Children In Control

It seems to be an epidemic where children have been given an amazing amount of control over their lives by warring parents involved in divorce and custody matters. Recently I have a number of cases, where the children are refusing to attend school, threatening bodily harm to those around them and basically running amok. The parents seem to be throwing up their hands in surrender placing blame on the other parent and on a system that ties their hands as parents in the discipline of their children. While there is some validity to this complaint, it stems mostly from the possibility of charges brought forth by the other parent who seeks to utilize the court system to their own advantage at the expense of their children. The courts must wake up to the fact that the empowerment of these children is creating a very dangerous generation being unleashed upon society. These are the children who make the papers in places like Columbine. These are the children who are arrested for making threats to their fellow students. These are the future felons of the world. I am never one to count a child out, and it pains me to be involved in cases where the judge feels the child is already a lost cause. As the mother of four, I never like to think any child is a lost cause. Parents, even those getting divorced, need to put their differences aside in order to properly discipline and parent their children. By creating these children they have a responsibility to insure that they grow into law abiding responsible adults. Putting their own self interests ahead of their children these parents really should be punished for their failure to properly parent the children they bring into this world. As a legal system we should be less willing to hear allegations against parents who are disciplining their children. We must make better decisions about making the distinction between abuse and discipline. How is it that abuse tends to be regularly overlooked but parents who are involved in a divorce regularly have the discipline of their children scrutinized by everyone from the law guardian to the forensic psychologists? Many of these "experts" are not even parents themselves, but regularly pass judgement on those involved in messy divorce cases. Mandatory therapy is not such a bad idea where the problems of the divorce have effected the children of the marriage. Parenting classes, and judges more willing to look into allegations by parents of abuse instead of just assuming that where there is smoke there must be a raging fire, may stop the trend. Or maybe adults need to just start acting like adults and let the kids be kids without adult problems.