Should parents be held responsible for acts of vandalism committed by their children?

I am not sure that the first paragraph it is strong enough.
I need an opinion! Please! Thank you!

Topic 5: Vandalism costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year. Some people feel that a great deal of vandalism could be stopped if parents were required to pay for damages their children inflict upon property. Should parents be held responsible for acts of vandalism committed by their children? Support your position with specific reasons and example.

The Vandalism

It would be a great achievement for everyone, if we could stop vandalism. Money spent to fix damages caused by vandalism could be used for education, culture, research, for example. Damages to properties could be stopped or reduced, if parents are obliged to pay for damages done by their children. Cleaning up vandalism on private and public properties costs money, and someone must pay for that.

Children's education should start at home; parents are responsible for that. At home children are educated by their parents or guardians. Here, children learn how to behave. For example, welcome someone who comes to their house, and respond to others greetings. Likewise, children learn to respect people and their properties. Children who have been poorly socialized by their parents are more liable to commit acts of vandalism. Their actions are partially their parents fault, and they ought to pay the cost of damages. Parents should speak with their children about the effect of vandalism, and the fact that someone, should pay. The better way to explain to a child what vandalism means is to show examples from life. I keep in mind houses with broken windows, ripped fences, or holes in the walls, when my father showed me vandalized places. It was similar to a horror movie. There, nobody was catch, nobody paid. The municipality repaired the houses by reducing the budget for next summer camp. Parents should be held responsibilities for damages committed by their children and pay. Moreover, children might understand that paying for reparation will reduce the budget for their toys or favorite games. Children need to learn at home how vandalism affects a private property and why someone has to repair.

Vandalized public places seem unsafe, and people will avoid them. Public places are vandalized by children that are unsupervised by their parents. Overtime work does not allow too much time for them to find what kind of friends their children have. However, as parents, they must have the responsibility of children's activities. People do not feel safe and will not return in a vandalized place. I saw a fast-food with windows broken by a group of teenagers. They were identified, and their parents paid for the damages. The owner used the money to repair the store. The fast-food was reopen, but run out of the business after awhile because lack of customers. Parents took the liability to control them. They attended to a few meetings with a counselor were youngsters understood the effect and the consequences of vandalism. As a result, I never saw in that area vandalism acts, again. Angriness makes people to act irresponsible. I remember, once in school, one of my classmates, was very angry. Nervous, Bob, my colleague, started to throw rocks in the school walls. He broke a few windows and light bulbs. Neighbors were scared and surprised by his act. His parents paid for all the damages, but a few parents moved their children to another school. This event made parents to take more responsibility. They have been leading their children to school and back home since then. There were no more vandalism acts. When vandalism occurs on public property, it is even more disturbing.

In conclusion, I believe that parents should have the responsibility of vandalism committed by their children. Everybody becomes more responsible when they have to pay for consequences of actions that harm others. Vandalism could be reduced if parents were required to pay for damages done by their children on public and private properties.

I notice that you sometimes end your paragraphs with your strongest sentence and that, sometimes, that sentence would be better placed as the first sentence of the paragraph. For example, "Vandalized public places offers unsafe and people will avoid" should be rewritten as "Vandalized public places seems unsafe, and people will avoid them " and then moved to the beginning of the paragraph.

Similarly, "The first place where children should be educated is at home, and the parents are their first teachers" should be moved to the beginning of its paragraph.

I like the points that you make about the damage done by vandalism. Your examples of this are very good. But these examples do not go to the question of whether parents should pay and if this would reduce vandalism.

"Vandalized public places seem unsafe, and people will avoid them"


That about sums it up. You have demonstrated that vandalism is a serious problem and that measures should be taken to curb it. You have not said anything that would support the position that parents being made to pay for their children's misdeeds would work to lower the rate of vandalism. That position implies that the problem does not lie, for instance, in the difficulty of catching vandals in the first place, or in a general failure of society to encourage the teaching of morality to youth. If you want to make the case you do, you will have to provide reasons why vandalism occurs, and an explanation of how fining parents for their children's acts of vandalism would counter these reasons to effect a change in the rate at which vandalism occurs.

bubuvio "The first place where children should be educated is 'at' home,..."

Did he have to use 'at' there ?

Yes, "at" is the proper preposition and a preposition is required. "In the home" would also be acceptable.

"Children's education should start at home." would have been an even better construction, but the preposition remains the same.

Thank you! More changes are in the second and third paragraph. New opinions? Please!

A bit better. A least you have some reasons in support of your thesis. This is good:


You could also revise the first part of this paragraph fairly easily to make it on topic too:


So, as children engaging in vandalism are children who have been poorly socialized by their parents, their actions are partially their parents fault. Therefore, their parents should pay the cost of the damages. You just need to say something like that explicitly, and your first body paragraph will be quite strong.

Your second body paragraph still doesn't tie back to your thesis. It remains a good reason for fighting vandalism in general, but not for making parents pay for it. Perhaps you could argue that recouping the costs of the damage from the parents would allow neighborhoods to use the money to restore themselves, so mitigating the effects of vandalism you describe.

Since Sean's on content, I'll focus on grammar and punctuation.

The Vandalism

Damages to properties could be stopped or reduced, if parents are obliged to pay for repair damages done by their children do .

-or-

Damages to properties could be stopped or reduced, if parents are obliged to pay to repair damages done by their children do .

TheCleaning up vandalism on private and public properties costs money, and someone must pay for that.

We just got out of the first paragraph, and already we can see that you need to keep studying (a) articles, and (b) prepositions. Don't despair! These details are always very difficult to get right, as they vary considerably from language to language. Besides studying the rules, read as much as you can, so that the use of articles in particular will come more naturally to you.

Thank you!

I made a few changes. Sean, you wrote: Your second body paragraph still doesn't tie back to your thesis.

My thesis is: Cleaning up vandalism on private and public properties costs money, and someone must pay for that.

Also, the oppening of the second body paragraph is: Vandalized public places seem unsafe, and people will avoid them.

Now, in the second body paragraph I have two examples where parents paid for their children damages and the effect of unsafe place.

Is that untied to the thesis? I am out of ideas of what to add to make it more strong. Please advice! Thank you!

Your question is: Are these two tied together? What do you think? Are they? The fact that vandalized public places seem unsafe and people avoid them explains why vandalism is hurtful, but another step is needed to tie this back to the thesis more decisively: That this itself costs money. If the place is a business, the owner loses customers. If it is a residence, property values come down. Thus, this situation must be corrected, and it costs money to do so.

Your only problem with taking Simone's approach is that it still leaves open the question of why parents, specifically, should be the ones to pay. You could argue that the parents should have better socialized their kids, but then your second point becomes very similar to your first point. You could merely write this as an extension of your first point, I suppose, but I think replacing this paragraph with a second, more distinct reason might make your essay a bit stronger.

I add three more sentences in the second body paragraph to justify why parents should pay for damages produced by their children . Please advice! Thank you!

Okay, your first body paragraph is much stronger now, content-wise, and is wholly on topic. Your second body paragraph is a bit better than it was:



The sentences above mean that your second paragraph is more on-topic. But, the rest of the paragraph still isn't focused enough. For instance, you go on to say how the vandalized store went out of business anyway, in spite of the vandal's parents paying the damage. So, clearly that didn't help much.

This central assertion still is not explained. How, exactly, will forcing parents to pay for damages lead to a reduction in vandalism? You explain how vandalism is hurtful and costly. You explain why parents of vandals ought to be the ones to pay the price. But you do not explain how this will reduce vandalism itself. If you believe that the threat of having to pay will make parents exercise more supervision, and if you believe that such supervision really will prevent vandalism, say so. If you believe that this is a better way of preventing vandalism then, for example, forcing the perpetrators to clean it up and/or work to earn the funds needed for clean up, say why you believe that.

More changes are done in the second body paragraph. Are these changes more tie to central idea? Please!

Hmmmm . . . well, let's take a break from focusing on content for awhile, and start worrying about your grammar:

"Public places are vandalized by children who are unsupervised by their parents."

"For example, welcome someone who comes to their house, and respond to others greetings." This is a sentence fragment: revise.

"There, nobody was caught , nobody paid"

I'm sure others on this site can add to these corrects considerably.