My daughter is graduating high school this year and in the time honored tradition of the Senior Prank that has been going on for generations before them, the senior class is trying to plan their right of passage prank. I know when I graduated we did Senior pranks and even had a streaker at the ceremony but today that would get you arrested. Arrested!! The school has warned the senior class that if they do a prank they will not be allowed to walk at the ceremony. Now I agree that they should not do anything that damages property or hurts anyone but silly string and toilet paper is not, in my opinion offensive. Have we taken away their childhood? Their crazy stories of teenage angst? 

I remember stories of a senior at my high school releasing a piglet in the halls and come on it's funny. Today if her class TP the freshman class hall that they would be charged with hazing and destruction of property, criminal charges. Come on, seriously this is just kids being kids. If they targeted one student and bullied/terrified or assaulted a student or anyone else I would be the first one down there screaming something needs to be done. Silly string and toilet paper in the entire freshman class hall is hardly hazing. Have we become hyper reactive? 

To the superintendent and school board of any and every district in America, try to remember your youth. Try to remember that once upon a time you were a senior, that you participated in the time honored tradition of the Senior class prank. It is a rebellious act that is saying goodbye to one life and beginning a new life. I think we have forgotten what it feels like to be a teenager and we pretend that we were somehow better behaved but I know that's not true. I know some of you, I knew you when you were reckless and fearless and I was one of you. They are the stories we tell when we go to our high school reunions and somehow managed to become productive members of society in spite of our senior prank. Let kids be kids for as long as possible because soon enough they will have to be serious adults that can't do things like that because that would just be weird. 

Note: In 2014 & 2015 the senior class of Lafayette High School in Wildwood, MO punished seniors up to not allowing them to walk at their ceremony because they placed phones in lockers in one of the classes hallway and had them all go off at the same time. If it were my child they had overreacted in response to a simple, harmless prank I would have been at the school, calling the school board, newspapers and every other news or social media demanding they let my kid walk. I would bring her to the graduation ceremony and walk her myself because the punishment does not fit the 'crime'. Crime? I have a very different definition of that word.