Teaching Our Children to Make Good Decisions 583.4
Two young men in Florida removed a stop sign and brought it back to their fraternity house as a trophy. Shortly afterward, a fatal accident occurred at the sign-less intersection. The students were convicted of manslaughter.
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In Tennessee, two teenagers were in a high-rise building. One dared the other to slide down a trash chute. His friend did so – right into a trash compactor. The one who egged him into the fatal accident was traumatized, possibly for life.
Four college fraternity students in California were charged with manslaughter when a pledge they were hazing died after they forced him to drink gallons of water.
What makes these stories all the more tragic is that we’re not talking about bad kids. We’re talking about fundamentally decent ones who made really bad choices.
The recurring nightmare of caring parents is that, during the course of growing up, their children will seriously damage themselves or others by an unwise decision. An endless array of bad consequences can result from reckless conduct to impress friends, thrill-seeking, or giving in to the temptation of drugs, alcohol, or sex. When kids get involved with irresponsible, manipulative, cruel, selfish, or simply stupid people who call themselves friends, there’s no telling what dumb things they can do.
All youngsters make foolish mistakes, as we did. Still, we can equip them with reasoning tools that can help them see and avoid really big, bad choices.
We can improve their decision-making skills by talking to them often about the importance of acting rationally, even when everyone around them seems overtaken by impulse. We can tell them stories to help them evaluate situations and anticipate potential consequences.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
Comments
I was so glad to hear your stories of the boys making bad decisions and ultimately costing people their lives. I have a boy who will be driving soon and just the thought of him driving by himself scares my wife and I to death. We know he can do the right things behind the wheel, but we are afraid of when he has friends in the car and they tell him to go faster to catch up to that car of girls ahead or are all laughing and joking around and he isn't paying attention to the light that just turned red. Driving is such a big responsibility and we all take it for granted that when we get in the car to go to the store to get a gallon of milk that we'll be home in 10 minutes. Sometimes they never make it back home. I cannot thank you enough for your "Character Counts" that I hear every day on the radio, and I even printed today's "Character" to give to my boys to read and really think about what the message was all about.
Posted by: Keith | September 11, 2008 12:35 AM
We recently had a parent of one of my students murdered because he had interrupted a potential theft of some copper wiring. He asked the two young men to "move on." Later, as he tried to keep the peace, the young men reported to an older friend/relative that he had a gun. The older friend came and shot and killed him. Now we have a 10-year-old with no dad and a 23-year-old who's looking at the death penalty.
It was a deadly version of "He's looking at me," "He touched me," and "I don't like YOU."
We've got to get them early and teach them there are consequences for how we behave and how we get along and that EVERY person has to take responsibility for making good choices.
Posted by: Maria Smith | September 12, 2008 3:08 AM
I was just wondering why the scripts do not match the audio.
Posted by: christiana | September 15, 2008 4:12 AM
Minor editing is sometimes done in the texts of the commentaries, which can make them slightly different than the audio.
Also, the short teasers of each commentary in the e-newsletter are sometimes altered to better preview the topic for readers in the space allotted.
We appreciate your understanding.
Posted by: Josephson Institute editor | September 15, 2008 9:59 AM