Another reckless teenage boy destroys his life

[Anonymous]

Need boys don’t do this. Most girls don’t do this. Stop believing there is nothing we can do, like gun control. There is plenty you can do. You just choose not to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this has been happening for the last several millennia.

Boys are idiots. We lost three while I was in HS-- one hunting accident, one motorcycle accident, and one "hey guys watch me jump into this quarry from 40 feet up"

Lazy parenting answer. DO BETTER.

Like this right here. Your need to believe that this happens only to parents who are lazy or negligent, who checked out by sixth grade, who didn’t (all-caps) do better, is a way of reassuring yourself. If it only happens to *them,* you can cling to the idea that it will never happen to you.

Thing is, that’s not how it works. Having kids is scary. Sometimes they ignore our warnings. Sometimes they do things it never even occurred to us to warn them about. Likely some part of you knows that deep down, which means you’ll never adequately reassure yourself.

Judgement is a brittle armor.

Well hopefully if it happens to your child, you own his part in it and don’t try to blame everyone but him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Need boys don’t do this. Most girls don’t do this. Stop believing there is nothing we can do, like gun control. There is plenty you can do. You just choose not to.

This is nothing like gun control. As a parent you can decide not to have guns. You cannot decide that your teen boy is going to have perfect judgment and impulse control at all times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JFC, there is no "these days" when it comes to adolescent boys doing stupid shit. Tale as old as time, literally.

This. When I was a teenage boy in the 80s, I did plenty of stupid, dangerous, reckless, irresponsible, sometimes criminal shit. For example:

- We had a game where the object was to fire tennis ball into the window of a moving car from a moving car. This led to numerous car chases on back roads.
- Mailbox baseball.
- Shooting lights out with sling shots.
- Driving past a car dealership with those same slingshots and launching ball bearings into the lot of new cars for sale.
- Playing chicken.
- We wanted to play paintball, but no one had paintball guns, so we dressed up in winter jackets in the summer and played wargames with BB guns - one pump only.
- Shot at each other with bottle rockets, out of a lacrosse stick with the head removed.
- Taped bottle rockets onto wooden arrows and launched them into the air, a la Dukes of Hazard (thank goodness we couldn't get our hands on dynamite sticks).

We were all good kids (or, at least, not the "bad kids" at the school, not by a long shot). That group right now consists of a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, and yes, a few derelicts.

Point being, if you think just talking to teenage boys will always prevent them from doing stupid stuff, even the smart, studious ones, you're dreaming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this has been happening for the last several millennia.

Boys are idiots. We lost three while I was in HS-- one hunting accident, one motorcycle accident, and one "hey guys watch me jump into this quarry from 40 feet up"

Lazy parenting answer. DO BETTER.

Like this right here. Your need to believe that this happens only to parents who are lazy or negligent, who checked out by sixth grade, who didn’t (all-caps) do better, is a way of reassuring yourself. If it only happens to *them,* you can cling to the idea that it will never happen to you.

Thing is, that’s not how it works. Having kids is scary. Sometimes they ignore our warnings. Sometimes they do things it never even occurred to us to warn them about. Likely some part of you knows that deep down, which means you’ll never adequately reassure yourself.

Judgement is a brittle armor.

Well hopefully if it happens to your child, you own his part in it and don’t try to blame everyone but him.

PP. Hopefully, yes.

There but for the grace of god, or whomever you pray to, go any of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this has been happening for the last several millennia.

Boys are idiots. We lost three while I was in HS-- one hunting accident, one motorcycle accident, and one "hey guys watch me jump into this quarry from 40 feet up"

Lazy parenting answer. DO BETTER.

Like this right here. Your need to believe that this happens only to parents who are lazy or negligent, who checked out by sixth grade, who didn’t (all-caps) do better, is a way of reassuring yourself. If it only happens to *them,* you can cling to the idea that it will never happen to you.

Thing is, that’s not how it works. Having kids is scary. Sometimes they ignore our warnings. Sometimes they do things it never even occurred to us to warn them about. Likely some part of you knows that deep down, which means you’ll never adequately reassure yourself.

Judgement is a brittle armor.

Well said, +100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JFC, there is no "these days" when it comes to adolescent boys doing stupid shit. Tale as old as time, literally.

This. When I was a teenage boy in the 80s, I did plenty of stupid, dangerous, reckless, irresponsible, sometimes criminal shit. For example:

- We had a game where the object was to fire tennis ball into the window of a moving car from a moving car. This led to numerous car chases on back roads.
- Mailbox baseball.
- Shooting lights out with sling shots.
- Driving past a car dealership with those same slingshots and launching ball bearings into the lot of new cars for sale.
- Playing chicken.
- We wanted to play paintball, but no one had paintball guns, so we dressed up in winter jackets in the summer and played wargames with BB guns - one pump only.
- Shot at each other with bottle rockets, out of a lacrosse stick with the head removed.
- Taped bottle rockets onto wooden arrows and launched them into the air, a la Dukes of Hazard (thank goodness we couldn't get our hands on dynamite sticks).

We were all good kids (or, at least, not the "bad kids" at the school, not by a long shot). That group right now consists of a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, and yes, a few derelicts.

Point being, if you think just talking to teenage boys will always prevent them from doing stupid stuff, even the smart, studious ones, you're dreaming.

Hahaha, right?!?

A now-routine part of family gatherings is where my brother and I reminisce about the dumb/ dangerous stuff we did as kids and my parents are horrified that they had no idea. My brother has a big scar on his arm that he got playing with fireworks; he wore long sleeves for a whole summer to hide it from our folks. Mom thought he was embarrassed about growing body hair, so she let him be.

We were good kids, and we're healthy successful adults. But we were Gen X and unsupervised and we were kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI your judgement is likely driven by fear and and unconscious need for reassurance.

Fear, yes! There is an epidemic of reckless teenage boys doing willfully dangerous things and it has to stop. This time no one else was injured but that is often not the case. Parents of boys need to DO BETTER. You can't just check out once they hit 6th grade like so many do.

My theory is that young children are so padded and overprotected by parents these days, desperately lacking adequate exposure to the physical world, that when they become teens and naturally separate from their parents, they’re abilities to assess risk and consequences are f*cked.

Blah blah blah every generation says this

You are an idiot

[Anonymous]

What is this game, social media challenge type thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is this game, social media challenge type thing?

It’s just a harmless water gun game that - shocker - some idiot kids take too far and ruin for everyone else.

[Anonymous]

I read the article. I don't see them casting blame the way you described.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read the article. I don't see them casting blame the way you described.

It said they were “mad” the police weren’t initially involved and wanted it declared a “criminal” matter. They want someone arrested. Not their idiot son of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI your judgement is likely driven by fear and and unconscious need for reassurance.

Fear, yes! There is an epidemic of reckless teenage boys doing willfully dangerous things and it has to stop. This time no one else was injured but that is often not the case. Parents of boys need to DO BETTER. You can't just check out once they hit 6th grade like so many do.

My theory is that young children are so padded and overprotected by parents these days, desperately lacking adequate exposure to the physical world, that when they become teens and naturally separate from their parents, they’re abilities to assess risk and consequences are f*cked.

Blah blah blah every generation says this

You are an idiot

Every generation says this? No, they don’t. Nobody says GenX kids were padded and overprotected. Quite the opposite. We played outside all day, completely separate from adults. Our parents never knew where we were. We learned to navigate the world by living it in realtime.

Nobody says that about most previous generations, either. Maybe Boomers to a certain extent, who were a bit coddled after the horrors of WW2. But nothing like kids today.

UMC kids today grow up in tightly controlled environments orchestrated by adults—travel sports, summer camp, constant extracurriculars. There’s little opportunity to learn from benign errors either because the environment is so contrived or because there’s always an adult there to catch them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is this game, social media challenge type thing?

Not really. It's a real life game: you are working in teams of two (usually, some schools do individuals or larger) and have assigned "targets" (other seniors). You have to spray them with a water gun to eliminate them from the game and this must be on video or with an eyewitness. You have to keep your Snapchat location on so people know where to target you. You cannot spray someone while at school and during certain events. There are sometimes added rules like "if you wear floaties today then people can't eliminate you" but then it means wearing the floaties at the gym, mall...wherever it's fair game to target you. It goes on until everyone but the winning team is out. The game can get dangerous if people do things like the kid in this video, hurt yourself chasing someone, trespass on someone's property...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI your judgement is likely driven by fear and and unconscious need for reassurance.

Fear, yes! There is an epidemic of reckless teenage boys doing willfully dangerous things and it has to stop. This time no one else was injured but that is often not the case. Parents of boys need to DO BETTER. You can't just check out once they hit 6th grade like so many do.

My theory is that young children are so padded and overprotected by parents these days, desperately lacking adequate exposure to the physical world, that when they become teens and naturally separate from their parents, they’re abilities to assess risk and consequences are f*cked.

Blah blah blah every generation says this

You are an idiot

Every generation says this? No, they don’t. Nobody says GenX kids were padded and overprotected. Quite the opposite. We played outside all day, completely separate from adults. Our parents never knew where we were. We learned to navigate the world by living it in realtime.

Nobody says that about most previous generations, either. Maybe Boomers to a certain extent, who were a bit coddled after the horrors of WW2. But nothing like kids today.

UMC kids today grow up in tightly controlled environments orchestrated by adults—travel sports, summer camp, constant extracurriculars. There’s little opportunity to learn from benign errors either because the environment is so contrived or because there’s always an adult there to catch them.

You're arguing against yourself. Gen X was so reckless; no one was watching us, and some of us got hurt or worse. Today's kids might be insulated and you're trying to make the point that the insulation is what's causing them to get hurt. So which is it?

We're saying KIDS DO DUMB STUFF AND GET HURT SOMETIMES. It's not a "these days" or "kids today" thing.