Online bullying.

Something I never gave much thought to. I've gotten some mean comments and some rude emails but nothing I ever gave much thought to. Little people with little minds is all I ever thought right before deleting it and losing the thought of it in an IM with a friend or some game online.

Then I watched this story from ABC they had online through AOL. And while on one hand it floored me, more at the complete lack of empathy my generation and younger has developed than anything, on the other hand, I was anything but shocked.

Teenagers are famous for being insensitive, cruel, and more than anything, utterly thoughtless. And no, I obviously don't speak of all teenagers when I say that. But is that insensitivity growing? Is their ability to cause harm with little or no consequence causing them to be more cruel to their peers and to those younger than themselves?

With all the technology out there letting them do so many things with absolutely no thought to the other person, it makes me wonder, how to do you monitor and how do you protect? It's impossible the way things are now and probably will become harder and harder as time goes on.

Is this simply a result of a growing lack of parenting in our country? Spoiling the child and sparing the rod?

Are morals becoming an afterthought in our society, or are they that already?

Has our government stripped away so many parental rights that we can no longer try to raise our own children as we feel is necessary? (If I hear child abuse cried one more time for a parent that spanked their child I'll explode...)

Are our schools so large that maintaining discipline and order completely impossible?

When you have 500 plus students in a grade, how do you maintain a moral structure?

I look at the children in my neighborhood as an example. They're all monsters.

I look at the children I grew up with. There were some vile little brats, yes, but for the most part, kids were good kids.

What happened?

What happened in the last 12 yrs that turned the 6 year olds I knew from all around good kids, to the 6 year olds of today that work the "system" to get what they want?

Have we completely lost our minds?

I remember when I was little when so many parents were arrested for spanking their children, or swatting their hands. Even then I was confused, as young as I was, I still knew that something was wrong. My parents never BEAT me, they spanked me, they explained what I had done wrong calmly to me, asked if I understood, then gave me a couple of swats. They handled it the way a parent should. In all my life I can probably remember that happening three, four, maybe five times. Because my parents explained it to me.

But today... Parent be damned if they drag their child into the parking lot to swat them on the butt. God forbid someone sees, because then the police will be called by some "do good" citizen. I say that because I've seen it happen, and more than once.

I remember when I was about eleven years old a boy called the police saying "daddy hit me" because he had given his child a spanking. Not a beating, there were no bruises, nothing.

The father was arrested and sent to jail.

I repeat myself, are we losing our minds?

A man commits rape and gets a deal to spend a few months in jail, but a father disciplines his child and he gets sentenced to two years?

Okay now, let me explain why I bring this up.

A teenager doesn't just suddenly appear. At first they're children, and very small children, that can be taught and molded, and shown the difference between right and wrong, and understand small consequences before they get the chance to make big mistakes.

A teenager starts as a young child.

The problems with teenagers today didn't jump out of no where. They were raised to this. They were encouraged to this, and yes I think the lack of parental involvement is an encouragement still. I also think lack of discipline is an encouragement as well.

I got lucky, with my tender heart I'd have been shredded in high school. I didn't go through everything some people go through. I wasn't forced into that. And considering I know the intelligence level and the maturity level of the high school I would have gone to, it's a blessing I didn't go.

But I know kids that have gotten the brunt of the high school blows. I know the kids that got ripped to pieces. I've held female friends as they cried about something someone said or did. I've encouraged the boys I know to not listen to what they say, to confide to me. Because I know people older than me that didn't have that in high school. They didn't have someone to guide them, to listen, to help them become who they'll be for the rest of their lives.

And I think today's children, teenagers especially, are lacking in that guidance. They're lacking in the parental involvement and the spiritual involvement. They are lacking in the harsh reality of consequence.

To return to my original thoughts, I wonder if kids have actually gotten worse, or if the parents, and the adults in society, that are the ones to truly blame. If we now fear the talk, the judgment, the labeling, the LAW, in such a way we have forgotten as a culture how to raise a child to be a better, stronger, happier, healthier, more kind being than we were.

You raise a child with the knowledge of your mistakes in hopes they will learn what you did, without the scars you endured. You raise a child with good and bad, in hopes they learn the taste of the sour, so they'll know the sweet. You raise a child with joy and the pain they need to feel, in order they learn what they're actions will feel like to others. You raise a child in hope they will be an empathetically person, who will let their head guide them, not just their heart.

You raise a child to be better than you were.

What are we raising our children for now?