Letters to the editor for Saturday, March 24, 2018

Time to teach children personal responsibility

Everyone gets a trophy, you can do anything you want without consequence, it’s always someone else’s fault. What kind of havoc are these “helicopter parents” creating with those guidelines for raising their kids (Amodei under fire after gun protester punished). Maybe the punishment was unfair. Well, so is life. But the main lesson I tried to teach my children was that choices have consequences, and you must learn to deal with them, fair or not.

This child does have a right to protest. But he was not punished for that. He was punished for violating the school’s code of conduct, which the school (not Amodei) felt applied in this case. What a great opportunity for a parent to teach a child about consequences and making better choices (protest in a rational and objective manner if you want to have any chance of making yourself heard). Instead, these parents decided to teach their child he can do anything he wants.

One article quoted him as saying he wants to be a lawyer and says he has a “right” to use offensive language in public discourse. Let’s see how far that gets him when he speaks that way in the courtroom and ends up in jail for contempt of court.

Come on, people, parent your children. They make mistakes. What a great learning opportunity for you. Quit blaming the system and start teaching beliefs and values.

Steve Browne

Carson City