by SaurKraut

Created on: February 22, 2007   Last Updated: July 18, 2010

PARENTS PUNISHED FOR KIDS PLAYING HOOKY

We are finally getting people placed in the judiciary that are putting some bite back in the law. Over the years, I have heard many people say that they feel it is an injustice to hold parents accountable for their kids' behavior. Then there are those with common sense, who admit that if you have a child, you are responsible for that child. If you choose to take no responsibility, give the child to someone who will take that responsibility.

How people love to deny responsibility, while crying for their leaders to assume some.

Being an adult connotes responsibility unless you're in an asylum or living under a bridge. But we live in a time where I see people working just as hard at not working, or excusing juvenile behaviors. If they did a personal analysis of the time, energy, and stress they committed to such justifications and avoidances, they would realize that they'd do better to simply do the right thing the first time and look better for doing it!

And yet, these are not people governed by logic. They're not governed by will. They're not governed by much at all. How sad to be the illustration of a man with little or no self-control: the person that is the example of "what not to be" in the neighbors' discussions over dinner. Of course no one will tell them this to their faces, so they go on blissfully, believing they have cheated the world effectively when they have only cheated themselves.

I have a friend who is constantly taking his daughter out of school early to play, or sleeping in in the morning and dropping her off late. The excuse is always the same: she has a doctor's appointment. At this point, one wonders how alarmed the teacher might be. This child could be the next Typhoid Mary!

This is a gifted child, who should be encouraged to make school a priority if she ever wants the chance to be anything more than a counterperson at McDonald's. But she's being encouraged to play hooky and lie about it, because it feeds her father's neediness. This is not the underpinning of a future CEO.

But thankfully, the government is beginning to step into such cases. Parents are now being fined, jailed, put on probation, or getting their driver's license taken away because they've allowed or encouraged their kids to skip school. And it's effective. Other parents are calling in, nervously asking if they might be next. Ahhh, at last, some parental concern.

"But what about me?" wails a reader. "My child just won't listen! Am I going to go to jail because of her? I can't control her!" Then may I suggest that you take it seriously enough to get some professional advice and change tactics, or give her to someone who will take control. Because, you see, it's not all about you. It's about them, and our future as a nation.

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