Our wild kids have America on edge

Violent events in the last few days prove how edgy Americans are.

A 16-year-old boy who knocked on the wrong door was shot through the glass by a scared old man.

A cheerleader was shot because she pulled into the wrong driveway.

Another person was shot after she accidentally got in the wrong car at a shopping center.

Everyone is so on edge today because of the madness and lawlessness they see on TV and the Internet.

Every day brings new video of gas station smash-and-grabs, flash mobs looting retail stores, mini-riots taking over streets in downtown Chicago, teens fighting and shooting at each other.

In a country of 335 million people, you are always going to see disturbing images of people doing horrible stuff to each other, committing property crimes and breaking the peace.

But way too much bad stuff is going on in America.

The people in charge of our cities — the politicians who for decades have wrecked them with their social welfare policies — have no idea what's wrong or how to fix it.

The new idiot mayor of Chicago, for example, said the kids who ran riot in his downtown just needed something to do — they needed jobs, he said.

But that's BS and everyone but the mayor of Chicago knows it.

Jobs for kids and young adults are plentiful everywhere. There isn't a street or shopping center in the land that doesn't have a dozen 'Help Wanted' signs taped to its windows.

The real problem is too many kids don't actually want to work — and no one makes them.

There are many more credible explanations — and excuses — for the rising lawlessness that's put so many Americans on edge.

Some politicians and "experts" try to tell us it's caused by poverty, systemic racism or our broken education system — which they broke.

I'm no sociologist, but the fact that a quarter of our kids — more than 20 million — grow up without a father in the home is probably the chief reason for the explosion of so many lawless young men.

But another reason is because of how poorly millions of kids are being raised and how seldom we hold them accountable when they do something wrong — starting when they're little.

The act of disciplining children has become virtually extinct — and morally verboten. Parents are told they can't spank their kids anymore. Schools have long ago forbidden corporal punishment.

It's no wonder so many kids grow up and turn into monsters who think they can do or take whatever they want and have no sense of what is right or wrong.

Even when they set a cop car on fire, smash store windows or loot a convenience store, they are not held accountable, not arrested, not put in jail, not even identified and shamed.

Today, there's almost no accountability for bad acts by young people. They have gotten so wild I think it might be time to start kennel training them.

I have a new shepherd puppy named Shadow. In a little over two weeks I have him kennel trained and potty-trained. I say, "Sit," and he sits. I say "Bed" and he goes to his bed.

Kids and dogs are really not that different. If you let dogs run wild, they'll poop in your living room, chew up your furniture and bite people.

You have to teach puppies not to do those things — and hold them accountable when they disobey — so they'll grow up to be good dogs.

It's not that complicated, really: Holding kids accountable when they are young helps them grow up to be good men and women.

It will sound crazy to anyone under 30, but I was lucky I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s.

My mother kept me in line and accountable with her riding crop. The nuns in school used their rulers. The priests used their paddles.

And I'm glad they did.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation.