Saved By the Bell isn't actually good.

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

I may be in the slight minority with my thinking, but I personally feel that children do not benefit by being coddled and sheltered. It leaves them fearful and unprepared for the world around them. Guns and drugs are real threats, but avoidance and fear campaigns are not the solution. Understanding and honesty are always the best responses to critical issues.
The best thing we could ever do for our children is answer every question they have about the issues of drugs, sex, violence, racism, etc., and not sugarcoat the truth, hide behind agendas, or make up answers when we aren't certain. No, we cannot ensure that all children will turn out fine, but those who do would be greater in number and better prepared.

Zero tolerance policies remind me of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalists tell their children that a great many things are sins so that they'll fear and avoid everything that's not on the fundamentalist Christian agenda. They chalk the fear tactics up to piety, so of course nobody is misguided. How dare anyone accuse them of subjugating the naive.

I've had plenty of cause to consider these things, you know. I was raised in a very fundamentalist Christian environment, and much of my upbringing consisted of "sheltering" me from everything that could possibly be conceived of as sin (I didn't start watching PG-13 movies until I was 15 or 16).

I am a living example of what is wrong with this approach--when I thrust out into the real world and encountered "secular" things, it required an entire paradigm shift that undoubtedly contributed to my college-aged depression. I love my parents tremendously, and I know that this "sheltering" may be somewhat situational (as opposed to a strict upbringing); it seems I was born afraid (actually the unfortunate emotional residue of a choke at age 7), and if there was ever a child that screamed, "SHELTER ME!" it was me. Also, I'm pretty sure depression runs in my genes.

These are things that I hope to remedy, to the best of my ability, once I have children. I am already more straight-forward with kids (the ones I am around a lot) than my parents were with me.

All this being said, while fundamentalist Christianity and the Zero Tolerance policy may strike a similar chord, I would ask you to consider not correlating them too strongly. My parents, while being very overprotective, would never set out on a frivolous law suit--they are constantly complaining about that sort of thing, and I imagine other fundamentalist Christians have this in common with them. I mean, I don't think you were blaming them for Zero Tolerance antics, but I wanted to make it clear where they (in my experience) stand on the issue.

Jam it back in, in the dark.