difficult child's community service

[Nancy]

difficult child received a sentence of 72 hours of community service to be completed prior to her court date on March 7. She also has to attend a theft lecture put on by one of the courts. We impressed upon her that she had to schedule the class and community service quickly because 72 hours was a lot of time and she had less than three months to do it and would lose some time over the holidays. She was given a list of places she could go but only about 3 took theft cases so she couldn't even work the food pantries. I was disappointed because I would have liked to see her feed the homeless so she got to experience what it was like.

So she attended her theft class last night and is on her way today to work 8 hours in a thrift store run by a ministry. I am encouraged that she didn't just let this go and seems committed to completing it. 72 hours is a lot of hours, she will be a busy girl with her job over the next few months.

 

[busywend]

Fingers crossed, Nancy....i hope she completes it early and can put this chapter behind her. With learned lessons of course!

 

[DDD]

Glad she's jumped on it. Really the holiday season would be an ideal to double up as it would keep the access to partying limited. Where we live it was possible to find alterntive community service opportunities and get approval from the PO. difficult child#1 worked fundraising functions run by churches, Rotary etc. My hope was that he would realize that community service was a lifestyle for lawabiding citizens and not a punishment for those who messed up. Fingers crossed. DDD

Hmmm...wonder if she could be a Salvation Army bell ringer outside the mall?

 

[Nancy]

I agree DDD, I would like her to see community service as a way of life. I have long thought our communities could do a better job advertisig opportunities for people to volunteer. I believe that many people are happy to step up when the need is made known.

 

[lovemysons]

72 hours is alot...but I am confident that your difficult child can and will do it!

There are some places that offer 2 for 1 she might check into.
LMS

 

[everywoman]

I'm glad she is moving forward---when my now 30 year old easy child was in high school---he got into some trouble with the law. He was 16. Before he went to court, I called the judge, who I knew, and asked for him to give my son some "hard time." He gave him 109 hours of CS washing deputy cars from October through February every afternoon . It was cold and miserable. But he learned a lot about hard work and making choices. He never got in trouble again.

 

[Nancy]

I wish they had more creative services like this. I'd love for difficult child to have to wash police cars in the cold.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Perhaps you could send difficult child to Dashcat...she could think of a few choice chores!

 

[Nancy]

Haha you're right! Maybe she still has some painting that needs to be done.

DDD this is sad for me to say but I wouldn't trust difficult child to ring the salvation army bell!

 

[buddy]

I like that about community service being a part of life. I'd be in trouble if anyone expected volunteering to be a punishment for me, they'd have to find a pretty nasty job....like cleaning sewers before I'd not like doing it. I dont even mind cleaning for older people in nursing homes or any of those kinds of gross jobs if it means a better quality of life for people.

I did smile, though I know you were serious, about the bell. Hope she does her CS and learns something from it.

 

[Ephchap]

Nancy, so glad to hear difficult child is following through the with the community service. My stubborn difficult child skipped his the first go round. Lesson learned the hard way; they doubled the hours and put him in jail for 3 days. Guess he showed them ... NOT. In the end, although he had a gazillion hours, I do think it was a very good experience for him. I'm sure your difficult child is not thrilled about it either, but glad she's following through, and hopefully lessons will be learned.

Hugs,
Deb

 

[Kathy813]

My difficult child managed to perform only a few hours and then get the person in charge of the community service to sign off as if she had completed all of her hours. It was a young guy in charge of the community event and she is a pretty girl. Sigh.

Wrong lesson learned.

~Kathy

 

[DDD]

OMG, Kathy, easy child/difficult child did the same thing with a 20ish young woman who was the asst. director of the Boys and Girls Club. He was 15 and she was at least 25 and, of course, he was handsome funny and attentive. That was his first community service hours experience. Subsequently I kept the papers and did the driving. Yikes! How similar are all our difficult children! DDD

 

[Ephchap]

Oh sheesh, Kathy and DDD. No lessons learned there, you're absolutely right, Kathy. My difficult child had to report to an older guy who was ex-military and ran it like a batallion. No sweet talking that guy, lol.

Deb

 

[1905]

Glad to see she's on it already...and only 64 more hours to go. I hope she learns something valuable.

 

[AmericanGirl]

Nancy, glad to hear she has started. Hopefully, it will be an eye opening experience for her.

 

[DammitJanet]

Wish they did more of that stuff here.