LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Teens who vandalized Darlington High should be charged
Why weren’t the students who did the vandalism (at Darlington High School) made to clean up the school?
They should be criminally charged and the parents who protested for their bad kids to walk across the stage (to pick up their diplomas) should have been made to clean up the mess also.
From Day One, children learn what they can get away with and from whom they can get away with it. Parents who uphold their children in wrongful doings are just teaching them that they do not have to respect authority from them or from anyone else.
Letting them get away with the small things will eventually lead to the big things that the parents will not be able to help them out of. The fact that no punishments were given and no charges tells them that it is OK to destroy the property of others.
This wasn’t a little prank, this was outright disrespect and destruction.
The names of each and every one of the students should be made public and they should be made to pay for or work off payment for all the damage to the school. This idea of not publishing the names of juveniles because of their age should stop.
Publish their names, let their peers know exactly who they are and what they did. Sometimes peer pressure works for the best. Knowing that their friends and schoolmates know what they did just might shame them into making better decisions.
The parents who let their child get away with things, talk back to them, disrespect them and they thought it was cute or that “he or she is just expressing themselves,” should realize that one day that same child will make them cry and/or attack them when they try to chastise or discipline, but then it would be too late.
I’m from the “old school” that worked very well – “If you spare the rod, you SPOIL THE CHILD.”
You can’t really say what your child will actually grow up to be or what their behavior will be as an adult, but you definitely have control over it while they are living with you and you know their personalities. The statement “My child would never do that” is so ridiculous. I laugh every time I hear a parent say that.
You don’t know what your child might do when you are not around. Of course, some of the parents do know what their child will do because they don’t have control over them at home either and they know their child is bad.
My daughter learned at an early age – this is my house, I own everything in it – nope, you don’t have any privacy until you have your own home, mortgage and bills. I went into every room in the house, every drawer. This thing where children are allowed to tell their parents not to come into their room – Uh, this is my house, my room, my clothes on your back that I bought.
Sure, your child can express themselves, but they should be taught to do it in a respectful way. When they are taught to think they are as grown as the parents or any other adult, they become narcissistic beings, and when they don’t get their way, they lash out, and blame everyone else for their wrongdoings.
Mary Thomas,
Florence