Parental Responsibility: Where Privacy Ends in the World of Teenagers

A video where six girls viciously attack another girl has recently made its way to the media. These girls are attacking this young girl in response to negative comments allegedly made on MySpace, the popular social network. In it, the victim never makes any attempt to fight back while the other girls punch, hit and kick her. At one point, she had been knocked unconscious during this attack. What's even more startling is the fact that when these girls were caught and taken into custody by police, they didn't really seem to care about the severity of the situation. One of the attackers allegedly asked if she would be released in time for cheerleading practice the following day. While bullying is in no way, shape or form new to the high school crowd, the viciousness of this attack as well as the rising popularity of what some term as "cyber bullying" is cause for concern as well as a cause for parents to take more of an active interest in their children's life.

When bullying gets to the point where there is a vicious attack like the aforementioned one seems to be when parents want to get involved but it goes without saying that they should be involved from the very beginning. They should be involved in their children's lives and the sad thing is even when they are sometimes they don't do anything to stop it. One of the alleged attacker's mother (I say alleged because the mother and the alleged say she had nothing to do with the actual beating) said she warned the girl not to go into the house because other girls were waiting to beat her up. Well, considering that the house where the beating took place was this girl's grandmother she should take a lot more responsibility because she let the victim go into the house knowing what was waiting for her. Whether or not she took part in the actual beating is irrelevant at this point; she knew what was going to happen, she allowed it to happen in the house of one of her relatives and therefore should be held accountable for her part in the beating. This is abetting people; she did help warning or not she didn't actively try to keep the victim out of the house. Here is a parent who wants to defend her child and say she tried to do the right thing but she really didn't because if she had the victim wouldn't have gone into the house.

Many will argue that bullying is apart of childhood; either you're a bully or you're the bullied and while that may be true it's not excuse for poor parenting which this case seems to show. Yes nasty things could have been said about the attackers on MySpace but answer a question; why is it that neither the parents of the victim knew what their child wrote and the parents of the attackers didn't know what was written. "Privacy" people will say; "You have to respect your child's privacy". I agree up to a certain extent. I think children should have privacy but that's what journals are for. This whole incident started because of something that was posted on MySpace a website anybody can access. Then it's not private; it's public. The parents of all parties should have been involved and known what happened. The parents of the victim should have told her "Don't say things like this unless you're willing to handle the consequences" and the attackers should have gotten the typical sticks and stones speech. There is no excuse that this should have happened and that the parents had no prior knowledge about the incident. Again I say to those who cry privacy for teenagers; parents not being involved is what caused Columbine to happen. How can you not know your child is building a bomb in the basement, how can you not know your child has a gun, and how can you not know that your child is miserable at school because of the way people treat him or her? There's a fine line between respecting your child's privacy and knowing what is going on in their life so incidents like this don't happen. Take responsibility parents; you are their parents not their friends. There seems to be a new wave of parenting where they wants to be friends instead of being a parent. They want to give their children space and let them have their own lives and be themselves and have privacy to the point where they are completely ignorant of what's going on in their child's life and I jeer at that. The harsh reality of it is that you're not suppose to be your child's friend. You are the parent and guess what? They are not suppose to like you all the time especially when you give them limitations in their life, won't let them go somewhere dangerous, or hang out with people who are a bad influence. They may not like you until they become an adult themselves and have an idea of the real world and yet they not like you until they are parents themselves and have a teenager and understand what you were trying to tell them all along. Bottom line knowing what's going on in your child's life is a necessity for parents. Privacy has its limits when it comes to teenagers lest they have incidents like this and the parents are left wondering where it came from.

Personally I don't believe this beating could have occurred if the parents of both parties had been more actively involved in their children's lives if they had some semblance of what was going on with their girls. When incidents like this occur privacy is no longer a right because it was the girls being private and having secrets that caused the victim to have the extensive injuries she did. Wake up America and be involved in your child's life; it's your right as a parent to know what's going on in their life.

Source:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24009077/