Two of the middle school kids who brutally bullied a school bus monitor in Greece, New York are apologizing to Karen Klein.
MSNBC says they've sent notes to police who have forwarded them to Klein.
"I am so sorry for the way I treated you," one of the student said in a statement. "When I saw the video I was disgusted and could not believe I did that. I will never treat anyone this way again."
More at link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...r-gets-an-apology-half-a-million-in-donations
Why aren't they apologizing to her in person? I watched Karen Klein on Anderson Cooper. HE read her the apologies. They made it to the news media before ever getting to her. What's up with that? When asked how she felt about the apologies she stated, "No one's apologized to me."
I saw a list of names on an article, I didn't post it here since they are minors, but they're all guys.
What do you want them to do? Apologizing is a good first step. They might be meaningless, but they are doing what they should. JMO
I see a father who's mortified by what his kid has done. It took a lot of cajones to go in front of the camera like that. I agree with him too. I think a psychological evaluation is the right direction to go. JMO
BTW, I don't see any other parents coming forward.
I love ya' Steely, but counseling doesn't fix evil. Evaluations can't diagnose evil either. These kids have serious character flaws. This wasn't one rude word. It was ten minutes of torment and not the first time they have done it. It was mob mentality. By this age, they know better. They need serious character "therapy" which involves long discussion with their parents, hours and hours of volunteer work with those who are disadvantaged, and serious punishment involving complete deprivation, for months, of everything they love to do, like phone, internet, t.v., video games. Everything but homework, family events and volunteer work. So they have a chance to reflect on what they have done and who they have become.
These parents are in a race against time. IMO, it's probably too late but if they have any chance at all they need to take swift, decisive action, right now. All this talk about psychologists is a means of excusing the behavior "My son was sick, he wasn't in his right mind. He needs help." Yeah, he's got a sick soul and no amount of counseling will fix that.
But, being dprived of everything he likes to do, being forced to spend long hours with those who have less than he, being forced to understand the seriousness of what he has done, personal, in- person apologies, etc., perhaps, just maybe, they will have a chance at turning this kid around.
I can see why some might say it took guts for this kid's dad to go on t.v.. But everyone in Greece N.Y. knows who he is already. And everyone in the world knows his son, pretty much. So, I see it more as damage control and I am not pleased with the subtle attempt to excuse this behavior with allusions to "counseling". :twocents:
I would normally agree but this whole thing happened so fast. I believe it was the mother of the camera recorder who uploaded it to her Facebook the same night it took place. That night a friend downloaded the video from Facebook and uploaded it to YouTube. At the same time a link to the video was posted on reddit and 4chan. This gave it thousands and thousands of hits in the first few hours. These boys had no clue of the reaction coming. maybe if the mother had went to the parents of the kids first an apology and punishment would have been made? I guess we will never know. Listeening to the interview of one of the fathers, they have had death threats and multiple deliveries to the home.
The backlash seems to have started against Karen gaining so much money.. But I still believe she deserves it. people are donating because what these boys did was wrong. Hopefully she will never be subjected to this again. People around the world are saying to these boys No!
I never saw anywhere that the mom uploaded it. In fact, the child himself talked about uploading it. Do you have a link to support that information?
Letters are nice and all, but these kids need to be marched up to look Karen in the eyes and apologize face to face.
Anytime I did something to wrong someone else as a kid, I was made to apologize in person. We make our kids do the same. And the apology better had be sincere. There is no substitute for this, really. A letter just allows them to remain detached from Karen and what they did to her. They need to own up, apologize, and see with their own eyes the hurt they did to a fellow human being. :twocents:
Eta - that goes the same for apology videos posted to YouTube. Nice and all, but no substitute for a face to face apology.
Exactly. When we were young and did wrong we were forced to face the person we offended. That really increased the sense of guilt.
Of course, the police might have said they should not contact her directly, because they have harassed her, and should send notes through them, but that doesn't explain why the media had the apologies before Ms. Klein did.
Every child misbehaves. Every child disobeys. Every child embarrasses their parents with their behavior at some point. This is much more than all that. These kids got to this point for some reason. And so far I am not that impressed with what I have heard from their parents.