Anonymous wrote:I agree with the above PP. I don't think these kids were necessarily poorly raised. Nor do I hope that bad befalls them and ruins their futures. They were disrespectful and rude to a woman. They likely got caught up in the moment and peer pressure and showing off and feeding off each other. Likely most of their parents are horrified by their behavior and would never have guessed that their kids would speak to someone this way.
Should they be punished/consequenced, absolutely but but not a punishment that follows them for the rest of their lives. It would be much better for all involved if the consequence was directed at teaching them to be better people rather than something that drags them down and makes them angrier and more likely to do further harm.
I have worked in the school system and many times have seen teens and especially middle school aged students behave in horrific ways. Their parents would vehemently deny that THEIR child would ever act like that, that they have raised them differently, but in the moment kids that age can completely carried away and try to impress the other kids and say and do things that sometimes even they can't believe afterwards that they said and did.
I hope the parents and the school do take this seriously and that it is a wake up call for these kids and ultimately that it makes them realize the impact of their words and the damage they can do when they get carried away.
ITA, PP -- very well said. There is absolutely no justification for these kids' behavior, and PP is not trying to justify it. But why should a mistake made at age 12 or 13, before a child's character is developed, ruin his whole life? I was thinking today about what I would do if (god forbid) one of my kids ever bullies someone like this. So many people are saying they should be beaten and stupid shit like that. Yeah, that's a great idea, make these kids MORE antisocial and bitter and resentful of authority and LESS likely to become good people. What I would want to do if this were my child is to: (1) have him make amends to the person wronged; and (2) learn more about exactly why what he did was wrong. I think that these kids should get to know Ms. Klein, meet her family, see pictures of her late husband and son, have one on one conversations with her (supervised by a parent of course), write a paper about her life story. It is only by dehumanizing a person that they could possibly engage in this type of abuse. If they got to know her, they would learn how awful and unacceptable their behavior was and would be far less likely to do it again.