It was Saturday night. My family and I went to see a movie, Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief, as part of my wife’s birthday celebration. There were, obviously, a lot of teen aged kids in the theater. Nothing was surprising about that at all.
Now this often sets my cringe factor going, since I enjoy not having to deal with unruly people, and teens in a theater have an annoying habit of being unruly. But what happened Saturday night went beyond the normal “unruly” which annoys me but is otherwise harmless.
About five minutes into the movie, I overhear some of the kids a couple of rows up say something about grabbing someone. It’s at that point that the adult couple right behind me stand up, the gentleman visibly upset. I hear the lady talk about “taking it outside”. I realized that these folks were threatened, probably for asking these kids to be quiet (they hadn’t been).
Well, the adults’ cooler heads prevailed, and so she went to go get security. The man stayed put, I believe they had their own kids with them, so I went with her to find security. I had a bad feeling that these punks would walk out of the theater and jump her in the hallway if given half a chance.
Luckily, a police officer was walking into the theater as we were walking out.
What had happened was just as I had suspected. They had asked the kids to be quiet, again, and the kid threatened to grab the woman. The man with her, I assume her husband, didn’t react kindly. I wouldn’t have either.
Now, this kid was really just that: a kid. He was maybe 15, probably a bit younger than that. And yet if these adults had taken it to the parking lot, I don’t know that I would have blamed them. As the lady in question told the police officer, someone has to show these kids that people aren’t afraid of them.
This incident would have been bad enough if it were an isolated thing, but it’s not. This is the kind of thing that happens all the time, and people shrug it off. After this incident, the officer let the kids sit down and watch the movie. They were noisy throughout…after the officer left that is.
Frankly, I can’t help but thinking that maybe the community as a whole would have been better served by taking the kid to the parking lot and whooping his little punk butt. Perhaps then these kids would realize the rules for how to function in a polite society. Maybe they would start to get a grasp on when and where you act like a fool.
Yes, we all know that poor parenting is, by and large, responsible for kids acting like this. We all know it, but the question then becomes what to do about it. Personally, I’m part of the “stupid should hurt” school of thought. If they’re going to act like that, they deserve what’s going to happen.
However, I also recognize that these are kids. We don’t allow them to be responsible for most other things, so where do we draw the line? It’s not our place to discipline someone else’s kids. So where does that leave us?
Sometimes, a kid just needs a whooping. It’s just a shame that the parents haven’t taken care of it when they’re younger and there’s still hope.
How very true. I saw another prime example of this at a fundraiser event this weekend. There was a clown making balloon animals that was being taunted by some little 5th grade punk. The clown stated the boy had already hit him in the back in the back of the head with a rubber ball. About that time, I saw the boy finch at the clown trying to look impressive for his little friends. All I could think was “Where are your parents?” Fortunately for that young boy, I was working a booth at that time. Otherwise, I would have taken him to the principal and made sure to find his mother. If this type of behavior is not stopped at this age, we will be reading about this boy in the Herald in coming years.
It is ALL about parenting, or the lack thereof. We lived by “spare the rod and spoil the child.” That being said, we did not beat our children (there’s a huge difference between beating and spanking); however, if they screwed up, they were spanked. They are now 25 and 24 and thank us for making them well-disciplined/behaved, polite, courteous, and responsible — this was accomplished by being consistent and persistent. If parents don’t get back to the basics of raising kids, this is never going to end.
Unfortunately, the answer to taking this type of matter into you own hands won’t work because basically your hands are tied. These kids need to be taught a lesson; however, we can’t be the ones to do it (unfortunately). Something’s got to give, though. Kids today are basically out of control with no respect for anyone, including themselves. They wouldn’t know respectability or responsibility if it bit them in their rears!
Our society is rudderless regarding the disciplining of children. We threaten parents and teachers who spank children, but we hold them accountable because the children are unruly.
I’ve got a question. Who decided that physical discipline was improper in schools? We all feel bound by this PC rule. It seems to be applied nationwide. No one any longer questions it. But who made the decision? And when was it made?
And why do we (as an American society) feel compelled to tie our own hands with ridiculous politically correct rules? Have we become that disfunctional?
Cartman,
“Have we become that disfunctional?”
Yes.