The First Offense

The phone rings and it's the police. Your child has been arrested. It could be for a variety of offenses, the most common of which include vandalism, shoplifting, drugs or underage drinking. The point is, however, that whatever you had been doing to improve your child's behavior has not worked. Now, a judge will decide your child's guilt or innocence, and the resulting punishment, not you.

Yet, there is room for individual action in the way you choose to react to this crisis.

Take, for example, the story of a fourteen-year-old girl who was arrested for shoplifting from a grocery store. When she and her parents showed up for their court hearing, they were offered an option of having their daughter participate in an anti-shoplifting program. The parent's hands couldn't go up fast enough. Yet, when the girl showed up for her public service hours at a local library, she left once she realized she was unsupervised, laughing with her friends about the experience.

In contrast, another father decided that his son's first brush with the law would be anything except easy or pleasant. He contacted the arresting officer, who referred him to the district attorney's office. There, the parents were educated on the options open to first-time offenders. After further investigation, by talking to the school counselor the parents discovered that numerous children receive public service hours, but few are ever completed.

The parents made up their minds to write to the presiding judge and let him know that they wanted their son dealt with firmly. Because of the "assembly line" mentality of the overcrowded juvenile justice system, the lesser offenders are often passed along in favor of bigger fish. This is in spite of the fact that the big fish often start out as petty shoplifters or vandals.

These parents wanted nothing of the sort to happen to their son. They had him go through the full booking procedure, and made him personally apologize to the manager of the store. Then, he was taken on a tour of the jail and spoke with a young offender who described, in terrifying clarity, being raped in jail. Only time would tell if this effort made any difference in the path of their son, but from his pale expression directly after this educational series, it certainly looked as if it had made an immediate impact.

If what the latter set of parents did seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for the child who is caught lifting a simple pack of gum ("kids do these stupid things"), consider this: if your child moves on to more serious offenses, then your life will become one big inconvenient string of lawyers, public defenders and visits to detention facilities. Which is worse?

Still, once the scare is over, it's important for things to change in the home to help prevent your child from becoming a two-time loser. Is the fact that he or she has too much unsupervised freedom part of the problem? Then everyone should plan on spending a whole lot more time at home. If the problems occur while you and your spouse are at work, you may have to arrange for a babysitter, or you may have to consider changing shifts, jobs or working at home so that a parent is always watching your child. As for unsupervised trips out with friends, your child is not entitled to those until he or she has fully won back your trust. Even then, point out to him or her that if he or she breaks your trust again, more drastic measures will be in order.

Organizations like TOUGHLOVE have local support groups where parents of children headed for, or in, trouble get together to trade strategies. These groups can also be empowering for parents who have truly done their best, but have ended up with an incorrigible youth.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a noted toughie on wayward kids, even suggests stripping the room to a bed and two outfits, since she reasons that you only owe them food, clothing and shelter, not computers, boom boxes, cosmetics and 15 pairs of shoes.

You may want to pull your child out of his or her current school to remove him or her from other bad influences he or she has fallen in with, and move him or her to another school, a religious school, or even a home school.

The solution is different with each family, but firm, swift action of some sort is usually agreed upon as a great first step.

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