As a wife of a military member (Air Force Guard enlisted) who has served 15 years, is a veteran of the Iraq war, and is currently still serving in the military, some of these responses are so different from my own experiences with the military. I'm not a parent, but I would support someone's personal decision to serve in the military, including my own childs. The military is a very large organization, just because you're in the military does not mean you will see or experience combat up close and first hand, even in times of war. In fact there are probably more jobs that support missions than people who are actually out there involved in doing the missions. My husband was deployed over there during the war and never left the base he was stationed at, never once saw combat, as did other military members stationed over there at the base he was stationed at. The military is also so much more than just fighting in wars. They do a fair amount of humanitarian missions, and are mostly national security. I do think being in the military in some ways can be what you make it, you do have some options as to career, officer/enlisted, guard/active, and branch of military. If you know how to use your time in the military, the benefits and training they offer can be an advantage for someone's future career, when they decide to get out, however unfortunately some go in without future plans in mind and then get out with no direction. My husband switched his career field in the guard from satellite communications to computers and is now working full time as a IT contractor at US Strategic Command, along with his part time one weekend a month job in the guard. He wouldn't have his current full time job had it not been for his connections, volunteer deployments, and training/schooling through the guard. As far as benefits, in my personal experience with the military, my husband received 40,000.00 for college (GI Bill), which he has used with no issues for his bachelors degree and there are additional military grants for guard members that if they attended a state school in the state they are serving, their tuition would be waved. He also has received two associate degrees which he earned in the guard through their training and schooling at no cost. We used his VA loan for the house that we currently live in, which can have some perks over traditional loans and was nice to have in a time when banks got strict about home loans. If he stays in 20 years, he will receive retirement benefits. There are benefits on base that are nice, free gym, tax free shopping, inexpensive hotel lodging, HOPS (flights), etc. During the times he has been federally activated (which for the most part have been volunteer deployments, his choice to be a part of, not mandatory) we received full benefits, they paid 100% of our housing, and medical bills along with his active full time employment pay. While he was deployed the FRG was in contact with me often along with someone from his unit to make sure I was taken care of while he was gone. And by law his current full time employer kept his job and it was waiting for him when he returned without any issues. His mandatory deployments lasted no longer than 3-6 months, usually less than that though, and a couple of his state side volunteer deployments/missions and training/schooling I got to travel with him so we weren't apart. The reception my husband has received from others being a military member and a vet, has been nothing but kind and supportive, from gracious hand shakes and thanks yous, to people buying him free drinks, paying for meals at restaurants unexpectedly etc., also lots of military discounts from various places of business, recently we got 500.00 off our car purchase at a dealership. However I realize this is not always the case for every military member. My husband told me last night that the military is trying to provide more mental health programs and are very aware of the PTSD and suicide issues. He said that his base and unit have received a lot more training on mental health in the last few years and more programs are being made available for military members and their families. Some of it has to do with budgeting, and the cuts in military spending though, decisions made not by the military but by our government. Also being someone who has been diagnosed with PTSD from a trauma that happened to me in college, I know it's not always easy to ask for help or seek help even when it's made available, there can be feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment involved among other difficulties and emotional struggles. I'm not sure about the idea that the military shouldn't be all volunteer but equal responsibility, there are some people I wouldn't want to have to depend on fighting in a war, and having people serving in a war that had no choice at all to be there (didn't volunteer) could be dangerous in certain situations and cause loss of life. For some they are proud to serve, they want to serve, they feel honored to be a part of the military. They know and accept that there are risks that can come with the job. As can be similar risks for any other service job like police, fireman, EMT, etc. Some of the service men and women I know wouldn't be happy at a desk job working 9-5, they like the excitement, the travel, feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself, and the comradery of their fellow service men and women. They do not all come from poor families, many could have just gone straight to college, like my husband, but wanted to serve their country instead. My experiences with the military have been more good than bad, I know it's different for everyone though, and I'm sure DH being in the AF guard instead of active and not gone as much on mandatory deployments and having a fairly "safe" job that he choose is part of that. I'm sure if he was on the frontlines fighting, I would probably have a very different outlook on the military.

Our aging crisis: the need for a dignified death - September 14, 2013 : 6:14pm In his final published work, “Mortality,” written while succumbing to esophageal cancer, Christopher Hitchens captures in one sentence the unavoidable truth of the dying process: “I don’t have a body, I am a body.” No one understands this truism quite as well as journalist Katy Butler, who witnessed the prolonged process of dying that her once-formidable, war-veteran father underwent after suffering a stroke in 2001, devolving into dementia and then finally dying from pneumonia seven years later. As doctors pushed life-support surgeries, new medications and cutting-edge interventions, Butler and her mother didn’t pray for a cure. Instead, they wished for his death, all of which is chronicled in her troubling investigative memoir “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” The “end-of-life crisis,” or as Butler calls it “the caregiver crisis,” has hit epidemic levels as the number of Americans over 85 doubled to 6 million since 1990. Baby boomers, like Butler, must now wrangle with what to do with sick elderly parents, asking questions of themselves they probably thought would never be fathomable: What can be done when a person lives too long? And has science gone too far in its mission to ward off death? Through her experiences with her father, Butler is unwavering in her answers. “Our optimistic science-worshiping culture wants to medicalize aging and make it nothing more than a collection of specific diseases that medicine can prevent or fix,” she writes. “But no matter what deal we make with the devil, nature outwits us. Dying can be postponed, but aging cannot be cured.” These are bitter pills to swallow and many might fall in the trap of citing Dr. Kevorkian, death panels, and agism in health care as reasons why these end-of-life conversations should never start. But Butler argues that this very fear, our culture’s unwillingness “to engage with death until it is in our faces,” is what has gotten us so deep in trouble in the first place. For example, 75 percent of elderly patients would rather die in their homes, yet 44 percent of them will die in hospitals, she writes. Last-ditch defibrillators, surgeries for incurable cancers and chemotherapy that only buys a few days continue to be the norm; while what she calls “Slow Medicine” �" home and palliative care �" remains on the fringes and is rarely covered by Medicare. Meanwhile, about a third of Medicare patients will have surgery in the last year of their life and a tenth will have a surgery done in the last month of life, she writes �" costing us an estimated $158 billion to $226 billion in medical overtreatment costs. But what is perhaps worse is the emotional and traumatic toll continual care for a dying relative takes on the survivors, which is the true core of her book. When Jeffrey, Butler’s hyper-intelligent Wesleyan history-professor dad, who lost his left arm while fighting in Italy during World War II, suffered a stroke at the age of 79, he was reduced to something much, much less: “With the memories, mind and reading comprehension of a highly educated 80-year-old; the spoken speech of a 4-or 5-year-old; and the physical dependence of a boy of 6.” He could comprehend his shortcomings, and it made him “miserable,” she writes. At one point, he even commented that he had “lived too long.” The stroke devastated not one, but two lives. “The day before [the stroke], my mother was a talented amateur artist and photographer, a woman of intimidating energy, and a spectacular housewife . . . After the stroke, she cared for my father the way she cared for my brothers and me when we were 3 or 4.” At 77, her mother had become one of the 29 million “unpaid, politically powerless, and culturally invisible family caregivers,” while Butler herself joined the 24 million baby boomers now tending to sick parents. When it became necessary for Jeffrey to undergo hernia surgery, his cardiologist suggested that they implant a pacemaker. The family agreed, unaware of the downsides of what was such an (they would only later find) unnecessary preventative treatment. Now, Jeffrey’s heart would tick on, long past his time should have been up. “Not having a pacemaker would not have guaranteed my father a quick or easy death,” she writes. “But having a pacemaker deprived him of his best chance for one.” Despite the surgery �" or perhaps because of it �" Jeffrey quickly got worse. Like about one third of those over 80, he suffered from dementia. His eyesight went, then his mobility. He began misspelling words. Then he began to see things that weren’t there. He became bladder and bowel incontinent. “I woke up some morning in a fury. Why had his doctors not let nature take its course? If the pacemaker had never been implanted, I thought, my father might well have been out of his misery, and so would my mother and me,” Butler writes. The family begged his cardiologist to turn off the pacemaker, but he refused. Other cardiologists refused, as well. In 2008, Butler’s father contracted pneumonia. Knowing that sending him to the hospital would only prolong his suffering with “life-saving” procedures, they avoided calling 911. He eventually became sick enough to be accepted into hospice care, where he finally died. Here is a link that might be useful: Our aging crisis: the need for a dignified death

Boy...this was a posting and a half to read but definitely shows some different ideas on what parents and teachers think about discipline in a class. All I can add is that each group of children and for that matter each child will react differently to different ways of handling a situations. I think group punishment is needed as a foregound to control an entire class who is out of control but not as a continual way of controling certain disruptive students. Once a teacher has the feel for who is causing the problem then that individual needs to be dealt with just as a parent when discovering which child broke the house rules or made the mistake. When in doubt everyone gets punished and it has to be explained that this is being done to avoid favorism. The child causing the problem should also be given a chance to come forward and appologize without punishment if they choose to with in a certain time frame after which a punish applies. If you gain the trust of a child and treat them like a real person 9 out of 10 children will respond. They want exactly what we want to be respected and noticed for our good acts. Children who act out have found it the only way to get attention and don't care anymore that it's negative attention just as long as someone is seeing them. I have four children with very different personalities. Each has their own way of getting attention when they feel they are not getting any...multiply that by how ever many and you have aclass full of children all trying to get one adults attention so they feel SEEN. It must be the hardest thing for a teacher to deal with everyday. It is as a parent to four, and because I have grown to know them so well I know what they are doing. When my 9 year old son who is easily bored starts to act like a clown I know he wants mom to spend sometime with him or he needs something to interesting to do while I am busy. When my 11 year old son talks my ear off I know he has had a day and a half and needs to download his feelings, when my 7 year old daughter gets clingy with me I know it's time to do an activity with just her and I, When my 2 year old is pulling at my shirt for something for the upteenth time I know it's her turn. It's not easy to figure out what each child needs individually but as a parent we have only a few children and need to take the time to know as a teacher wouldn't always have that time and has 30 students or more to get to know in under a year. That's when the group discipline needs to come into play and then be broken down to find out the individual needs within a short time frame. My suggestion is discuss it with the class in an open forum explaining the need for rules and the rewards of following them then stick to them and show your students that you respect them and they will respect you. That makes the difference in whether they will learn from you or ignore you.The best teachers I have meet have been strict with class ediquette but reward their students with respect and privelges of being a helper rather than give them material things as a reward.

A lot of four year and two year colleges also offer certificate programs. For example, I taught for a while at Temple University Ambler and they offer a certificate program in landscaping. Classes were at night and on the weekends, designed for people who worked full time jobs. Something like that would allow your son to "dabble" and also connect with peers who had similar lives and aptitudes. He could use the certificate to get his foot in the door for a job that would give him hands on experience. There are even online certificate programs that may not be all that great but could be used to leverage an entry-level job. And I will echo what Lascatx said, if your son hasn't found his passion and way in life yet, it is extremely stressful for him. During my "floundering" years I often cried myself to sleep and I remember distinctly sitting in the middle of my bedroom on the floor just trying to will myself to die. Luckily my parents were reasonable supportive and also I give a lot of credit to my dad who encouraged me to just get out and try things and have experiences. I teach college and I see so many students who are moribund in their lives, ruled by the fear of failing, since they have always had pressure to do well at everything they did. One of the things that happened to me on that backpacking course is I went from being a complete disaster as both a hiker and camper, to being one of the leaders of the group. In fact, I went from getting a joke award after the first week for being "Leader of the Pack." (which was sarcasm) to gaining the nickname "The Kootenay Flash" for my performance on the most grueling leg of the trip in Kootenay National Park in Canada. I had to push through all the difficulties and I got support from some fellow classmates. This experience had such a profound effect on me that I have been a student of this phenomenon all my life, both living it, and then turning around and teaching and mentoring students. So many young people today grow up in an atmosphere of constant negativity and being picked on and picked at for any little thing they do that is not perfect. Just listen to what is on TV, it's mostly snark and nit-picking. Anyone who does anything, a thousand talking-heads will pick it apart down to the most minute level. Everyone is an armchair quarterback on the Internet. This creates a mindset in young people when they are constantly exposed to this, either among their peers or with their families. These young people need acceptance and support that encourages them to try something, and then when they come up against the inevitable point when it doesn't turn out perfectly, they need the acceptance and encouragement that sometimes, just doing it and being just "average" is plenty good. I see so many students who have to either be perfect or they quit something completely. They end up quite miserable because they can never live up to the impossible standards they set for themselves. They give up a dream because they didn't have success right out of the gate, so they deem it impossible. These students need to get exposed to the law of averages!! I introduce them to the "Pinkmountain Method," which is keep trying and failing until you succeed! I tell them just to do and do and do, don't worry about the eventual outcome, and eventually, by the law of averages, something will stick!! The only sure fire way to fail is to never try. I have many case studies where the "Pinkmountain Method" has worked! For example, I once had a student who was absolutely convinced that she would never get this internship in Washington DC working for her state's senator. She figured there would be tons of people more qualified than her. And I told her, "And they're probably NOT going to apply for the same reason as you! Just apply, you have nothing to lose." This was a case of her not doing something because she felt she wasn't "perfect" enough. She applied, got the internship, made connections in DC and got another internship that led to a full time job that she loved. Got a big "thank you" note from her on that one! I wouldn't prescribe anything for your son, I would just have him maybe get the book"Wishcraft" by Barbra Sher, to get his juices going on some ideas. It wouldn't hurt for you to explore some certificate programs, (some are online), internships, summer jobs, seminars, etc. It has been my experience that high school and college career counseling services are complete crap. I know there are exceptions, but in many places they just push paper and don't know the students they are supposed to be helping well enough to mentor them. Administering an aptitude test will not help a student find their passion, you have to know the themes and personality type of the person, which may be completely unrelated to how they fill out a multiple choice questionnaire!!!!! Just encourage him to experience things, without pressure. Adopt a "what the heck, give it a try" attitude. Another resources is the "Strength Finder" series, which helps people identify their strengths and put them to work for them in their careers. It's not all that expensive and I like that you can access "Action Plans" with this resource. Clifton Strengths Finder