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<p>Yes, the difference between a public or private apology, and asking the person or group what it is you can do to make it better. I would do this.</p>
<p>Of course a student would be open to parental feedback! These are not hardened criminals, they are kids who did something really stupid. I am sure a serious discussion is warranted, but threatening to pull a kid out of school for it as suggested in an earlier post? That is an overreaction, IMO.</p>
<p>I know some kids who would not see anything wrong with the party, and they would need it explained to them. This is not something taught in our schools, so if they don’t learn at home…</p>
<p>I wonder, too, if they wouldn’t be grateful for some guidance on how to maybe fix things when they made a mess of it all?</p>
<p>I like to think my kids would be.</p>
<p>These are all very interesting posts. My kids are in their late 20s. They haven’t actually been disciplined since they were 10 or younger. Mainly we just talked, talked, talked their ears off. </p>
<p>If they had been involved in an incident like this at college, I honestly believe my husband and I would have had to discuss whether they deserved to be there. I don’t know what we would have decided. As I wrote, this behavior in my own kids would have been completely inexcusable since it was something frequently discussed as totally unacceptable.</p>
<p>In reality my kids are long done with undergraduate so this is really a hypothetical for me unlike some of you. It is pretty easy to say what you would have done when it is all behind you with a successful outcome. Who knows?</p>
<p>" This is not something taught in our schools, so if they don’t learn at home… "</p>
<p>Some schools absolutely DO include racism and sexism as part of their anti-bullying curriculum. My D’s, for instance, and there’s a non-profit based here in Seattle that’s won national awards for its curriculum that is similarly broad in its approach to anti-bullying. </p>
<p>What’s worse, though, that assuming kids will just know it’s wrong if it ISN’T taught in schools, is assuming that it couldn’t happen “here”, that wherever the kids are it just isn’t a problem, and that the victims are exaggerating or overreacting. Bare minimum, any kids involved as perpetrators should be having long conversations with their parents, but hopefully most parents DO teach their kids what is right on wrong in these instances, long before they get to college, whether it’s taught in their schools or not.</p>
<p>I was speaking personally, as in I know kids who would not see anything wrong with it, it is not taught in our school district. They are starting to implement a bullying program, I wonder how effective it will be. I live in a relatively well-off, mostly white suburb, sseamom. I absolutely think it could happen here.</p>
<p>I’m sure you’re right, mamabear. Kids don’t often understand what they don’t see or experience, even WITH forums or classes about it. Some of the kids my D had trouble with had never shared a classroom with a black kid, had never been to our part of town, which is allegedly the most diverse in the nation (some 50 different languages spoken, etc.), had never seen conrrowed hair up close and so on. </p>
<p>There WAS a difference between the ignorant comments she got and the racist ones. I like to think that even without being told, MOST kids would know the difference.</p>
<p>This is very interesting. I’m bookmarking this thread. </p>
<p>Fwiw, my parents have zero control- financial or otherwise- over me as a college student. For me personally, the absolute worse kind of punishment that they could give me would be to let me know that they were disappointed in me. Just as a response to the “no financial reigns” question above. Obviously, YMMV.</p>
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<p>Actually, while you may not hold the financial stick yourself, the financial stick may still be wielded against the student if one of its conditions is to not behave in ways which bring discredit to oneself, college, and the scholarship committee if it’s a private scholarship with such conditions. </p>
<p>If anything, one thing I noticed is that scholarship students have been much more wary of getting into such trouble than their well-off full-pay counterparts because if that scholarship gets pulled, they may not have a safety net to fall back on at all. </p>
<p>In such situations, getting disciplined may not only mean losing the scholarship and chance to continue in college, but also possibly not being able to return home and thus, they’ll have to figure out a way to find themselves a job with HS diploma credentials and apartment or join the military services.</p>
<p>I can’t really imagine my kid participating in something like that. I mean, when he was at CTY they dressed up for Fairy Princess Day in clothes they borrowed from the girls, but I doubt that there were too many Fairy Princesses around to be offended. 
His frat regularly gave an 80s dance party, but again…not a theme likely to raise anyone’s hackles. I know that as part of pledge term they were supposed to wear some silly costume for a day, but to my knowledge this was usually something like bunny rabbit ears and tail, or maybe a superhero outfit.</p>
<p>I know that kids are fans of a lot of very harsh, post-modern “humor,” which can include a lot of ethnic self-denigration, but it is hard to imagine that they don’t know when they have crossed a line…unless, of course, they literally don’t know any people from the group in question and therefore don’t have an understanding of them as real people.</p>
<p>And perhaps it is true that, mixing up these discussions in various simultaneous threads, if one has grown up on steady diet of rappers going on about hos and using the n-word, and a lot of ethnic humor, one may become desensitized.</p>
<p>First of all, I would not be too quick to conclude that the school’s version of the facts was correct. I’d hear my kid out.</p>
<p>Right. I understand that.</p>
<p>But, in the OP, I said “find out through the social media.” So, there are pictures in the case I’m talking about. Also, this post assumes, for the sake of conversation that it <em>is</em> true.</p>
<p>Clearly, none of us can imagine our children would participate in this kind of thing. We raised them better than that. But, it’s a hypothetical.</p>
<p>“First of all, I would not be too quick to conclude that the school’s version of the facts was correct. I’d hear my kid out.”</p>
<p>Definitely. I trust my kids and their instincts more than anything else. I can’t see them ever being involved in something like that. But I also would not hold them responsible for other people’s behavior. If they were at a party and things got out of hand, or other people behaved badly, I wouldn’t consider them responsible just because they had attended.</p>
<p>I also know the difference between a joke (even in poor taste), and something unacceptable. There still are elementary schools suspending kids for kissing each other, calling it “harassment” and bringing plastic knives for their bagels, calling them weapons. I don’t trust every last word claimed by administrators. They are often just trying to cover their bases, not do what is right.</p>
<p>“And perhaps it is true that, mixing up these discussions in various simultaneous threads, if one has grown up on steady diet of rappers going on about hos and using the n-word, and a lot of ethnic humor, one may become desensitized.”</p>
<p>Again, I agree with Consolation. I think part of the reason this kind of racism continues is because what’s acceptable keeps changing. Used to, there was no mistaking that if you used the n-word you were being racist and denigrating. Now that some have taken the stance that by not using the word you give it power, some use it liberally, including in music. Non-black kids hear the word over and over and don’t realize how emotionally charged it is for those of us from a previous generation. That’s why, to me, I’m willing to give the kids in some of these instances a bit of a break. For me, it’s like porn – I know it when I see it. I would have to look at each person to discern whether they were being racist or just ignorant. And I don’t mean ignorant disparagingly; if you’ve never been sensitized to these things I’m willing to cut you slack and teach you.</p>
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<p>So true yet such a big problem</p>
<p>Okay, well assuming the hypothetical, I would have a very long talk with him about what happened, what he was thinking, what other people were thinking, how it came about, and why I think it was wrong. Because that’s the way to get through to MY kid. </p>
<p>Just recently we had a discussion about Phillip Roth and Saul Bellow, and why I gave up reading both of them a long time ago because of their sexism. (Actually, I may give them a try again, especially ROth, since I haven’t read any of his mature works, but that’s another story.) A few days later he emailed me a couple of pieces he had read, including this one, saying that he though he understood what bothered me about them:</p>
<p>[Rebecca</a> Solnit: Men Explain Things to Me – Facts Didn’t Get in the Way](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Men Explain Things to Me -- Facts Didn't Get in the Way | HuffPost Latest News)</p>
<p>He got it.</p>
<p>Hah! I won’t read Roth or Bellow for the same reason.</p>
<p>I’m glad you discussed this with your son and he got it.</p>
<p>I discuss too much. My kids make jokes about how they used to wish they’d been beaten instead of having a “discussion.” Oldest jokes every time she sees “Discussion section” in the registration schedule, she gets nervous. :p</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay’s post reminded me of something that happened when my son was just staring middle school, 6th grade. The inner city kids who were bussed in were using the kind of foul language, m###fu@@ker, n!@@a, etc. that my kid simply wasn’t used to and frankly it made him afraid in the locker room and the restroom. </p>
<p>So I brought it up at a PTA meeting with the school’s principal. I said that some effort should be made to stop this kind of language in school. </p>
<p>The response I got was completely shocking to me. It was “Well, this is their culture and we have to adjust to this sort of thing”, </p>
<p>It’s no wonder kids grow up confused with the double standard.</p>
<p>The question is an excellent one and it really doesn’t matter what kind of scandal or trouble your kid gets caught up in, but what does one do when one’s child does something clearly BAD? The circumstances and the attitude, along with nuances really make a difference in such cases. Also the consequences that the kid is facing often has to be addressed. So there is no good answer and no one size fits all solution. I can tell you that when I read about these things, I always wonder how the parents of the perps are handling the situation.</p>
<p>Tatin, that’s interesting. My future BIL is a teacher at a Detroit public high school and that type of language is most certainly not acceptable. Nor was it acceptable in the Lansing schools I worked in. Both very “inner city” schools.</p>