Third Graders Plotting Murder

Few things bother me more than seeing bad parenting in action. Perhaps it's true that many parents of past generations were a little too distant and overly stern, but it's my opinion that the pendulum has since swung way too far towards parents who are obsessed with being "cool".

I can't count the number of times I've cringed while overhearing parents of all ages swear freely around their children. Those same parents also seem to be the same ones who will bend over backwards to accomodate said childrens' demands, no matter how ill advised or inappropriate.

Today I got a huge helping of "Whoa!" on the bad parenting front. The whopper being the story of nine third graders who planned (rather thoroughly) to subdue and stab their teacher. The students went so far as to bring a steak knife, duct tape, and handcuffs to school while also delegating tasks like covering the windows and cleaning up the blood. This was supposedly in retaliation for a scolding one student received for standing on his chair.

There is so much wrong here, but the first question that jumps out at me is "Aren't these kids scared of what their parents would do to them?". For me, as a child any punishment I got at school was secondary to what I would get at home. Disrespect towards a teacher was out of the question. Had I plotted possible murder I probably wouldn't be here writing this now. These students, like so many today, were at the very least not afraid of their parents' consequences enough to factor that in.

The second question that jumps out at me is "How entitled do you have to feel and how unaccustomed to rejection/discipline to you have to be to think stabbing someone is an equal reaction to it?" Sure there's some nutty kids out there, but a group of nine that all agreed to this idea???

The blame for this can be evenly split between schools and parents. In today's schools self-esteem and self-righteousness are overflowing while consequences are pathetically lacking - particularly for students who receive the waaaaaayyy overutilized "special education" label as some of these kids apparently did. They can plot a somewhat sophisticated assualt plan and probably know every song on the pop charts by heart, but they can't remember how to add? Sounds convenient. The "special-ed" label comes with more money from the state and federal government for schools so it's no wonder it's so outrageously abused.

These "special-ed" students then find themselves largely immune to punishment due to their designation. In one case at the high school where my father taught somebody stuffed a paper in the gas tank of the assistant principal and lit it on fire in an attempt to blow up his car. The student was caught when the fire blew out and the paper was found to have his name on it. Unfortunately the student could not be expelled because...you guessed it: Special-Ed.