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Picture of jk1962
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What can we say to kids like this? We're messing up somewhere. When does loneliness and being an outcast start to take it's toll? Are we paying attention?

*shaking my head* It's a parent's nightmare, and a feeling of helplessness always comes over me when I see these things happen.

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Pulling into the parking lot was Jeff Weise, a 16-year-old student at Red Lake who liked to dress in a long black coat and who reportedly posted Nazi rants on the Web. Other students described Weise as "a goth" and said he was a frequent target of teasing at the high school of 300.
One wonders what the real story is. Teasing is rampant among kids. Probably always has been. But has that teasing reached new levels? Is the angst so much more powerful among kids today? Or perhaps it�s a situation where the kids are doing no more than they have always tried to get away with, but that now teachers have basically washed their hands at trying to keep any sort of order or discipline. If this is so, could this be because the normal teacher/student human (fallible though it may be) interaction that was quite flexible in handling problems such as teasing, has been turned over to a bunch of cold, impersonal, politically correct rules? Does this whole idea of "multiculturalism" lead to the isolation of such people as Jeff Weise as this loaner dressed in "goth" black is seen as expressing his individuality instead of expressing his psychosis? Should it really be considered normal by parents, teachers or school officials if a student chooses to dress like death itself? Must we remain "sensitive" to such displays of individual "diversity" or do we begin to rightly call such behavior maladaptive?

There�s work to be done, outrages to be exposed, and the left will, as usually, hide behind the idea of guns being the problem. I�ve half a mind to find a way to sit in on what goes on in our local schools for a few months in order to write an expose piece and to really find out how deeply this rot goes.

I�m not necessarily saying the schools are at fault. The parents hold prime responsibility in that regard (as does a 16-year-old), but the schools can be powerful aiders and abettors of aberrant behavior�all under the guise of some misguided PC notion or another.
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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True story:

My youngest daughter (who happens to dress in all black most of the time) wrote a poem; it was bad; it was racist; it was angry. After reading it back to herself, she decided it really had no place anywhere, so she tore it up and threw it away. A teacher (which one, I still don't know) digs the torn up poem out of the trash, gives it to the highschool principal, and my daughter is suspended for 3 days.

My middle daughter has a classmate who, for 2 years, wrote letters to various people and kept a journal describing how she wanted to kill most of her classmates. Horrible, angry, malicious letters. One day a friend of hers gets scared enough to go to the same highschool principal about it. My middle daughter ends up getting in a physical confrontation with this girl because she punched my daughter's friend in the mouth, splitting her lip open and requiring stitches. This same principal, upon being given the "journal" of this girl says...oh, it's only a journal, we shouldn't be prying into her personal thoughts. The girl got suspended for hitting my daughter's friend, but not for the horrific journal.

Incidentally, she was a cheerleader....get my point?

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Incidentally, she was a cheerleader....get my point?

Well, to be honest, I kind of lost track of just which girl was which, but I think your point was that the cheerleader got off easy because she was part of a privileged class, right?
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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lol...sorry about that. The cheerleader punched my middle daughter's friend. My youngest daughter was the one suspended for a torn up poem.

Not exactly "class," just how appearances can be deceiving. Which one of them was more dangerous? My point being that schools often fall into a trap of coddling those that appear like themselves while further ostracizing the one who doesn't, instead of looking at both behaviors and using wisdom with regard to who really needs more guidance.

Why do you suppose the kid started hanging out on Neo-Nazi websites? Did anyone wonder about the fact that he'd lost so many so close to him? Why DID he dress like he did? Was it just a fashion he liked (as my daughter's happens to be)? Or WAS there something hidden there.

For that matter why does the cheerleader dress like she does? Is it to cover her hidden intentions by being "normal-looking"? Just an FYI, the cheerleader is somewhat of an outcast herself because of her attitudes about things. The cheerleading thing was an assignment, more or less, by the school counselor to "draw her out of her shell." An indication that they KNEW something was amiss with her, yet wrote off her rantings of killing others as...oh, just her personal journey, mustn't pry.

Very odd, eh?

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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The cheerleader punched my middle daughter's friend.

Okay, NOW I think I know what was at the root of my confusion. Cheerleaders aren�t generally known as fighters. They�re known for their pom-poms. [No little emoticon wink or grin needed after that sentence, I think.]

My point being that schools often fall into a trap of coddling those that appear like themselves while further ostracizing the one who doesn't, instead of looking at both behaviors and using wisdom with regard to who really needs more guidance.

Well, in all fairness, if one person was dressed in black with studs and whatnot, looking like they were a fan of death metal, and the other was wearing a neat skirt or pants (and maybe with her pom-poms) and was carrying school books, I should think I know which one might be needing help. But you are surely correct. Appearances can be deceiving. But to put that phenomenon another way, those who conform (the cheerleader) are generally cut some slack because of their act of conformity. I�m not the principle of any school, but a person would get points for that. It might not be fair in all circumstances, but how else is one to rule this jungle they call high school? [And if I had my way, and probably to the relief of everyone, I would institute school uniforms.]

For that matter why does the cheerleader dress like she does? Is it to cover her hidden intentions by being "normal-looking"?

All good questions, Terri. Very good questions. Another question is when is conformity to certain standards humanizing and when is it dehumanizing? We want our children to accept certain rules of discipline, and yet we want them to individualistically express themselves as well. Where do we draw those lines? Is the cheerleader being untrue to herself or, instead, is she grounding herself appropriately by adopting some habits and customs to help anchor herself in the midst of so much other crap that is trying to pull her and everyone else down?
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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You're right on all counts, Brad. I guess things like this kid just really get me because I know the flack my daughter has taken over the years because she's not "girly" acting..know what I mean? She's a thinker, poet, artist, and musician (if she puts her mind to it..lol). It makes me wonder why kids like this shooter are usually tormented, and I say tormented because "teasing" these days isn't what it used to be...it's horrible for some and what I would call cruelty with a destructive air.

I wouldn't have a problem at all with school uniforms. In fact, I think it would be great in some instances because the "look" doesn't earn an automatic "good guy" or "bad guy" judgment.

Wanna know the truth? Piercings, black clothes, and tattoos bother me very little. I figure most of them are expressing themselves in a harmless manner (not all, to be sure, but most). The ones that scare the pants off me are the "normal" ones who have dead eyes..*shudder*. THAT scares me. But then, I'm exposed to school kids all the time, so that probably gives me a little bit of an edge in that department Wink .

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Wanna know the truth? Piercings, black clothes, and tattoos bother me very little. I figure most of them are expressing themselves in a harmless manner (not all, to be sure, but most). The ones that scare the pants off me are the "normal" ones who have dead eyes..*shudder*. THAT scares me. But then, I'm exposed to school kids all the time, so that probably gives me a little bit of an edge in that department

Yeah, you see? THAT�S the difference. You�re exposed to school kids all the time. You never saw it coming. It got you incrementally. It just snuck up on you. Big Grin One day it was dresses and Cinderella glass slippers and the next it was Madonna with large cones where, errr, usually one will find hints of a bosom. I knew it! Wink Actually, I�m a big believer in diversity, and diversity in the sense of people looking and/or acting differently, which is different from PC diversity where everybody simply looks different but thinks the same. It takes guts to go against the crowd and I�m sure your daughter is finding a healthy way to assert here independence and creative mind. And gosh, you would certainly THINK that in this day and age of celebrating differences and multiculturalism that the one mistake that schools wouldn�t make would be dumping on people just because they look different.

But truly, it may be good training for your daughter if it doesn�t taint or break her spirit. The world is always going to react to some extent to those who are different. And by different I mean really different, not play-act different which is rife in the culture these days, where everyone puts on their carefully-prepared costume and plays the rebel.

Here�s to different. I lift my can of caffeine-free Diet Coke to your wonderful, spirited daughter.
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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One day when I was 15 I realized that most of the "grown ups" were as decieved and self-deluded as I was, and that pretty unsettling at the time. Now I am over 40 and part of the "establishment" the kids are rebelling against. If only the good die young, I'm going to live to be a hundred. (A palm reader verified this, so it must be true.) Wink

I recall a depression where I missed school for a couple of weeks at 17 and it was as if I had mono or something. I went in to see the guidance counselor and was not feeling really very good about myself. She looked me right in the eye and told me that I was a worthwhile person. Perhaps someday I'll track this angel down and thank her for saving my life! Smiler

Saw this film last week, and it's a good one, too:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi...553-3667927?v=glance

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0172493/

http://www.popmatters.com/film...rl-interrupted.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl,_Interrupted

"Carry on my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are done." -- Kerry Livgren of the pop group Kansas wrote this while in the midst of his conversion to Christ, and later wrote and produced
not a few Christian rock records. Smiler
 
Posts: 2559 | Registered: 14 June 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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OH...Girl Interrupted is a great movie! All 3 of my daughters love it. In my opinion, it has a great message in it. Lots of struggles, lots of different approaches to struggle, and the truth that ALL of us have "demons" we have to deal with...and there are sometimes when folks don't make it past them Frowner .

Someday I'll get to tell my angel just what his words meant to me. Like you, someone set me free, and I'll always thank God for that. Just goes to show..we never know who might be in our path that we hold the "key to freedom" for. There's a great truth in this verse:

Pro 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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MM, maybe you'd be interested in the book Seeds of Change by Kerry Livgren and Kenneth boa (Sparrow Press, 1983). Haven't read it. Just thought you'd be interested.
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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