[voicereasonish]

I agree... IMHO, parents should be legally responsible for the behaviour of their children. That is, if their child harasses someone, the parents should be prosecuted for harassment. If their child steals, prosecute the parent.

The majority of parents are good, and instil a good sense of morals into their children, but there's always those parents that either do not care, or decide to make their children rude evil little things.

[gress]

The logical outcome of that approach is that all parents remove their children from school, because otherwise they risk being held responsible for behavior over which they cannot have any control over.

This might not be such a bad thing.

Edit: Downvoters? Consider a minority family. Think how easy it would be to goad of otherwise trick a child into doing something that could be legally actionable. Think about the already racially biased access to justice.

This would be a recipe for disaster.

[winter_blue]

Truancy is illegal, and homeschooling is not an option in many Western countries. So these parents will not be able to take their kids out of school...

[gress]

So if you make parents legally liable for kids actions and then take the kids to an environment where the parents have no control or visibility, you are creating a nightmare of oppression.

That's why there is a legal term 'in loco parentis' which is applied to schools.

[winter_blue]

If "in loco parentis" means schools taking the role of parents, then they've certainly done a bad job of taking care of their "kids", at least in the United States...

[gress]

Absolutely true.

[youngtaff]

Isn't that just a recipe for disaster?

[hga]

It is in a society where parents have so little control over their children, where e.g. there is great debate over mild corporal punishment and using it can get your kids taken away.

Compare to the Roman principle of pater familias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pater_familias

[anon4]

Wait, aren't parents responsible for their children in America?