Posted on 02/02/2007 9:25:32 AM PST by Johnny Gage
There's a childhood epidemic sweeping Minnesota and the nation. Its warning signs aren't fever or skin rashes. The symptoms are behavioral -- and unmistakable.
Consider a recent, particularly virulent outbreak of the affliction in Maplewood, N.J., as reported by the New York Times. In the last few years, out-of-control kids from the middle school have overrun the town's library after school. They routinely mouth off to librarians, disrupt common areas, leave restrooms a shambles and race about, sometimes almost knocking over elderly patrons
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Ping, if you would ping all the MN freepers.
Not liberal. She is the Stribs token conservative.
Our city just started a curfew for unattended teens at the malls. They have to be gone every evening by 6:00 (I think) unless they have an adult with them. I don't know what happens if they disregard the rule - maybe someone tazers them. It's an idea that my wife is happy with and she's started shopping at the mall a lot more than she did before.
Something probably happened to her at the library.
Katherine Kersten...highly liberal? Not hardly.
Part of the problem is the increasing use of public libraries for after-school day care. Parents send their kids "to the library" -- hey, it even sounds like a good thing. Kids as young as 5 or 6, left unattended, or watched by their older siblings.
It's free, it's "educational", and it passes off the problems to the state. Librarians are loathe to take action, because "where else do the kids have to go"?
There are a LOT of kids growing up without parents. Well, they have parents, but they see very little of them. It's almost like "Lord of the Flies", but as a day-trip.
It's happening in our library in Springfield, too, which is about five miles from Maplewood. The librarians claim the problem is that working parents refuse to allow their children to return home after school for fear they will destroy their houses. Thus, they must go the library, in droves, where there is no real "staff" to handle them. As a result the libraries are over-run with teens and pre-teens until closing time. They are hungry, they don't have food, they are bored, and they can be violent. Solution: shut down the libraries, no one takes out books anyway.
Really? Ok.. maybe I'm wrong on that point. LOL
I just assumed that anyone who writes for the Red Star is "highly liberal".
Katherine Kersten is not "a highly Liberal writer".
She's the 'other' conservative at the Star Tibune (Lileks is the other one).
Katherine is a key member of the conservative think-tank Center for the American Experiment, based in Minneapolis.
I went to my local county library branch recently to surf the web on my laptop in peace and quiet...
My, how times have changed.
I packed up after 15 minutes and left. I found it much quieter at the coffee shop.
"...But without rules and limits, kids become self-absorbed, disrespectful and unable to delay gratification, says Walsh. And without challenge and disappointment, they fail to develop the "psychological muscles" -- resilience, resourcefulness and determination -- that they will need to cope with life's inevitable adversity."
Substitute "kids" with "leftists," and you pretty much hit a bigger nail on the head.
Years ago in Chester, NJ it became clear that the library was being used as a day care center. Saturday morning the parents would drop the little miscreants off and the parents would then spend their time shopping without having to keep their children with them.
But there's actually nothing "conservative" about her perspective. It is in fact quite liberal. She draws upon our typical "excuse culture" and calls the behavior of the children a marked sign of what appears to be a psychiatric disorder the result of parental non-discipline. She comes close to "diagnosing" their behavior as ADD, the biggest psychiatric scam of our time. The behavior of the children has little to do with mental disease. To be charitable to the little ninnies, I think the problem is that they do not understand what libraries are. They do not understand that people go to libraries to read books. They do not understand why they must be quiet. In our library, which contains thousands of books, there are virtually no patrons and absolutely no reason for "silence."
Where else do they have to go? I tell you what: lower the drinking age and let them go to bars. They couldn't behave any worse, and if they drink enough they will pass out, thus cutting down on the time they have to annoy the rest of us. Get this, Librarians: libraries are not holding tanks for miserable kids. If that is all they are being used for, then shut them down.
This should be daily required reading for all parents, teachers and other people interested in a healthy society. Seasoned and unseasoned. Its so easy to forget and to give in to the prevailing culture.
Thanks for posting it, even from a source as surprising as this.
Darn. I would be more hopeful if the liberals were actually starting to get a clue about this.
They should try evicting misbehaving kids. If they refuse to leave, or come back, throw their butts in juvie for criminal trespass.
Most parents we know disapprove of the way we handle our kids, but they like the results. We make them do chores, tell them "no", and basically raise them the way we were raised as military brats.
Our kids are hard workers, polite, respectful, and we can take them anywhere.
No need to shut them down. Keep them open, sell off the books, which they will never read anyway, and turn them into "juvenile study centers." I cannot see any need for public libraries in our day and age. Do I "really" need a taxpayer funded institution, for god's sakes, to go and check out a battered up dog-eared copy of East of Eden?
People who subscribe to the "diagnosis" of ADD are virtually always liberals. They subscribe to the reigning orthodoxy. Been seeing it for years and years in my practice as a shrink. Oh well.
Highly fatherless, raised by daycare workers, legally untouchable (and they know it), no common morality, high sugar and caffeine consumption, video/music modeling, choreless, no responsibility for actions, no repercussions from bad behavior, not disciplined, disrespecting authority, and, oh yes, no fear of God.
The frightening thing is that in the Maplewood library (the library mentioned in her article) the librarians have LOCKED THEMSELVES IN during the hours during which the library is closed, namely, school hours. The kids, meanwhile, are still clustered around the doors, gazing in through the windows and panels. Night of the living dead anyone?
You hit the nail on the head. If that's ADD I buy it.
My wife takes our children to the library all the time. They check out two books a piece and we read them together at home. You might not go to the library, but there are plenty of us who do.
Glad to hear it, but why should taxpayers have to pay for my reading habits? Shouldn't I be responsible for my own reading materials? Since when is the local government responsible for my video/dvd/novel reading experiences? At any rate, I'm only talking about our own library, which is the size of a football field, with thousands of moldering old books, and virtually no patrons. This monstrosity, which is staffed by a half dozen "sleepers," costs us a mint.
It's tongue-in-cheek.
This has nothing to do with the psychological over-diagnosis of ADD. It has to do with not saying no to your children and screwing up their character. It's labeled as Discipline Deficit Disorder as a tongue and cheek poke to those who need to put everything in tidy little diagnostic boxes. As in "I'm sorry, I can't discipline my children because I have DDD." Or "My children have really bad behavior because they are suffering from DDD because of me."
Back up and try reading it again with that in mind and see if it doesn't change the perspective a bit.
BTW, I see you're new here. Welcome to Free Republic.
Back to work for me.
Interesting approach. Of course, I could take that "light hearted" approach with everything. But that's exactly how ADD was introduced into psychiatric nomenclature several years ago - by light-hearted jokes with little labels attached. You'd be surprised how these things take off once the pharmaceutical companies get hold of them. How about "Library Misbehavior Disorder"?
If county funding for the library were withdrawn I would have no problem paying for membership. I agree, it's only fair.
That's exactly what we've had to do.. Trespass them (unfortunately) -
We've raised our kids the same what as yours.
I find it hard to believe that libraries will be around in the next decade. Do children really need a taxypayer funded place to use computers and do their homework? Do we need to air condition and heat thousands upon thousands of books no one reads? Private libraries, on the other hands, are a great idea. They could even have swimming pools and squash courts, etc.
I don't have kids yet, but one policy my wife and I have already agreed to is that we will welcome any reasonable help we can get with discipline. If my kids are hanging out at the library after school, for example, I will make sure to talk to the librarian and let her know that if my kids misbehave:
1. The librarian should feel free to take all steps necessary to keep order and quiet.
2. The librarian should let me know.
3. The kids will be in deep, deep, trouble if the librarian lets me know.
I don't buy this "how dare you yell at my child" crap. Kids aren't born angels, and any help I can get to civilize them is much appreciated.
ADD is hardly a new idea. I was diagnosed as attention deficit/hyperactive when I was 3 or 4. I'm 39, now. Neither the doctor my parents consulted with, or my parents, thought that medication was necessary, however. They could have put me on Ritalin. Who knows, maybe they should have, because I always did have the attention span of a gnat in school.
We use our local library a lot too...just recently my eight-year-old jedi got interested in Route 66 (because of the movie "Cars") and we checked out all kinds of movies and videos about the topic.
Still, we only go during school hours. It's a madhouse otherwise.
I'm sure private libraries would just loose the hounds of class warfare. Barnes and Noble and Borders would have to change their "free look" policies in a hurry as well.
Right. The librarians I've spoken to are afraid of the children. That's key to this problem. They are afraid to ask the kids to be quiet, behave, etc. And who can blame them? One kid in our library went on a rampage smashing windows after he complained to the librarians that he was hungry and they shrugged.
Our library is connected to the community center. They rebuilt it a few years ago, and I do think it is great.
It's close to my son's middle school, and he goes there once a week while I take my daughter to speech therapy.
In the library section, there is a teen reading room, a community room (that has different speakers, and can be rented out), a computer area, a huge kids area with books and comfortable seating. In the community center area, there's a gym, a supervised teen center with lots of teen activities (air hockey, x-box, foosball, board games, and some organized activities), a kitchen that has classes, lots of classroom with tons of different activities.
My kids and I love going there. It's been a godsend for me because my son has a safe place to go when I can't pick him up.
Our library and community center is always busy. It's like a community hub.
I still have the attention span of...Oh, look, a butterfly!!
My ideal private library would cost many thousands of dollars for entry. All books would be rare first editions. Visitors would have to wear chemical suits with helmets and be sprayed down for germs. An I.Q. test and Ph.D. would be required for entry. There would be a private bar, lectures by famous locals, and everyone would have comfortable chairs and wear three piece tweed suits.
What if the librarian tells you that disciplining your kid isn't in her job description and that you should monitor your kids yourself?
ADD=Global Warming.
Liquor licenses for libraries.......
Hey, I'm the president of the Canadian Association for Adult Attention...Hey, look, what's that shiny thing?
The funny thing about ADD is that sometimes (only rarely) I can actually hyper-focus on one thing to the extent of not noticing what's going on around me. But generally I'm very easily distracted. That's not altogether a negative thing, though, as it also means that I'm very observant of my surroundings. For example, in the last month I've observed sundogs and, 2 nights ago, a ring around the moon, because I'm typically aware of everything going on around me.
I actually thing ADD is just one part of the spectrum of normal human psychologies. One might suppose (assuming they're not a creationist) that there is some evolutionary advantage to the condition, at least in some circumstances - and variation in the genome itself is also now understood to be an evolutionary survival strategy for a species.
Could I smoke my pipe? I just can't put on a tweed suit without smoking my pipe.
You may smoke your pipe. In my ideal library smoking is not only allowed, it is obligatory.
Possibly the access to porn in libraries in some communities attracts the wrong kind of patrons.
This morning I took my 6th grade son to our class because he had an orthodontist appointment and he sat in on our speaker for a short while with me....when we walked out of the class early to go to his appointment he said "Dad,why were those kids in the back of the room talking thru the speakers presentation?"....he sat there and watched the disrespect these kids have as Seniors (who should know better) to a visiting speaker. I just told him that let it be a lesson learned on how annoying and wrong it is when someone is trying to help you and you blatantly disrespect his authority and professionalism.
Thank goodness my kid saw that and gets it!
I'd like to move to your world.
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