OT:Drunk kid wants his Mac and cheese at the Union

[ctchamps]

Agree with this. The kid needs to pay the consequences for what he did (expelled from school and likely community service / rehab). But it doesn't mean the kids life is over or he can't make amends for this. I never did anything quite like this, but I was definitely a little punk / when I was 18/19, as I'm sure many others were.

Hopefully he learns and grows from it. The real problem becomes if he doesn't change and is still acting like this when he is 25 or 30.

I have no problem with punishments. I prefer punishments not be administered in a "punkish" manner.

When I was young I was not a punk/. I missed that phase. Will it be ok if I in my later years try it? I can claim that I have selective dementia and that the prefrontal cortex is failing.

 

[Gringo]

I have no problem with punishments. I prefer punishments not be administered in a "punkish" manner.

When I was young I was not a punk/. I missed that phase. Will it be ok if I in my later years try it? I can claim that I have selective dementia and that the prefrontal cortex is failing.

Absolutely.

I'm already planning on being a crotchety old man. Unfortunately I still have some time to go when I have to pretend to be a responsible adult.

 

[CL82]

I have no problem with punishments. I prefer punishments not be administered in a "punkish" manner.

When I was young I was not a punk/. I missed that phase. Will it be ok if I in my later years try it? I can claim that I have selective dementia and that the prefrontal cortex is failing.

I read your post a few times trying to get your point, so one of us may be having a issue here. How was the kid's expulsion punkish?

For what it's worth, although I know it will label me "an old guy," people weren't as punk-douchy (if it ain't a word, it outta be) when "we" were growing up. Yeah there were always jerks, but this kind of self-indulgent tantrum-like behavior would have resulted in, uh, negative reinforcement, right quick. By the time you got to college, you already had a working understanding of societal norms for behavior and the consequences for breaching them. That's the element that is missing today. There's too much "me" and not enough "we." This kid is behaving like a 2 year old, because he never learned that this behavior isn't socially acceptable when he was 2 or 3 or 4, etc. He's not alone in that mind set and we are the poorer for it as a community.

/end old guy rant.

 

[ctchamps]

I read your post a few times trying to get your point, so one of us may be having a issue here. How was the kid's expulsion punkish?

For what it's worth, although I know it will label me "an old guy," people weren't as punk-douchy (if it ain't a word, it outta be) when "we" were growing up. Yeah there were always jerks, but this kind of self-indulgent tantrum-like behavior would have resulted in, uh, negative reinforcement, right quick. By the time you got to college, you already had a working understanding of societal norms for behavior and the consequences for breaching them. That's the element that is missing today. There's too much "me" and not enough "we." This kid is behaving like a 2 year old, because he never learned that this behavior isn't socially acceptable when he was 2 or 3 or 4, etc. He's not alone in that mind set and we are the poorer for it as a community.

/end old guy rant.

His expulsion was not punkish. The social media attack and some of the responses in this thread are imo. I was referring to gringo's commentary about social media. You had to read his thread I guess to know this.

I think there was a lot of misbehavior going on throughout history. I would say the specifics have changed such as weapons being more accessible and more deadly, more availability and variation of things that alter cognitive reasoning, and easier dispersal of information. It was an ask don't tell society when I was growing up. Now it's the opposite extreme.

If I want to ask someone how to undertake a complex development of stores or apartments I'm going to seek out the advice of someone like @Pudge because that's his expertise. But I certainly wouldn't rely on him to understand alcohol induced behaviors if he characterizes all episodes as garden variety. If I want to know what's going on in the NBA I'll ask someone like @aceboon. He and a few others are a fountain of knowledge on that topic.

I would not ask any poster who doesn't know all the working parts of an automobile or has never gone under the hood, to fix my car. Any task requires a good working knowledge of the component parts associated with that task. Most reasonable people would agree with this premise. (premises, premises)

I have a construct for behavior. I have enough background to know in the most simplistic of terms how a complex behavior develops in the brain and results in a set of actions.
And yet, most people discussing behavior struggle with even the most rudimentary understanding of the brain their underlying components and their inter relationships. With that said someone like @Rocktheworld who I know has more specific details of the brain has come to a different conclusion regarding behavior. But at least he has a construct of the brain and we can discuss things in more detail.

Most people do not emphasize the reinforced patterns (nurture, programming) that takes place in our brains that when factored in with the hardware ( nature, such as visual cortex, auditory cortex, amygdyla, cerebellum and so on) ends up creating the behaviors that tend to be in sync or not in sync with one another.

 

[Leebo]

Sure, our brains are really complicated.

I believe in hard determinism (free will doesn't exist), but I don't mind saying he's a .

 

[ctchamps]

Sure, our brains are really complicated.

I believe in hard determinism (free will doesn't exist), but I don't mind saying he's a .

Nicely put. I don't mind it either unless I stay there.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

For what it's worth, although I know it will label me "an old guy," people weren't as punk-douchy (if it ain't a word, it outta be) when "we" were growing up. Yeah there were always jerks, but this kind of self-indulgent tantrum-like behavior would have resulted in, uh, negative reinforcement, right quick. By the time you got to college, you already had a working understanding of societal norms for behavior and the consequences for breaching them. That's the element that is missing today. There's too much "me" and not enough "we."

You can't really think this, though, right? That, (a) this kid represents some kind of societal shift from when you were a kid and (b) that spoiled, entitled, bratty college kids didn't exist back then? I can't imagine that's the case.

Kids like this have always existed. The biggest difference between now and then is that almost everyone in that room is carrying a video camera with them.

 

[Towney007]

Towney,

As a graduate of Springfield College, I'm really shocked at the problems you had as RA. Don't remember things being anyone near that violent during my years (pre John Cena).

It's a different generation of kids and so sad that it has taken such a downward turn for the worse.

BTW, I work at a small college and interact with students on a regular basis. Got to say that no student has ever gone this mad in our dining hall. Maybe our Mac & Cheese ain't that great.

Yeah well that being said though - 10% of the kids are always 90% of the problems. On the whole - people at the college were pretty fantastic people. But the bad apples are *really* bad there and the school's disciplinary system is a total joke. We'd have things happen... we had one kid throw a fire door out the bathroom door in Alumni Hall and hit a generator there. Like serious, fire-creating type stuff - including the vandalism.. and they gave him 5 hours of community service which was basically him organizing his advisor's office for five hours.

The brains story in there is a long, almost incomprehensible one..

The kid who HIT the other kid was one of those guys who was just a real shady character to begin with. Every time we'd be doing a write-up or anytime there was trouble he was always lurking. Cloudiness over an eye - he literally looked like something out of a comic book. So he lived in one of the tower rooms with this kid and at some point during the fall he broke his arm and had some sort of metal rod put in his cast. Him and his roomate got into it one night - after a long night of drinking, obviously; and he backed him up against the edge of the doorway and took a swing at him and basically hit him so hard that he split the back of the kid's skull wide open. Like really wide open.

Of course we were on our way there as kids came and got us (thankfully) and we put a call into campus P.D. and they were there incredibly fast (those dudes deserve medals. campus P.D. does nothing but take and get no credit for the stuff they have to put up with) and diffused the situation but this guy's roomate was out like a lightbulb and literally you could see brain sack. Luckily we got EMT's there - but the kid's never been the same since.

So the school doesn't press charges in spite of the ENORMOUS law suit being filed and instead suspends the asaultee (shady kid) for two weeks. TWO WEEKS. He comes back and not a week later within the span of one evening gets caught setting off a fire extinguisher AND was literally caught INSIDE the school bookstore stealing stuff after breaking in. I'm not even joking. So they suspend him for a semester. The next year he was a constant problem and even took a swing at a female R.D. (luckily he was so drunk he couldn't stand up).

The cherry on top comes the following summer when Res Life couldn't get him placed because there wasn't a sane person on campus who wanted to live with the kid. So they placed him randomly in a Senior Suite with - you guessed it - the kid who he blugeoned a year and a half earlier. I'm not even joking. It was so appalling that I took a photo of the housing assignment. Of course they changed it once the Res Life staff had a melt down about it - but just the general tone-deafness from student discipline is incredible.

Like I said - most kids were great and the system worked on normal kids. But it was the bad apples that just kept getting chances and really brought stuff down around them. Like I said - I'm glad I was an RD, but don't miss a second of it.

 

[Waquoit]

No way kids are worse today. In my dorm, a kid went beserk because the music was too loud and couldn't study. On a Thursday night. So he smashed a beer mug against the wall and threatened to slice another dudes throat with the jagged remains. Did they toss him? No, they just moved him from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor. In with me.

 

[intlzncster]

I read your post a few times trying to get your point, so one of us may be having a issue here. How was the kid's expulsion punkish?

For what it's worth, although I know it will label me "an old guy," people weren't as punk-douchy (if it ain't a word, it outta be) when "we" were growing up. Yeah there were always jerks, but this kind of self-indulgent tantrum-like behavior would have resulted in, uh, negative reinforcement, right quick. By the time you got to college, you already had a working understanding of societal norms for behavior and the consequences for breaching them. That's the element that is missing today. There's too much "me" and not enough "we." This kid is behaving like a 2 year old, because he never learned that this behavior isn't socially acceptable when he was 2 or 3 or 4, etc. He's not alone in that mind set and we are the poorer for it as a community.

/end old guy rant.

Pipe down old man.

 

[CL82]

You can't really think this, though, right? That, (a) this kid represents some kind of societal shift from when you were a kid and (b) that spoiled, entitled, bratty college kids didn't exist back then? I can't imagine that's the case.

Kids like this have always existed. The biggest difference between now and then is that almost everyone in that room is carrying a video camera with them.

I do think it E but I think my post overstates it a bit.

First, this kid represents one drunk idiot nothing more. As I noted, there have always been jerks. But I do feel like there's a societal shift in what's considered acceptable behavior. So the outliers are more extreme because the norm has been expanded. I agree though that the presence of cameras now is a major shift since it both captures more stuff and likely exacerbates outrageous behavior.

I'm not sure I can articulate it better than that.

 

[TasteofUConn]

But I do feel like there's a societal shift in what's considered acceptable behavior.

Hard for me to believe that anybody over the age of 45 doesn't wholeheartedly agree with this. From swearing, lack of "please, thank you, you're welcome," to overtly ogling women, to elimination of underage pregnancy stigma, young able people not working stigma, and on and on. Culture/society has changed a tremendous amount in the last few decades. Some good, some bad.

More interesting to me is where it's going to be in 20 years.

 

[David 76]

I actually have some expertise here!
Both sides are right.
Today's kids, especially boys, are light years ahead on expressing feelings being more sensitive, not being offensive to people with any kind of difference. They do more community service than any previous generation. They are about 1,000 X as mature as I was at their age.

But parenting practices have changed and too many parents are either too busy or too afraid of offending their child to discipline them properly (not harsh discipline just effective). These kids get bailed out, defended to teachers, police, etc. Meanwhile the kid learns nothing and while the trouble they get into escalates and escalates. Until finally, Mom & Dad can't fix it with their checkbooks.

his kids parents look like they fit that mold. Their reaction to horrible behavior at UMass, pay for another college. This is a guess, but an educated one.

 

[UconnFanNVa]

I actually have some expertise here!
Both sides are right.
Today's kids, especially boys, are light years ahead on expressing feelings being more sensitive, not being offensive to people with any kind of difference. They do more community service than any previous generation. They are about 1,000 X as mature as I was at their age.

But parenting practices have changed and too many parents are either too busy or too afraid of offending their child to discipline them properly (not harsh discipline just effective). These kids get bailed out, defended to teachers, police, etc. Meanwhile the kid learns nothing and while the trouble they get into escalates and escalates. Until finally, Mom & Dad can't fix it with their checkbooks.

his kids parents look like they fit that mold. Their reaction to horrible behavior at UMass, pay for another college. This is a guess, but an educated one.

Pretty much like i said earlier, i'd like to see how we acted when his mom was taking too long to bring him his easy mac! I bet he screamed and broke things and cursed her out.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Sure, our brains are really complicated.

I believe in hard determinism (free will doesn't exist), but I don't mind saying he's a .

That's the big issue, isn't it

Because in your view that free will is an illusion, which I share, we can't really condemn a serial killer. It requires compassion rather than our greatest contempt. To be feared and kept away from the rest of society to be sure, but undeserving of hatred. After all, most serial killers wish they weren't killers, they didn't choose their genes, or upbringing, or environment, let alone the perfect storm of said factors that led them to become compulsive killers.

btw thanks and well done @fleudslipcon recognizing I have some grasp on human brains and behavior. But as you further note, behavior like this in my opinion stems more (although surely not completely) from upbringing and environment. I don't think this kid has some kind of personality pathology (but who knows what his parents' history with alcohol is) that would more closely be linked to genetics. We have no idea what this kid is like sober, however.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Hard for me to believe that anybody over the age of 45 doesn't wholeheartedly agree with this. From swearing, lack of "please, thank you, you're welcome," to overtly ogling women, to elimination of underage pregnancy stigma, young able people not working stigma, and on and on. Culture/society has changed a tremendous amount in the last few decades. Some good, some bad.

Certainly doesn't make those people over 45 correct. It's just the anecdotal grumblings of the get off my porch crowd. I'm sure I'll do the same thing in 20 years and I'll be just as wrong.

But . . . . . "elimination of underage pregnancy stigma . . . " Having kids at 14 is the cooolest among teens these days. What kind of town do you live in?

 

[David 76]

This is getting deep.

I'll add that raising children a generation or two ago,, especially in the working class, used to involve fear. We loved and "respected" our parents. But that "respect" had a lot to do with fear.
Now, most of us have children that fear us a lot less then we feared our parents. When done well, there are relationships between parents and kids that include more trust, communication, and real respect.
But when you remove the fear without instilling boundaries you get miserable kids that the parents can't control. No kid really wants no boundaries, no matter how much they say they do.

Are we going to hell in a hand basket? NO Are there some problems from these changes? Yes. But there are more improvements too. Generational poverty and teen pregnancy are a whole separate conversation

 

[CallMeBruce]

Hard for me to believe that anybody over the age of 45 doesn't wholeheartedly agree with this. From swearing, lack of "please, thank you, you're welcome," to overtly ogling women, to elimination of underage pregnancy stigma, young able people not working stigma, and on and on. Culture/society has changed a tremendous amount in the last few decades. Some good, some bad.

More interesting to me is where it's going to be in 20 years.

Yeah, when we want advice on how to treat women, we're definitely going to ask your generation.

 

[joober jones]

This is getting deep.

I'll add that raising children a generation or two ago,, especially in the working class, used to involve fear. We loved and "respected" our parents. But that "respect" had a lot to do with fear.
Now, most of us have children that fear us a lot less then we feared our parents. When done well, there are relationships between parents and kids that include more trust, communication, and real respect.
But when you remove the fear without instilling boundaries you get miserable kids that the parents can't control. No kid really wants no boundaries, no matter how much they say they do.

Are we going to hell in a hand basket? NO Are there some problems from these changes? Yes. But there are more improvements too. Generational poverty and teen pregnancy are a whole separate conversation

Sometimes that fear factor is a good thing... at least to the point that a kid will be afraid to do certain things for fear of the punishment it would bring on, or hopefully the previous punishments teaching them the action is wrong for bigger reasons than just a punishment. So many kids today walk all over their parents. I can recall multiple occasions where I've seen kids swear at and even hit their parents with no reaction beyond gentle requests to fall in line. I've also seen times where this behavior was rewarded by way of it actually breaking the parents down and giving the kids what they wanted.

I fully agree with David on the need to reach the point of mutual trust, communication, and true respect. Parents may piss their kids off with punishments and yelling, but as these kids mature they learn from their mistakes and will respect their parents for taking the time to teach them right from wrong and help them grow into respectful and respectable people.

 

[CL82]

Mmm, I think it was less fear of punishment and more fear of disappointing our parents and letting them down in light of all they had done us. For better or worse that's gone as a motivator. Perhaps because this generation saw less of the struggle to accumulate wealth.

 

[David 76]

The best thing about old-timey parenting was that all adults were on the same team. Your parents, aunts & uncles, neighbors, people in the stores all saw it as their right to call you out if you were acting like an idiot.
Now people don't know their neighbors, everybody minds their own business, parents fight teachers too much. The "takes a village" piece is pretty much dead. I try hard to get parents to talk to their kids friends' parents. Call if your kid is going over someone's house. Tough to get people to do that these days

 

[ColoradoUCFan]

I received this email from a friend in Louisiana. Here's the entire email:

Subject: What happens in Storrs.....

At L.S.U., this kid would have been given his “f###in’ mac-and-cheese” and asked if he needed any ice cubes in that open container.

 

[temery]

No way kids are worse today. In my dorm, a kid went beserk because the music was too loud and couldn't study. On a Thursday night. So he smashed a beer mug against the wall and threatened to slice another dudes throat with the jagged remains. Did they toss him? No, they just moved him from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor. In with me.

I worked for Campus Police in the 80's. Three football players came back from a night of drinking, and beat a kid into a coma. They had to attend "meetings," and couldn't live on campus.

The kid/parents won a nice lawsuit vs the school. But that was it. They were not tossed out.

Bottom line: I agree - No way kids are worse today.

 

[David 76]

I am hoping you mean that the victim and his parents won a lawsuit.

 

[Kitaman]

And we don't throw people away. Especially when they are 19

While I agree, 'we don't' but I would have to believe that the parent would like to (at least until he gets his act together). Some young adult children are a drain and the peace that immediately comes over the house in their absence is absolutely worth doing anything for.

I've seen parents pay 1st 3 months rent, and the unsuspecting landlord thinks they are getting a good tenant with a nice advance. Please "take my kid" events happen everywhere in this case the parents got UMass and then UConn to do it. They are probably more pissed having to take him back vs the public exposure.

Just saying when you are on the outside its one thing but having to live with 'the problem' is another, and options are limited.