Mom fears son, 9, who set fire to restaurant

Yup, a bad case of needs a spanking. Instead of giving your little angel a time out every time he did something wrong you should have swatted his ass.
Why the hell would you let your 9 year old go to a mall with a friend and no adult supervision? My boy is nine and I'm not about to let him head off to Southcenter without me or his mom. Plus you know he's hanging around with a bad crowd and doing drugs at nine, call the cops on the little bastards giving your child pot. This woman wants the system to do all the work for her.

I don't agree with you. I think she is doing all she can, and she (they) are basicly and the end of their rope. A spanking isn't helping anymore, a grounding isn't either. Her cries for help weren't heard until he burnt down a building. What can you do? Tie the kid down, and get charged with childabuse?

If this kid had been tied down, and it had been printed in the newspapers, everyone would have yelled: hang the parents! you can't do that to a kid!!

i hear millitary school works wonders for kids like that. she needs to step up and be a parent. teach the little shit who is in control and not let em walk all over her.

I agree totally with Choban.



On a side-note. Maybe this is some kind of omen. That's the restaraunt where I met my wife!

Did you get fries with that Yogi?

He had better stick to the fries

Not sure about that Brenda, theres no statement on the story as to what she tried BEFORE she called child welfare, I guess both of us are assuming on opposite sides.
My opinion screams that a tougher sort of punnishment was due, but we just don't know. What I'm sure of though is that generally speaking this behaviour isn't typical of a nine year old, a 12-16 year old sure but a nine year old not so much (granted it does happen as we see here).
I'd be inclined to blame the daycare generation but we don't know what his early upbringing is either, but theres obviously some underlying issue we aren't aware of for this sort of behaviour from someone who hasn't even hit puberty yet.
I'd have called the cops on the kids supplying drugs to my kid and look into possible gang ties amongst them, as it is typical of gangs to involve kids this young due to the fact they often aren't charged when the are caught.

Although the mother does seem irresponsible letting a 9 year old go out on his own, you can hardly blame her for being hesitant in taking the necessary action in fixing his behavior as she obviously doesn't know what to do anymore. Some sort of action should be taken against the bad influence friends as well. Hopefully things work out for the best in this peculiar case.

But that's what I'm saying, in the space of a few monts this kid started going backwards from his usual self, did drugs and hung aroung with a bad crowd ect ect. What was done before hand to curb this behavior? We don't know, we are only assuming that nothing else worked when in fact we don't even know if she bothered or just waited until it got out of hand and wanted Family Services to rescue her?

I'd rather be charged for child abuse then have my kid burn down a restaurant because he's "crying for help"

There is no excuse for this kid.

If you're afraid of giving your smart ass kid a crack and then being tossed into jail, then do the next best thing....

... Toss their ass into military school and teach them to appreciate the freedoms given to them that they take for granted.



That's why you don't tie them down, but rather whip off the ol belt or grab the Yellow Pages and let em have it.

You can treat your kid like an adult and give them all the freedom you think they diserve for their troubled little precious and fragile lives, but when the little drama queens start doing things like this and start acting like they own the world to the point where you're afraid of your own kid.... it's time to show them little punks who's the boss and how the world really works.

I didn't say HE's crying for help, I said his parents did. They couldn't handle him anymore, so the way to go is not to let it go, but to get your butt in gear and get help. They tried. They got it after he burnt the place, something his parents tried to avoid.

I'd have to agree with Brenda, the parents were looking for help but where exactly do you get help for kids like that? Other than counseling I don't know of any other options that are available and anyone who has dealt with councilors knows that it's a pretty slow process.