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5/14/08 Parents Punished For Kids Behavior


Should a Parent be punished  

50 members have voted

  1. 1. Should a Parent be punished when their child fails to follow the law?

    • Yes
      12
    • No
      5
    • depends on the crime
      33


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I'm ambivalent about this as well. There are many instances where parents are already financially responsible for what their kids do - as in when they set fires and stuff like that. And you also know that there are some kids who will deliberately do something to get their parent in trouble too. But then I always think how often kids pay for what their parents do to them by their actions, so maybe it's about time for the reverse to happen.

I think as long as there are consequences for the child, and the parent does not try to to interfere with those consequences by trying to buy their kids off or not allowing their kids to be punished, then that by itself would be fine.

So a librarian or restaurant owner should be able to ask the parents of disruptive kids to leave the facilities and be backed up on it, even if the parent objects.

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This topic is a hard one because it depends so much on the circumstances. How have the parents raised the child and what problems the child has. For example the people out there who have done absolutley nothing to train the child then of course then it is their fault. However I know a wonderful loving family who over the years have adopted 5 kids and have taken in many foster kids. All but a couple of the adopted children have turned out wonderfully. They did have one son who although still a toddler when adopted he had been so severely abused and had a number of issues, sad to say these carried on into his teen years and resulted in trouble with the law. His parents were beside themselves because this was not the way he had been raised. After trying to do all they could they were advised by the state to have him amancipated so that if he did anything else they would not be held legally responsible. It broke their heart to do so, they felt like they had failed him. The father said that you feel like if you give a baby enough love and direction you can undo the harm that they had suffered before but sometimes the abuse that damaged them the most was before their birth and in some cases so severe you can not do much to help that.

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  • 5 years later...

Should a Parent be punished when their child fails to follow the law?

I was reading an artical about a Father being put in jail because his daughter failed to get her G.E.D . We have minors that do worse things than this but their parents are not held responsible for their kids actions. What age do you think a parent should no longer be punished for their child's misbehaving ways?

The trouble is, here in OZ, the law has been put into the hands of the kids...that is teachers tell them of their rights, that they cannot be punished by the parents. When the child commits a crime the do gooders, have them released...so the police often cannot punish them either. Several years ago we had a $3o.000 car stolen. Security guard told us he didn`t see the car (only one) in the car park, but could tell us who the kids were. A week later they stole another car only worth $1.500. Guess what? the do gooders would only let the police, charge them with the lesser car, and said they should only be punished once, not twice. Some of the parents were good people some wern`t. Our car was a freebie, and whats more the kids records get torn up when they turn 17....so they can become good citizens..........The kids laugh at our law system, and do it again. Sorry I didn`t mean to get carried away. DA. P.S. We had a youg guy out from the States staying with us and he was horrified at how our law works.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am with the majority who say it depends on the situation. For the article that started this discussion, I don't necessarily believe a father should be held legally responsible if his daughter fails to get her G.E.D., unless he prevented her from fulfilling this requirement. I do, however, feel parents who were notified of their children's negative behavior and failed to do anything about it, should be held accountable.

Kids will be kids, and even ones from the best of homes can get caught up in a dare or act irresponsibly at times. Parents can't be with their children 24 hours a day, and many times kids have to learn from experience and pay the consequences themselves.

However, if a child does extensive damage to private or public property, I feel the parents should pay and take the matter up with their children themselves. You can be sure that parents paying big bucks for their children's acts of violence or foolishness would be more likely to seek payback from their kids rather than dismiss their actions.

In a criminal case, however, I believe children should have to serve the time and/or make restitution even if their parents can cover their financial damages.

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There was just an article on this about parents being charged for grafitti the kids wrote.

Yes, I think the parents should be charged to some degree if their children are destructive. It might be a wakeup call to the parents that they are falling down on the job. On the other hand, it could lead to a lot of negligent parents getting overly harsh with their kids too. After all, if they had wanted to be bothered with the kid in the first place, some of thiese things wouldn't have happened. Also, a lot of parents today don't seem to see their job as parenting. They think the schools and churches should be doing that. They've taken the saying "it takes a village" waaay too literally and really seriously think that the village is going to raise their children without them having to do anything. That's why I hate that saying so much. And at some point, of course, every child is going to act independent of his parents and you can only hope they show a little responsibility when they do.

I still remember many, many years ago when there were so many child abductions in the Bay Area, there was an organization formed to allow parents to have their children fingerprinted in case something happened to them. A reporter covered the event and as he put it (near as I can remember), he said the mothers (mostly) that were there were the ones who were going to need that service the most, as virtually all of their children were running around totally without supervision. Maybe the more we try to "help", the more parents think they're being relieved of their job descrption.

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I personally agree that it takes a village to raise a child, as kids are a product of society and are influenced by everyone. Also, we all need to invest in our children, as they are the future of our country, or rather, they are the future of everything. Children are everyone's responsibility, as we all need to look out for them when they are in the streets or need help. However Kelly, what you are saying is true - some people do take that way too literally and forget that the "village" begins at home.

On the other hand, the parents who are most neglectful, lax, or open about raising their children probably have a tendency to be that way. In other words, I don't think that saying would influence or alter a more conservative style of parenting. Any help extended to te parents should ultimately benefit the children, who in turn will hopefully be a payback to society.

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  • 4 months later...

I did not vote because it depends on other things too... health, age and circumstances to name some.

But I certainly think there are a lot of cases in which parents are more to blame than the child.

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