Not the best way for Teens to be taught a lesson... — Page 3

"That's the problem with the youth today. Fragile? Come on. What would you do if you had to actually go through hard times? Could you survive? Did you ever fall off your bike and skin your knee?"

I have gone through hard times. At the age af 11 my mother was diagnosed with Cancer. I watched her go through cemo and radiation. I had to listen to her throw up in the bathroom when my friends were over. I heard her cry herself to sleep every night. The cancer spread to her lungs and then eventually to her brain. One night when I was 13 she told me she had 1 month to live. A month later I watched her have a seizure and get carried off on a strecher into an ambulence. I saw her in her hospital bed. I watched her forget who I was. I watched her die. I had to pick out the clothes she was to be buried in. I saw her in her casket. I visit her grave. It's three years later, and now I'm going through another cancer scare with my dad. SkierRob, Please don't assume that kids like me haven't had anything bad happen to them.

I still think that a situation like staging the death of a classmate would only cause more stress and anxiety, which causes students to abuse substances, like alcohol and drugs as a release. Maybe we should be doing these staged death things for the parents so they don't give their kids these brand new fast cars. Or serve beer for their child and his/her friends. Or let them out after midnight. Teenage drunk driving is an issue not only with the kids but with the parents as well.

Updated On: 6/3/08 at 04:22 PM

ILoveMyDictionary, I'm sorry, but I think you missed my point. Of course there are exceptions to every statement. If I offended you, I am sorry and didn't mean to make such a generalization. However, what the parents/schools/teachers are doing is not working. Students and kids are not responding to the "let's talk it out" mentality. Real, hard, definitive consequences must be presented to get the point across. Too many teens/young adults have the "It won't happen to me mentality". How would you suggest getting the point across? Death is a harsh reality. It's unfortunate, but dealing with a fake, staged death is a hell of a lot easier than dealing with being responsible for the murder of another becase you wanted to drive after a few drinks after the prom.

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As a 15 year-old, I'm personally very internally oppressed about being a teenager. I think teenagers are really stupid and many are going to drink and think it's okay to drive because they don't believe that it's dangerous to them. Does that mean we should use scare tactics? They could be used, but like people have said on this thread it might cause some teenagers to be resentful and spiteful for being played in such way.

I think that the best way to get to teenagers is to tell real stories. Last month, ABC News came to my school to do a presentation on drunk driving for sophomores, at first it started light, news anchors talked about its dangers and a police officer came in a well. I was used as a volunteer to try on these drunk goggles to exhibit how a drunk person has bad coordination and such. Throughout the entire presentation students were being rude and constantly talking and yelling. But then, we were shown a sideshow of pictures of a girl, at first they started as showing her as a small baby, then a child, then a preteen, then a teenager. But then it showed pictures of a car crash, her mangled body, then her corpse in a coffin. Suddenly the entire room went silent. The crying mother of that girl came up and talked to us about who the dead teenager was, what happened to her and the three other teenagers she was driving with who all died in a crash caused by drunk driving. There are around 800 sophomores in my class and we were all quiet throughout the whole thing; no whispers, murmurs, or anything, we all listened, and that's very rare when you have a mass amount of teenagers together. And we weren't silent just because it was story; it was REAL. This actually HAPPENED, and we were putting ourselves in the deceased girl's shoes and in the mother's shoes. I don't know if any of that presentation stuck with anyone afterwards, but at that moment, everyone agreed that drunk driving caused death and that it took the life of a girl not unlike any of us.

That's why I think though scare tactics may be effective for some, it's the truth and the real stories that people cry over most. If we want teens to stop being stupid by drinking and driving, we should be real with them.

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I think that the way it was one at your school, OneSongGlory, is much more effective. Well obviously it was.

I couldn't even get through your post without crying myself.

Teens don't need to be tricked or lied to in order to get the point across when there are true stories that will do so much more effectively and lastingly.

I went throught this in high school.

My crush was "killed."

Totally appropriate and it certainly drives home the message.

Of course they "decieve" the students. Is a fatal alocohol-related carcrash planned? Ummmm... No. You never know when something like that will happen. You can't prepare for it.

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I also totally agree with whoever said teenagers are stupid. The majority are, the rest of us suffer for it.