Quote:
Originally Posted by pocketkangaroo
Parents should be held responsible for children's actions. If your child keeps commiting crimes multiple times, you should be fined and in extreme cases serve time.
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An example of why I'm against this argument. You have a 16 year old kid who you've TRIED to raise properly, but he's a troublemaker. You ground him one day or take away something he wants and what does he do...trashes the neighbors car because he KNOWS the parents will be punished.
Having the police come to your house and inform you that you owe $3000 for the damages your kid causes would cause some kids TO get the shit beat out of them by the parents, then the parents would be charged further, making a bad situation even worse.
I'm sorry, but it would be embarrassing enough to be the parent of a kid that causes trouble, especially amongst people that you know. I'm not saying that all parents are good parents, because they're not. But to further punish them over what their child does is just wrong.
I'm not naive enough to believe that as good as my kids are now, that the lessons we're instilling in them won't go somewhat by the wayside through the teen years. That doesn't make me a bad parent. There ARE other influences out there that parents can't always control. Anyone that doesn't believe that either doesn't have kids, aren't being realistic or just want someone other than the kid to take responsibility...for being a kid.
P.S. I focused on that one point because I'm so against it, but I actually agree with most everything else you say.