CO - Jessica Ridgeway, 10, Westminster, 5 Oct 2012 - #19

T4Tide said:

My oldest two are almost 13 and 11, and they do have laptops, actually. They may only use them in the family room when my husband and I are present. I frequently check their internet history to monitor what they are looking at. It's my JOB to teach them right from wrong and show them the right paths to take. If AS was "addicted" to *advertiser censored* when he was 15 yrs old, he had been viewing it well before then and he was NOT being monitored closely.

I know they will not be perfect children, and will make some mistakes, but a good bit of these mistakes are preventable. I know that it can be done because I have seen it. In myself, in my husband, in my nieces and nephews, and lots of friends' older children. I know they probably exist, but I do not personally know ONE child who have online histories like those we see on WS. Maybe we live sheltered, unexciting lives according the rest of the world, but hey...we like it here.

When I was in the 10th grade, my brother and I were late coming home from the first dance of the year, and we lied about it. My parents quickly divided us, figured out our stories didn't match, and conquered. lol. We were grounded from school activities for the rest of the year. From September to May and they didn't forget. I was never again.... not one time.... late for curfew, which was midnight until the day I got moved out at 21. I learned my lesson. I've never been drunk.. to this very day....because my parents had a zero tolerance for alcohol. Never snuck out. Was I perfect? Of course not, but I knew my parents meant business and it kept me in line. Too many parents are just worried about their kid "liking" them or they are too wrapped up in their own drama filled lives to care what's going on.


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I hear what you're saying. And the world is made up of different points of view for a reason. I think it is admirable and noble that you are so accountable and responsible as a parent. I wish everyone was.

But we all have different ways of trying to do so. For example, I would not want to ground my kid for an entire school year for coming home late and lying. I think it might be a bit of an over reaction, but then again, as you pointed out, it never happened again, so it is a trade off. But I think kids make mistakes and they need the chance to try again and do better. I wouldn't want my kid to wait a whole year to try it again. :smile: :wink:

Anyway there is no right/wrong in this discussion. It is just a matter of doing the best we can. Mine are now 24 and 20 and it cracks me up what they remember about my DH and I trying to discipline and teach them. lol
But they are delightful at this point in their lives, so in spite of our inadequacies, they thrived.

Maybe he does live in a mansion. A's home wasn't bad looking, certainly not a mansion, just needed fixed up some. Dad had a mortgage fraud charge, I believe as one of his charges and don't even know if anything about dad is true yet. Mansions & Mexico...oh my.

Prayers to all of them. This kid is a mess for some reason. Compassion, I guess, but it's hard but I do understand mental illness. I am not a person that excuses it either at first if a crime has been committed usually. btw Facts will drive my direction.

My thoughts are with Jessica's family & her friends. They need to heal. May they be watched over and taken care of always. If this was happening in my family, it would be my worst nightmare to ever have to deal with. I have stong shoulders & two of them to help support them. I might be far but I'm here for them. I can't describe my feelings for the family other than feeling part of their sadness and anger they feel now. So senseless and selfish of him to think of only himself most likely one of the most heinous crimes I've witnessed first hand, if you ask me.

I want to make certain that my opinions regarding excessive exposure to the many readily accessible media forms that display extreme violene and/or sexual perversion being a negative impact on our impressionable youth are not confused or misconstrued as my believing that these medias create individuals such as what it very much appears ASR is..

I believe that the root cause for that goes much deeper than excessive watching/viewing/participating in violent, twistedly perverted games, movies, and interactive playgrounds..

It would be incorrect to believe that I am placing blame on these negative media forms for "creating or making" criminally sadistic predators.. I am in no way indicating this..

But I do howver believe without a single doubt that these above stated and discussed issues absolutely are a CONTRIBUTING FACTOR in further fueling an already unbalanced or twisted individual..and as i stated earlier when adding an excessive exposure to violent, perverse, and depraved media it can be an explosively negative impact...

All jmo.

I'm going to be the voice of contention in the Great Parental Debate.

I do what a lot of you folks do - computer use only in family room, under parental supervision; text messages checked; parental email blockers; TV ratings checked; friends vetted; kiddos not allowed to roam unsupervised; light makeup; modest clothing; GPS enabled cell phones, etc. Most importantly, for me, is that they are held responsible when rules are broken.

But...I truly believe bad things can happen to even the best of well-intentioned parents. I do not think if your child makes a mistake, breaks a law, or (god forbid) hurts someone it is automatically part and parcel of how they were parented. I think the issues are myriad and multi-dimensional.

I also believe many parents do their best with what they have when they have it. I've had my parenting judged by non-parents and I judged others before becoming a parent myself. It's left me honestly believing that there are no right or wrong answers - only what works best for us as parents, as people, to our own kids.

JMO and FWIW

aust amateur slueth said:

That is one of my biggest bug bears, children have friends and will make other friends too, they don't need their parents to be their friends. They need their parents to love them, nurture them and teach them, they will only ever have one mother and one father.

That doesn't mean you can't be friendly towards your children, you should but knowing where to draw the line is important.

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I do think you need to draw a line there, but I see nothing wrong with being "friends" with your kids. When my older son was 12, I was reading something to him from an article about astrology; it said that an Aries parent (me) and a Leo child (him) were probably the best combination. They were not only parent and child, but also tended to be friends. I expected him to laugh about it, but instead he just said, "That's true." I asked him how he could say that when I was always nagging him about something. His response was one of the nicest things he could have said, it was, "That's your job, but when you aren't working we're pretty good friends."

I never really tried to be a friend to my boys, but I did try to give them happy memories. When they started playing multi-player role playing games on AOL, they talked me into playing too. We'd often spend a couple of hours playing, the older one was often at this father's house and the younger one with me. When they were younger, we took guitar lessons and karate lessons together, went to the library twice a week, watched movies, had picnics on the living room floor on rainy days, rode bike together, and played board games, read books, painted pictures, went for walks and a lot of other things together.

By the time my older son was 11, he was down to having very few rules - tell me where you'll be when you go somewhere, check in every hour, be home when you're supposed to be, and don't kill your brother (he always said the last one was unfair!) Little things like don't lie, you break it, you buy it, finish your work before you play, put things away when you're done with them, show respect to other people (even if you don't feel like they deserve it), eat your vegetables, etc. had become ingrained by then and didn't have to be considered rules - they were just part of life.

GrainneDhu said:

Some men just don't care.

Even someone who became as mega-rich as John Lennon. While the Beatles were still together and making money hand over fist, he was sending his ex-wife a pittance in child support. Julian Lennon has said publicly that Paul McCartney showed more concern and gave him more emotional support than his own father did.

I cannot understand how such men can hold their heads up in public. I just don't get it.

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I agree with your every word!

sarx said:

Thank you Smoothoperator for writing that out. That's exactly what I was referring to. I really could care less about who shoots up zombies, likes little characters or even plays games depicting other violence generally speaking. I don't believe those are indicators of much of anything as millions of people play them and manage to get along in life just fine.
It is a completely different story when things turn to depictions of children either pornographic or violent in nature. These are the virtual worlds I am referring to. Anime *advertiser censored*, virtual realities where child characters are raped, murdered, brutalized, etc. This is a whole different ball of wax.
Hope that makes sense.

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BBM

I find it fascinating that the country of origin of this type of Anime material is Japan. Since Japan is known to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world, the correlation between violent acts and people who view such material is not statistically relevant.

Madeleine74 said:

Ironically the most visceral one is that from the paternal great-grandmother of Jessica. :-#

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With all due respect, there is absolutely nothing ironic about what her great-grandmother said. She is grieving. She is suffering a tremendous, horrifying loss. One day, I hope, she will regain balance and come to, if not a sense of peace, at least a sense of acceptance. But for crying out loud... this is a victim-friendly site. I find the suggestion that the words she said in this time of grief are somehow "wrong", or "ironically" bad, to be downright cynical and utterly devoid of compassion.

O/T: People fundamentally misunderstand irony. With tongue only slightly in cheek, I blame Alanis Morissette.

LittleMissContrary said:

BBM

I find it fascinating that the country of origin of this type of Anime material is Japan. Since Japan is known to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world, the correlation between violent acts and people who view such material is not statistically relevant.

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Actually, that discrepancy (the wide availability of extreme *advertiser censored* and extremely violent media v. rates of violence) is the subject of much academic inquiry and debate. Hentai tentacle monster *advertiser censored* is shocking, as is the proliferation of ultra-violent *advertiser censored* in Japan that features women dressed in school-girl clothing being abused... there is no other word for it. Blech. I could go on, but it makes me physically ill.

From the Denver Post:

Quote:

The family's pastor, Rick Long of Grace Church in Arvada, said that for Jessica's mother, Sarah, the arrest "begins another phase of the nightmare."

The news is a "Catch-22" for the family, he said, meaning they are glad to have Sigg off the street but will now have to endure new details of the gruesome crime being made public.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21844711/arrest-made-jessica-ridgeway-case

Prayers to Jessica's family and friends, may they have the strength to endure their living nightmare.

I wasn't posting about a local. btw. My heart is with them all.

onebyone said:

If it was a split second decision and he just grabbed her, what did he hog tie *shiver* her with? Did he have a kit he stashed in the car, just in case he was able to grab someone?

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I realize I'm behind a long ways still... but yes, I question his version of events if this is what he claims, verbatim. It doesn't quite add up.

LittleMissContrary said:

BBM

I find it fascinating that the country of origin of this type of Anime material is Japan. Since Japan is known to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world, the correlation between violent acts and people who view such material is not statistically relevant.

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If you're interested I recently read an interesting, if lengthy, research paper on the effect of anime and manga on kids - both American and Japanese. It was enlightening noting the ideological differences of the two countries.

http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/35076/71249564.pdf

We'll be moving on over to a new thread...this one will be closing shortly...

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189036"]Found Deceased CO - *ARREST!*Jessica Ridgeway, 10, Westminster, 5 Oct 2012 - #20 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community[/ame]

From the outside looking in, I would say that North America in general is bad at providing safety for its children, and Colorado in particular has a very poor track record.

There are a lot of societal contributors but the undercurrent of acceptance and glorification of violence in your society is a major one.

It really is a shared responsibility, if so.

revampz said:

...my 7 & 8 year old boys came across a site while googling for a very innocent kids game......my 7 year old told me what he saw one girl do another girl...........I cried for days and was convinced they were going to be messed up......I was told to just not mention it again......so now the kids dont go on the computer unless we are around and they have never mentioned it again (think it confused them)...

I am going to get bashed for this...so will go and make dinner after this.....but you know when I was a teen, kids didnt sit around all day and kill things for hours on end on a computer or watch every type of sexual act you can imagine.......yep may have played soldiers and got hold of a playboy or similar, but the internet has bought all of this to a whole new level and I personally think it is wrong, very wrong and out of control and people too accepting of it...

The innocence of children is being taken too young by the things they are viewing on the internet.

You know you go to a motivational speaker (and I've been to quite a few) they will tell you to say over and over " I can do it, I am this and I am that"...etc..........what is watching the killing and maiming of other humans for hours on end doing to these brains. I am sorry but call me old fashioned, my children will not be playing these games for hours on end.........I personally think it does desensitise (not sure if a word) them to violence......or maybe make them think it is more normal that it is...

I dont know, I just dont think that all the changes the internet has bought to the world are good....especially for children...

and if it is true, being in counselling at the age of 15 for an addiction to *advertiser censored*............dang.

My opinion only and absolutely meaning no offence to anyone.

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ON a positive note!
Did you know Kids that play video games are more aware of everything going on aroud them. They took10 kids that played games and 10 that didnt they showed a video of a bank robbery and the kids that played the games SAW everything that happend down to what everyone was wearing which way they walked etc etc.

Doctors are playing video games before surgery it improves hand eye coordination.

Most games these days are war games and war is real we are in it.
Fantasy games are abundant also. Are they violent yes but so is the world and the world didnt get that way because of video games..

Kids didnt get this way because of video games!

Kids got this way because of parents and how parents abused or ignored their children. Children need to be loved and nurtured. We can try to blame games and tv and *advertiser censored* etc etc for what these perps do when in the end it comes down to
how that child was raised.

all JMO

msthinksalot said:

Actually, that discrepancy (the wide availability of extreme *advertiser censored* and extremely violent media v. rates of violence) is the subject of much academic inquiry and debate. Hentai tentacle monster *advertiser censored* is shocking, as is the proliferation of ultra-violent *advertiser censored* in Japan that features women dressed in school-girl clothing being abused... there is no other word for it. Blech. I could go on, but it makes me physically ill.

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What
is hentai monster *advertiser censored*?

SapphireSteel said:

From the outside looking in, I would say that North America in general is bad at providing safety for its children, and Colorado in particular has a very poor track record.

There are a lot of societal contributors but the undercurrent of acceptance and glorification of violence in your society is a major one.

It really is a shared responsibility, if so.

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We know these perps exist and if we dont think think they live in our own back yard you are fooling no one but yourself. Parents need to provide safety for their children. The School (ONCE the kids are in the doors) need to provide to keep our children safe. They cant be walking alone! We may as well paint a big red target on them...
We cant keep or kids in the house 24 7 so we have to arm them with what we think might help them to fight back if caught by a perp. Mace or a 5 star alarm system with 5 star you press the button and ypur talking to someone instantly
you can get help.
We need to help our kids fight back!
Karate classes for little kids
Self defense should be taught in school gym classes! Een if it just the basics of how to get away. Kids nead to practice screaming! I put thouse big bull horns or air horns on my kids bikes when they were younger anyone came near them holy sheet

any one that has kids walking alone need to invest in 5 STAR emergency response its well worth it. and a can of mace!

just my:twocents:
You could scare them away with that horn and it attracted ALOT of attention!
there are so many things we can do to keep our kids safe

Ok doors closing on this thread...please move on over to thread #20...

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189036"]Found Deceased CO - *ARREST!*Jessica Ridgeway, 10, Westminster, 5 Oct 2012 - #20 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community[/ame]

I think video games have had a terrible influence on people especially during the past 20 years. Minors and teens who play certain vid games are encouraged to beat, shoot and kill.
That is not a normal thought process...play that enough and IMO the game violence affects the player.
Positive activities affect one positively....negative activities affect one negatively. It's sometimes that easy.