Trina's Journal/Blog

Unemployed in 2008..Can Anything be Worse?

Days since Layoff: 2 months and 9 days
Emotions: Thanking God that I'm not Brandon Crisp's Family.
Daily Activities: Submitted story to CBC Literary Awards, Facebook, Reading Writing Magazines and Books, Roller Coast Tycoon, Housecleaning and Figuring out Finances.

Yes, absolutely their could be many things worse than being unemployed.

I'm an avid listener to Jeff Allen on 570 news. I love his common sense and his daily topics. Yesterday, the topic of Brandon Crisp and the investigation of the Gamer's on XBOX live came up.

First and foremost, I agree that everyone who was in communication with Brandon should be contacted and investigated. As one very smart gamer stated though online gaming is a group environment. What a person states to one, can be heard by the group playing the game. There is no private messaging on Xbox Live.

One person called in and stated that the parent's should have smashed the Xbox if this child had an addiction to Call of Duty 4. I have seen my husband spend many work nights staying up until 4 a.m. playing an Xbox game. He has told me repeatedly not to buy him games because he cannot stop playing a game until he's conquered it.

It is my considered opinion that this statement is ludicious. If we had to smash everything that people were addicted to where would we be? As a person who has viewed addiction first hand, you must not condone the addiction or support it, but it is ultimately the decision of the person to make that journey to rehabilitate themselves. Addiction is not cut and dry. Addiciton has two forks in the road, the continuation to the addiction or the road to rehabilitation. One cannot find another road until the addiction is cured.

Another note about the parent's being accountable for their missing child. Many parents are still clueless about the dangers of the Internet and gaming equipment. I have spent many hours setting up or explaining how you can record conversations on MSN for parent’s around my neighbourhood.

The schooling system or our communities should be implementing a mandatory awareness program for parent’s to give them the understanding of the dangers of Internet, as well, offer tips and software on how to prevent and protect our children. By creating consumer awareness, we are one step closer in protecting our children. Once parent's have the knowledge, then it’s up to them to take action and be accountable.

No child is 100% safe out there. Children (teenagers) are smarter than us in regards to computers and the Internet. My daughter is always a step ahead of me or so she believes.

As parent's we have more access to what's happening to our children than our parent's had when we were teenagers. Unless we kept a journal and recorded our actions, our parent's were really none the wiser what we were doing once we left the door.

By properly monitoring our children's actions via the Internet and Text Messaging, we are closer in understanding our children. Of course, our teens will find a way around it but we must be persistant with our plight.

Yes, being unemployed is horrible, but nothing can be worse than not knowing where your child is. I would give up my home, my lifestyle, and my life to keep my children safe. My thoughts and prayers go out the Crisp family. I am praying for Brandon's safe return home.