A Special Valentine Greeting: Love your kids; love the children.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday
Do you
have children who love guns and bombs?
Be aware that this is an indicator, an early sign, a tendency in later
years to becoming violent. And it may come
in their teen years.
Take
these cases. A 17-year old who killed his father and mother and fatally shot
two classmates with rifle (October1997 Mississippi), A 15-year old who fatally
shot two students, wounding 18 others, both parents, and attacked an arresting
officer with knife. And a 14-year old who killed three girls with a 22
semi-automatic pistol (Dec 1997 Kentucky).
It is
utterly shocking for very young people committing heinous crimes!
Adolescence
indeed may lead to the wrong road. But
how do we explain younger boys involved in similar crimes? Just at the
crossroad of childhood? Here is a case of a 11-year old and a 13-year old who
attacked their school killing five with handguns and rifles. (March 1998,
Arkansas)
Observe
your boys (and girls), other kids as well if they exhibit the following
Troubled
Signs
- Torturing animals
- Dressing in Black
- Vowing grim imaginings like
- “I’ll start World War III.”
- “I’m going to kill somebody.”
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“A
child might be defiant at school. What a teacher might not know is that the
student spent the morning feeding a younger sibling or taking care of a
drug-addicted parent. The child, raised with cruelty, violence and hunger,
turns on those around him.” - Pat Kennedy (Erie County Chief Public Defender)
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What can we do as parents, teachers, leaders of our community?
- Keep your family solid, live in peace and harmony
- Restrict toy guns and war toys, including violent games on the computer
- Guide their programs on TV, cinema, computer, including magazines.
- Check your kid’s company. Guard your kid from joining violent groups
- Communicate with your kids
- Give quality time with them. (E.g. Participate in their school activities.
- Show good examples of growing up, live up with these examples
- Don’t spoil or pamper them
- Take them to Nature
- Get proper advice
Youth violence: Contributing factors
- Poor parenting
- Drugs
- Poverty
- Hopelessness
- Poor environment
- Lack of education and training
- Genetic tendency
----------------------------
"There
is a void created when parents are not doing their job. That void has to be
filled." - Judge WR Cunningham, Poor Parenting: Why it hurts.
----------------------------
A Case
Study of a 16-year-old boy
The musician -- in town for a
concert by Erie native Pat Monahan's band Train -- strolled along East 12th
Street at about 10 p.m. on a Saturday night in August.
He had just come from the Country
Fair on Parade Street and was headed back to Tullio Arena.
A 16-year-old boy spotted him from
his aunt's front porch, where he sat playing with a BB gun he had stolen from
Walmart.
He darted from the porch.
"Hey man, hey man," he
said, as he approached the musician from behind.
The musician turned to see a young man
holding what looked like a handgun.
"You better empty that wallet
for me, man," the youth said. The musician ran, reaching for his phone to
call 911.
Moments later, police found the boy
with a friend, pushing a bicycle along the street. He had shoved the gun in his
friend's backpack.
The boy is only 16 but has been
offered what is likely his last chance at "care, treatment and
supervision" by the state juvenile justice system.
His parents, who never married,
split before he was born in Erie. He has been raised by his mother and his
grandmother.
When he got up off the porch to try
the robbery in August, he had already been in and out of placement multiple
times in the Pittsburgh area and here in Erie County.
His mother and grandmother, standing
with him in court in October, want to reach him.
"I am just afraid for
him," his mother tells the judge. "He is my son. I love him. I want
him to do the right thing."
The boy said he wants help.
"I don't want help like people
bossing me around. I want help, like, people actually talking to me," he
told the judge.
The boy prefers crime, his lawyer,
Assistant Public Defender Ian Murray, said.
"He does not want to go to
school and get bossed around. ... The streets have got him right now. He is
glorifying criminal behavior."
Brabender asked the teen what he
wants for his future.
"I want to play baseball,"
the teen answers. When Brabender looks dubious, he said he wants to go to
college.
For him to have any of that,
Brabender said, he will have to, at a minimum, graduate from high school.
"No drugs and alcohol," he tells him. "If you ever get a job,
you need to keep it. Somebody like you, I don't know if you are going to make
it or not."
"I know your family,"
Brabender continued. "There are a lot of good people in it. You can be a
good person. You can be a criminal. It is up to you."
-- Lisa Thompson
"Children
raised in poor, disadvantaged families are at greater risk for offending than
children raised in relatively affluent families." -- "Child Delinquency," U.S. Department of Justice,
bulletin series
"Lost kid” - is there hope?
Yes,
here’s one successful case. Jose took part
in a violent fight, allegedly gang-related, in which one person was killed and
another injured. Although tried as an adult, he served his sentence in Juvenile
Hall, and by all accounts has turned his life around. To those who worked with
him, Jose represents how kids, even those charged with violent offenses, can
change when given a chance.
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Acknowledgement: Internet Source, Time, Living with Nature Series (AVR)
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