"Smithtown is one of a number of districts on Long Island and around the country that have recently closed their campuses at lunchtime, canceling a generations-old rite of passage because of school officials’ and parents’ growing concern over traffic accidents and in some cases, truancy. This 11,000-student district in Suffolk County stopped allowing students to go out for lunch in November, the day after a lunchtime car accident that killed two Smithtown West seniors and a third teenager."
This is just another appalling development in the stupidity of our parenting and educational practices. You can probably blame the lawyers because, in this case, I would imagine that the school district is doing their best to avoid liability. But how much good are you doing these kids by covering them in bubble wrap when they need to be learning that they need to be responsible for their own safety?
Life is a scary proposition, folks; and no amount of coddling is going to change that. As parents, we owe it to our kids to let them find much of this out on their own, lest we wind-up with a bunch of sniveling little Europeans on our hands who cannot wipe their own asses without an act of Congress. Sorrily, we are going to lose some of them along the way; and no matter how many ways we try and keep that from happening, these kids - especially teenagers - are going to figure out new ways to worsen the odds. Oddly enough, it's the parents who need to grow up.....
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