Melbourne CBD Incident

[chalkybill]

Lack of parenting is a tough one. Times have changed a lot.  It is now rare that kid get two parents at home at night,  they are more regularly coming from broken families and a constantly on their screens.  It is rare for both parents not to be working as housing (including rent) is so expensive.  The responsibility and pressure on kids is much greater than it was only 20-30 years ago.  Added to this is a rapidly changing online environment that a huge amount of parents don't understand, let alone know how to regulate with their kids.

Then we get migrants from a background that is impovished or war torn and expect them to fit into our society.  It isn't that easy.  I remember the non english speaking Greeks at primary school - it takes a generation or so to get into the swing of Australia.

There is no easy solution to any of this,  but it requires a tougher bail, parole, post release support as well as education and support of people vulnerable to the justice system.

Yes we have many more single parent families, duel income families, immigrants etc. but I taught a family of girls who on Friday nights were consistently lined up against the house passage wall and who in turn had a gun placed under their chin by their dad while he asked each one to give him a reason not to pull the trigger.  Very few worse cases I would think.  But those girls all became excellent students and great people.  It took just one parent, the mother, to put in time with them to succeed where many now fail miserably today.