The Debutante and a few other neighbors called the police on some misbehaving children trying to break in our building. When our beloved 7 D officers arrived, they questioned the 14 year old and explained that he would be arrested if he was on the property again. HOWEVER, when I asked had they spoke to a parent/guardian I was told “no, there is not a need for that” I was then advised that we (the residents) should not speak to a parent either.…WHAT???? How are you reprimanding a child without speaking to a parent? The child in question was on our roof tossing bricks. He could have killed someone or fell and killed him self and 7 D did not think there should be a discussion with a parent or child protective services. WOW…After some verbal encouragement an officer did escort a resident over from the Condo board to speak to a parent. This mother is now on notice that her child needs to be supervised or will be in jail. I will be calling child protective services Monday morning.
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11 comments:
thats why when worse things happen. The parent are like "not my child. couldnt be my child". I feel like the sense of community is lost. This is a time when parenting is left to parents alone and when even parents dont step up to know their children and teach their children.
The sense of community is lost. When ever I see a child acting up I go right over and tell a parent. I also tell these teenagers that I am an adult and will be respected when they talk to me as if i'm a child...We all have to get involved b/c it indeed takes a village to raise a child.
what was the parent's reaction?? I can't believe the police didn't want to talk to the parents to begin with. What the F was being accomplished then? Oh so this kid is mature enough to say to himself "ok that was bad i won't do that again." Get real!!!
In a little Euro town where I grew up, if a kid did something illegal, instead of arresting the kid and putting him through the judicial process, it was not uncommon for the cops to take the kid home to be punished by the parents. This worked much better and did not ruin lives of generally good kids that made one or two mistakes. Of course in DC, lots of these kids are just bad, and have horrible parents who don't care and never taught them any values - this sort of approach may be futile and counterproductive.
I live in Prince Georges County now but I was born and raised in DC, lived there for 40 years plus before moving and I empathize with you. The art of parenting and the pride in parenting is so far lost that the police are apathetic. They know that, more times than not, these kids fear no punishment or repercussion from a parent mostly because the parents don't care. A relative of mine is a school administrator in Ward 8 and the stories he has about how these "parents" behave and their lack of responsibility is appalling. It's like the child is the responsibility of the state.
By the way, keep up the good work with this blog. I'm passing it on to my friends. I've been looking for an authentic DC blog.
Thank you all for your posts and continued support. Its sad that these parents do not take parenting as the serious responsibility it is. I think children should be sent to an orphanage if the parents refuse to look after them. No more public assistance or foods stamps. Atleast the children would get structure and guidance and the parents would not be able to see them until they are deemed fit. thats my two cents!
Maybe, it's US that need the protective services here! LOL
Maybe, the parents will wake up, when they're trying to figure out how to get this little brick-chucking creep out of the pokey. Maybe, we all oughta' find this little monster's parents and pelt some bricks at them!
So long as authority over our children rests solely with their parents, they're going to be kicking our butts, AND we're going to deserve it. If we're ever going to get REAL control of our kids, authority's got to be a layered thing, with responsible adults and law enforcement taking charge of them, wherever and whenever needed--PARENTS being the ultimate authority to which these other authorities are accountable. When this happens, our youth will know they are growing up in a controlled, protected environment and discouraged from mischief, even before they act on it.
It's got to be a wall of authority. Not a dialogue, an affirmation or a quilt or any of that sissy, psycho crap. Until we're willing to commit to creating a stable, controlled, safe world for our young people, they're going to be angst-ridden menaces to our society, and we will deserve any chaos they throw at us.
Grownups used to handle business. Long before they started using us for target practice, kids actually wanted to BE grownups.
That's how it worked, when I was growing up. It really does take a village to raise a child, and that means we're going to have to trust our neighbors (as my parents did) and any responsible adult present to keep them in their proper place.
I think the police should be commended, and don't be too sure they didn't log the kid's name in a database that will be turned over to social services. That's usually how it works. There will probably be a CPS agent knocking on the parent's door and giving them the support they need to be more responsible.
These offeres basically said it was nothing we could do about the children. It wasn't until we started asking more questions that we were able to get the child barred from the property.
A lot of officers would rather hand out parking tickets than really get into fighting crime.
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