Where to Begin ...

So, the story goes that middle school students in McMinnville (Oregon) engage in a behavior the teachers and administration consider inappropriate. It involves spanking each other on the butt. Students, male and female, describe it as a greeting, sort of a ‘secret handshake’. The adults involved see it differently and told the students to stop. Predictably, the students did not.

Here’s where it gets difficult to comment. How many things can you find wrong with this story? We could start with the mixed messages society throws at our children. There has been much media attention recently on a proposed anti-spanking ordinance in California, and we have endured countless pontifications from adult proponents of spanking. Yet, when the students engage in spanking, it is considered criminal behavior (yes, I said criminal – more in a moment). But that’s just a philosophical issue. There are better ‘wrongs’ about this.

Take, for example, the fact that the school called the police to intervene in this behavior. If that alone doesn’t strike you as wrong, let me ice the cake with the fact that the parents were never, EVER informed of the behavior, the school’s problem with it, or the fact that the school was calling the police. No, the parents became involved only after two of the students (12 & 13 year old boys) were arrested and (now we are deep in the realm of truly wrong) housed in juvenile detention charged with 10 counts of sexual abuse. Only at arraignment in Yamhill County Juvenile Court did the parents discover that these charges carry maximum penalties of up to 10 years in prison. Up to a dozen more students may be facing arrest.

Stories like this leave me asking the question; have we gone insane? I can’t conceive of how anyone can possible think that arresting 12 & 13 year olds and charging them with sex abuse crimes is a rational adult response to relatively normal early adolescent behavior. If there were truly problems at this school, there are many ways the adults could have dealt with the issue, but doing nothing would be less traumatic and present less long-term consequences than arrest and criminal charges.

I am constantly frustrated as an advocate for youth by the way adults seem to have no problem raising the banner of “protecting their childhood” when they want to separate young people from ‘adult’ issues and concerns (which usually is just a way of preventing youth involvement), but we have no problem attacking childhood when it comes to responding to behaviors we deem ‘inappropriate’. The fact is, if you examine the childhood behaviors of most adults too closely, most of us could be registered sex offenders by today’s standards. I think we are way past the need for a deep breath, and more rational responses to our young.