? Because their mailbox is run over nearly every winter and we were the first to own up to it.
Now, isn’t that sad? I left flowers on their doorstep with a note of gratitude for their generosity.