This year’s Cape Elizabeth High School homecoming dance was a little different from last year’s.

Instead of a 1980s theme, the dance had a 1970s theme. Instead of just a few parent chaperones, there was what I am sure felt to the kids like an army of parent chaperones. Absent on the cafeteria floor were a few dancing styles deemed more inappropriate than some other dancing styles that were deemed acceptable. Also, all dancing had to be consensual between partners.

Most of these changes were instituted after discussions about last year’s dance. The parents who chaperoned that dance received in one, three-hour observational session, an education on present-day teen dancing.

If chaperones were paying attention, they would have learned that dancing has evolved over the years from the swinging, twisting, rattling and rolling of the past to the bumping, grinding and gyrating of today. In the eyes of most of the chaperones, this new style of dancing was very inappropriate. Most of the kids engaging in this dancing style couldn’t understand what the big deal was, and anyway, what did their parents know about present-day dancing, this is just how they dance now.

I know that when we were teenagers, when we engaged in some variation of the dancing theme at high school dances, our parents questioned if our style was appropriate. And from what I can remember, some of it probably wasn’t. But hey, what did our parents know back then, that’s just how we danced. The thing is, that doesn’t make what is happening on the dance floor today right, or even OK.

Could it be our parents knew something we didn’t back then, and that’s why they questioned if what we were doing on and off the dance floor was appropriate or even safe? And that’s why they brought it to our attention, in hopes we would understand what they learned over the years. Could it be through experience, we also learned a few things along the way that today makes us question if what our kids are doing on and off the dance floor is appropriate behavior?

Isn’t it our responsibility to teach our kids what we personally learned and now believe is appropriate behavior? I understand we are entering a gray area when it comes to personal definitions of the word “appropriate.” We all have our views and opinions on what ought to be allowed. Maybe that’s the problem. If the parents can’t collectively agree on what is appropriate, they end up sending mixed messages to the kids and nothing really changes.

But isn’t appropriate behavior already written down in the high school mission statement? Given what we have learned over the years, do we really need to define responsible and ethical behavior again? Or explain what it means to treat others they way they want to be treated within a spirit of cooperation and teamwork in a climate that embraces diversity?

It seems like it should be as simple as questioning whether this bumping and grinding would be allowed in any other public setting, including the high school cafeteria, any day of the week during lunch periods. Would everyone, including parents, be comfortable with this? What would happen if a couple or a group of kids started bumping and grinding after they finished their lunch? Would any consequence be handed out, or would it be allowed?

My guess is, in following the school’s mission statement, the students would at least be asked to stop because it is not responsible behavior in the cafeteria and it is making other people uncomfortable.

Shouldn’t all this debate over bumping and grinding at a school dance be that simple?