The problems our fellow citizens and children are having these days do not emanate from bad schools, the easy availability of guns and other weapons or, YES, inadequate parents - they come from a lack of decency instilling neighborhoods (aka communities) within which families, neighbors and, YES, parents (aka the community) can 'socialize' children into becoming skilled, decent and responsible adults.  Without churches, shops, entertainment-recreation, schools and other local venues to walk to day in and day out, week after week, year after year, oftentimes past caring and socially adept neighbors, many children don't have a chance to legitimize the social skills necessary to become skilled, decent and responsible fellow citizens!!  Without consistent, tough-love merchants and neighbors with whom they can interact and communicate, many children don't learn how to 'network' or otherwise make the connections that will help them establish and then succeed in their own adult 'money making' endeavors.      Does anyone think children are learning anything beneficial by spending four hours a day on those UNCHAPERONED yellow busses!? That funds are not being pursued to create decency instilling neighborhood venues where children can spend their before and after school time each day (and on weekends) proves how little our nation really cares about children or families.  That parents and other concerned adults are not demanding those facilities proves how little we understand how children grow, learn and develop into decent, productive and responsible citizens.  That we would rather place kids 20 hours a week on non-seat-belted, schedule enforced (thereby unsafe at any speed) busses driven by low wage, oftentimes inexperienced drivers just to get children out of the neighborhood that's good enough to live and play in but not good enough to go to school in proves how irresponsible our policy makers are - and we, ourselves are for letting them get away with it for so long.  On the local front, in our own high population density urban area, we bus 4 out of every 5 students in the Milwaukee Public Schools each day!  Anyone who DOESN'T THINK THAT'S INSANE is insane. One of the primary solutions to most of the problems arising from the instability inherent within dysfunctional neighborhoods is to make sure everyone who wants to is capable of owning and maintaining their own home.  It's an outrageous insult upon the common decency of our society as a whole that some people can live in and pay rent for a home YEAR AFTER YEAR FOR DECADES that they cannot otherwise qualify to buy.  Churches and other non-profit groups that are really concerned about their fellow human beings are the obvious entities capable of identifying and helping these families obtain and maintain their own homes. The at various (high) schools are just another in what's become the "common" method for dysfunctional kids to SHOUT OUT their aberrant upbringing.  The tip of this iceberg is showing itself, but our Titanic nation is cruising along, full speed ahead, secure in the knowledge that we're on a ship that can't be sunk! Adults who don't understand the TANTRUM THROWING nature of these kinds of aberrant episodes don't understand children.  Maybe we'll begin looking into how children are and should be raised when some of our so called leaders gain first hand knowledge of the problem. EXAMPLES OF THE PROBLEM:       Question:  Who knows best - a loving parent or the bureaucratic judicial system? Hint:  Remember, this is the same system that sends innocent people to death row and lets murderers go free.  (Or in some cases, so confuses jurors with contradictory instructions that they decide to flip a coin to determine which verdict to return.)   Question:  Should a six year old killer be subject to judicial review? Hint:  Is the ?justice? system the only one able to address problems dysfunctional families have? (Are the people considering this really being paid with our tax dollars?!)   Question:  Should children who really, really misbehave be treated as adults by our criminal ?justice? system? Hint:  Duh, should children who want to become adults as fast as possible replace smoking and premature sex with violence as the means, in their minds, to accomplish that objective?! [ And, duh, duh, duh, like duh, who are these morons running our society who think that it takes less than 18 years to raise a child?  And, if they really believe that, when are they going to introduce legislation to lower the drinking, driving, marriage, military induction, consensual sex and other ages to 17, 12, 8 and even 4 years to reflect their moronic beliefs? ]   Question:  How many times have you seen 15 ~ 17 year old teens arguing or fighting with 9 ~ 12 year old adolescents? Hint:  How does walking to a neighborhood school every day differ from riding an age segregated bus several hours each day? The solutions, as with most other 'people' problems, lie in the area of better communications - especially those derived from everyday, routine, social interchange.  Eliminating the moronic policy of bussing kids on segregated busses from one segregated neighborhood to another will facilitate more rewarding daily interchange.  (We are even bussing some kids away from an integrated 'specialty school' in their own segregated neighborhood to a segregated 'non-specialty school' in another segregated neighborhood.) Children need to have at least one adult (or very mature peer) in their lives who can be used as a sounding board for their most outrageous thoughts, ideas, frustrations, concerns, etc.  Adults who won't be shocked at what they say.  Adults who are tolerant in both their public AND PRIVATE lives.  Adults who will keep the information confidential or at least secure from morons who don't understand the process.  And, most importantly, adults who can recognize an aberrant obsession and help (or get help for) children needing to develop beyond varying plateaus of immaturity. [ And, unless our aim is to make kids mere clones of their parents, it's better that those adults be someone in the real world where the children will be spending the rest of their own adult lives.  Adults who can reinforce the decency or criticize the indecency instilled in them by parent(s) and peers.  Adults who don't have to be paid to care about children, their future and their relationship to the collective future of our society.  Adults who can provide feedback about the life choices children are making before it's too late to do anything about them. ] Other child development writings: Parenting of Adolescents, Ritalin & truancy & Walker World [ Parents pondering their competence have one indication they've done it correctly when their child becomes independent and able to take care of themselves physically, psychologically and financially.  Sometimes this occurs before the 'official' age of maturity at 18 - thereby giving rise to a lot of conflict over who makes the rules in the household.  Be proud that you've raised a child with enough self-confidence to look forward to moving out on his or her own. ] Think about it!  Our society has so segregated children into their own world that they hardly ever come into contact with adults who aren't being paid to be there.  Children even have their own transportation system!  Rather than 'socialize' with the rest of us in existing public transit systems, they're taken on segregated buses from one segregated venue to another.  The mere fact that so many adults do not understand what is going on with these 'aberrant' events proves how little contact, if any, those adults are having with children in our society.