What Message Are We Sending Our Children?

We spend the formative years of our children teaching them the ways of life. We want them to be strong individuals, to respect others, and do no wrong. We ask them to tell us when others abuse or try to abuse them. We want to know every aspect of their lives, day and night. The information trail deepens, as those same children get into school, High School, in particular, and start the dating process. In other words, we want to know everything there is to know about our children's lives. This seems only fair, since we have raised them, right?

In today's society, teenagers seem to have more of a mind of their own than they were allowed when I was growing up. Report cards came home, into the hands of the parents, or you were in deep trouble! My Mother knew what I was doing in school, the grades I was getting, because she stayed involved. She didn't wait until her children brought the six weeks report card home; she asked every day to see our papers.

In Santa Clara, CA, a 15 year old teenager has been accused of killing his Dad so he wouldn't see he was failing subjects. The parents were separated, an evidentally, he must have been living with his Dad. He took a gun from a safe in his Dad's bedroom and stashed it in his room before the killing. After shooting his Dad at close range, he set the house on fire, since he was unable to remove the body and bury it in his back yard.

There's something wrong with this situation. I know the separation of parents really hits a child hard. But, if the avenues of communication are kept open between the child and each parent, things like this should not be happening in a 15 year old teenagers life. I don't know the situation between the father and son. But, it seems to me, either they weren't communicating, or the child was definitely afraid of his parent, enough so, that he thought his only avenue of recourse was to kill the Dad. This is not sending a good message to parents!

Communicate with your children. Find out what is going on in their minds, watch their activities, and check out their friends. But, best of all, teach your children that they pay the consequences when they do things that are against the law. The child is no longer considered a child, when he takes another's life. In this case, this young man will more than likely spend the rest of his life within the confines of a prison. Sad ending for a 15 year old, who's only crime, until now, seems to have been making failing grades.

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