teen beatings
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teen beatings
| Thu, 04-27-2006 - 2:39am |
watching the news tonight and there were 2 stories about teen beatings. One was a video that has been playing on myspace of 2 middle school girls and allegedly one of the moms drove one of the girls to this fight, the whole thing is video taped. the other was high school seniors. I managed to miss the story but caught a snippet about it being senior skip day and they showed several boys beating the snot out of another boy.
I'm just sick. I mean completely sick to my stomach about this kind of stuff. I just don't understand it at all. what ever happened to compassion for others, walking a mile in other peoples shoes and all that stuff? Man, anyone else see these stories? I don't think either one of them was local.

Our community schools approved full time resource officers(police)at a board meeting this month because of the escalated violence. One incident involved girls and the fight began in the neighborhood and continued into the school with personnel injured as they tried to break it up
Locally, we had a puppy rescue story about several junior high school age boys beating a Lab puppy with a bat and sticks-broken bones, etc and surely would have died if neighbors had not heard the yelps and intervened
I dunno. My boys certainly have their issues but none of them have aggression issues or are prone to violence(Our fears have always revolved around worrying if they would protect themselves if attacked) And they play violent video games and have never been restricted on what movies they can watch
So, because of that personal experience, I have a tough time buying into the media theory myself
I think there is more actual violence inside homes and around some neighborhoods than people want to admit. I think the only way these kids learn that level of hatred is by seeing actual human beings engage in it, probaby some they know.
I didn't see those stories, but it's just sick to me as a parent to actually hear this is what kids AND the schools are becoming. It's not that uncommon as people may think for it to happen in your own school district. All of our kids at one time or another have spoken about so and so fighting or even worse, when a gang gets involved.
Our schools have not only FT police officers in ALL buildings, but the dogs as well. This btw is an upper income suburb district proving it's not just inner-city schools that have serious problems. And for those that may not want to believe gangs are alive and well in suburbs, I would argue that point, as would our local police. It's insane to think this is the environment our next generation is being taught in.
I know fighting has been happening since the beginning, but it still makes me sick. My "best friend" growing up was a fighter, she'd fight anyone, bigger or smaller, boy or girl. But, she also saw a LOT of violence in her home (but her parents were strongly opposed to spanking...) I only saw spanking and NO violence in my home. I don't know if it's environment/family or hard wiring or maybe both. I'm just not a violent person. I always think about how it would feel to be the person being hurt. I know not everyone is that way. I've also been the person getting the crap beat out of them and no one helps. Everyone around is afraid. I don't understand that, either. In the 6th grade, a girl had decided she hated me, for whatever reason, she doesn't even know why. She tackled me, pinned me down and was beating the crap out of me, and every one around us either barely watched or just went about playing and ignored us completely. She only stopped when the bell rang, so she wouldn't be late. I was late to class, I got in trouble, she thought it was great. I thought it was even better because I sure didn't want to go out, so getting in trouble meant I had to stay inside, with the teacher, where I wanted to be anyway.
But, I've also broken up fights, intervened and/or called for help/police. I don't understand why people don't get involved. Like in the case of those 2 middle school girls fighting, rolling all over the road, pouncing on each other. People watched, someone video taped, but no one stepped in and stopped it. It's utterly senseless to me.
When my senior got jumped in the locker room, he got in as much trouble as the kid who threw the punches. My son has what we call an alligator mouth, he says too much to anyone who will hear, he's really good at pissing people off. Basically, that's the bottom line in this "fight." The fact that the kid who jumped him is well over 6 feet, with guns for arms, and my son is 5'3" weighing all of 110, skinny as a stick, that didn't matter to administration. The other kid has beat up tons of people at school, caused tons of problems at school, but that attacker got the same punishment as the attackee. I think that's wrong, and clearly sends the wrong message.
Our School district has *1* cop for all the buildings. There are 2 high schools (one regular and 1 more like a contract based) and 2 middle schools. The cop has to split his time between these 4, plus the 4 elemetary schools when necessary. How can *1* person do all this?? It's truly not possible. I wish we had a cop and a dog in every school, but I doubt we ever will.
It scares me to death that my teen is having these issues this year. What will it be like in 12 years when my youngest starts high school? Violence on tv doesn't make kids violent. Experiencing first hand violence sure does!
This is a personal soap box, but it kind of relates to this topic:
Do you think the significant changes in kids' behavior overall is connected to the way we've taken power away from the authority figures and given it to the kids? Our teachers can't reprimand, punish, call-out, embarrass, etc. a student without fear of reprisal. Parents can't discipline their kids without fear of DFS knocking. Kids in general lack that good healthy respect born of fear that we all had growing up (variations of "wait until your father gets home").
I think it also correlates to the "mind your own business" mentality that is so prevalent today. Instead of "it takes a village" neighbors tend to duck and run to avoid becoming involved.
It's sad and scary. The world is moving so quickly and "society" is offering kids adult decisions at a much younger age...
Thanks for letting me get that out.
Dani
Is there room for me on that soap box? I totally agree. We've given all the power to the kids. and "mind your own business" is a whole 'nother thing. WHY don't people get involved? They are worried more about themselves than about other people.
20/20 did a thing about that. They had a couple in a park fighting. They were "discussing" something that was quite heated, with him being forceful, restraining her so she couldn't leave, pushing her, mind abuse type things. They did it with a white couple and then with a black couple. NO ONE stopped for the white couple at all, even though the woman really played it up, very believable. Several people stared at both couples, a few appeared to make phone calls, most crossed to the other side of the path and kept moving to avoid the situation. *1* person stopped, for the black couple. A very small woman. She was very vocal about the man needing to leave, just walk away, that she wasn't leaving until he left. She looked very pissed that he was doing this to this other "helpless" woman. When they interviewed her afterward, she said she was truly scared to death of this man and what he might do, but that she couldn't just leave this woman alone. And, there was several people, both men and women, who stopped to stare as this little woman intervened, but none of them came to help. The results were shocking.
As parents, we just have to teach our kids compassion. We have to teach every child that we can to have compassion. There is so much violence for so many kids. Kids are still scared of their parents, but now, instead of it being a healthy fear (that eventually is more like respect) it's real fear because if they don't do just the right thing, they are probably gonna get beaten. It's a shame there isn't middle ground any more. The division in kids is getting deeper and deeper.