Parents Learn to Cope With At-Risk Youths

When Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies came to Lupe Rincon’s La Puente home one morning in early October and handed her a Parents Survival Guide, she felt intimidated and angry.

But on Saturday, she stood among parents of gang members and other young people at risk, proud to graduate from a family communication and parenting program designed to teach the importance of instilling a sense of accountability in children.

“We learned mutual respect for one another, our son with us, and us with him,” said Rincon of her son Mario, 17, at the graduation ceremony held at the Twin Palms Recovery Center in the city of Industry. The 38-year-old mother of three said her son had been caught by sheriff’s deputies violating probation and hanging around gang members.

“Now I realize he has hopes and dreams,” she said happily. “I can’t believe what he came from, to what he has become.”

Inside the crowded, balloon-decorated center, one member from each of the 11 graduating families stood to read “mission statements,” promising to communicate better with family members and maintain understanding.

Counselor Norma Keys, who led the groups, said this was the first time youths had been allowed to participate in the 15-week counseling sessions.

“A lot of parents lack skills or have fear because they never challenged their own parents, and they never expected their children to challenge them,” she said.

Some youths said they had never heard their parents tell them, “I love you,” Keys said.

The first part of the pilot program, coordinated by county Supervisor Gloria Molina’s office, began last October in Valinda, when authorities from the Industry sheriff’s station visited the homes of 19 gang members and youths at risk.

Citing a 90-year-old California law requiring reasonable care and supervision of children, officials warned parents to take responsibility for their children by participating in counseling classes or face jail time and fines.

Since then, 11 of those families have completed the program. The eight other families are still taking courses. The program, which was run in cooperation with the Sheriff’s Department, the Probation Department and other agencies, used no public funds. Twin Palms conducted the classes for free.

But the program drew criticism early on from groups that said parents cannot always know what their children are doing.

“We applaud those kinds of programs and wish there were more opportunities for those programs,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “But the part of the program we disagree with is the underlying law that makes the parent accountable.”

In November 1997, a Valinda man whose home had been visited by sheriff’s deputies during the October sweep was charged with contributing to the delinquency of his 15-year-old son. The man served six months in jail, said Deputy District Atty. John J. Harrold

“To put a parent in jail for an act by a teenager means you are taking a parent of other children [in the family] and taking away the livelihood of the family” if that member is the sole wage-earner, Schroeder said.

The law has also been criticized by California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, an association of criminal defense lawyers, for targeting low-income and minority families.

“We have to make sure that when programs like this are being implemented, they are being done fairly and that poor and minority parents are not being singled out for these types of classes or imprisonment,” Schroeder said. “Kids of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds get in trouble. We have to make sure that law enforcement does not target poor kids.”

Schroeder said wealthier parents “have the means to afford counseling for their children.”