What the ____ is wrong with kids?!

[Mrs. Hoppes]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,393102,00.html

Where are the parents? What would make a child do this?

[Chit2001]

$10 says this kid is on here in 10 years asking if he has a chance to get into LE with his background

[Sharp]

$10 says this kid is on here in 10 years asking if he has a chance to get into LE with his background

Ill take that bet, and Ill bet $20 this has to do with improper parenting to some degree.

[Chit2001]

Well, I won't take your bet, because I know damn well that was the case...^

[Sharp]

Well, I won't take your bet, because I know damn well that was the case...^

I realized after posting that, that I was challenging your bet, which I agree with. So I wont "take" your bet, but Ill back it up with another $10.

(im no good at gambling)

[-Erik-]

Ill take that bet, and Ill bet $20 this has to do with improper parenting to some degree.

The parents? We cannot possibly hold parents responsible for what there kids do these days. We now have scape goats like music, TV and video games.

Someone needs to take a serious look at these kids for the rest of there lives. This is the type of thing serial killers do.

Anyone remember that 10 year old kid who stole his grandmas SUV and drove it around eventually getting into an accident? They interviewed him about it and everything.

[Eclipse27]

Sickening. Future serial killers for sure.

Lock em up, throw away the key.

[injunwil]

while the parents might've dropped the ball somewhere along the line, i won't be too quick to assume it's something they've done. truth is - some humans are just born screwed up. i've see it before, kids that are just "naturally bad" for lack of a better term.

as for the actual act, i've heard of this before. i went to high school in the late 80's and remember some of the popular kids laughing about setting a cat on fire.

[rubyrose]

The younger the kids are, the more appropriate it is to blame the parents. A 9 year old? Please.

I remember a kid -- FOUR years old mind you -- that I had in Sunday school who I had to hold in my lap with my arms wrapped around him the entire hour in order to keep him from hitting another child or otherwise causing disruption. Now a 4 year old who would do that clearly has problems, most likely brain chemistry issues. However, the parents are responsible for getting help for the child. I told them they could not bring that child back unless they got help. They never returned.

I can imagine that child setting a cat on fire -- IF the parents never got the necessary help.

[shifty277]

Sickening. Future serial killers for sure.

Lock em up, throw away the key.

Not even...Just put him in a box and drop that box in the ocean...


Weights optional

[Smolla126]

This happens more than people think. Our department used to have an intern program where high school kids could work 4 hours a day during the summer doing clerical work. We had to stop because the gals were looking up their friends who were in gangs and telling them that they were under investigation or had warrants. Super.

Anyhow, I was talking to some little 15 year old and I had mentioned that I was interested in doing work with animal cruelty. The girl then says, "Wow, I hope you don't come after me!" ... I looked and her and said, "...Why...?" And she said, "Well, a few months ago when my dog had puppies, one of them bit me and so I threw it in the garbage can and lit it on fire."

My reaction? Stunned silence. I couldn't even say anything.

Then she said, very non-chalantly, mind, "Yeah... that garbage can still smells like burned meat!"

I just about went postal on her. Fo sho.

[rubyrose]

Well, I guess if you live in an environment where gangs are a big deal, it isn't much of a leap from shooting someone's brains out for "disrespecting" you to lighting a puppy that bit you on fire.

This happens more than people think. Our department used to have an intern program where high school kids could work 4 hours a day during the summer doing clerical work. We had to stop because the gals were looking up their friends who were in gangs and telling them that they were under investigation or had warrants. Super.

Anyhow, I was talking to some little 15 year old and I had mentioned that I was interested in doing work with animal cruelty. The girl then says, "Wow, I hope you don't come after me!" ... I looked and her and said, "...Why...?" And she said, "Well, a few months ago when my dog had puppies, one of them bit me and so I threw it in the garbage can and lit it on fire."

My reaction? Stunned silence. I couldn't even say anything.

Then she said, very non-chalantly, mind, "Yeah... that garbage can still smells like burned meat!"

I just about went postal on her. Fo sho.

[Monty Ealerman]

I have trouble understanding how people can permit themselves to be cruel.

When I was 15 living in Eastcote at the NW edge of London I caught a 12-year-old boy in the cow's field next to the park dripping molten burning plastic from a bag onto a screaming and crying 7-year-old boy's leg (it was summer and everyone was wearing shorts).

I beat the kid up pretty good, and rubbed his face in a cow pie pretty good, all the while yelling at him about what he was, and I and some other kids who came from the park to see what the commotion was about made him go home in his underwear so his Mom would know something had happened.

We took the little boy home to his Dad. The boy and his Dad were Pakistanis, and as it turned out, the Dad's English wasn't as good as the boy's. When I started to explain what had been done to the boy, the Dad suddenly went into a fury and immediately decked me, apparently thinking I'd been somehow responsible. The boy rescued me by explaining in Urdu to his Dad that I'd rescued him. The man apologized, and I said no problem, I'd be mad too. The boy then explained to his Dad what I'd done, and the Dad smiled and tried to give me money, which I refused. I and the other boys accepted the subsequent offer of lemonade. We departed on friendly terms.

A week or so later the perpetrator's Mom, perp in tow, confronted me on the main shopping street, and indignantly told me that the boy was terrified of me. I told her he should be, and watched him squirm as I told her that if he ever came to the park again without first having apologized to the little boy it was going to be worse, and if she didn't like it go tell PC ________ (the local police constable) about it.

The 12-year-old later did in fact apologize, and faced the father. I was surprised that he'd been able to summon the courage, and gave him some respect after I found out about it.

When I talked to him later I told him he didn't need to run away anymore if he saw me on the street or in the park. He told me that the father had said he'd gladly die for killing him if he ever did such a thing again to his child.

I asked him how could he be so oblivious to the pain of the little boy, and he said he'd just wanted to find out what it was like. I said you know what it's like and you're scared of it, so you wanted to make someone else have to be more scared of it than you are. He looked away, ashamedly.

I reminded him that he'd been courageous enough to face the Dad, and told him to be courageous enough to live with the possibility of suffering pain without resorting to inflicting it on others to console himself, and to remember that other people were just as important as he was. He looked puzzled at that idea. I glared at him for not getting that, and he skulked away.

When I would see him later in the neighborhood, he'd give me a sad nod. When I'd see his mother, she'd look at me reproachfully, but not say anything.

I think the kid at the expense of some ego points gave up some of his "I matter and you don't" attitude, but I think his Mom was probably still inculcating him with "you matter and they don't".

I like to imagine that the kid came out OK anyway.

[midnight_v]

Violence and brutality is the natural state of mankind.
We of course have the option to be otherwise but in the end
the veneer of society fades and it scares us those of us for who it hasn't.
Punish the monsters all you want and even then there'll always be more.
This is the world we live in...

I'm wiling to be that there are people who have an excellent upringing of peace and rightgeousness and morality and still do terrible things. The justifications may be more thought out but its an oversimplification (and a good bit of hubris ) to just say... the parents.. the parents... the parents...

Moppets...

[djblank87]

Ummmmm, do we have another Richard Kulinksi on our hands?