Originally Posted by DoubleF
OT, but that's why you teach them not to be stupid and get caught. "Kiddos! There's a camera here. If it records ####, you're an idiot! Don't be idiots! Go into the back alley or back yard to grab a boob or chug a beer. I'm only reviewing footage if someone got hurt or for insurance purposes if something happens. I'm deleting the footage the week after if no one was injured, but still don't be stupid and allow yourself to be recorded in a way you don't want others to see."
Market the garage as a safe space with lots of freedom. Kids should exit that space to protect it if they want to do rule breaking stuff. TBH, kids respect that. It's a little bit how I grew up.
My house was the safe space with fewer rules we protected. We could secretly return there if drunk or high, but we couldn't get drunk or high there or admit we were drunk or high there, so this was rare. The space we went to do stuff like that was a ####tier place which we didn't prefer. It taught us time and place and privilege vs rules don't have to apply and since there wasn't a restriction on stuff like that, we didn't really care as much to do that stuff as often but were very diligent in protecting and self policing that unique space.
In the end, my place had the right reputation amongst the parents and the kids on occasion got to go to our place to hang out, but not other places to hang out. Kids understand this. Some kids that drank or got high regularly would be sober all night at ours. Hang out, play games, play guitar, help cook and clean etc. By the time it got to my brother's group, they often would tackle larger "projects" and come to our place to to cook large meals together, and they would actually request our supervision and occasional involvement and plan around that. These kids viewed mine and my parents supervision and presence as a positive vs negative. They did things like cheese and chocolate fondue (asked us how to cut certain fruits), hot pot, BBQ (how to light it, how to shut it off, how to know food was done etc.), baking cakes, how to clean etc. and then they'd clean and go watch movies/play video games afterwards. Parents literally would talk to mine and comment how well behaved their kid was at our place. It was weird and kinda annoying to be labeled as the goodie two shoes kid growing up, or be the responsible one that could be contacted to be reliable and secretly drive them home from parties or raves or be the one to bail them out of some slightly sketchy situations but stay quiet about it. But in hindsight, it was pretty good to have that type of environment.
To add to that, my parents on occasion would also tell some parents bad mouthing their kids that they had seen nothing but good stuff from their kids. This did change the perspective of some parents, who didn't understand or spend time with their kids, in a positive way. My parents occasionally would ask me if I was aware of any situation with any kid that might need to be brought up, but never delved into details. This actually meant I would relay to the kid in reverse, "Yo, by the way, just as a heads up, your parents are poking into stuff like this. You might want to address it or cover up your trail better." or "Hey, your parents shared this concern with us. We didn't know this. Anything we can do for you or you'd like us to tell your parents that you don't want to tell them yourself?"
|