when did parents stop parenting their children??

A year or two ago some kid threw a chunk of concrete off an overpass, which killed a driver below, he said he did it because he was bored!!!! If I'd a been his mom I probably would have killed him myself!

 

Kids did that quite often when I was young. Don't see it too much anymore. Used to be the cops would let you off with a warning. These days they would put you in jail for a few years.

I'm over 50 so I guess they stopped parenting a while back.

I agree that's bad stuff. I don't really agree that parents are any worse than they have ever been though. You should have called the police. She may have given it a little more though the next time.

 

What kids do out of site of their parents has nothing to do with parenting. You can teach them right from wrong until you are blue in the face and then once they are out of your sight....
We used to throw snowballs at cars way back when. One night we threw snowballs at the wrong car and a car load of college boys caught us and roughed us up pretty good. At that time you got what you deserved, if we would have gone home and complained we would have gotten beat again by our parents for doing what we did. Now days it's child abuse. That's the problem.

Steve

 

Kids will be kids.

When I was young we would throw snowballs at everything, throw rocks at each other, fight, play chicken with fireworks, put coins on railway lines to get them flattened and all manner of stupid and dangerous things. We were normal kids, not delinquents. We risked the wrath of our parents, beatings from other kids, a clip around the ear from policemen and even expulsion from school. Kids learn by getting away with stupid things such as playing chicken with traffic but others don't survive those experiments. Eventually, we all grew up, behaved responsibly and began to complain about the poor behaviour of kids today!

I too would be hacked off if a kid threw something at my car but I wouldn't cross my mind to blame the parents at that stage. Undoubtedly, there are some very bad parents around but most kids will get up to something when they are out of range of parental control. I don't know what age Junior High School is but I guess that the girl was old enough to understand right from wrong. She denied the offence in a childlike way but at least didn't hurl a mouthful of abuse at you. It might have been better to ignore her. She was probably seeking attention.

Sometimes you just have to let it go. Consider the much worse things that some adults do at the side of the road.

 

We used to tape rocket engines on to target arrows and shoot them straight up. They went out of sight. I've often wondered if one ever came down on anyones head. We also used to fill big thick plastic bottles up with 4f gun powder and put a waterproof fuse in them. Then we would hide behind the cat tails on the side of the lake and throw them in the water where people were practicing Kayaking. They looked like depth charges and many a Kayaker rolled over when they scared them to death.

Kids do stupid stuff. Talk to any older person and they'll tell you some stupid thing they did as a kid. Don't tell your own kids though. They'll try to do something to top you in stupidity.

 

My Dh use to put rocks in snowballs and let them rip. Hit his principal in the head and got whipped good, and this was Jr high . . .We use to tee pee everyone and anyone, and threw old oil cans in the principals yard, but he liked us so didn't do anything about it. The funniest thing a friend did was wrap a spruce tree in the same prin. yard with toilet paper and set it on fire. It was so purty, but the prin. went ballistic over that and went screaming down to the corner filling station screaming that this BS has to stop. We laughed for weeks over that. . .but a lot of the stuff we did back then was really harmless and not meant in meanness like so much is now. But, I do remember when cars had antennas on them, and guys would walk along and break them off just to be jerks. We still have a lot of tire slashings and keying done here, and its not always kids doing it. I think the adults are about as goofy as some of the kids, and if you are a kid, its more understandable but as an adult its time to grow up and be accountable.

ETA: And, kids will do things right in front of you too, and its like seeing a toddler fall, you know its coming but you can't get there fast enough to stop it. We had a friend who had a gorgeous little red falcon convertible. He LOVES that car, and brought it over to show us. We were all standing in the drive way looking it over, and our youngest DD at the time, about 4, was standing there picking up rocks in the drive and just looking at them, when all of a sudden, out of the corner of our eyes we saw her throw it straight up in the air. It came down on the trunk of his car and put a teeny chip in it. We felt like we were lower than a snake's belly, and he wouldn't let us pay to have it repaired or anything . . .everytime I see that car in his garage I think about seeing that rock coming down in s---l----o-----w motion and not being able to do a dang thing to stop it . . .I still feel bad about it.

 

lovesduckies I had two teenage boys do the same thing to me recently...it bounced off the hood of my new to me truck. I whirled around and into the driveway they went running up to the house and I yelled "Hey what are you doing throwing rocks?" I got told to "F Off you B....!" as they ran inside the house. That evening I drove back down there and saw several vehicles in the yard so I pulled in an honked. A man came out and I relayed the story to him...he called two boys outside and said "Ma'am are these the boys?" I said "Yes sir" He said I will handle it as he was turning pulling his belt from his pants and telling the boys to grab the wall.

So most often the parents have no idea what the kids do when they are not looking or not there. Find out where she lives and talk to her parents.

 

Quote:I wish we had though of those things!

I'm sure that most kids who do stupid things grow up to be good citizens who do sensible things - such as keep poultry.