Kidding About Blogs

I think it is really sad that parents are so uninvolved with their teens. Parents used to be the ones to teach them right from wrong and how to behave in public. Now, they don't even take responsibility when their teens get into trouble. If we had parental support, we could have a lot more volunteers. They could work off their punishments instead of shutting down the library.Who does that benefit?
 

The one small comfort in all this is that the problem we area having with teens is a nationwide problem. In other words, it is not a failure on our part as librarians. The really sad thing to me is that these teens will someday be parents themselves and look to their own parents as the model on parenting.

Nevertheless, we carry on. Please know that the branches have Admin's full support in dealing with the issues and we are working to try and find some answers (short of closing the branches every afternoon).

Liz
 

All my hard work making that post and the sad one was the good one. Good thing only two people have read this. I corrected it so you could see the REAL sad story about some Oregon Libraries.
 

What I found most interesting about the Mapplewood story is how the money rolled out when the board took drastic measures. I was also surprised at the Boards remark concerning security gaurds. Liz, you said there was one small comfort. When I think really there were more. The Community did something, Funds were found the mayor declared it the Year of the Middle School. That may all just be rhetoric but it shows an awareness.
I would guess that Maplewood is a city not too poor also.

The real problem is parents can't (or won't) pay for after school daycare ect. Especialy for 12 and 13 year olds. In addition, most work til 5pm. Schools out at 2:30 and parents are too busy to fill that gap time. They both have to work (or think they do) and kids are left to thier own devices, which can cause problems as they are bio-chemically crazy. Hormones surges do that till about 16ish. They have to be engaged and very, very little is done to engage that demographic because most adults fail at getting thier interest and have forgotten what it was like to be at that age.