Solid child-rearing matter of monkey see, monkey do

There were calls last week for the province to look at a law making parents financially responsible for property crimes perpetrated by their offspring. British Columbia currently has one on the books that requires parents to pay for vandalism committed by young offenders up to a maximum of $10,000.

Dartmouth North councillor Jim Smith says a lot of people in his district are fed up with the lack of consequences. The situation isn’t that different around here.

A senior citizen in Waterville feels harassed by loitering youth. A farmer in Lakeville finds a truck stuck in the middle of his freshly planted field of barley. Countless mailboxes are trashed in the dead of night along the highways of Kings County. There was even a series of business break-ins in Wolfville with a Fagan-like adult leading young offenders.

Who is attending to this behaviour? There’s not a lot that police can do. Certainly if a vehicle is involved, catching the license plate number will assist them.

I can attest to the fact that many of the domestic incidents in our Cruiser report arise not from conflicted couples, but from out of control young people. Their parents, one must assume, never developed the skills to handle their own children and I can empathize, having dodged the freaking hormones myself.

It was ironic to me that the same week as the Halifax Regional Municipality votes for making parents financially liable, a pseudo-study in the United States comes out about today’s business leaders having been spanked as kids. A story in USA Today revealed that a list of prominent CEOs and retired CEOs remember being spanked.

So what's the connection? Joe Mogilia, CEO of the huge brokerage TD Waterhouse, is quoted saying, "it comes down to accepting responsibilities for your actions and then understanding the consequences that your actions are ultimately going to dictate."

The latest American poll on spanking children indicates that 55 per cent of U.S. parents believe that spanking is occasionally necessary. That number is down from 90 per cent in 1968.

Now I'm not foolish enough to think that corporal punishment makes better kids. I don't believe in whacking children, but the principle of consequences is logical. The problem is that psychology has taught parents to fret about the self-esteem of their offspring and to coddle because of safety concerns in a way that our parents never imagined. This behaviour too has its consequences.

In schools, one sees the result of a lack of meaningful parenting. Many parents are just too busy surviving by working two jobs to be involved in their kids' lives.

Elizabeth May had a lot to say on the subject of time stress when she was in Wolfville recently. It makes sense that petty violence and vandalism are the result of multiple causes: working poverty, passive attitudes or ineffective child-rearing coming home to roost.

Children will practice no discipline in school or outside if they experience none at home. They also reflect the violence they witness in the home and in the media. Furthermore, children will rarely study if parents don’t demand it and they will exhibit no respect if their parents don't.

Monkey see, monkey do. The question is how do we turn these kids around to face the consequences? How do you get them to put down the paintball or pellet gun or rock while poised to toss it from an overpass before a tragedy occurs?