A couple of interesting articles that were forwarded to me this week, both dealing with troubled teens that are consistently getting into trouble, who should be held accountable the parents, schools or the courts?
A woman in the UK started out in law enforcement and now does coaching for teens and families. She was frustrated with how the system is not supporting our troubled teens. How to tame a teenage tearaway
Schools are turning to law enforcement for teen pranks, is the kid that moons at the high school graduation really a criminal? A teen gets special treatment because his mother is on the school board, he has threatened classmates and posts on a website “the plot-to-bomb-ardsley,”. In Schools, How Tight Must Discipline Be? (this is a NYTimes article, you may need to register to read.)
We had some pretty scary run-ins with the local law enforcement agency, a few times for incidences at school and another when he ran away from home. They were wake up calls for me that something was not working correctly. As a parent it is easy to be in denial about your child. I knew my son was not a bad kid, my son needed help, the same as for someone that may hurt themselves or needs an operation. Most troubled teens are not bad kids; they are kids with special needs and the families, the schools along with the community need to provide for them so they may have a successful future. We cannot give up on them.
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