Okay. This is going to be a much shorter article than I thought. Why? I had been writing an article and I was getting to the final section. Over an hour of writing and because my keyboard has issues sometimes the entire article got highlighted and then overwritten with two keystrokes. I quickly went to the post article button and pressed load drafts....but too slow. The autosave saved the article as just those two strokes.
Mistakes happen
I can whine. I can complain. I can close up my computer in disgust and decide not to post today but ultimately those accomplish nothing. In this case a simple mistake cost me an hour of my day and caused a lot of frustration. But..
Should I give up on Hive forever?
A mistake happened. It had a consequence. It was really annoying. Should I give up on Hive as flawed. Annoying feature that saves mistakes and deletes my whole article. I think the answer is obvious.
No. I shouldn't give up on Hive
There is a lot of potential in Hive. There is a future for Hive. There are things I want to accomplish on Hive. Why would I give up on it?
Just like I make mistakes on Hive. Teenagers make mistakes too and that is what the Hive Learners prompt is for today. My mistake on Hive had small consequences. Teenagers mistakes can be much more costly.
I will admit that teenagers are often terrible. They make lives miserable for many parents and I am certainly no exception. I've seen teenagers make terrible mistakes, far worse than me getting my article deleted. However, every adult today was a teenager at sometime and I'm certain the adults then said exactly the same thing about teenagers.
Teenagers are at an awkward time. They are intelligent, strong and capable. I mean look at young Olympic athletes! Teenagers who can accomplish incredible things! But they are also anxious about their future. They are overloaded with hormones. They really want to become their own adults but don't have the life experience to carry it out...yet. They are trying to break free from their parents control like a baby chick from an egg...and its messy and tough.
I'm not blaming teenagers I'm just saying that they are like very inexperienced adults. Inexperience leads to mistakes.
Some mistakes affect teenagers for life.
One article?
Teenage boy drinks and drives. Highway collision. Driver is severely injured. Girlfriend dies.
Lifelong consequenes
Another situation?
Teenage girl has unprotected sex. Period has been missed. Pregnancy confirmed. Has a choice: Keep the baby or Abort the baby
Lifelong consequence
A choice to make.
Teenager with friends. Someone scores some drugs or alcohol. Everyone else is trying it and the teenager just wants to fit in. Take it? Or Leave it?
Potential lifelong consequences
Those are just a few examples of teenagers being in a position to affect their entire life with one choice and one potential mistake. In those things society can't protect the child, the parents can't protect the child, those are hard decision causes consequence moments.
I know a situation where a teenager broke and entered into an entertainment facility. They were with friends, drunk, and thought they really wanted to play there.
Breaking into the facility set off a silent alarm. Police were alerted. The teenagers were apprehended.
What punishment should ensue?
I know another situation where a teenager really wanted to try smoking. The parents wisely wouldn't let him have a vape unit or cigarettes. The stores wouldn't sell it to him. He decided to break into someone's locker at school and steal their vape. The theft was reported, the teenager found out, the Police were called
What punishent should ensue?
In both cases there was a crime. In both cases the Police showed up. In both cases there were very real legal consequences. In both cases for teenagers who made stupid mistakes.
Should those mistakes also cause lifelong consequences? Are these teenagers a danger to society? Are they likely to continue being thieves or people who break and enter? Well, if there is proper punishment and proper remorse I have a feeling that those teenagers will turn out as responsible adults.
Indeed I know both of those teenagers now that they are young adults. They will be the first to say that they were "dumbasses" and "did stupid stuff" when they were younger. They also wish they could go back and "knock some sense into themselves". They are still young and will likely make mistakes but at least those run ins with the law aren't going to hurt them moving forward. They have a clean legal slate as children's criminal record is wiped clean so they can start their adult life fresh.
Unfortunately some people have darker purposes in life. Some people need more than a course correction to get them back on path as an adult. Some people are generally dangerous to society and need to be kept apart for the good of the people. I do hope that those people can be rehabilitated and lead productive lives. I also believe that those people need to be watched in case they relapse.
Unfortunately some of those people are a menace from a young age.
In Canada there is the option to try children as adults and have the punishment stick with them.
For me the difference is in the heart of the individual.
When my children did bad things there were different levels of issues.
I was lucky that it was never deep seated antisocial behavior.
Teenagers could fall into any of those categories.
Mistakes? Wipe clean to give an adult a fresh start.
Negligence? Wipe clean and hope the adult learns to be diligent.
Willful disobedience? Teenagers are rebelling against adults to become one. Its silly but again let them start off clean as an adult and choose their own path.
But for those who are wired to harm society? I think that needs to dealt with as if they are adults. Wiping the slate clean just puts more people at risk. At least in my opinion.
Do you agree with my opinion? Disagree with it? Either way I'd love to get your opinion in the comments. If you don't feel like commenting? Totally understand that too and thank you for reading down to this point. Maybe not my best work but sometimes a mistake means things don't go exactly the way they were originally intended :)
