<p>“And TP-ing is common among my sons friends (not common like every weekend, but every once in a while). And these are all kids heading to college…no doubt with the maturity that it takes by the time they get there.”</p>
<p>Being a college student or getting a college acceptance doesn’t mean that one is mature enough to avoid doing dumb and illegal things while in college.</p>
<p>There are plenty of stories about smart college students who did very stupid, illegal things while in college. </p>
<p>As for the idea that one’s kid would never do any particular act, never say “never.” I am sure that I’m not the only parent who has been shocked to find out what an offspring would do once the offspring went to college.</p>
<p>Indeed, there are probably many parents whose own parents would be shocked to know of some of the dumb things that the parents did while in college.</p>
<p>As for the water balloon incident, I see a big difference between that stupidity and the TPing and egging. Based on your post, the water balloon incident was a one time stupid act, not something that was routinely done in that community.</p>
<p>It seems that in the OP’s community, TPing and egging are relatively common, and to me, the way to stop that is by bringing charges. Even if the kids get a slap on the wrist, word will get out that the behavior can lead to legal consequences, and there’s a good chance that the kids in the community then will find something that’s legal to do to have fun.</p>
<p>Not knowing you or your son at all, you may be correct. But how many parents who sent their kids to Northeastern, BU, BC, Harvard or MIT thought that their kids would turn over cars and set them on fire? And yet they did.</p>
<p>But what a great topic for her admissions applications for the question of a significant occurrence with consequences. If she truly learns and grows through the experience.</p>
<p>Can’t imagine anyone pressing charges for TPing and egging, though. If my kid were involved, he would be yelled at, made to clean up and pay for damages, apologize, and grounded till he’s of legal age… But how litigious to actually press charges. Yikes.</p>
<p>I don’t anyone could possibly hoist a heavy pumpkin up over the railing of a bridge and not know they were going to hurt something or someone. Stupidity would be a tough sell in that case. But kids don’t realize that eggs cause etching damage. </p>
<p>Again, going the court route is a gamble. Judge might not defer adjudication. You have to plead no contest and hope. However, if the kids are properly contrite, all should work out and lessons will be learned. But a large part of me just thinks it’s ridiculous to tie up courtrooms with this nonsense. We’ve all been given a brain; what’s wrong with solving problems on our own??</p>
<p>Interesting link that shows comments by people whose cars have been egged. It also includes info about how damaged the paint can be, how hard it can be to remove, and how much it can cost to have damage repaired:
You’ll notice that even the harshest posters here sound like teddy bears compared to the posters here:</p>
<p>It is not such a stretch, especially when, as is wanton to happen in college, throw some drinking into the mix</p>
<p>Why are people so weenie? Why are people to complacent? Why is it “well kids will be kids, and HS boys, young men, going off to college, well, they should be allowed to act like jerks and litter all over the neighborhood” to paraphrase…</p>
<p>The OP is did the right thing, and its too bad D disobeyed her parents and took little brother into her law breaking…what is the punishment from Mom and Dad going to be besides cleaning the neighbors yard?</p>
<p>Think if it this way, if your child was walking down the street and threw their wrapper on the ground, what, as a parent, would you do? Would you ignore that they did it, or would you tell them to pick it up and put it in the garbage…do you let your kids leave garbage all over your house, do you let them dump garbage into the street…but yet some parents here think its okay to garbage whole houses…</p>
<p>Bec, when your boy was little, did you let him litter parks…did you let him drop his hamburger wrapper in the street or throw it out the window? If you did not, why is teepeeing a house somehow okay?</p>
<p>More from another web site:
“Unfortunately, if the egg was not immediately removed, there may be damaged to the car’s paint. Review your insurance policy or vehicle warranty to see whether car egging is covered. If not, be prepared to pay a hefty price to have portions of the vehicle re-painted.”</p>
<p>In some instances, victims have been able to locate the person or persons responsible for the damage. Egging can cause additional damage such as broken windows and dents. Moreover, because egging involves damage to private property, victims can file a police report and lawsuit against the suspected persons. Back in 2004, a group of teenagers from California were caught egging several cars. As a result, they were charged with a felony, and ordered to pay $6500 in damages. Because parents become responsible for the actions of their minor children, it is important to discourage any seemingly harmless pranks or paybacks that involve egging a car or causing damage to other people’s property. "
<a href=“http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/33952/auto_care_how_to_get_egg_off_a_car.html[/url]”>http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/33952/auto_care_how_to_get_egg_off_a_car.html</a></p>
I’m not a big fan of the slippery slope argument … I think I’m a pretty solid contributor to society but I would be in jail or flipping burgers if I was punished as some advocate in this string given some of the stuff I did in HS and college. To me there seldom is a slippery slope and intent and degree is not that hard to distinguish in the vast majoirty of cases … and the people in authority positions need to have the guts to view each situation separately and decide the appropriate sanction (and hopefully the judge will in this case). A mob of kids getting drunk, over-turning cars, setting fires, breaking windows, and looting cars … over the line and in my book society should come down hard on them. A bunch of HS kids TPing houses (especially if it the house of a known friend/teacher) is nowhere in the same camp … and drawing a connection is making way more out of an incident than is there. The eggs were not such a great idea … and going for the house of someone of non-“friends” was also not such a great idea … this is why they should be prankster mentors … but I fail to see the close tie to future mob participant. I sure as heck my kids do do some dumb things or they have skipped right to 40 and that would be a shame … sometimes they will going slightly over the line (like in this case) and hopefuly will admit their mistake, face the consequences, and use better judgement the next time they do dumb things.</p>
<p>Yet another community’s response to egging:
"The local tradition of “egging” during homecoming week might be fun for some, but it could cost vehicle owners thousands to repair damage to car finishes.</p>
<p>Athens police say they are getting numerous complaints about this activity and are taking each complaint as a possible act of vandalism…</p>
<p>Athens High School Principal Chris Bolen said egg fighting is not an Athens High School-sanctioned tradition.</p>
<p>“I’ve had a complaint, and I told the people complaining that if they can identify the students doing criminal acts, then they should prosecute,” the principal said…"</p>
<p>35 years ago I did almost every stupid thing known to teendom, including TPing the house of my future W, who I didn’t know at the time. We never did anything that caused serious damage. Thought is was all very funny and never once got caught by someone that reported us to the police. Only occasionally were we caught and made to clean things up.</p>
<p>Why did we continue? We never got caught and reported to the police.</p>
<p>Now as a homeowner and auto owner I get very angry when either is vandalized. For the most part I keep my anger to myself - why get some kid in trouble? Never was the damage serious enough to call in the police. But I sure have thought about it when I am dragging a hose out of the basement in very early spring.</p>
<p>By the way, an egg on a car or a house can cause permanent damage if not cleaned almost immediately.</p>
<p>We tried to give them punishments that would hurt them the most. My daughter has eagerly anticipated competing in dance competitions as an individual. She has scouted her competion, dreamed of her costume, and worked on her routine. One of her punishments was not being allowed to compete in individuals this year. Both kids have lost their allowance indefinitely (will be used to pay restitution). My daughter is also not allowed to attend another football game for the rest of the season. She also lost her CD player, computer and all CD’s for two weeks. To her losing her music is a fate worse than death. My son lost his Playstation for two weeks, as well as was completely grounded from his friends for two weeks. I hope this will make them think twice before doing something else stupid. One sign of hope is that my daughter has voluntarily decided to stay home Halloween. She realizes it would be too easy for her to accidentally get caught up in something, so hopefully we got their attention.</p>
<p>Smalltownmom,
It does sound like you got their attention. Your D’s decision about Halloween especially sounds thoughtful. Sounds like she has learned a lesson that will help her for life. Based on how she’s reacting, even if she gets a record, I doubt that her mistake will keep her out of college. She’s young – and she seems to be showing genuine remorse as well as changing her behavior to avoid future temptations.</p>
<p>To the OP-- I shared your story with a friend of mine whose son is in jail. Not some country club halfway house for juvies-- the real deal. The kid is a mess (and I’m not implying in anyway that yours are) and when I told her about your post she replied, “how I wish one of our neighbors had pressed charges back when he was just an energetic teenager doing stupid things”.</p>
<p>Bottom line-- you’ll never know if this incident will have any impact at all on your daughters chances in the college admissions sweepstakes. However, you will know that in the sweepstakes of real life where actions have consequences, and thoughtless pranks can turn ugly really quickly, your kids will most likely be winners from here on out.</p>
<p>Read the Joyce Carol Oates fictionalized account in last week’s New Yorker magazine… it’s about the college kid who was found dead in a dumpster last year, and none of his friends with whom he’d been drinking the night before were able to help the police and his anguished family figure out why he ended up there. It was most likely a harmless prank which turned bad… so your kids owe your neighbor a thank you for delivering the message now when nobody got hurt and they don’t have to live out their lives wondering what they might have done differently.</p>
<p>UMDAD, speaking of doing stupid stuff 35 years ago. I remember my hallmates (at UofM) created the coolest giant slingshot made from surgical hose, required 3 people to use - one at each end while the 3rd pulled the middle waayyyy back. It could launch a water balloon 100 yards!!! So one night we were slinging water balloons towards a distant road and never thought that we could actually hit one! Hit the side of the car with a very loud bang and we all scattered, laughing so hard we could barely run. With hindsight it could have easily shattered a window and seriously hurt the driver.</p>
<p>Well you are right I don’t know for sure my son isn’t at Berkeley right now tipping over cars and setting them on fire. Just as none of you know for sure what your colege kids are doing. But I do know that if he is doing that, it is not becuase he TP’d a girls house on a sat. night (and no Citygirlsm Mom I never let my kids litter)</p>
<p>Someone victimized by vandalism now is supposed to take into account that this might in the future affect someone’s chances at elite universities?</p>
<p>Does anyone take responsibility for anything today?</p>
<p>Over the years, our house was toilet papered on occasion. My D and S were strictly forbidden from doing the same and I always made them clean up the mess (assuming that the culprits were similarly aged teenagers) so that they would appreciate what a pain it was. I always felt it was a nuisance, but harmless.<br>
Then, 2 years ago, our house and another down the street, were tp’d, egged and mustard, ketchup and honey were used on our cars and house. Worse, the house down the street had salt used on the lawn to spell out an anti-semetic phrase. We, too, are Jewish. Together with the neighbor, we began calling around, as the neighbors D was suspicious of a few boys she knew. We were clueless as to who might do this.
We called the sheriff and filed reports.<br>
Eventually the two boys who did this were apprehended and confessed. Both were boys from the same junior class at our high school. They were both honor students from “good families.” One of them had been continually getting into verbal “sparring” debates over politics and religion with my D in her History class, but she regarded him as irritating and harmless, not destructive or dangerous. This young man had a Jewish father, who taught Holocaust studies at a local CSU. His mother was a converted Jew and was quite religious. They had no idea that their son harbored anti-semetic feelings!
It turns out, the other boy had hard feelings toward the neighbor’s daughter for “refusing” to date him! We were just collateral damage, but not a coincidence that we are also Jewish. There was definitely a hate element involved in the boys’ choice of targets.
Both boys were put into a education/diversion/tolerance program at the local university and required to pay for damages. They were required to write letters of apology and accompany their parents to our homes to apologize in person. It turns out, one of the boys had hard feelings toward the neighbors daughter for “refusing” to date him!<br>
Over the next year, both boys became friends with my D and turned out to be both respectful and polite young men. They both learned an incredible lesson and turned their lives around.<br>
Both were admitted to good universities (U of Chicago and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo)
In short, kids do stupid things for a variety of reasons; Usually it is peer pressure but sometimes it isn’t. Some stupid things can have consequences that will forever change their lives or the lives of others. Kids need to learn that their poor judgement, no matter if intended to be harmful or not, has consequences. If the OP is lucky, her D will learn from this, and like the boys who vandelized my house, will resist peer pressure and use good judgement in the future. The good news is, if she learns from her experience and goes on to have 3 more great high school years, she will get into a good college too. Admissions officers know that 13-14 year olds do dumb things. What matters more to the AO’s is what they do after they get caught. Good Luck!</p>
<p>I don’t believe she has rung in on this thread, but I have only quickly skimmed here. If she does not show up, smalltownmom, I think you would really do well to PM her wrt the college admissions fallout or not from this incident.</p>
<p>Obviously, her screen name says it all ;). Her WildChild was admitted to a number of top schools and attends an Ivy. I recall her saying upon his acceptance to his first choice school that she would hereby volunteer to be the Parent Forum resident expert on how to explain suspensions (expulsions?) etc. I think she could really be helpful to you as you think this through.</p>
<p>In our jurisdiction such matters often would be referred by the prosecutor’s office to a mediator, and the neighbor and your child would appear and tell their stories. This system “diverts” a potential criminal filing out of the criminal system before a case actually begins. You or your attorney should check with the local prosecutor to see if they have what’s called in Los Angeles “city attorney hearings.” They are especially common when neighborhood disputes are involved.</p>