Thoughts on the Columbine Tragedy (page 2)

YAY Scooter!!

Momma's watching!!! Good for you girl!!! My own 14 year old daughter knows "momma's watching" all the time.

She has never had Play Station or any of the other video games. My brother has them at his house and she is able to play there but she is not really that interested. Is that lack of interest due to my restricting her access in her earlier years? Perhaps. Do I feel badly about that? Nope. Her lack of exposure to this hasn't adversaly affected her in the least. She did/does however have games on her computer like "Civilization" & the "Sim" series. When she was younger it was "Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego". She still had fun with those games. This was my choice and parents have to make their own personal choices for their own kids. And I think the big thing is supervision.

I compared this to my own upbringing and we were building tree-forts and playing football in the front yard or playing kick-the-can etc. Nowadays, a kid can sit in a chair and they have a computer with which to communicate, play games, listen to music etc. Turn the chair a few degrees and there is the television with all it offers and add the games and they don't really need to leave that realm at all. Very sad state of affairs.

I also restricted certain shows when she was younger as well (as I continue to monitor what she watches now) When she was younger, shows like Roseanne and Erkle (sp) were not seen on the television in our house. She wanted to know why. I explained to her with Roseanne that THAT is not a family. The whole premise of the show is a lack of respect. The kids don't respect their parents and the parents don't respect their kids and the whole show was who could mouth off the best or who was the most sarcastic with the other to make comedy. In the case of Erkle- she didn't get it. I told her- If you saw that guy on the street, he looks nothing like that- they dressed him in too short pants and gave him this squeeky voice etc., all so that they could make the show about making fun of someone like that. A bit harsh? Perhaps. Do I care? No. I don't think she missed a darn thing by not watching those shows.

One of the things that I noticed from the Columbine tragedy was there were several dynamics present. The parents were not aware of what was going on? There was a sawed-off shotgun on this kids dresser and the parents didn't see it? How is that? They were building bombs in the garage over a span of time and the parents didn't know what was going on?

I think one of the dangers is that so many folks were so bent on success and having it all that they enslaved themselves to it. They built these wonderful homes in ritzy sections of town and then had to work 60 hours a week in order to pay for them. Noone was home. The family unit was not solid.

The other thing I have seen is that some of the kids who have flipped out in this manner were bullied incessantly by others throughout their school years. And noone did anything about it. These kids can be absolutely brutal to one another and the internal damage that bullying does is projected outward. Very sad indeed.

Last year, in my daughter faced the crisis of one of her best friends attempting suicide. She came to me with it and wanted me to not say anything. Up to that point, the friends of this boy had been trying to help him and finally told him that if he didn't tell someone they would. This was an enormous burden on 13-14 year olds. And as things unfolded - I found out that there were several kids in her class having this crisis in their lives-wanting to commit suicide. I got ahold of the school counselor and initially they weren't going to do anything for all of the kids. I made a fuss (go figure eh) and they ended up bringing in a counselor to talk to all of the kids about suicide. Way too much responsibilty and pressure for 13-14 year old kids to deal with. My daughter and I talked about all of that for weeks- I needed to know she was okay with it.

My hats off to you scooter and other parents who keep the lines of communication open with their kids. I figure I have a job here- I have to get this child from birth to being a responsible, emotionally healthy, caring adult. Everything else is secondary. Yes, momma's watching.

Thoughts on the Columbine Tragedy

scootergirl

xenawarrior

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