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What the heck is going on over there in that hemisphere? A couple of stories I’ve come across this morning have me really concerned about anyone with kids who are, or may someday be, teens. Yikes!
First, this one from Toronto that is so freaky that I’ll probably have nightmares about it for months, or years, to come.
Seems students in North America are scheduling after-school fights, advertising them, then posting the bloody brawls on the internet on a site called YouTube.Com.
The graphic footage, which is accompanied by music, shows the fighters being cheered on by large crowds of other students.
Some of the combatants walk away with blood pouring down their faces and open cuts and gashes.
Many of the students involved in the fights think it’s “cool” seeing themselves on the Internet. Others say winning their bouts has earned them respect among their peers at school.
Technology and the popularity of reality TV shows are partly to blame for the dangerous activity, says one psychiatrist.
Some kids, apparently, look on this as their ‘15 minutes of fame’, while others, like some poor little 14-year old who was tired of being picked on, have somehow come to the conclusion that, “… parents would be proud after watching the video.”
The police are disgusted, but as one Police Chief put it, “It’s a consensual fight. Until the line is crossed to assault bodily harm or even in extreme, somebody getting killed, a wrong punch, a bump to the head, whatever the case may be.”
Great.
And this report out of Missouri isn’t giving me the warm fuzzies, either.
School systems may be offering vouchers to parents for free home drug-testing kits though another web site, TestMyTeen.com catering to issues or interests of adolescents.
“It almost seemed too good to be true,” Hallsville Superintendent Tom Baugh said…
Hallsville uses drug dogs to search school hallways, but Baugh has mixed emotions about the school district drug-testing students who participate in extracurricular activities.
The voucher program, he said, allows parents to test without the school district infringing on privacy or paying for it.
“This looked to be a much better way to get the information into the hands of the people who probably need it without the school becoming the bearer of financial costs,” Baugh said. “It’d be a lot of money to spend duck hunting in the wrong pond.”
Duck hunting?
So … TestMyTeen.com gives the school district $5000 worth of vouchers to pass out to parents. Parents use the vouchers to order the “discreetly-packaged kits”. Kids get tested at home, once. If the parents want to keep it up, however, additional kids will cost them $18.99 each (not including taxes and shipping.)
The owner of the company says he hopes, “… his campaign replaces the “Just Say No” mantra with a newer version: No thanks, my parents test me.”
Well, that is more polite, I suppose …
I raised two teens in California way back in the 80s and 90s and I’m darned glad there wasn’t big internet input then. Stories like these are way scary.
