DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Columbus police shoot, Kill 13. yr. old

All people, kids or not, need to understand that nothing positive will ever come out of pointing a gun, fake or not, at a police officer. Never!

A sad story of misguidance and poor choices by this child.

His nineteen year old friend did say he was armed with a BB gun and his intention was to rob someone. So, the picture is painted.

I did too but pulling a gun (BB included) was not one of them. I have two adult kids and I can 100% guarantee they will not be responsible for a crime other than a traffic violation for the remainder of their life. When you know you just KNOW

Also my parents were good parents but they didn't raise me like I raised my kids.

When my son was 8, he understood this would be a poor choice. I use unfortunate incidences like this one to teach him. I take advantage of it every opportunity I can.

He has made poor choices. But I can say with great certainty, he would never aim his BB gun at another human being. And, when he was 13, he would have never been permitted to hang with a 19 year old or be running the streets without me knowing where he was or what he was up to. These poor excuses need to stop.

Just sad.

And this is what good parenting is!

I kind of take issue with this line of thought. Maybe not in this particular example as I don't know the family. But in general, I simply believe this is stated all to often with almost zero merit.

I grew up in a rural farming area with only a small town and a few villages close by. A very family orientated community with good parenting being quite the norm. Many successful and well adjusted people were raised in this community.

Yet often, very often, you would have a t least one child from some of those families simply go off the norm. Raised in the same house, by the same parents in the same family. Their siblings would be successful, fit into the community and grow to be wonderful people, while they would veer off the path, fail and have things like drug problems, be violent or become criminals. Since I was raised, (the 70's), suburbia and small communities are even more drug plagued than when I was growing up.

Now unless I'm mistaken, it's very hard to blame parenting on those outliers I described above. While it does happen that parenting can be blamed in some cases, it's not nearly always the case.

Sometimes you can instill right and wrong in your children. You can teach them to be responsible and a work ethic. Sometimes those things simply do not stick. Sometimes they veer away from what they were taught. Sometimes they do things they were taught better than to do or not do.

While parenting can be the problem, it's also not a one size fits all solution to some of the things we see today.

Pit, you can take issue all you wish, and I would understand.

However, 35 years of teaching has taught me that I can with almost sure certainty predict whose name I will read in the newspaper in a negative light or and who will travel down the unfortunate path because of poor role models and parenting.

I have collected newspaper articles to prove my point.

Conversely, I can also predict with almost sure certainty, who will become a productive member of society because of positive role models and parenting.

Are there exceptions? Absolutely! I maintain it is responsible parenting and nurturing that prevents this type of misfortune. Kids make mistakes and always will. This incident is greater than a "mistake". This child may indeed be a victim of all sorts of other societal ills as well.

I don't wish for you to take my message the wrong way. Many times parenting plays a part in this. I have seen that too in many instances.

My point is, that in many cases you can have a child with great parenting end up with similar results. I was simply saying there is no one size fits all.

...and that's exactly the point I was trying to make. There are no guarantees no matter how good of a parent you are.

Got it and I will agree with that point. However, for a child, there remains no substitute for good loving, caring role models of support, no matter where it comes from.