Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
I'm cutting down the quotes here for obvious reasons.
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
I think there were shades of that in the article anyway. It didn't exactly cast the parents in a favorable light.
They mentioned that the only activities they continued to allow were those affiliated with their church. So she was allowed to continue to attend the weekly youth group meetings. That isn't favorable. Again, your issues with religion are showing.
Okay, so I have issues with religion, but I don't see what point you're trying to make with that. I think everyone commenting on this might be drawing on personal experience to form their perspective of this situation. There have been others who have talked about raising a troubled teenager and using that experience (while while attempting to pre-empt opposing views by saying that those who haven't had that experience have no clue about what it's like). That might indicate that personal issues are coloring one's view of this situation, not just with religion, but with family relationships in general. We may see another family, but we still see elements of our own families, things we have in common.
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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
I have nothing against anyone's private religious beliefs, but I'm against proselytizing and people who would impose their beliefs on others (even to include parents who impose their religious or political beliefs on their own children). Some parents let their children make up their own mind on these matters, while others do not. One can usually tell the difference.
I agree. Usually those who have been provided with no religious education at all tend to be a bit aimless in what to believe. It is part of a parent's job to provide religious structure for their children. No, that doesn't include those crazy people who will completely ignore you if you change faith when you are old enough to do so, which last I checked was 18.
That's hard to say. I've known devout Christians who were raised in atheist households, as well as atheists who were raised in devout Christian households. I don't know if there's any correlation between how devoutly religious someone may have been raised versus how aimless they become later in life. Those who may have been raised with no religious education may thirst for religious knowledge later in life, while those who have had all they can take of their religious upbringing can't wait to get away from it. There are even those who have been raised and sheltered by religion so much growing up that, once they get out into the world as young adults, they have a short circuit and go completely wild.
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The thing that struck me was the phrase "she became defiant." What does "defiant" mean to a Bible-thumper?
Again, your views of religious people are pretty blatant.
Perhaps so, but I still think I'm asking a valid question. What does "defiant" mean in the absence of any concrete examples or specific instances of misbehavior?
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With nothing more than one comment in the article, you pegged these people as "Bible thumpers." As for becoming defiant, it means what it means. She refused to follow her parents directions. At thirteen, I'm going to go with refusing to do homework, go to bed when told, help clean up after dinner, get off the phone, etc.
Well, I think we're both probably guilty of a bit of extrapolating based on nothing more than one article.
But even if I wasn't agnostic - even if I was still a Christian, I think I could even find some Christian-based arguments and still reach the same conclusion. Charity, forgiveness, compassion, the Golden Rule - these are all things that Christians are supposed to practice. You think that I have issues and blatant views about religion, and that may be so, but the basis of my criticism is because of what they did, their public display of what appears on its face to be an unreasonable punishment.
I'm not so much criticizing them for their beliefs directly, although my contention is that their beliefs may have led them to overdo it. I think it's a distinct possibility.
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Like the OP inserting her own opinion that this is all because this child is "grieving" (not a major point of the article), you are trying to assert that the family are "Bible thumpers" so the child being defiant must have some kind of religious rebellion attached.
I think there are a number of possible issues that could be going on here, and it's entirely likely that grief over the loss of her uncle could be one of them. Based on the statement released by the parents, it seems clear that they too are still grieving over the loss of their family member, so they could be having issues of their own at this point. Not to mention that there are two younger siblings, 2 and 6, who must also be occupying a great deal of the parents' time and energy. It's possible that the eldest sibling may feel some degree of alienation.
The parents were saying something to the effect of "until you've walked in our shoes," but if this was supposedly for the daughter's benefit, then I was trying figure out what it must have been like in her shoes. The parents are adults, they're grown-ups who should be able to take a little real world criticism, but it's the daughter I would be more worried about than the parents. My general presumption is that adults have better coping skills than children.
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but I was going by what the parents actually said as quoted in the article (as well as what was not said). They said things like "I didn't think" and "we didn't know what else to do." When someone openly admits that they "didn't think" and they "didn't know" before doing something, how does that possibly suggest that their position was right? At best, it makes it look like they're just grasping at straws, trying any desperate solution, ostensibly without stopping to consider the ramifications and potential consequences of what they were doing.
Way to take things out of context. "They didn't think" was followed with about the public view of their punishment, not the punishment itself. Many parents run out of rope and steam. They admitted they had tried all other conventional methods of discipline, so this was what they tried next.
Yes, they didn't think about what the public reaction might be to their public punishment. I would think that most reasonable people would give some thought and consideration about something like that before actually going out and making a public statement and carrying a sign.
If it was the case where they ran out of rope and steam, then wouldn't that suggest that they may have been under some duress at that point?
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Also, the article mentioned that the idea for the punishment came from a Christian counselor. So, it wasn't even the parents' decision, as they chose to bring in an outsider. That's as much as admitting to their child, "We don't know what we're doing, so we need special help." I would probably have more respect for their decisions as parents if it was actually their decision and not something they got from someone else.
First off, no they didn't bring some outsider in. This was something they heard several years ago.
"he said that she got the sign idea from a Christian counselor "several years ago,"
Is there something about that bolded part you don't understand?
No, I understood it. My emphasis was more on where the idea came from, not when.
But I'll concede that we don't actually know from the article whether or not the daughter actually received counseling, Christian or otherwise.
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You're right that the parents should be in the best position to make decisions for their family. They should know their daughter better than any counselor, since they've known their daughter all her life. They're the only ones in the position with the complete knowledge to analyze the situation objectively, look at her complete life as they have raised her from birth, and try to reach a reasonable conclusion as to the cause and possible solution.
You do realize that the above indicates you believe that parents who are having difficulties with their kids shouldn't seek outside help, right?
Not in all cases. I know full well that there are families and children in crisis, who definitely need outside help and should be able to have access to that help. But it really depends on the severity. At this point, I would say a visit to a counselor might be in order to try to determine what's going on and what's causing the problems in that family.
To some degree, teenage defiance is pretty much the norm. This is obvious to anyone who has spent any amount of time in a middle school. The 12-14 age range can be a pretty trying and defiant bunch, especially when they're all together with their peers. Acting like little shits is pretty much what they do, although most of them grow out of it over time. I would see it more as a biological process than a sign of mental illness or aberrant behavior.
My point above was that the parents should know what the problem is - or at least have some inkling of it - before they actually get to the stage where counseling might be needed. If they don't know, then that, in and of itself, is a problem. From a scientific standpoint, they would already know her health history, any hospitalizations, surgeries, illnesses, injuries, or any other possible trauma in their daughter's past. Perhaps they could explore possible medical causes. The parents can also look at themselves. Isn't it within the realm of possibility that they could be a part of the problem?
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I was going by what the family was quoted as saying in the article. I agree that they're the parents and they should know their child best, but from what they said in the article, they were admitting that they didn't know. So, they deferred to someone else. I do have some room to talk on this point, because I've been on the receiving end of parents who "didn't know what to do" and felt the need for outsiders to be brought in.
Yes, your lack of objectivity is very obvious.
I won't quibble over that. Your observation may very well be correct.
But I've also seen where some parents make indignant, outraged denials at the mere suggestion that they might be a possible cause in the difficulties they're having with their kids. They act like it's all the kid's fault, like she's some kind of "demon child" that they had nothing to do with. If that lacks objectivity to you, then I'm sorry, but that's how I see it.
Why is it so far-fetched to think that the parents are at least partially responsible for how their child ends up? Maybe it's not what parents want to hear. Maybe they want to think of themselves as the perfect parents and they couldn't possibly have made any mistakes. So, if the kid starts to develop behavioral problems as a teen, it's viewed as being the kid's fault, and the parents would rather punish the kid than take a good look at themselves. And the kid keeps misbehaving, and all they can consider is that "maybe we're just not punishing her enough." They ostensibly kept going down that route, responding to her misbehavior with some sort of punishment that didn't seem to work, so they tried a new punishment. That doesn't seem very objective to me.
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Only the parents truly know if they've examined all the scientific/medical possibilities and if they've honestly looked at themselves and their own behavior as a contributory factor in their daughter's problems. I'm not going to automatically assume that they're doing the right thing, but by the same token, I'm not alleging any abuse or anything like that. But based on the punishment they used and what they were quoted as saying (along with their own statement released separately), I question whether they examined this situation rationally, objectively, and with their daughter's best interests in mind. They say they tried everything they could, but that's their story. I'd still like to hear the other side of this.
What other side? The thirteen year old girl's? Seems to me they included her side as well. Considering she told police she wasn't afraid, and then apologized to her parents for her behavior. Will the punishment have the desired result? I don't know. Neither does anyone else, including the parents. Since all the other punishments didn't work, who knows?
I think there's still another side to this. As we both seem to agree, the article itself only had bits and pieces of information.
I can see that, under the circumstances described, she probably would apologize or say anything just to end the situation. I'm not sure if that's truly an accurate representation of the other side. I don't think that gives us a very clear picture as to what's going on.
All we're really getting here is that her parents made her carry a sign in public because she was "defiant," "self-entitled," had "no respect for authority" (whose authority, btw), and that she was getting 3 D's even though she was super smart. They've grounded her, taken away privileges, and other forms of punishment for her misbehavior, which is never actually specified or defined. It's not really clear exactly what is causing the daughter's misbehavior, and the parents don't seem to know either (which would be a valuable piece of information in pursuing a logical remedy to the problem). So, that's the "other side" I'm talking about.
The 3 D's would be a concern to any parent, but there may be some explanation for that. Her teachers probably have some thoughts on that, so that's also another side to this that's missing.
"Defiant" can mean just about anything. Even assuming that you're correct in your interpretation, that it means she was acting like a little shit, it can also be argued that such behavior is actually quite common in the 12-14 age range. It's not the end of the world, nor does it mean that the kid will turn out to be some kind of criminal if they don't take some drastic measure to make her shape up.
As for being "self-entitled," I view that as totally on the parents. They're the ones who entitled her; she didn't do it by herself. They can't punish her for that, since that is their fault, not hers.
"No respect for authority." Well, that's a toughie. I think that we have to at least cut the kids a little bit of slack on this one. As far as what the article states, there's no indication she's broken any laws or committed any acts of violence against humans or animals. They're at the threshold between seeing things from a childlike viewpoint and starting to understand more adult-level concepts, and it takes time for all this information to process. They also start to recognize the flaws and shortcomings of their adult "authorities" and might react against it in certain ways. But respect has to be earned, it doesn't come automatically with the title.
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The point is that you are making far reaching conclusions as bad as the OP. The OP is sure this will result in years of bullying and possibly this girl's suicide or melt down shooting up of her school. You are sure they are Bible thumpers who are blowing the girl's behavior out of proportion and taking statements out of context to fit your views.
How is that any different than assuming that the girl was "acting like a little shit"? The suggestion was made by you and another poster that unless one has gone through the personal experience of raising a troubled teen, that they have no clue and have no business speaking about this issue. With all due respect, I honestly don't find that to be a truly objective position either. It's as much as an admission that it's actually impossible to be objective on this issue.
I'm not the OP, nor am I taking the same position as the OP. I don't think that this punishment could actually lead to her being bullied, although I don't really know either way. Who knows? I don't think that a single punishment on a single day is necessarily going to make or break this girl, but the punishment itself is an indication that something deeper may be going on in that family that could affect her overall well-being. I don't see all that's all that far-fetched.
I regret using the term "Bible-thumper," as it seems to be interpreted as the central point of my position, but that's not really the case. The article did make a few references to their church and how it reinforced the values they want their daughter to have, and for me, I saw that as a possible red flag. I don't know which denomination their church is, but I know that some churches can be pretty hardcore. We don't know that's the case here, but again, I would see it as a possible red flag - something that might be looked at more closely.
Maybe I'm completely wrong about this, but I've become acquainted with a number of situations where I've seen parents treat their children like they were untrained pets - or in some cases, outright enemies of the family, like they're some kind of "demon child." But they're just kids. How can they be expected to cope when it's their parents who are coming unglued? If the parents can't handle the situation, what chance do the poor kids have?
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RE: grieving teen humiliated by parents - 
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