""They should have some regret that things were not handled a whole lot better in the long chain of small events that led up to the final problem...and they should learn something from that. You don't build a healthy society on the principle of vengeance.""

I would love to agree with that, were it not for the fact that the converse also applies. You don't build a healthy society by watching a child do something wrong and say "Aah! That's cute", nor can you achieve success, having given that child the wrong message, by threatening schoolteachers and preventing them from instilling the discipline you should have instilled.

That is why the first practical lesson in discipline is often a cop waiting as they emerge from a bank with a sawn off shotgun.

Sad but true!!

The answer is in educating the parents in bringing up children, but that ain't going to happen anytime soon. So you're left with dealing with the results by punishment, like it or not.

Don T.