Why does every topic about something like this turn into a debate on gun control, and not a discussion about the REAL issue that matters, that being what drives teenagers today to act out like this?
Everyone seems to think it's either (i) availability of guns, or (ii) free-will.
You can take the guns away, but people are still going to kill themselves. So that leaves free-will and as long as we continue to invest in that myth, we will never know why they are killing themselves.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Ther is no secret to good grades. You study and work hard. What a novel idea. Instead of blaming "society" for our problems, how about we take some personal responsibility.
who said there was a secret to good grades? some kids just do not have the capacity or the motivation. i'm hardly blaming society by pointing out that the education system treats all children as one and the same. standardised testing is horseshit and just points out how lacking the education system is.
and i believe that people do have free will. your actions are your own and you have to take responsibility for them. but i also believe that society defines the parameters within which we are able to exercise that free will. they praise individuality and then slap it in the face when someone steps outside the box too much. the entire advertising industry prefers we show our individuality by conforming. i believe it's called pseudoindividuality.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Everyone seems to think it's either (i) availability of guns, or (ii) free-will.
You can take the guns away, but people are still going to kill themselves. So that leaves free-will and as long as we continue to invest in that myth, we will never know why they are killing themselves.
Or take away free-will, and we'll never know why he was predestined to shoot himself. It was just part of the master cause-effect chain. He had no control over it and no responsibilty for it. No point in even trying to understand it because we can't change it. Isn't that your schtick?
"I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
Or take away free-will, and we'll never know why he was predestined to shoot himself. It was just part of the master cause-effect chain. He had no control over it and no responsibilty for it. No point in even trying to understand it because we can't change it. Isn't that your schtick?
Ok, no free-will is not the same as predeterminism. You will find that most determinists don't believe in predeterminism. Those are two separate things.
What it means is that they would not kill themselves and that may or may not be predetermined, but we can exercise our ability to figure out the causal nature of suicide, as soon as we recognize that there is a cause, independent of the mythical free-will.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
You do have rocks in your head if you feel the need to own a rifle for 'self protection'
The record in American schools suggests otherwise
Really? Ever have to deal with a black bear?
Ever lived in Detroit or Baltimore...land of the home invasion?
If I have rocks in my head, the Constitution must be flawed, because it is my Constitutional right to keep an bear arms. There have been guns in the house since I was a kid, and no matter how shitty I thought my life was, I never once got the urge to take one to school and start blasting away...and my childhood was pretty damned depressing.
I'm right fucking tired of this particular debate. It's people making bad decisions. That gun isn't sitting in its cabinet taunting the kid. No one is telling him to grab it and off himself...or take it to school and kill others/himself. That's just a fucked up kid who probably had a shit home life with little discipline or control.
I've never read a story about any of these kids where it was an average joe who decided to do it. It's always some kid who's totally fucked in the head...and that is an institutional problem. Kids with too much energy today aren't even allowed to have gym class. They're labeled as "hyper" or "ADD" and put on meds that fuck up their brain chemistry. And then we wonder why shit goes down?
Give me a break. On second thought...don't. Anyone who is careless enough not to secure their weapons or teach their children about gun safety deserves to have their kid blow their brains out...or worse. The counter to my argument is the BIGGEST part of the problem. Gun control advocates fail to acknowledge the RESPONSIBILITY required of gun ownership...which is why I say fuck 'em. If they can't man up and be responsible enough in their own lives to have control over what amounts to an inanimate object for most of it's usable life...then fuck 'em. They're damaged human beings on a very fundamental level. common sense and resposibility are all it takes to avoid this kind of crap. Oddly enough...two critical traits to being a half-way decent parent, too.
Kids today have it easy because of the access they have to learning. The internet is an unprecedented educational tool, that is more often used to its entertainment value. Being made to feel that you MUSt do your best is nothing new...and, it's not an unrealistic expectation. When you're a kid, the only thing you have to focus on is your grades. You don't have a job (legally), you don't have big bils to pay. Your "job" is to do your best in school, so that you have a shot at a somewhat ok life.
People in this country are getting to lazy and lax about their own personal responsibility and accountability. everyone wants to be a fat fucking lump who lays around and get's spoon-fed their entire life. Well, that's just not how it works. You have to man up, and bust your ass just to survive...and if you're lucky, you'll get ahead in some way or another...if you set your mind to it, and have the talent and responsibility it takes to be successful in any endeavor.
Enough of this blaming the gun horseshit...guns don't make shitty decisions. People do.
“That damn game. He shot himself because of the game,” says his mother. She says he was completely addicted to it. He may have had other problems, but she thinks Everquest pushed him over the edge. Susan Spencer reports.
“He couldn’t stay off it. That’s how strong that game is. You can’t just get up and walk away,” she says. In the end, she says, the game became his life.
Now it's comments like these that make me despair of any hope for mankind.
“That damn game. He shot himself because of the game.." Fuck me sideways with a large farming instrument! Why can't people ever face the fucking truth? Why must something else always be to blame?
Personally, I would find it a lot easier to jump from a really tall building. That way when I hit the ground my brain splatters and I don't have to worry about surviving as a vegetable. Plus, I'd get a nice free-fall sensation right before I died.
I know it's wrong, but I laughed out loud reading this post!
Kids today have it easy because of the access they have to learning. The internet is an unprecedented educational tool, that is more often used to its entertainment value. Being made to feel that you MUSt do your best is nothing new...and, it's not an unrealistic expectation. When you're a kid, the only thing you have to focus on is your grades. You don't have a job (legally), you don't have big bils to pay. Your "job" is to do your best in school, so that you have a shot at a somewhat ok life.
People in this country are getting to lazy and lax about their own personal responsibility and accountability. everyone wants to be a fat fucking lump who lays around and get's spoon-fed their entire life. Well, that's just not how it works. You have to man up, and bust your ass just to survive...and if you're lucky, you'll get ahead in some way or another...if you set your mind to it, and have the talent and responsibility it takes to be successful in any endeavor.
Enough of this blaming the gun horseshit...guns don't make shitty decisions. People do.
a kid's 'job' is to be a kid. to grow and to learn how it all works. and someone has to guide kids through that. 'to do your best' may not be same in their eyes as it is in the parents or the system. 'you're just not trying hard enough.' is not something a kid wants to hear when he is trying the best he /she knows how. shit a brick anyone would think these kids are being raised by the perfect adults. don't tell your kids they have to do their best and knuckle down when at the same time you deny what a shit time you had at school and how you hated it and how you spent more time smoking cigarettes behind the toilet block than cracking open a book.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
if only i had a gun during double fucking Algebra :rolleyes:
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
you think we got it easy?????????????
i cant bring anything home less than a B-, or i get grounded
That was me, 10 years ago. We're not so different. In fact, my peeps started taking things away from me when I brought home C's. The rationale
"Average people have to work harder to keep their heads above water in the world, son. Anyone can be average. It takes commitment to yourself to do better"
When that didn't sink in, and I brought home a D, extra curricular activities were pulled. No participation in the high school musical...no soccer after school with the neighborhood friends, no movies, no phone...you name it. even went as far as to forbidding me to see my gf at the time.
When I brought home an "F", I got my ass beat. That only happened twice. I didn't like F's, and I didn't like my ass whooping. I knew I could have done better, and I knew that even if I was having trouble, with a tutor I might not have done much better, but that most teachers will not fail a child who is making an honest effort. I wasn't. I deserved an ass whooping.
Look...the best advice I can give to you as a young person is this...DON'T try harder just because your parents tell you to. Try as hard as you can because YOU are worth it.Believe me, sean, the harder you work right now, the easier things will be for you later on.
Sure, there will be people around you who seem to excel without much effort. Those people pissed me off too. Don't take a gun to school and shoot them. That is not the right solution. Just make an honest commitment to yourself. You don't have to be the "best", only the best YOU that you can be. My feeling is that each and every child has within him or her 10 times the potential that their parents have/had. all you have to do, is realize that your parents busting your balls is not about them trying to ruin your life...but to keep your life from being ruined.
I could have earned scholarships. I did the bare minimum to get B's. It was my way of being passive aggressive and retaliatory towards my folks for being so tough on me. when it came time for college, I had won a scholarship for singing. That only paid for 2 years of school, and when I realized how much harder I had to work in college, I regretted all ofthe time I spent goofing off.
This is not to say that being young should be all stoic and devoid of fun. Play as hard as you can within reason...but work hard too. If a B- is the best that you can do, then you have nothing to regret. If, however, you can look at yourself in the mirror, and know that you could do better...the only person who can control that is you. It won't matter how much your folks lay into you about it.
In the end, there's mor eto life than getting good grades. The world is full of stories about people who didn't even finish high school, but went on to make themselves huge successes. It's like my grandfather told me days before he died "Bobby, if you don't have book smarts, make sure that you have a strong back...because without one, you will certainly need the other"
a kid's 'job' is to be a kid. to grow and to learn how it all works. and someone has to guide kids through that. 'to do your best' may not be same in their eyes as it is in the parents or the system. 'you're just not trying hard enough.' is not something a kid wants to hear when he is trying the best he /she knows how. shit a brick anyone would think these kids are being raised by the perfect adults. don't tell your kids they have to do their best and knuckle down when at the same time you deny what a shit time you had at school and how you hated it and how you spent more time smoking cigarettes behind the toilet block than cracking open a book.
A kids job is to do the best they can. Being a kid and screwing off will not put food on the table when it's time to get a job after you graduate (or before in my case). Hell, just toget a job my parents insisted i have good grades.
I'll agree with you...kids should be kids and try to figure out how life works to the best of their ability, provided they have a nurturing/supportive environment. So many kids start on the bubble these days, because adults can't get their shit together. For those kids, I feel a lot of regret, because they deserve better.
My frustration is directed more at kids who are lucky enough to have a relatively stable home life, and the opportunit y to perform, but instead choose to be difficult. Doing your best means getting help if your best isn't cutting it. every school I have ever attended had tutoring. dunno if that holds true anymore, but I have to assume it does.
Unless a child is emotionally/psychologically/physically abused...I see no reason for them to not have time to be both a "kid" and to try as hard as they can for themselves...not their parents...themselves.
My frustration is directed more at kids who are lucky enough to have a relatively stable home life, and the opportunit y to perform, but instead choose to be difficult. Doing your best means getting help if your best isn't cutting it. every school I have ever attended had tutoring. dunno if that holds true anymore, but I have to assume it does.
Unless a child is emotionally/psychologically/physically abused...I see no reason for them to not have time to be both a "kid" and to try as hard as they can for themselves...not their parents...themselves.
So, here you say that a person given the perfect environment, should make the right choice, but yet they do not.
Then you say that under certain circumstances are not permitted to do what you feel is required.
So, how is that certain circumstances affect a child, but not all?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I say, if you want to punish your kid, take away his right to play video games or something. Never take away his/her right to play sports.
Think of it like this, you can suppress or reinforce your child's activities. Banning them from playing sports suppresses the activity. Reinforce the activity of playing sports always. Or they end up like me. lol.
May I ask if you ever played High School sports?
First of all, i think the pressure to excel in sports is far greater from parents than the pressure to get good grades...
second... If you ever played high school sports, its not a simple matter of an after school activity. The amount of time you need to devote to them definately takes away from your time to get school work done.. and there are people who are incapable of balancing that type of workload.
You dont just go to practice, your weekly game and go home. You practice in the summer. You come in early and leave late. You have to show up on saturdays and sundays to watch film. Some schools make available (ie basically force you) classes as a Gym credit that are essentially mid day practice. You go to team meals and in some cases, do fund raisers....
Just from a purely "hours in the day" perspective there is no question that participation in sports can have a negative impact on your ability to study and get good grades. Your view on this may have some validity from a philosophical standpoint, but is lacking practicality.
its so tragic that anyone feels that suicide is the only way out, and its sad that most people here seem to put blame on the parents, no one knows what goes on in someone else's life, you don't know what these other activities were. The fact is no parent, ever, should have to bury their child, its devastating. My thoughts go out to all his family and friends. :(
its so tragic that anyone feels that suicide is the only way out, and its sad that most people here seem to put blame on the parents, no one knows what goes on in someone else's life, you don't know what these other activities were. The fact is no parent, ever, should have to bury their child, its devastating. My thoughts go out to all his family and friends. :(
True. It was more than likely a combination of things that drove him to it.
First of all, i think the pressure to excel in sports is far greater from parents than the pressure to get good grades...
second... If you ever played high school sports, its not a simple matter of an after school activity. The amount of time you need to devote to them definately takes away from your time to get school work done.. and there are people who are incapable of balancing that type of workload.
You dont just go to practice, your weekly game and go home. You practice in the summer. You come in early and leave late. You have to show up on saturdays and sundays to watch film. Some schools make available (ie basically force you) classes as a Gym credit that are essentially mid day practice. You go to team meals and in some cases, do fund raisers....
Just from a purely "hours in the day" perspective there is no question that participation in sports can have a negative impact on your ability to study and get good grades. Your view on this may have some validity from a philosophical standpoint, but is lacking practicality.
Yea, but if a kid enjoys sports it's best to encourage them. Physical exercise helps the brain as well, it's been directly linked to cognitive abilities. Not to mention the behavioral pattern it sets for a healthy lifestyle. I don't think algebra is as important as that.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Yea, but if a kid enjoys sports it's best to encourage them. Physical exercise helps the brain as well, it's been directly linked to cognitive abilities. Not to mention the behavioral pattern it sets for a healthy lifestyle. I don't think algebra is as important as that.
I think it would be equally important to set a behavioral pattern of priorities. The point of school is education, the other things are secondary... And you need to excel in your main goal before you can focus on the extra stuff.
and yes, it is good to encourage a kid to play sports... but if that kid is not capable of handling both properly.. then a choice needs to be made... and your ability to play football is not going to get you a job in 10 years- your grades (and subsequently the college you get into) will. You can go to school and not play high school football.... To continue to play football, you Have to stay in school- and you have to have the grades to be eligable.
But again, in many cases, parents arent removing the kid as a punishment- they are making a difficult situation more manageable for thier kid.
The fact remains that the amount of time it takes to invest into a high school sports can definatly negatively impact the ability of a student to get good grades and gain the knowledge and information that school provides.
I think it would be equally important to set a behavioral pattern of priorities. The point of school is education, the other things are secondary... And you need to excel in your main goal before you can focus on the extra stuff.
and yes, it is good to encourage a kid to play sports... but if that kid is not capable of handling both properly.. then a choice needs to be made... and your ability to play football is not going to get you a job in 10 years- your grades (and subsequently the college you get into) will. You can go to school and not play high school football.... To continue to play football, you Have to stay in school- and you have to have the grades to be eligable.
But again, in many cases, parents arent removing the kid as a punishment- they are making a difficult situation more manageable for thier kid.
The fact remains that the amount of time it takes to invest into a high school sports can definatly negatively impact the ability of a student to get good grades and gain the knowledge and information that school provides.
I wasn't involved in high-school sports. Yet, I had extremely poor grades and failed to finish. Subsequently I owned my own business, attended post-grad education and recently had an interview as a developer for the best automotive information provider in the world. Guess, I'm just a freak.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I wasn't involved in high-school sports. Yet, I had extremely poor grades and failed to finish. Subsequently I owned my own business, attended post-grad education and recently had an interview as a developer for the best automotive information provider in the world. Guess, I'm just a freak.
No, you exceled through determination. Nothing wrong with that. You managed to figure out your priorities and improved yourself. Good grades dont mean that you will or will not have a "good life"... but it cant hurt.
The fact you werent involved in high school sports gives a lot of insight into your postion.
When i played high school football... the schedule was as such.
Summer Months...
June and July- Weight Training and Passing camps. Very few days off.
August- 2 a day practices...
Monday- Thursday
7:30- Report to school
8:00- In the film room dressed.
9-11:30- Practice
11:30-2- Practice
2:30- Team Meeting
3:00- Get changed go home.
Saturday- Practice and Film 8 am- 12pm.
School starts-
Monday- Thursday:
7 am- Team Meeting
7:40- School Starts
mid day class: Gym/Football Class
2:15 Day ends- to the locker room
2:45- Dressed and in the Film room
3:15-5:30- Practice
5:30-6- Team meeting
6- Get changed and go home.
Friday
School starts-
Monday- Thursday:
7 am- Team Meeting
7:40- School Starts
mid day class: Gym/Football Class
2:15 Day ends- to get food
3:30- Return to school for team meeting
4:30- Get Dressed
5- Get on the bus
Game prep and game ends at 10
return to school at 1030 and go home
saturday-
8am-12 pm- Conditioning and Film.
This doesnt count team meals, fundraising and other misc...
I totally disagree with you after having studied child psychology.
Chances are there something happening at school that was affecting his grades, not something happening after school. It could have been a conflict with a teacher or students. Thus why he shot himself at school and not at home.
Studying child psychology did nothing to lead you to that conclusion.
The only people we should try to get even with...
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Ever lived in Detroit or Baltimore...land of the home invasion?
If I have rocks in my head, the Constitution must be flawed, because it is my Constitutional right to keep an bear arms. There have been guns in the house since I was a kid, and no matter how shitty I thought my life was, I never once got the urge to take one to school and start blasting away...and my childhood was pretty damned depressing.
I'm right fucking tired of this particular debate. It's people making bad decisions. That gun isn't sitting in its cabinet taunting the kid. No one is telling him to grab it and off himself...or take it to school and kill others/himself. That's just a fucked up kid who probably had a shit home life with little discipline or control.
I've never read a story about any of these kids where it was an average joe who decided to do it. It's always some kid who's totally fucked in the head...and that is an institutional problem. Kids with too much energy today aren't even allowed to have gym class. They're labeled as "hyper" or "ADD" and put on meds that fuck up their brain chemistry. And then we wonder why shit goes down?
Give me a break. On second thought...don't. Anyone who is careless enough not to secure their weapons or teach their children about gun safety deserves to have their kid blow their brains out...or worse. The counter to my argument is the BIGGEST part of the problem. Gun control advocates fail to acknowledge the RESPONSIBILITY required of gun ownership...which is why I say fuck 'em. If they can't man up and be responsible enough in their own lives to have control over what amounts to an inanimate object for most of it's usable life...then fuck 'em. They're damaged human beings on a very fundamental level. common sense and resposibility are all it takes to avoid this kind of crap. Oddly enough...two critical traits to being a half-way decent parent, too.
Kids today have it easy because of the access they have to learning. The internet is an unprecedented educational tool, that is more often used to its entertainment value. Being made to feel that you MUSt do your best is nothing new...and, it's not an unrealistic expectation. When you're a kid, the only thing you have to focus on is your grades. You don't have a job (legally), you don't have big bils to pay. Your "job" is to do your best in school, so that you have a shot at a somewhat ok life.
People in this country are getting to lazy and lax about their own personal responsibility and accountability. everyone wants to be a fat fucking lump who lays around and get's spoon-fed their entire life. Well, that's just not how it works. You have to man up, and bust your ass just to survive...and if you're lucky, you'll get ahead in some way or another...if you set your mind to it, and have the talent and responsibility it takes to be successful in any endeavor.
Enough of this blaming the gun horseshit...guns don't make shitty decisions. People do.
But you have no restrictions on who can own a gun which is the major problem and what do you need a fully automatic rifle for when hunting animals or securing your house? Where does this lidicrous arms race end?
You miss the point entirely when you imply that consequences of gun violence only affect the owners when they clearly impact the lives of other people in the community.
I think people are putting way too much emphasis on the parents and what they supposedly did wrong. And there are way too many assumptions flying around about how the parents went about raising this kid. You can't know everything from one little news story.
Let's also not forget the kid was 16, not 6. He was old enough to make this choice all on his own. He chose to bring a gun to school and shoot himself. That is a tragedy, and that's the real story. I can't say I respect his choice, because he put other people in danger. It's interesting how people are very quick to point out how dangerous it was to have the gun available in the home, but not how much more dangerous is was to bring it to a public place. But I'm not going to make some example of him as to why guns should be banned or why you shouldn't be too strict with your kids either.
I agree with 'is it just my way'. This thread shouldn't turn into some debate about how to raise children or gun laws. It should be about suicide. The choice of suicide has little or nothing to do with gun laws or a strict upbringing. I had a very strict upbringing, and I'm still here. There's a reason for that, and there's a reason why many of you who grew up with strict parents (who maybe owned guns) didn't kill yourselves. When people really learn what that reason is, it can probably help out a lot when it's time to raise their own kids.
Comments
Everyone seems to think it's either (i) availability of guns, or (ii) free-will.
You can take the guns away, but people are still going to kill themselves. So that leaves free-will and as long as we continue to invest in that myth, we will never know why they are killing themselves.
who said there was a secret to good grades? some kids just do not have the capacity or the motivation. i'm hardly blaming society by pointing out that the education system treats all children as one and the same. standardised testing is horseshit and just points out how lacking the education system is.
and i believe that people do have free will. your actions are your own and you have to take responsibility for them. but i also believe that society defines the parameters within which we are able to exercise that free will. they praise individuality and then slap it in the face when someone steps outside the box too much. the entire advertising industry prefers we show our individuality by conforming. i believe it's called pseudoindividuality.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Or take away free-will, and we'll never know why he was predestined to shoot himself. It was just part of the master cause-effect chain. He had no control over it and no responsibilty for it. No point in even trying to understand it because we can't change it. Isn't that your schtick?
Ok, no free-will is not the same as predeterminism. You will find that most determinists don't believe in predeterminism. Those are two separate things.
What it means is that they would not kill themselves and that may or may not be predetermined, but we can exercise our ability to figure out the causal nature of suicide, as soon as we recognize that there is a cause, independent of the mythical free-will.
Really? Ever have to deal with a black bear?
Ever lived in Detroit or Baltimore...land of the home invasion?
If I have rocks in my head, the Constitution must be flawed, because it is my Constitutional right to keep an bear arms. There have been guns in the house since I was a kid, and no matter how shitty I thought my life was, I never once got the urge to take one to school and start blasting away...and my childhood was pretty damned depressing.
I'm right fucking tired of this particular debate. It's people making bad decisions. That gun isn't sitting in its cabinet taunting the kid. No one is telling him to grab it and off himself...or take it to school and kill others/himself. That's just a fucked up kid who probably had a shit home life with little discipline or control.
I've never read a story about any of these kids where it was an average joe who decided to do it. It's always some kid who's totally fucked in the head...and that is an institutional problem. Kids with too much energy today aren't even allowed to have gym class. They're labeled as "hyper" or "ADD" and put on meds that fuck up their brain chemistry. And then we wonder why shit goes down?
Give me a break. On second thought...don't. Anyone who is careless enough not to secure their weapons or teach their children about gun safety deserves to have their kid blow their brains out...or worse. The counter to my argument is the BIGGEST part of the problem. Gun control advocates fail to acknowledge the RESPONSIBILITY required of gun ownership...which is why I say fuck 'em. If they can't man up and be responsible enough in their own lives to have control over what amounts to an inanimate object for most of it's usable life...then fuck 'em. They're damaged human beings on a very fundamental level. common sense and resposibility are all it takes to avoid this kind of crap. Oddly enough...two critical traits to being a half-way decent parent, too.
Kids today have it easy because of the access they have to learning. The internet is an unprecedented educational tool, that is more often used to its entertainment value. Being made to feel that you MUSt do your best is nothing new...and, it's not an unrealistic expectation. When you're a kid, the only thing you have to focus on is your grades. You don't have a job (legally), you don't have big bils to pay. Your "job" is to do your best in school, so that you have a shot at a somewhat ok life.
People in this country are getting to lazy and lax about their own personal responsibility and accountability. everyone wants to be a fat fucking lump who lays around and get's spoon-fed their entire life. Well, that's just not how it works. You have to man up, and bust your ass just to survive...and if you're lucky, you'll get ahead in some way or another...if you set your mind to it, and have the talent and responsibility it takes to be successful in any endeavor.
Enough of this blaming the gun horseshit...guns don't make shitty decisions. People do.
old music: http://www.myspace.com/slowloader
“That damn game. He shot himself because of the game,” says his mother. She says he was completely addicted to it. He may have had other problems, but she thinks Everquest pushed him over the edge. Susan Spencer reports.
“He couldn’t stay off it. That’s how strong that game is. You can’t just get up and walk away,” she says. In the end, she says, the game became his life.
Now it's comments like these that make me despair of any hope for mankind.
“That damn game. He shot himself because of the game.." Fuck me sideways with a large farming instrument! Why can't people ever face the fucking truth? Why must something else always be to blame?
I know it's wrong, but I laughed out loud reading this post!
a kid's 'job' is to be a kid. to grow and to learn how it all works. and someone has to guide kids through that. 'to do your best' may not be same in their eyes as it is in the parents or the system. 'you're just not trying hard enough.' is not something a kid wants to hear when he is trying the best he /she knows how. shit a brick anyone would think these kids are being raised by the perfect adults. don't tell your kids they have to do their best and knuckle down when at the same time you deny what a shit time you had at school and how you hated it and how you spent more time smoking cigarettes behind the toilet block than cracking open a book.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
That was me, 10 years ago. We're not so different. In fact, my peeps started taking things away from me when I brought home C's. The rationale
"Average people have to work harder to keep their heads above water in the world, son. Anyone can be average. It takes commitment to yourself to do better"
When that didn't sink in, and I brought home a D, extra curricular activities were pulled. No participation in the high school musical...no soccer after school with the neighborhood friends, no movies, no phone...you name it. even went as far as to forbidding me to see my gf at the time.
When I brought home an "F", I got my ass beat. That only happened twice. I didn't like F's, and I didn't like my ass whooping. I knew I could have done better, and I knew that even if I was having trouble, with a tutor I might not have done much better, but that most teachers will not fail a child who is making an honest effort. I wasn't. I deserved an ass whooping.
Look...the best advice I can give to you as a young person is this...DON'T try harder just because your parents tell you to. Try as hard as you can because YOU are worth it.Believe me, sean, the harder you work right now, the easier things will be for you later on.
Sure, there will be people around you who seem to excel without much effort. Those people pissed me off too. Don't take a gun to school and shoot them. That is not the right solution. Just make an honest commitment to yourself. You don't have to be the "best", only the best YOU that you can be. My feeling is that each and every child has within him or her 10 times the potential that their parents have/had. all you have to do, is realize that your parents busting your balls is not about them trying to ruin your life...but to keep your life from being ruined.
I could have earned scholarships. I did the bare minimum to get B's. It was my way of being passive aggressive and retaliatory towards my folks for being so tough on me. when it came time for college, I had won a scholarship for singing. That only paid for 2 years of school, and when I realized how much harder I had to work in college, I regretted all ofthe time I spent goofing off.
This is not to say that being young should be all stoic and devoid of fun. Play as hard as you can within reason...but work hard too. If a B- is the best that you can do, then you have nothing to regret. If, however, you can look at yourself in the mirror, and know that you could do better...the only person who can control that is you. It won't matter how much your folks lay into you about it.
In the end, there's mor eto life than getting good grades. The world is full of stories about people who didn't even finish high school, but went on to make themselves huge successes. It's like my grandfather told me days before he died "Bobby, if you don't have book smarts, make sure that you have a strong back...because without one, you will certainly need the other"
Hang in there
old music: http://www.myspace.com/slowloader
A kids job is to do the best they can. Being a kid and screwing off will not put food on the table when it's time to get a job after you graduate (or before in my case). Hell, just toget a job my parents insisted i have good grades.
I'll agree with you...kids should be kids and try to figure out how life works to the best of their ability, provided they have a nurturing/supportive environment. So many kids start on the bubble these days, because adults can't get their shit together. For those kids, I feel a lot of regret, because they deserve better.
My frustration is directed more at kids who are lucky enough to have a relatively stable home life, and the opportunit y to perform, but instead choose to be difficult. Doing your best means getting help if your best isn't cutting it. every school I have ever attended had tutoring. dunno if that holds true anymore, but I have to assume it does.
Unless a child is emotionally/psychologically/physically abused...I see no reason for them to not have time to be both a "kid" and to try as hard as they can for themselves...not their parents...themselves.
old music: http://www.myspace.com/slowloader
So, here you say that a person given the perfect environment, should make the right choice, but yet they do not.
Then you say that under certain circumstances are not permitted to do what you feel is required.
So, how is that certain circumstances affect a child, but not all?
May I ask if you ever played High School sports?
First of all, i think the pressure to excel in sports is far greater from parents than the pressure to get good grades...
second... If you ever played high school sports, its not a simple matter of an after school activity. The amount of time you need to devote to them definately takes away from your time to get school work done.. and there are people who are incapable of balancing that type of workload.
You dont just go to practice, your weekly game and go home. You practice in the summer. You come in early and leave late. You have to show up on saturdays and sundays to watch film. Some schools make available (ie basically force you) classes as a Gym credit that are essentially mid day practice. You go to team meals and in some cases, do fund raisers....
Just from a purely "hours in the day" perspective there is no question that participation in sports can have a negative impact on your ability to study and get good grades. Your view on this may have some validity from a philosophical standpoint, but is lacking practicality.
True. It was more than likely a combination of things that drove him to it.
Yea, but if a kid enjoys sports it's best to encourage them. Physical exercise helps the brain as well, it's been directly linked to cognitive abilities. Not to mention the behavioral pattern it sets for a healthy lifestyle. I don't think algebra is as important as that.
I think it would be equally important to set a behavioral pattern of priorities. The point of school is education, the other things are secondary... And you need to excel in your main goal before you can focus on the extra stuff.
and yes, it is good to encourage a kid to play sports... but if that kid is not capable of handling both properly.. then a choice needs to be made... and your ability to play football is not going to get you a job in 10 years- your grades (and subsequently the college you get into) will. You can go to school and not play high school football.... To continue to play football, you Have to stay in school- and you have to have the grades to be eligable.
But again, in many cases, parents arent removing the kid as a punishment- they are making a difficult situation more manageable for thier kid.
The fact remains that the amount of time it takes to invest into a high school sports can definatly negatively impact the ability of a student to get good grades and gain the knowledge and information that school provides.
I wasn't involved in high-school sports. Yet, I had extremely poor grades and failed to finish. Subsequently I owned my own business, attended post-grad education and recently had an interview as a developer for the best automotive information provider in the world. Guess, I'm just a freak.
No, you exceled through determination. Nothing wrong with that. You managed to figure out your priorities and improved yourself. Good grades dont mean that you will or will not have a "good life"... but it cant hurt.
The fact you werent involved in high school sports gives a lot of insight into your postion.
When i played high school football... the schedule was as such.
Summer Months...
June and July- Weight Training and Passing camps. Very few days off.
August- 2 a day practices...
Monday- Thursday
7:30- Report to school
8:00- In the film room dressed.
9-11:30- Practice
11:30-2- Practice
2:30- Team Meeting
3:00- Get changed go home.
Saturday- Practice and Film 8 am- 12pm.
School starts-
Monday- Thursday:
7 am- Team Meeting
7:40- School Starts
mid day class: Gym/Football Class
2:15 Day ends- to the locker room
2:45- Dressed and in the Film room
3:15-5:30- Practice
5:30-6- Team meeting
6- Get changed and go home.
Friday
School starts-
Monday- Thursday:
7 am- Team Meeting
7:40- School Starts
mid day class: Gym/Football Class
2:15 Day ends- to get food
3:30- Return to school for team meeting
4:30- Get Dressed
5- Get on the bus
Game prep and game ends at 10
return to school at 1030 and go home
saturday-
8am-12 pm- Conditioning and Film.
This doesnt count team meals, fundraising and other misc...
doesnt leave a lot of time for homework.
Studying child psychology did nothing to lead you to that conclusion.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
But you have no restrictions on who can own a gun which is the major problem and what do you need a fully automatic rifle for when hunting animals or securing your house? Where does this lidicrous arms race end?
You miss the point entirely when you imply that consequences of gun violence only affect the owners when they clearly impact the lives of other people in the community.
Constitutions can be amended.
Let's also not forget the kid was 16, not 6. He was old enough to make this choice all on his own. He chose to bring a gun to school and shoot himself. That is a tragedy, and that's the real story. I can't say I respect his choice, because he put other people in danger. It's interesting how people are very quick to point out how dangerous it was to have the gun available in the home, but not how much more dangerous is was to bring it to a public place. But I'm not going to make some example of him as to why guns should be banned or why you shouldn't be too strict with your kids either.
I agree with 'is it just my way'. This thread shouldn't turn into some debate about how to raise children or gun laws. It should be about suicide. The choice of suicide has little or nothing to do with gun laws or a strict upbringing. I had a very strict upbringing, and I'm still here. There's a reason for that, and there's a reason why many of you who grew up with strict parents (who maybe owned guns) didn't kill yourselves. When people really learn what that reason is, it can probably help out a lot when it's time to raise their own kids.