Here's
another one of those stories that are 'oh so wrong', but 'oh so funny!' I just
want to preface this blog with the fact that I don't condone this type of
behavior from kids by any means. Okay, that being said, do you remember when
you were younger and your parents told you that you couldn't do something, but
you always found a way to do it anyway? Well, what I'm about to tell you, takes
that to a whole new level!
You
see, a couple of Rocklin, California teens recently wanted to surf the web
after their 10 p.m. Internet curfew so badly that they drugged one of the
girl's parents with a spiked milkshake to have their way. That's right! The
parents woke up last Saturday morning with an unexplained hangover and a new
suspicion about their 15-year-old daughter and her friend. According to Rocklin
police, the 15-year-old told them about a computer policy imposed by the
parents and called the policy "too strict". The police also said that
the girls wanted to use the Internet so bad that they'd go to whatever lengths
they had to, to do so. I wonder what they wanted to see so bad that would make
them do this though. Was there a Justin Bieber or One Direction online concert
after 10 p.m. or something? Was it boys? I'm a little curious to find out what
was so important.
The
trouble started when the parents' daughter offered to pick up milkshakes for
them from a local restaurant. The teen is being accused of filling the shakes
with prescription sleep medication allegedly supplied by the friend, who is
also involved. The parents didn't drink much of the shakes because of a funny
taste to them, but they did drink enough to pass out. They woke up around 1
a.m. with hangover-like symptoms, and went back to bed. When they woke up the
next morning with the same symptoms, they went to the police station to pick up
a drug test kit, which parents usually buy to have their kids urine tested.
Authorities realized that the test was actually for them, who tested positive.
The girls were later arrested and will probably only get a slap on the wrist.
One police officer said that if the girls were adults, they could've faced some
prison time.
I
know that we all have wanted to do this to our parents, but are the punishments
when you get caught worth all the trouble? Is being on the Internet that
important that you really need to drug your parents? This is a little much! Our
future is really starting to look out of control.
"I believe the children are our future" is starting to sound like a few notes short of an apocalyptic prophecy. What happened above could have been avoided if the parents were able to: 1. make their daughter really understand the rationale behind the internet curfew (along with other house rules), 2. explain that the curfew may be adjusted if the daughter's need is indeed urgent, and 3. have a weekly review of browsing history with the daughter. I understand the last part may be construed as invasion of personal and contextual privacy (http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/04/four_kinds_of_p.html), but we need to make our children UNDERSTAND that there are risks to being online, and that we are there to help them identify & avoid these risks until they can do it themselves.
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