Teen with bus obsession, steals bus & collects fairs

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How's it irrelevant?

I thought we were discussing the entire situation here.

The above doesn't make the person any less accountable under the law.

It just means, it's sad that he had to go and break the law when he did, thereby destroying his future chances of doing something he really loved, for a living.

Just like...

A staff person's teenage brother, years ago, was driving recklessly, and flipped the car off the road. A girl riding in the car died. His girlfriend had severe internal injuries, and he had bad injuries as well, they had to be in the hospital for awhile.

Yes, it was his fault. Yes, if anyone pressed any charges they were totally justified in doing so, because this guy just plain should not have been driving (and also his rich parents shouldn't have bought him a new car after he totalled the last one. Talk about irresponsible). If you're so reckless someone dies, then you've got to face the consequences.

But the thing is, he was still not even an adult when this happened. And he's going to have to carry around that knowledge for the rest of his life. And it's going to affect what he will and will not be allowed to do for the rest of his life. And given his age, the rest of his life is a long time. Teens are often reckless. Most of the time they don't get anyone killed. This time they did. And other people paid the ultimate price for his recklessness.

So, yes, this is incredibly sad. Which is not at all off the topic, neither does it make the person any less responsible or accountable for their actions. It's just commenting on another facet of this. And understanding what errors of judgment made him do this is not off the topic either.

This is what I was referring to when I made that last comment.

Actually I agreed with you completely and that's why I quoted you. I now see how that sentence of mine made it look like I was contesting you. It was supposed to be a comment in addition to what you said, not contesting anything you said. Sorry for the confusion. I think I was tired when I wrote that.

I heard of another case like that. Not autistic... oh, well, nobody knows. But it's not that the teen is evil or trying to defy law but just not getting that taking things and breaking things is theft and destroying another's property and thus a criminal act.

It doesn't mean it should go unpunished, but nobody should expect the typical way by itself to go and solve the problem.

So with all the sentences a person like this gets, that cannot be all that is done about it. Because then the person might do it again and again and again. Some atypical people learn very differently from average people and thus average punishment alone will do nothing.

And in reality, nobody cares for such effects of being 'different'.

A person like this is treated like a typical criminal only. Nobody usually has the chance to figure out how to stop the criminality after the sentence is stated. Sentences stated - all finished! The criminal is expected to understand typical things in a normal fashion without any strange special help.

Where are the people trying to teach this person not to steal? Where are the people trying to prevent it? Why does nobody important care that people just don't become normal and understand normal things in a normal way?

If recognition and help is only ever for some and for certain situations... who's volunteering for damnation?

Jail wil teach this person not to steal. Jail is Detention Hall for grownups.

I'm not so certain jail will teach this person anything good. The amount of criminals who are rehabilitated is probably tiny. It probably depends on the country and the particular prison. Watch "Oz" for a look at what a prison might be like.

No, it does not.

A teen like this actually liked jail because they didn't understand everybody else detested it. Not because they think it's 'cool' or because they like the people there.

It's a place with rules and regulations and all is organised and if you don't experience that this is a punishment or cannot understand that you did something wrong and thus that this punishment is not just random and strange, it won't teach.

There are many more people like this.

They may even be real sweet people that mean no harm, but they end up in jail again and again until they just stay in there.

A criminal like this may enthusiastically do voluntary work that they got as a sentence before and just go on about the same criminal act again nonetheless.

If a person hasn't the brains to know right from wrong and good from bad, the negative experience that jail (not necessary prison) provides might give them a hint that they've done something bad. All of this assumes that the parents failed their kid by not teaching him right from wrong, good from bad. I come from the school of tough love.

Laws are not automatically "right". Many people in prison do not deserve to be there. ret*d people should not be imprisoned for doing criminal things. They will learn nothing from this and will likely be brutalised further by their experience. Innocent people are often imprisoned because of prejudice and the incompetence of police/prosecutors who are rarely the best and brightest people.

There is no such thing as "tough love". "Tough love" is sadism quite frankly. Causing people to suffer for their mistakes is not a moral thing to advocate and usually does not result in any less mistakes.

The only good thing prisons in their current form achieve is to keep society safe from dangerous criminals for a usually short time. Rehabilitation is rarely achieved because of the nature of the prison environment. People in hell will not learn to be better people, they will learn to be worse people by being humiliated and tortured.

I apologise if anyone is offended by my comments, that is not my intention. I merely wish to express my view on this topic.

I think if a person is truly unable to know right from wrong they should be put in some kind of institution where there are people to watch them. Not for punishment but to keep them from getting into trouble.

It’s hard to know whether that is the case here though. He could equally well just be an unusually rebellious kid who happens to have AS and an obsession with driving buses.

I'm a product of tough love. It is not sadism. It seems like sadism if you don't like rules and the following of them. It's not until you are an adult yourself that you appreciate what your parents did for you and why they did it. "Sparing the rod" really refers to being too lenient with a child. "The rod" does not necesarily refer to any actual rod or belt or switch. It's metaphorical. "The rod" is a symbol for discipline, strength, tough love. Or, as my Dad used to call it, Power Parenting.

Folks, I used to hate my Dad. I used to despise him for the way he treated me, and for being so unyielding, so seemingly uncaring. But now, as a man, I see why he raised me that way. I'm very loving and very grateful for having a Dad who cared so much, who wouldn't give up until I learned the lesson, understood the world. Had my Dad spared the rod and made no attempt to correct me, I can only imaginre what kind of delinquent I'd be today.

And that is why I believe in tough love.

Well some people take offense to the idea that threat of punishment is where morality is learned from. Not saying that parents shouldn’t punish thier children as it is sometimes necessary. But punishment alone doesn’t teach true morality. Children should be taught about compassion for others and critical thinking, not just blind obedience and fear of punishment.

The Nazi’s used the “tough love” approach to train their military but that didn’t make the soldiers moral. In fact it did the opposite. It brainwashed them into human cogs in a war machine based on pure evil.

It doesn't have to do with brains. Everybody has a brain, and high IQ doesn't aid in this either as said before.

If parents raise several siblings and all of them have come out good, but one disabled person does criminal things, I do not think the parents did wrong.

Following this logic, autistic people shouldn't have any extra rights just because they're autistic then either. I can go by the very same argument against autistic needs. In order to explain my point, I'll do. It would go like this:

Autistic people should just start learning body-language like normal people, on their own, without any help or accommodations. Why do they need jobs and money if they can't learn it the normal way? To teach them costs money and time and effort which may just be totally useless in the end, because it's so annoying I and other autistic people still don't know body language from seeing it every single day of the week, all day long.

If autism means needing different approaches, why are only some issues that autistic people have are acceptable? Because that sounds as if having problems with learning right vs. wrong the normal way is not acceptable.

We don't know if they'd ever learn it or could be prevented from doing it. Nobody usually cares.

That's the whole point I'm making. People say 'who cares? no need! do away with them! etc' before they actually tried anything than the standard procedure. It's like expecting an autistic person to become non-autistic. It's never going to work this way.


And no, related or unrelated to that, pain does not teach every person. And it does not teach everything, regardless of person.

I have a high IQ, common sense and even some social common sense.

Yet I hit people in the head without meaning to hurt them as a young teen, which was unstoppable. Headbanging is sorta bad and craniocerebral injury doesn't feel good, but who knows if I don't get me killed which would be a very unlucky occurrence. I also manage to cut myself every time I cut something for dinner, because I'm just holding the things wrong.

As for things that cannot be taught by such means; beating an ASD out of any person doesn't work either.

Tough love is not beating. It's not violence. It's hands-on discipline. I wonder if you realize the difference between discipline and abuse. Discipline crosses over into abuse when parents indulge their frustrations through violence. Abuse serves no purpose other than to satisfy a violent impulse, while discipline itself is disciplined. You may slap a child to correct him, but holding his hand to a hot stove or leaving bruises on his behind are acts of terrorism and thuggery.

Sora:

I agree with you that there should be some accommodation of the person is really impaired so severely that he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong. If that is the case then he should have some legal options hopefully. I guess all I’m saying is that I don’t have enough information to know. His having Aspergers doesn’t automatically lead me to the conclusion that his disability was the sole reason for his behavior. It doesn’t logically follow without more evidence.

Slowmutant:

I don’t agree that punishment teaches right and wrong. It teaches that certain behaviors will get you punished. There are deeper reasons behind morals than simply avoiding punishment. If peoples simply seek to avoid punishment then they will grow up being a criminal whenever they think they can get away with it. That isn’t true morality.

It’s also not fair to say that this kids actions where cause by his parents not disciplining him enough. You have no evidence that this is the case.

How to teach a child right from wrong using only positive reinforcement? Negative reinforcement is also necessary. Praise and reprimand, punishment and reward. If punishment is ever out of context, obviously the kid won't know what he did wrong or why he's being punished. But if it's made clear to him what he did wrong when he does it, the punishment and discpline will make sense. The same goes for the giving of rewards. Hopefully, the kid will eventually seek reward on his own, and avoid punishment on his own.

Eventually, the kid will surmise for himself what is right and what is wrong.