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Parenting with Connie: Where are the parents?
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Anonymous user Tue Oct 3, 2006 10:45:00 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments Where are the parents?
Many of us are asking that question in light of recent events regarding local high school students and the videotaped beating of another student. 
How could 20-plus teenagers stand around and partake in this abhorrent crime? I say “partake” because they did nothing to stop it.
The beating took place in someone’s home. Where were the parents of all the students involved?
Did you know that most girls get pregnant between 3 to 5 p.m. in their own home? Their parents are at work and the teenagers are left unsupervised. 
Teenagers tell me, “It just happened.”
Oh, really! It takes two, and it takes time alone.  Are teenagers really going to get pregnant if they are supervised by an adult?
A couple of weeks ago I was waiting in the parking lot of the corner drug store while my daughter ran inside. I witnessed several teenagers hanging out/loitering outside a fast food restaurant.  While I was observing them, an adult rode up on his bike and took two packages of cigarettes out of his pocket and handed them to the teenagers. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Where are your kids after school, and do you know exactly what they are doing?
Why do we have so many problems at The Marketplace? Parents are dropping off their young teenagers to spend hours of idle time there. It’s easier to drop them off than to be hands-on parents. Quit taking the easy way out. Take the time and effort to parent them. It’s your responsibility, not the responsibility of the security guards at The Marketplace. 
Do you really know what teenagers are doing on the computer for hours? Do you know there is an army of predators lurking in the shadows, waiting to chat with your child and steal their innocence?  Where are you when they waste their time away with idle chatter and viewing disturbing images?
Where are you when your 14-year-old is propositioned with offers of counterfeit love, real sex encounters, artificial happiness through drugs, or temporary power through violence? You cannot automatically assume they will do the right thing. 
I often think about when I was growing up how the forbidden things were sex and drugs.  Now they are readily available to your students. I think it is why so many teenagers have turned to power and violence;  the former vices have lost their thrill.
This mom chose a job where she could be home after school. I intercepted mood swings, homework assignments, lies and many deficiency notices in the mail.  
If you can adjust your schedule, now is the time. Give them a sense of security — my kids had to be home after school. Arrange for an older relative to be with them if you can’t. I was home and my kids knew I would come looking for them if they weren’t. 
So much still happened under my watchful eye. We really don’t have eyes in the back of our heads. 
E-mail Connie at:
cmoustakis@bak.rr.com

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