You'd be amazed, Joe. This kind of stuff goes on all the time (not in MY house, though!).

Though Buffalo Grove is one of the well-to-do suburbs of Chicago, I don't want to generalize and assume that the teen who did this comes from a wealthy family, because I've heard of teens pulling stunts like this regardless of their family's financial status. However, we hear this a lot in the Chicago burbs. One of my friends even had a neighbor whose teen used to yell out their window "Child abuse! Child abuse!" when the parent tried to enforce rules that she didn't like.

Unfortunately, it can be a sign of the indulgent times we've had over the past fifteen years or so, in combo with our litigious society (and the kids seeing that "anything" can be fought) and a whole rash of parents who start taking the easy way out on discipline and ethics when their kids are small, thinking they can turn them around 180 degrees by the time they're teenagers.

Ahh...but don't get me started.

I may take this on in my next, way-overdue Teen Angst column....

This isn't about the boy and what rights he thinks he has, It's about breeders who know not what they do.
I once was "fired" by my bosses six year old. (kids say the darndest things) It was humorous, because he was SIX.
If this kid at 15 is pulling this shit, I only wonder where the breeders were when he was six?
You can't ask a 15 year old to be responsible for himself and his actions, if the breeders haven't yet wrapped their brains around the concept.

"SON, you're going to military school, while your mom and I take some parenting classes."

i believe that most kids have a hard time distinguishing between privilage and entitlement. i drop the hammer hard on this at our house. this article would be amusing if it weren't so damn disturbing. i actually disagree AND disagree with it pertaining to the dumbing down of america.

on the one hand, we have clearly turned into a country-ful of vapid individuals in quest of fake tits, white teeth, and six pack abs. we don't want to work for anything. we want bigger, better, harder, faster, and quicker than ever before. style vs. substance? NO CONTEST. we'll take the style, thank you very much. we laud that which is shallow. giving thought to thinking isn't cool anymore. but paris hilton sure is. so in that regard, dumbing down of america gets the nod.

on the other hand, technology has enabled us to get so far as a society that we've become dependent upon it. you, danny evans, heather armstrong are great examples who have leveraged that technology to become household names. at least with bloggers. and by the way, i've only been blogging for two months, and only started it to promote my book (though now i think i'm hooked), and as such had never heard of you before i started pecking around. i've been BLOWN away by the following that people can amass by being clever and leveraging mouse clicks. i'm even more blown away by people who aren't so clever that have leveraged the same thing!

anyway, back to my point... the proliferation of the blogging community is a perfect example of how dependent we've become on technology. this loser in buffalo grove is just as dependent on his technology, but not for money or advancing his career, but rather (likely) for social currency / status within his peer group. when it's taken away from it, he results to desperate measures, not because he's stupid, but because he's desperate and dependent upon technology. so in that regard, this situation is not due to the dumbing down of america--rather the progess of it.

all that said, someone still needs to smack that little brat on the hand and tell him to pull his head out of his ass. someone still needs to explain to him that being a child of privilage does not entitle him to anything, except perhaps a higher standard to which to be be held. if he were my kid? i'd take him on a five day camping trip and break things down to the common denomiator.

sorry to go on, but this type of behavior is a huge pet peeve of mine and this article really struck a nerve. thanks for writing about it! -jco-

I go through police logs on a daily basis, and I see this kind of stuff all the time.

I don't see it as the dumbing down of America, so much as a sense of entitlement on the kid's part. Hell, 2 months ago a family had to call 911 because their kid went apeshit after they punished him by taking away his cell phone. But you're right, it's both the kid's fault and the parents fault, because the parents probably never disciplined him before.

If I ever called the cops on my parents for something so trivial, I would've just run away for fear of retribution. And I plan on not only disciplining my son and making him aware of consequences, but also embedding within him the ability to recognize a real emergency that necessitates a 911 call.

This kind of stuff is just mind-numbing.

kids these days believe everyone owes them the world. sorry, doesn't work that way. hubs has disconnected the internet line that stepson's xbox connected to, i've done same w 12 yo tv, i take away their gadgets, and if something they own breaks and needs repair/placing, they have to work it off.

It's always the extreme cases that get the press. I wouldn't sweat this too much. Clearly, these parents and this kid have some issues. We run things different in my house.

This is what happens when the parents want to be the kids friend more then they do the parent.

In my opinion, fear and respect are very important parts of a parent child relationship. W/out the fear and consequences of getting your skull cracked for talking out of line to your parents it gets out of hand and w/out the respect of the fear you get kids talking back, calling cops and even worse a physical altercation from your child. I cannot imagine and can only hope that by putting our foot down from a young age and resetting it after loosing our footing for a bit less than a year we can prevent any such trouble.

To me it is insane how important material possessions are to kids these days. This is exactly why our eldest is not allowed to play video games nearly as much as he once did at one point this year. We noticed how obsessed he became with it. While only a couple short months of letting him play as he wanted seems to have erased all the work we put into parenting him previous to that he is now relearning there are so many more important things then these stupid gadgets.

I have no issue with putting my child in their place when they need to be, its just the guilt I feel afterward because it does hurt me to see my kid unhappy but I know it is for their own good.

That Teen that called 911 needs a good old fashioned ass whipping. The little shit stain. The nerve of these kids these days.

I'm just glad that the police didn't take this kid or his complaint seriously. Stupider things have happened.