Brookfield Basics

Anthony Stancl - Technology - And the War on Our Youth

Posted by Tom Gehl on March 6, 2010 | 4 comments

Last week we learned of Anthony Stancl's sentence of fifteen years in prison for his role in what is now known as a "sextortion" case.   We know the lurid details: the procurement of nude photographs of fellow students, the subsequent blackmail of those students for the performance of sexual acts, and the stunning power of technology to make those threats real.  Gosh - the things that happen in the inner city.......

OOPS - guess not.  It happened right here in the cozy, prescription drug-hazed land of suburbia, just a few short miles from our own two High Schools.

These are not new topics for this column.  I have written several times on the threat narcotics and prescription drugs pose to suburban kids, and yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tells anew the wrenching story of Madison Kiefer.  Last October I wrote of Patrica Strosina of Racine, who by instructing her own son in the finer points of heroin injection, abetted his death.  Thus did Ms. Strosina claim her fifteen seconds of fame, and a place in the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" Hall of Fame.  More recently I have written on the topic of technology, and the insidious hold it is exerting upon our youth, leading contemporary sociologists to speak openly of the pandemic of "electronic addiction" (see post to the right entitled Technology and Our Kids).   

The upsides to technology are as numerous as they are real.  But its power and dizzying portability pose a threat to our kids just as real and significant as the threat of drugs.  The coupling of that portability and its attendant Internet access creates yet another predator stalking our youth as they walk the halls of their daily lives.  And if you think I exaggerate by using the term "predator", I invite you to peruse the details of the Stancl case, and consider the families and the lives that have been consumed by it.

Though a hundred years ago, I remember my High School years.  My chief concerns were my next meal, my next swim meet, and summoning the courage to speak to a pretty girl.  High School for me was shletered and jock-ish; my "walk on the wild side" would come later.  But who amongst us just twenty years ago envisioned such a High School story as presented by Anthony Stancl?  Or even ten years?  Our technology has exploded at a pace far greater than our ability or willingness to consider its impact.  And here we stand - our overwhelmed and assaulted senses staring numbly at the TV or Internet news as they try to absorb the details of yet another episode as the Stancl case.  We view these stories through world-weary eyes; eyes that Spanish poet Federico Lorca might have had in mind when he wrote, "they were sad infinite eyes, like those of a newborn beast of burden".   

It's out there folks - GAME ON.  Only it's not a game - it's a war.  And the casualites in the war, both real and potential, are our beloved children.

Our schools can and should play a role.  And I am grateful to see many in our area (both public and private/parochial), use the auspices of parent organizations and staff resources to bring forth information and experts to discuss this topic with parents and students alike.  Watch for such programs and attend them whenever possible; they are filled with good and helpful information.  But all of that is so much "air support" in the war to protect and equip our young people.  Like tactical air support in war, such things are certainly helpful.  But they are not and never will be decisive.  

If we agree that it is a war then I submit that what our young people need is the only factor that has proven to be effective in the history of war - trained, committed, and deployed ground troops.  The most effective of course, are parents and guardians engaged on a daily basis in the training and equipping of their kids.  Adults with the courage to INTRUDE upon their lives when warning signals manifest themselves.  

It's time to PARENT-UP.  It's time acknowledge that this is more than just a good idea - it is a responsibility. We need to talk to our kids about the darker side of what the technology they carry around in their pockets can do.  Its' time to talk to them about the detailed particulars of the Stancl case, and how they need to respond if some creep like that ever crosses their path.  I don't like the fact that I have to do this any more than you do.  But to ignore this responsibility is tantamount to painting a target on their backs and sending them out the door.     

What about all those kids who do not have engaged parents or guardians?  Our schools and churches and civic organizations can and should play a role, but I don't believe they can be ultiumately decisive.  Kids who don't have a consistenlty comitted adult presence in their lives are at an enormous disadvantage; and the enormity of it only increases as these threats proliferate.  But it's time to realize what organizations and resources can be effective in the war, and to STOP investsting in the societal and financial drivel represented by beaurocratic ciphers like a "Drug Coordinator", and to invest in agencies and organizations that have "troops on the ground".  Agencies that are more interested in winning the war and preventing casualties than in the size of next year's grant from Washington.  They are all around us, they are fighting, and they are tyring to win this war one at risk youth at a time.

In the meantime parenting, never easy, is now a contact sport.

There's another Anthony Stancl out there somewhere. 

And it's time to parent-up.