THE PUBLIC MIND: PARENTS FIND DIFFICULT JOB IN RAISING KIDS

Dear Editor:

This is an open letter to all parents, teenage students, schools, and other interested folks.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk to everyone who is concerned about our kids in school. Who cares about our kids' future? Who cares about the relationship between parents and children? Who cares about our country's education system?

I would like to take this chance to share with you as parent. In today's world, it is very difficult for parents to raise their children. They are not just dealing with how to make their child grow in a normal way; they must worry about how to please their children and how to prevent their children from bad influences.

Parents must work to avoid their children being from badly influenced by T.V. They must influence their children get better grades in school. They try to tell the children about their problems because the parents don't just have to deal with their children on all issues stated above.

They also have to care their job. (In some cases, wives have to work too, so they can catch up the expensive living expenses.) They also have to make payment or rent of their home, payment of their car and pay expenses for insurance, car care, utility, telephone, medical care for their family, food to feed their children, clothes for their children, etc. Parents also have to deal with their children's behavior; spend time to investigate their children's friends; and encourage their children get good grades in school, and to stay away from drugs.

Suddenly if parent lost his or her job, they are not just dealing with the loss of income. In some cases they may have to tear their family apart. Lots of children don't understand their parents' problem because our school system does not have this kind of program which tells the children about all of these growing problems.

The school board should establish the kind of programs to help the children better understand the problem of their parents.

Schools should also establish a dress code to limit what students should and shouldn't wear, and their kind of hair style. Basically school is a place for children to get an education, not a fashion show or rock and roll concert. Why wear something special?

But unfortunately schools are unable to do that because some special interest group or person, use the Constitution to block establishment of such a code. It is very funny. We talking about a 200-year-old Constitution that is still applied to today's generation. It is so hard to change.

The Constitution provides basic fundamentals to protect people's rights. But some people overuse the Constitution, which makes it hard for the school to enforce the rules, and hard to establish necessary code to limit the students behavior.

The Constitution is great. It protects the people. But it needs to be updated so we can bring things under control. We have thousands lawmakers in the capital. I don't know if anyone is speaking for this issue. It's hard to change the Constitution because there must be a sponsor and support by Congress and each state. Well, why not pass all this to the people? Let all great American people decide constitution amendments. Let them vote and decide. It makes sense that some law established 200 years ago is outdated and can no longer be applied.

The education system need to be reformed, such as encouraging the students to get better grades and study harder at home. They need to set up more scholarships funds for good and hard working students. That way we can encourage more students to participate, or even send some students to foreign country be able to understand other countries culture such as Africa, Asia, etc.

All the above suggestions just basically express my personal opinion. Yes, educating our next generation will be very expensive. But if it works, it's worth it.

We also should put some kind of educational program on T.V. or we can ask some other country to provide us the video tapes telling about their school system and students' way of life. All this should start in the elementary school.

We all should encourage the kids, to make them understand more about their parents, their friends, and their country.

Thank you for your time to read this. God bless you all.

Peter Choi

Cape Girardeau