When is it too much?

[TJ60]

http://www.yahoo.com/s/882987


This is going to far, I coach little league sports for my kids now and I pitched in with my father for my little brothers. My father was involved in gathering money and coaching my teams when I was younger, which included having his company donate 30k for a new scoreboard. I played my pop-warner time in VA, which has the best little league program in the south, there you don't play with 5 other teams from the same city you play with 1 team from your city. Every week you travel to another city and compete. Here in Nc you pay $60 to sign up for a little league sport, then you have to pay for jersey's, equipment ( shin gaurds, mouth peices....etc.) In this case a kid was suspended for 2 games because his mom was stuck at work and couldn't do a shift in the concession stand. The other a man was sentenced to 6 months in jail, because his now 19 year old daughter didn't get her GED 3 years prior.

Never at anytime have I punished a kid on my team because of a parent, and trust me there has been times I would have loved to. Every parent thinks their kid is a superstar and if you don't play the kid like one they become your worst critic. I would never punish one of my players because mom/dad forgot a snack. I would just buy it myself, and I don't see how a 16yr olds parent can be held responable. If the court can try kids as adults at ages 14, 15, and 16 in some cases why should a parent do 6 months in jail for a 16 year....now 19 yr old?

Do you see these as fit punishments?

[Drunken Monk]

This is a topic relevant in the UK as well. From September this year (I think, not 100% sure) the school leaving age is being raised from 16 to 18. Now as per this new policy, any kid that's caught being truant will be forced back into education but instead of holding them accountable, the parents are going to be charged with the punishment which includes fines (some of which i believe go as high as $500) as well as jail terms.


Now I'm going to address these two issues seperately and link them. As far as the little league incident is concerned, the kids are what, 9, 10, 11 years old? To punish them for something their parents did is absolutely ridiculous. In fact having the rule in place at all is absolutely ridiculous! That coach or whatever in the video said "everyone has something to do" which is bang on, and the fact that they are taking time out of their busy schedules to be involved in the league is highly commendable and if once in a while they are absent from the activities and forget to bring snacks or work the stands, so what? The way I see it is that they don't have to do it in the first place, and the fact that they've done it so many times before and shared responsibility in the activities is good enough. Fair enough if they miss it, maybe they can cover another shift sometime later on but to suspend a kid for two games as a result, is just an unforgivable display of self importance and a desperate bid for validation - basically a bunch of middle aged pot bellied pseudo-bureaucrats wanting to fluff up their activities to make it appear more significant than it already is and heighten their own sense of self importance.


As far as the second issue is concerend, jailing a father for something his 16 year old daughter did is just appauling. Here in the UK as well it links in with punitive measure for parents whose children play truant. When a person is 16, they are old enought to think for themselves and be responsible for themselves as well! If they decide not to get their GEDs, or drop out of school for that matter, maybe these judges and inforcers should consider the fact that it's THEIR choice and that maybe THEY should be responsible for it instead of their parents. If these sort of measures are being introduced then it could open the floodgates for a catastrophe..where is it going to stop, honestly? Are we going to punish parents if a kid shop lifts something as well? What're we going to charge them with? Not instilling moral values into their kids? Ridiculous! If a kid gets caught drinking outside their house or in a pub..what're we going to charge the parents with, negligance? I've been drinking since I was 14 no matter what my mom would say to me because I felt that I was old enough to make my own decisions and take responsibility for my own actions! And that girl in the video was even older, 16! Surely these geniuses who sit in their high chairs and make the laws need to rethink some of the vital issues here...a pathetic attempt to force parents into imposing restrictions and boundaries on their kids that quite frankly, they're better off without!