Drive into any city and find a mother at the local grocery store, and ask her about her child’s success in school. I’m sure she will tell you that her child is perfect and they make straight A’s; then you must ask yourself one question: How much bull can one teenager feed to their parents? Is it really fair that every disciplinary action we receive from administrators and teachers are constantly being challenged by our parents to keep our reputations high?

Almost everyday I see the same people skipping school and assignments and never receive one punishment from it because of their parents. One must wonder how teenagers of this selfish era are going to survive in real life, out of this bubble that “protects us.” Many students don’t realize that they cannot always talk their way out of everything, or make their parents write an excuse or call the school to challenge the authority of the administration and our teachers. When did teachers lose the respect and authority that they deserve? Every day I walk into class and have to listen to the same students slime their way out of their responsibility, reliability, and their work.

The parents are possibly even more to blame than teenagers because these parents want to keep the “American Dream” alive. The women of this egotistical society become ecstatic when others want to be them and are constantly trying



to improve their image as a whole. These women try and beat others out to have the smartest kids, the biggest house, and the best cars than their so called “friends.” As a result of this new “American Dream,” parents will do anything to keep their reputation alive and flourishing. As one of my teachers has said, “The staff and school board do not run the school, the parents of these ill-behaved children do.” Parents are constantly fighting their children’s battles and studies have shown that children who have parents such as these mentioned above, result in having criminal behavior and are more prone to getting into trouble when their mothers are no longer there to protect them. Mr. James P. Krehbie explains, “Good parenting involves teaching children that there are consequences for a lack of follow-through. When children are doing poorly in a class at school and parents attempt to change the instructional environment, they are ignoring the use of logical consequences.”

The sad fact of the matter is that these children will pay for their wrong actions and their parents’ wrong actions in the long run. Students who are cheating, plagiarizing, and skipping school now, will never amount to anything later, and their lies and justifications will soon fall short and they will have to pay for their irresponsible behavior. Parents use the excuse that they are only sheltering their children and are trying to look out for their best interest, but what they fail to understand is they are only hurting their children in the long run and they need to allow their children to pay the consequences for their actions and own up to their mistakes.