Have you all seen the article by Mark Schaaf about WAPDs plan to bust underage drinking parties? The program was introduced Tuesday, April 2 at the Spring Into Action event. I missed the event, so my information comes soley from Schaaf's article. If any of you attended, I'd love to hear your opinions about the program.
While I applaud the effort to keep underage drinking parties under control, it saddens me that the police end up trying to control something that parents should be handling. Maybe it was because I wasn't part of the cool crowd in high school, but my parents taught me right from wrong and put house rules in place that, if violated, at least cost us our freedom for a few weeks. I understand times were different 25 years ago when I was 15, but why does it have to be? Why can't the values we were raised with be taught to our children? Were our parents' ways really that bad? When you think about all the teens who die in car wrecks caused by alcohol, the school shootings, the gang crimes...I don't remember having near the problems with these things when we were kids. Police didn't need to "have a presence" at our school and the worst school violence we saw was a fist fight. The "bad" kids were out smoking behind the building, not killing each other because they disagreed.
There were probably always kids stealing a beer or bottle of vodka from their parents, but it was never so large an issue that we had to receive state grant money to have the police department investing valuable resources to continually drive by a home that is suspected of being the site of the next kegger.
Which brings me back to the new PARTY Patrol. Right off the bat, I've got to ask the question. Don't you think that kids are smart enough to quickly reschedule a party to a new location if they come home from school to see the PARTY sign in their front lawn? If they were sneaky enough to plan the party in the first place, don't you think they can just as easily make a quick location change? Or, have a Plan B in place to begin with? The signs would seem to work against the program, not for it. It would seem to make more sense to keep the phone call to the parents, but to do it covertly. The sign gives the kids plenty of advanced notice that their party has been "found out" and they can easily plan a new location on the fly. Instead of signs, why not just use the information gained and show up at the party unannounced?
I also doubted the reliability of expecting kids to tattle on each other by having them call Crime Stoppers or see the police liason in their school to help officers locate parties. I was surprised to learn it's worked well for getting a handle on marijuana possession. That tells me some of you are still raising your kids the way we were raised. Good for you.
I worry about kids today. I don't think I could ever exist in an educational environment where the police had to be called because a gang was collecting outside a school dance. I couldn't go through metal detectors so I could get to English class. I couldn't begin to imagine what it must feel like to have a gunman inside your school.
I realize there isn't an easy answer for all the trouble in schools today, but I'm a firm believer that the responsibilty and punishment we hated as kids is what helped to keep us safe. We learned discipline we've needed for our adult lives to be successful in our careers, we learned respect for others, and we learned how to lose gracefully. These days, we have parents yelling at teachers because their kids "would never do such a thing." Open your eyes and see what's happening in front of you. No one is perfect, not me, not you and not your kids. They need your guidance and love to navigate this world that is more scary than anything we grew up in. Teachers and police should be the back up team to help you, but they shouldn't be relied upon to do the whole job. Stand united with them. My parents always took the teacher's word over me and my brother's protests. Very few teachers are out to get your child and if they are telling you something happened, it did. Kids will try and lie to your face to get off the hook (we always did). Be strong...eventually the truth will come out and you'll be thanking the teacher or officer for helping you catch something before it becomes a problem.
It's sad the PARTY Patrol program is even necessary.
