On the naughty step again
Sometimes it takes people on the outside to hold up the mirror and force us to realise how others see us.
The British pride themselves on their tolerance, their sense of fair play, their respect for the rule of law and human rights. So it is both humbling and galling when the United Nations tells us we suffer from a "general climate of intolerance and negative public attitudes towards children, especially adolescents".
It is almost as if the social services have arrived and informed us that we aren't suitable parents.The UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child has just published its 'concluding observations' on Britain's human rights record with regard to children.
It makes uncomfortable reading - 120 separate recommendations littered with "regrets" and "concerns" over our failure to protect our children.
It is not the first time the British government has got in the neck over its treatment of the young. The UN, the EU, the UK's four Children's Commissioners and a range of children's charities have regularly accused Ministers of failing to protect young people in the justice system, the immigration system, the mental health system and in the home.
Today's criticism from the committee in Geneva broadly comes down to a fundamental difference of opinion on how young people should be controlled and disciplined.
The UN wants an end to ASBOs. They are offended by the use of 'mosquito sprays' to disperse threatening groups of hoodies in shopping centres. The committee is opposed to any physical restraint of young offenders. And they demand an end to the use of smacking or any other physical punishment in the home.
Instead, the United Nations urges Britain to "actively promote positive and non-violent forms of discipline and respect for children's equal right to human dignity and physical integrity, with a view to raising public awareness of children's right to protection from all corporal punishment and to decreasing public acceptance of its use in childrearing".
Government ministers, while accepting the principle of always putting a child's best interests first, are not convinced that those interests are necessarily served by "going soft" - particularly around the issue of youth justice. It is certainly a view held by many of the people they want to vote for them.
A new poll of 6,000 teachers by the Times Educational Supplement found one in five thought it would be a good idea to bring back the cane - outlawed in state schools twenty years ago.
One supply teacher told researchers: "Children's behaviour is now absolutely outrageous in the majority of schools. There are too many anger management people and their ilk who give children the idea that it is their right to flounce out of lessons for time out because they have problems with their temper. They should be caned instead."
There are plenty of child psychologists who would say such attitudes reflect the failures of adults rather than the indiscretions of children.
Britain does find itself with an ignominious reputation for locking children up - around 3,000 behind bars today - a higher proportion than almost any other country in Europe.
The age of criminal responsibility, set at just 8 years in Scotland and 10 years for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is among the lowest in the world. When we do incarcerate children, we find it impossible to prevent self-harm on a truly alarming scale.
Since the UN last reviewed Britain's treatment of children a year ago, six youngsters have succeeded in killing themselves while under lock and key.
The behaviour of our teenagers - under-age pregnancies, drug abuse, drunkenness, public disorder - finds the UK close to or at the top of European bad kids' league.
So something is clearly amiss. For many in Britain the answer is tougher discipline, a move away from the "my rights" attitudes that prevents parents, teachers and police from dealing with young miscreants in the way they want.
But the view from Geneva is rather different. They see a country which has become disconnected from its young: hostile to them, frightened of them and unable to keep control without resort to violence. Britain's adults are on the naughty step once again.
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Whatever the merits or demerits of the current juvenile justice system, its codes of procedure and criminal law it must be conceded that a "one fits all" system that applies these basics to the immature pre-adolescent 10 year old , in the same manner as with the mature 17-year-old is an affront to common sense as well as all national and international experience and evidence-based practice.
StephenJ Richmond
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There is much anger in Britain today. Tolerance is a bad thing.
If you are tolerant of some thing it means you put up with it even thou you don't want to it is not something to be proud of. It causes repressed anger which will one day be unleased.
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Human rights of the unruly teenager? What about the human rights of those abused by him / her? They know all too well about their right, they don't want to know about their responsibilities. Positive don't work without negative. Reward and punishment are two faces of the same coin. Say, what would UN do when the teenager refuses to stop playing that vilolent computer game?
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Well we do Mark that is half the problem.
EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATIO.... Play.. play..pl....but were.
Youth has been totaly demonised told that only if you work hard you succeed and then get no reward. Well thats not totaly true during this summer 12 of the worst offenders went on holidays for most of the 6 weeks via the local police.
We ask so much of our children these days but what do we give them in return? nothing. I once asked for an extra tax on the profits of alcohol (not the indervidual sale) to pay for youth projects and clubs etc, nice modern ones with all the tech that is desired by youth to have fun and keep them of the streets... but the goverment said it had other polices to help youth..
Today we are told that they are all being ushered into the scouts and guides... were are these scouts and guides did the goverment suddenly rush though all the ECRB's needed for the 1000's of scouting leader's or was that not an issue but a few months back.
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Right, bringing back the cane is probably not the best way now. But you have to have some sort of punishment for those who repeatedly disrupt and abuse the life of decent people around them (including their parents). Make them work hard. My father didn't get a proper education when he was a child and was always eager to go to school. Why? Because he had to work hard as a child to help his parents put a bread on the table. This is what our children miss, they have got it all too easy and we are not helping them this way.
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Expect the usual furious nonsense in reponse from the tabloids and rightwing bloggers. The truth tends to hurt.
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#3
'Positive don't work without negative. Reward and punishment are two faces of the same coin.'
So very true.
Its Friday night most hard working adult's now start a weekend of fun and relaxation in pubs/clubs, go out for the evening.
Its Friday night most hard working youth and they are hard working through Exams - Stats - tests now start a weekend walking the streets, hanging around in the park. They know somthing is missing from the stage they are on and thus act out as we portray them.
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English society is very class conscious. Why should a poor, intelligent child have to feel any less than a rich one and yet somehow money commands respect in people's eyes. So children will go to any lengths to achieve "respect". If children from poorer backgrounds were noticed and rewarded for their talents then that would go a long way to equalize England's great class divide. Every child has something unique about them. We need to start recognizing and rewarding them for it. Children don't want to fail and society shouldn't let them.
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I live and work in Kentucky - USA. I have done for the past 12 months, one thing that was obvious on adapting to Kentucky Culture was the total respect the children have for their peers.
My children are now attending school over here and what?s very apparent are the discipline codes of conduct they have had to adapt to, very different to the nanny state we have in the UK.
Yes we are in the Bible belt , and I would say 95% of the folk attend church ( we don?t) but this as at least provided a society with a strong moral structure, with Children that are both disciplined and respectful of both their elders and the environment they live in.
Go to any Park, no litter or damage (even in the not so desirable areas). I?m not saying this is utopia, but, we have all experienced a dramatic difference in family life, for the better. We do have something to learn in the UK , respect for each other and for our peers.
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1 in 5 teachers is hardly a majority when it comes to bringing back the cane.
But hey, let's do it - then give the cane to that 20% and see if they still agree.
The current system may still require work, but state-sponsored physical punishment isn't the way forward.
But yes, there is a disconnect. We obsess over targets and statistics for them to make the politicians feel good. We equate academic achievement with success and regard vocational education with disdain.
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It's too true that if a kid wants to mess around in school today, there's nothing anyone can really do. I knew plenty of people (I'm 20) when I was in high school who would do what they liked, get a detention, not go to that, get another, not go to that, get suspended, come back, rinse and repeat.
Nobody ever got expelled though. So people knew they could get away with it.
I don't think that looking backwards to corporal punishment is the right way to go.. but when that was banned nothing was put in place to fill the gap.
I would do three things to start with:
1) Keep people behind in school if they fail the requirements to pass to the next (can be basic exam/homework grades and attendance). The shame of being left behind will help prevent some messing around.
2) Allow kids to specialise earlier. My school had a very limited program where disruptive kids could work or study a specialised area instead of the stuff the rest of us did. It worked wonders for the few people who did it. It's amazing how getting a kid to learn how to repair a motorbike will keep them happy and out of trouble compared to forcing them to do English literature :)
3) Set up 'bootcamps' for the people who are just too much trouble. Make them compulsory and have military discipline.
Yes, this costs £. Yes it might hurt feelings, or not be totally fair in some way. Worth it I think.
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I can see both sides of this issue. On the one hand, there are serious structural problems with our society which are creating a generation of disaffected youth. The frequently conflicting pressures to succeed academically - because university has been promoted as the be-all and end-all - yet at the same time being expected to 'fit in' with a teen culture which often promotes insolence and disrespect, follow the example set by parents who define themselves in terms of what they own rather than who they are, and accept the abdication of responsibility that accompanies it as adults are forced to work all the hours God sends; partake in the immense competition for the few 'successful' spaces at the top of a dumbed-down education system meaning that many face little prospect of enjoying the same standard of living as their parents without incurring massive debt, and buy into the constant Thatcherite media rhetoric that you can never be too successful / too popular / too thin and all the rest... it's unsurprising that our teens are some of the worst behaved and most dysfunctional in the world.
However this is in no way to detract from the very real fears and experiences of those who live in warzone neighbourhoods, who fear to set foot outside even in daylight and whose nights are lived in constant fear of the aimless crowds outside the garden gate. The causes, whilst clear, are also sociologically complex and unlikely to be addressed in any meaningful way anytime soon, particularly not by the party who look increasingly likely to form our next Government, and certainly no within the confines of the monetarist, consumer-based, advertising-fuelled, target-focused system to which every one of the major parties remains wedded.
So what do we do in the meantime? Allow 15-year-olds to urinate on homeless women as they lie dying in the street? Accept that gangs of youths are 'just expressing their exuberance' when they howl insults at one of their classmates as he leaps from a 10th-storey ledge? Send them on trips to the Bahamas or pay for them to build and race cars in projects that many law-abiding kids would jump at the chance to join? No, we build more prisons, lower the age of criminal responsibility to take account of the fact that seven year-olds are now throwing rocks at fire crews, and enact a zero-tolerance approach to bullying and misbehaviour in schools. It may not please the muesli-knitting types at the UN, but it will give the rest of us some rare respite from this inter-generational war.
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So the UN wants us to sit down with our rowdy, ignorant youth (well some of them) and tell them how much we love them and how they should be nice to each other.
Yeah...
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The problem is these feral children have been nurtured that way - no decent role models through a mother and father who live in harmony together and who have access to grandparents and a stable, loving family life - and I am not talking about the unfortunate minority of responsbile single parents.
I am referring to the increasing number of children who live within rainbow families where different children have different fathers or mothers who too readily hop from one superficial relationship to another with no regard to the impact of this on their children. The trajedy is the Government supports this type of living through the benefits system in the wrong assumption it will make their lives better, when what's needed is a strong message that commitment is the prime factor in rearing responsible children.
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It's funny. I grew up without a TV in my bedroom (there were only 3 TV channels for most of my youth anyway), no video games or computers, no DVDs or MP3 players. We lived in the middle of nowhere with no scout groups or youth clubs, yet I didn't go out and hang around on street corners or commit crime. So why do youths today need clubs with "all the tech that is desired"? I earned my pocket money by doing the washing up every night, vacuuming the house and mowing the lawn. From the age of 14 I got summer jobs. Kids need to learn about responsibilities, not rights.
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I really think the UK government has to have some guts and stick up to this pompous group of out-of touch, left wing academics who are utterly unaware of the real world. If they are really concerned about human rights would their time and efforts not be better spent investigating human rights abuses in areas such as Tibet, Chechnya, China, et al. Breaking up gangs of hoodies with so-called 'mosquito' devices does not infringe their human rights in anyway, in fact it protects the rest of the law abiding citizens in the community allowing them to go about their daily business without fear of harassment, intimidation or persecution. The law on this quite clearly states that everyone has the right of free assembly as long as it does not threaten public safety, which inevitably these groups almost always do.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Xordan (#11), you've got it spot on. Misbehavior in schools, while mostly low level but far too frequent, is endemic because existing sanctions don't work. I imagine that 20% of my fellow teachers want the cane reintroduced not because they think it is the best option but because nothing else seems to be working. When dealing with children who already show no respect for rules, or for each other, the immediacy and inevitability of corporal punishment has a certain attraction.
Personally I think it would be legally impossible to reintroduce the cane, I find the cane difficult to justify from an ethical viewpoint and I fear that any teacher who used it would live in fear of their life. If the subject of this blog is tolerance, it is worth mentioning that a growing number of parents refuse to tolerate any criticism or punishment of their offspring,; imagine the reaction of such a parent if their child were caned.
The cuddly PC alternative sounds much nicer but, not surprisingly, it doesn't work. I have tried to teach children in a system where they are allowed 'time out' and it doesn't work. They just use their time out privileges to avoid taking responsibility for their behavior. How far is society supposed to go in accommodating a child who has trouble controlling him or herself? Eventually that child becomes an adult and, unless they modify their behavior, has trouble keeping a job and is likely to end up in trouble with the law (if they are not already). Those who bemoan the fact we lock up so many young people should perhaps ask why we are not intervening to stop misbehavior when it first manifests itself.
So what then is the solution? Well, stop trying to put this into pigeon holes; it isn't simply an education problem or a criminal justice problem, a social policy problem or a health problem. The solution to this problem will only be found we attack it holistically.
As Xordan says, follow the example of France, Germany and other education systems and hold back students who don't satisfactorily complete the year (and I'm not talking about every child having to get 5 A*-C grades); Provide alternative education opportunities for those who don't fit into mainstream education (by the way, it would be helpful if we started to promote learning for the sake of learning rather than simply as a means to getting a job. For many of the most disaffected, their plans are to work for an uncle or other relative and, quote, they "don't need no GCSEs"); if necessary, place the most disruptive in boarding schools (not necessarily boot camps) where they can benefit from the security and stability they lack in their home lives.
I would also ask what we want from the education system; are schools (as now) simply exam factories or do we have greater ambitions for them? Perhaps a little less emphasis on GCSE results as the only measure of a school's, and an individual's, success and a little more on other, non academic, areas of achievement. Not only should we be challenging students in the classroom but also on the playing fields, the stages, the climbing walls, the sailing lakes or the fells. Let?s make these activities as integral a part of the curriculum as the three Rs.
Expensive, yes it would be, but far, far cheaper than the alternative costs in later life. It costs £20,000-40,000 to keep a person in prison and then there are the costs to the tax payer and industry of social security, poor health, broken families, vandalism, etc. etc.
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I've been a Guide leader for 10+ years and have with children from a wide variety of backgrounds.
For the past year, I've been living in the Netherlands. Compared to the UK, I notice that life in Holland is much more geared towards the family. The children are not spoiled, in fact I find the Dutch much less materialistic than the British, but they do get a lot of time from their families. The high value Dutch place on rearing children means that this gets prioritised over other activities; my colleagues work very hard, but they leave at 5 sharp, because getting home for dinner with the family is important.
I don't know if it is a direct result, but Dutch children are often more confident than British ones and don't feel the need to make such a nuisance of themselves ? perhaps they already get enough attention?
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"they have problems with their temper. They should be caned instead."
Sounds like the teachers are the ones who have temper problems.
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my first thought was 'family'. My brother has a French wife. They have a young son. He can be difficult. When they visit his mother's family in France however, where the house is invariably full of relatives of all sorts - coming and going in clapped-out old Renaults - spending long lazy hours chatting over seemingly endless lunches, the problems just seem to melt away. I know this sounds more like a 60's image but it really isn't in many parts of Europe. There is a price to be paid however. These people don't have much. Their houses are a little run-down with not a dishwasher in sight.
The Anglo-Saxon obsession with productivity and mobility over many decades ("you have to go where the work is") has resulted in a society which can only conceive of 'family' as parents and offspring with an occasional visit from a gran or an uncle (usually inconvenient and probably problematic) when in actual fact it is the very isolating distance of these tiny family units from said relatives and grandparents that puts so much pressure upon all of the relationships. What the UN are probably trying to tell us is, that if we want Mr Cameron's 'broken society' to change for the better, the whole way in which our society functions - from top to bottom - would need to be 'wrent asunder'. Strangely enough, it often strikes me in my work that it is our immigrant population who have the most to teach us about what families really can be. Perhaps, their influence over time might make a difference. Alas, the pressure is more likely to pull them our way than vice versa.
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There's a million and one reasons why the teenage years have turned into a licence for stupidity. A quick review of a few of them:
1)The paedophile hysteria.
2)The institutionalised assumption that being a teenager is a uniquely difficult, stressful experience. This assumption normalises extreme behaviour.
3)The media's lazy writers promote the rebellious teenager stereotype.
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This should be a collective telling off to all who live in the UK, I moved to Spain some 6 months ago, I never see drunken yobs on the streets. there are non, I see very young people on the streets late at night with no fear from whoever, My view on all this, is its all about family and nieghbours.
Here I see families going out together in the evenings, lots of discussions with nieghbours, every one knows who every one else is and where they live, the age of consent is far lower than uk but you do not see the younsters trying to eat each other on street corners It is a family dominated society.
People around me do not have a materialistic attitude, with rich and poor living in the same street and outwardly looking no different.
How many people living in UK today can say they know who their nieghbours are. We have become insular, materialistic and a couldnt care less about anyone else as long as Im alright mate society.
Of course its not shangri`la here but its a damn sight better place to live than the UK and after 25 years of military service for Queen and country it makes me very sad to say.
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all I hear a complaints from 20+ year olds who have no conner to come from and view things from overly vague and broad perspectives.
I'm 17 and this is what I think
Bring back the cane?
No
some teachers (not all, occasionally you get a good one) can't communicate. They teach because they are book smart on their subject yet if you gave them a task with which they had to apply their knowledge...
On the other hand if you asked them to list the elements of the periodic table in order from left to right, there would be no problem.
Ok then, Re-educate the teachers?
lets break down the job
long hours
virtually no pay
regular abuse...
But I admit it is for filling on the rare occasions when it goes right.
So what do we do?
well the bright minds in schools are not the teachers.
They are the students.
Student run disciplinary councils
Gives students a reason to care about what their peers are doing and act on it.
If done right can daemonise the disruptive students and the problem is solved by internal peer pressure.
Disruptive student has no avenue to act as he has as it is frowned upon not just by the stiffs.
But the students as well.
And to top it off
ITS (virtually) FREE
no (direct) tax payer expenditure
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i was brought up in a beautiful part of highland scotland, and like my teenage friends i had to work, was polite to adults i knew and proud to know them, went to a state boarding school and was occasionally belted (the tawse) for 'misbehaviour'...
we also got drunk, engaged in mindless acts of vandalism, and sat about a picturesque small town square gobbing on unsuspecting adults while smoking regal.
we weren't the nicest of kids and we didn't grow up as ideal adults but we weren't the worst and we grew up ok;
Generalising ----
we had things today's kids sometimes seem to lack ---
1) we were not criminalised for petty crime
2) we knew and were known by our community
3) if we weren't academic we were taught something more practical
4) places we could hang out without being harassed
5) little pressure to perform well at school
6) not much media
7) consistency, stability and routine
and today's kids seem to have things we lacked ---
1) acceptance and tolerance of people who are not the same race/colour/creed
2) a more mature attitude to a more sophisticated world
conclusion - give the kids a break, give them stability, be more tolerant of their rowdiness (but don't condone it) and try and learn something from them...
NB -- if i ever see one of the bullying, idiot teachers that belted me in a dark alley i will take revenge. I have no respect for any adult that uses violence to enforce control...and i expect the 'hoodies' feel the same way about 'mosquito' spray...
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Unfortunately the politicians usually try to give the voters what they say they want.
Children cannot vote so they don't matter and nobody in power cares what is done to them.
Many adults (including some who have posted here, yes I'm looking at you adsp_cam, but not just you) are paranoid cowards. They demand that the government do things to make them feel safe from the bogies they have conjured up under their beds. So the government does or allows to be done, things to a group that doesn't matter, children. Children have been made the scapegoats for the shameful cowardice of the UK adult population.
It is some 15 years ago now but I can remember that when I was in high school a few friends and I would regularly walk to the library and then stand about chatting on a street corner when we came to the point we must part ways homewards. Adults would cross the road to avoid walking past us, three young lads holding bags full of books chatting quietly on a public footpath. We were three times asked to move on by the police because we were supposedly intimidating people. They were intimidating themselves.
Stop being so damn fearful and just get on with your lives instead of getting "big brother" to intimidate all the little kids.
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The "softly softly" approach does not work with feral children and it never will. I speak as someone who grew up in one of the worst areas of Newcastle Upon Tyne surrounded by such kids. They have no respect whatsoever for the "progressives" who want to "understand" them. In fact, they laugh at such people and take advantage of their "understanding" nature at every available opportunity.
What these kids need is a good sense of action/consequence. When you take away this connection, as the progressive leftists in education have been doing for the last 3 or 4 decades, you set kids on a course towards savagery.
The feral behavior has spread outside of the most deprived areas and now even privileged kids are behaving like monsters - yet the leftist mindset continues to insist that the problem is "socio-economic", an idea that should be buried now, surely.
I'll tell you what the problem is. Over the last few decades the "progressives" in education have insisted that the teaching of objective, rational thinking is somehow unnatural and oppressive. So instead, the emphasis is on teaching kids to think emotionally and to "go with their feelings". Any way they want to express those feelings is "just fine," and nobody has the right to judge them.
The trouble with this is, there is an objective world out there which can only be engaged successfully using the tools of reason. Since kids are not being provided with these tools by educators who fail them, they become frustrated and angry at a world they just don't understand.
They were not taught how to think rationally and thus how to succeed in life. This creates a tremendous sense of resentment in kids who grew up with the mistaken belief that their feelings and emotions would be enough to get them everything they wanted. And since they've been taught that there is no "right or wrong way " to express their sacred emotions, they lash out without any inhibition whatsoever at a world they have no way of understanding.
The UN is irrelevant and our culture and society has nothing to do with them whatsoever. Woe be tide any politician who decides that his or her political duties entail satisfying the whims of the "progressives" who wrote this report. Their mindset has been a disaster for society and it's about time we discarded this insanity and returned to the strict sense of value we once had.
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Having read the article, and the comments posted, it really does annoy me when people male such ill-informed generalised comments.
I am the single mother of a teenager, at this time we qualify as living on or below the poverty line, and we live in council accommodation.
My child has been taught from day one (of primary school) that teachers are a parent substitute, and are to be granted the same respect that i expect, at all times.
My child is a polite, hardworking, student, as are the other 15 kids in the group, and is fully expected to gain top marks in GCSE's next year.
Any comments re single parents can equally be applied to the nice cosy norm of two parents of the same child who live in the same home. Parenting produces the child, there's no getting away from it, and the people who are so quick to judge todays's teenagers should maybe punish the parents for the misdemeanours of the child.
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I'm quite interested in the demonisation of so called hoodies anyway. I, as do many of my friends, wear hoodies from time to time (usually to keep away the cold) and it never turned us into vandals. It is a terrible coinage which leads only to a hated demographic. Personally I believe the strongest reason towards teen 'yobs' is housing, specifically the size of the rooms. The average terraced house or apartment building, in which many of these children live in, has particularly small rooms. The miniscule nature of which must lead to a subconscious feeling of claustrophobia and being trapped, against which they act out. I'm not saying this is the sole cause by a long shot nor is it the explanation for all cases, but it is definitely a contributing factor. The government and teen workers talk about youth centres etc for children to spend their time in, they would be happy enough at home (largely) if they had their own space within it! If you want to address teen social issues then address their physical living situation, these things, amongst others are most definitely connected.
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newtothis62 :
You have hit the nail on the head I think with this. You (as a parent) have taught your child what his/her responsibilities in life are and I by meeting those responsibilities they will reap the reward of respect.
We always want the Government to fix things, but this problem is beyond mere Government intervention and may take a couple of generations to fix.
I am a parent myself and feel that there needs to be more responsibility laid on the parent (or parents, or legal guardian) to educate their children in the ways of social etticate and behaviour. I am not really sure how this can be achieved with those who would be unwilling to sign up to this - especially if they did not receive this education themselves.
I think bringing back the cane, would in the end be a retrograde step and in fact would probably be impossible to achieve - I am sure that a court of Human Rights would deem it internationally illegal. However, there does need to be a system of punishment for EVERYONE, adults and children alike. We all live in society and society has its rules for it to function properly - breaking the rules MUST have a consequence.
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Broken Britain fixes from the government. I thought people learned from their peers. If thats correct our masters need to look to themselves, and how all of us are portrayed in the media. Multinationals shedding 1000's of jobs because (Profits) are down the bosses jumping ship with the pension funds drained multi million pound golden handshakes. Sleazy MP's raking in massive pay hikes funded by the public purse. Jeremy Kyle, Big Brother full of wasters getting 5 mins of glory and fame. Seems like a bleak future to me it takes all my will to go to work. Wonder what it for. Don't know how this mess is going to get sorted. I suppose I should hug the git who keyed my car Friday night as well.
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The reason for the present attitude to juveniles and young children is that sucessive governments, goaded by the Eu and other outside political influences, have now almost removed the ability of adults to correct children by what ever means are required whether by a quiet word (the first step0 or a good smack (the last resort).
We are surrounded by children who do not care, have no respect (shown by the attitude of teachers to the cane) and if not of a law abiding nature naturally criminal.
Children and adults will continue to grow apart as the present cry of paedaphile, if a man on his own trys to help a lost or distressed child, stops most men from helping (well who would like to be investigated for such a thing and take all the flack and distress caused just to help a strangers child) so that our children are at more risk on the streets.
Britain will continue to become a less caring place until all the PC and other stupid rules are removed and we are free to call a spade a spade.
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to #26
You didn?t say where you live, T_Beermonster. Denmark, Norway?
Three decent young people coming out of the library is not the issue here.
This is exactly what is going wrong in this country. People like you misinterpret the human rights refusing to see the blinding obvious and judge according to their limited experience of exceptions. We want protection from police and complain because they are ineffective, but when we are asked about, we jump to the ceiling that our rights have been abused. Curiously, in other civilised countries with far less criminality, police would not hesitate to ask people on the street to show their ID and said people will find this normal as part of police job.
You compare your rights of not being asked by police with the rights of the old lady of not being kicked and mugged by ?children?.
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Oh do me a favour !! If we are nasty to our kids, it is just a belated over-reaction to the fact that we were far, far, far too soft on them for years and years, and abolished corporal punishment - full stop. We gave them carte blanche to behave how they liked, sent out a very strong message that however badly they behaved, there would be no effective sanction - and when they left school, if they indulged in criminal behaviour, like vandalism, petty theft, shoplifting or car crime, then the punishment would be lenient.
I'm pretty liberal, but I cannot tolerate the asinine nonsense of people who cannot see any difference between using reasonable physical chastisement as a 'last chance', and actual 'child abuse'.
This 'zero-tolerance' and the do-gooders at the NSPCC who cannot distinguish between a smack on the bottom for a child who has been really naughty and 'hitting children'. This fatuous nonsense is why we are in this position today.
The argument they use is 'you would not hit your wife, so why hit your child'. The fact that they cannot make a distinction shows that they don't understand that a child has not learnt that, for example, running into a road, playing with knives or pushing one's friend into the deep end of a swimming pool can have potentially fatal consequences.
Of course I hate it when I see kids being whacked round the head in the street for minor misdemeanours - but the biggest injury to a child is lack of affection and not teaching them the boundaries between what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
You are right, Mr Easton, in a sense that we adults are to blame - but it is in not being willing to teach children the difference between right and wrong, and enforce penalties when they misbehave.
Hiding behind inane claptrap like 'That is inappropriate behaviour' means that they ride roughshod over parental authority, simply don't recognise reproach from their teachers, and then are somehow surprised when the big, bad world outside somehow doesn't have that 'let it all hang out' endless patience and forgiveness for their rude, anti-social, discourteous and ignorant behaviour.
It is no wonder that a recent survey of teachers, yes TEACHERS, show that one in six would like to see the return of corporal punishment for the most serious offences.
It wouldn't have to be used very much, and many would disagree with it - but like the 'nuclear option' it would have a very strong deterrent message, and show that children are NOT the bosses, the adults are.
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I'm in my early 20s and have only been out of full time education for 2 years.
I'm from a working class backround but have been incredibly lucky to have been born in to a beautiful area of the country which is rural enough to still retain some concept of community (fortunately my parents managed to get on the property ladder decades ago - a poor young family from this area now wouldn't have a chance of staying... but that's another issue).
I grew up desperately wanting to be a teacher. The educational environment I grew up in inspired me to want to learn more and I attended uni out of pure academic curiosity - even though my financial situation dictated I would need the maximum loans available.
When I left my home to go to uni my interest in being a teacher was killed. Not because of the instituation I was attending but because it was in a large town and the local 'youth' (who were of similar class and financial background to me) were unbearable.
They disrespected police, trashed their parks and public spaces and intimidated everybody (including beatng up their student peers for no other reason then they were educating themselves).
The worst thing about this is that the young people I'm talking about knew exactly what they were doing and this is why the carrot without stick philosophy does not work.
Like me, these people knew that what they were doing was wrong. But whereas I knew that if I was caught burning down a bus shelter my dad (who I respect more than anyone on this earth) would come down on me like a ton of bricks they knew something different.
They knew there would be no consequences for what they were doing and they would not be forced to take responsibilty for their actions. Not by parents, teachers or police.
And this is why my teaching ambition is dead. Because society has ceded the right to teach children about consequence and responsibility.
They only learn about their 'rights' (a lesson they learn well) and what others can do for them.
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Please, stop this hysteria about Britain being the only country in the world to have problems with it's young people. What about the gangs of immigrant youths that have made parts of Paris's banlieus no-go areas for the french police. Or the teenage kids that kill each other daily on the streets of Los Angeles or Detroit. The 'hoodies' and 'chavs' that capture so much of the media's attention ony represent a fraction of today's young people, just as the above examples are not representative of the majority of their countries young.
Your average british teenager is hardworking, ambitious, tolerant and far more aware of the worlds issues, than many of yesteryears generations. If they go off the rails occasionally, they're only following the example of older generations who have seemed to have stopped growing up, and only who's idea of a good time is to get absolutely hammered. Take another look at your town centre on a friday night. It's not teenagers but 20-30 year olds urinating in your shops doorway. Of course a nice boring sensible teenager doesn't make the news.
Yes, there is a problem with respect or at least the lack of it for many of their older peers. But then respect must be earned and how many of todays older generation of binge drinkers, wastrel parents, ineffectual teachers, greedy politicians, and do-gooding liberal social workers seem to be earning that at the moment.
Besides too much control and you risk going the other way and creating a generation of children into the disciplined but scarily indoctrinated and intolerant groups like the Russian pro putin group Nashi that recently targeted the British embassy as part of their 'enemy of the month' programme.
There has to be a third way of raising a decent and hardworking youth and that should start by stopping demonising an entire generation for the actions of a few.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I think that I can sum up the problems of British schools very simply:
Children have a lot of rights and very few responsibilities.
While;
teachers have a lot of responsibilites and very few rights.
I considered joining the teaching profession in UK for many years, but didn't because I was scared to enter a school.
I am now a teacher in Thailand, I completely love it and regret not havin become a teacher years ago.
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Where i live we have a few neighbors who all speak to each other and roughly know who we all are- no we're not in a remote area but in the largest growing city of the UK. In our 'croft' we have a lot of young children and considering we have had a pedophile and a drug raid and lots of nuisances in the last year people still feel that opening there doors on a weekend kicking the kids outside and shutting the door until 9pm Is acceptable parenting!!!
It's not just in my area but in many others where parents who have 7 kids as they are dysfunctional spare themselves the chore of discipline and noise by forcing it onto the community instead. However the community have no power to either step in and be parents (nor should they have to be) or enforce the parents to take responsibility for their offspring. These children are seen as a means to provide equity as benefits are easily obtained.
The answer isnt to frown upon gay and lesbian or single parent families which is 'hitlerish' and rather backward, but to instead give more guidance to those parents who don't know how to be parents, give adiquate consequence to disruption or failure, and reward good behaviour and prospects for those who work hard.
My husband and i worked very hard to earn a living yet still struggle to pay the bills and the support of our family has managed to keep us from giving up and allowing the government to take care of us. We see this as the easy way out but when you see people paying £500 pounds a month less for a better fitted home than you and with a higher income bracket its not wonder why people see the 'easier' path a better option.
The lack of praise int he workplace and the lack of reward for adults means that we pass this on to our offsping and show them that no-matter what they do or how hard they work it reaps no rewards. SO WHY TRY?
I don't blame the youth of today, and i dont agree that corporal punishment is the answer as I suffered abuse and neglect and fell through the net of the social services who take no responsiblity and have provided no physcological support.
Adults are dysfuctional fix adults you fix the children!
More reward at work a more regulated promotion structure and 'fairness' in the workplace needs to be identified. Companies are getting away with pretending rewards and moving goalposts. I've personally been fobbed off serveral times in the retail profession manag8ing a store on minimum wage working 55 hours a week and having those hours 'hidden' then being told i cant have maternity pay cos they based it on a referbishment period, or start early or your zero hour contract will become zero.
Too much pressure and no rewards teenagers are just showing the country what the parents actually feel about the way they are ttreated but have no rights to show it.
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Very often the general social, political and religious attitudes towards children play an important role in constructing an atmosphere where precautions and punishment seem to be most efffective in educating children.
I don't think children in Britain should be particularly problematised. Even the most naughty ones have the potential to become a respectable citizen.
The difference, however, is that some countries like Britain tend to resort to 'impersonal' law, whereas others rely on family and community values, compliance pressure and personal trust.
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I think half the problem is we have become inderviduals in communitys, policys have forced us into smaller and smaller groups taking away our sence of trust and understanding being drip feed when we are not working by the media how bad the youth of today is. Thus we have generalised all youth under the same flag.
We are constantly told that the is no money for them and there isn't money why because there is no profit in children they dont drink or smoke they dont go to clubs and spend vast amounts of money they contribute nothing to the econamy of the country and are only ever portrayed as causing harm and costly damage to communitys.
The money is easy to find and easy to build especialy in deprived areas. Alcohol. Place a sale duty on all outlets of alcohol and have them pay 3% of the total profit on this to a local pot of money not to a central pot. In deprived areas were consumption of alcohol is high and profits are high this would address the chalange of funding communitys and youth services.
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Mark Easton:
it is sad that there was the type of report release, but they need some massive reforms on how to rehab the children in the United Kingdom!
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I don't know if my comment is relevant here, since it's kids that are suffering,
not the grown-ups from them, or at least, this is the angle of this thread.
I'm Russian; work as a teacher; remembered there is a successful project now run btw Germany and Russia. Sounds weird but so far worked 100%. German kids, who went completely out of order, use narcotics, or killed somebody, or whatever seem incorrigible by all other attempts, are given a choice - to go to prizon or to Siberia. The ones who opt for Siberia live in an ordinary Russian village. The project is very expensive for Germany, because they send special ? tutors? teachers? Germans, together with the teenagers, to overlook an area of several villages, where these German kids live. Pay them huge salaries for the trouble, as you can understand. They supervise them, check they are more or less allright, but normally don't interfere.
Exist there for emergecies, like a health emergency. Russian families are also paid to accommodate unruly teenagers.
Germans say it works. Nowhere to run. No roads for miles and miles. Nobody to agree with or plot to run away - no bad company, and whatever local teenager company there is - they don't speak German anyway.
The German teenager is always busy. Cutting wood for the stove, bringing water from the well, heating the bath house, cooking, working in the kitchen-garden, making apple jam, etc. Ordinary village life.
If the boy doesn't want to do anything - allright, but after a while all of them get bored, with 1 state TV Russian channel and no internet cafes around but the village dance club, and start doing something or learning a bit Russian making friends with the local teenagers. The main thing they say is you extract the child from the old environment, no one for him to be angry with, to no one to revenge, all new. Then of course the hardships of the normal Russian life. Youngsters adapt very quick, and they consider it a big adventure anyway, like, wow! Siberia! something to tell about later.
"I survived." Surprisingly make local frinds, learn Russian, and as to fooling around in the olsd manner in Siberian villages - they quickly figure out the local police is earth and sky diff to the German police, better not to fool around, and local youngsters are able to stand up for themselves usually very well as well.
In either case it is 2,400 already as I heard who lived this way for 2 years in Russia. All of them entirely extraordinary happy with absolutely everything at home on return. And zero repeated offences.
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More euro rubbish,what about the rights of people whos lives are blighted by youth hoodies or what ever label you wish to hang on them.
Bring back disapline in the home first , secondly lets stop feel sorry for kids they have so much but want more.
Bring back the cane ,Bring back national service. longer and harder prison terms .For unruly kids.
And if we are so bad why dose Europe still let thousands of asylum seekers come to England , please help us by keeping them in a better european country!!!!
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Having read the article, and the comments made, I feel so sad that the Britain I grew up in has become so dysfunctional.
I am sure that in many cases the root of the problems are to do with a lack of discipline in the home at an early age. Undisciplined (and by that I do not mean unpunished but those who have not been taught how to behave well) children go to early school and meet teachers and fellow pupils but lack the ability to relate to them............and so it goes on.
I used to work in Psychiatry, and later Forensic Psychiatry, so I had to work with the results of their poor upbringing. I feel very sorry for teachers trying to maintain some degree of control to allow those who want to learn to actually perform well.
What is the answer? I am sorry, I don't know! It has gone past the point of no return. More education of parents, more support for teachers, more rewards for the kids who behave well, and some uncomfortable punishments for those who misbehave - even the cane. (I never had the cane, the prospect of it made me behave).
I am now an ex-pat, thank goodness I don't live in the UK. Here in South East Asia families eat together, socialise together, take the children to shops and cafes etc. Children are accepted and welcomed in shops etc. Of course some children aren't well behaved, and a swift clout from the parents brings them into line again. They are taught to respect the elderly, and show that respect. Having read the books that children read when they first start school I can see where they are taught respect for the country, for their peers, their family, their elders etc.
I rarely see graffiti, rarely see gratuitous and mindless vandalism - yet this is supposed to be a third world country. On my annual trip to the UK I am scared to walk around in the late evening, here I am rarely concerned for my safety. I am so concerned about the future for the country I grew up in and was (yes, was) so proud of. So many rules and regulations which seem to only affect the White English Male. The compensation culture hasn't helped either, everyone out to get money for some perceived slight.
The list is endless, and I am not in a position to change anything. It will take a very brave government to take a good hard look at the current state of the UK, and an even braver one to change anything.
Perhaps a good starting point might be the end of the Politically Correct culture that creates many divisions.
Good luck
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When will the Adult population of the UK realise that with so much of the problems in the UK it is their Generation that has refused to take responsibility for their actions. To obsessed with themselves to bother with notions like community.
Fine blame the youth for the problems you've caused.
The youth realise that the world you've helped create is so pointless that they don't see why they should conform to it.
In the last two Generations of adults you've allowed us blindly to be drawn into the E.U.
Privatised everything.
Forgotten about respect and responsibility.
You've been living the good life on Credit and now the ecconomy is crashing once again the youth is being sold down the river to ensure the excess of the present adults doesn't result in house reposesions and bankrupcy's.
And you lecture us on responisbilities
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
WebAliceinwonderland
Thats sounds like a great scheme but maybe the useless parents should be sent instead after all children learn from the behaviour of their peers/parents/elders. Send them all to Siberia then maybe we can start getting this country back on track
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Isn't it starngly Ironoc that the eneration that created the Teenager the refused to conform in the early 80's are the same people who now refuse to take responsibilty for the situation they started
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They've never taken responsibility and never will.
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There are some great kids out there and they are probably in the majority, but there are also large numbers of out of contral nasty feral youths whose main enjoyment is causing pain fear or dismay to others in the knowledge that the criminal justice system will not do anything to them. The feral kids often come from single mother families, caused by Blair and Brown choosing to support single parent families at the expense of families with fathers! The culture derives from young girls who fall pregnant to get a free council house; these families have no people working and are entirely on benefits. the children dont attend school or if they do they just disrupt it. The system causes the problem.
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#17, I am a decent, hard working, tax paying university graduate.
I come from a single parent household.
I also happen to be gay. At some point I intend to have children. Will these automatically become degenerate members of society, doomed only to haunt street corners and drink cheap cider whilst wearing hoodies and bearing ASBOs?
Sweeping generalisations are invariably wrong. (except this one. :-) )
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49: love the HGTTG user name
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Better late, than never. Whilst we should be facing squarely UN criticisms about UK parenting, remedying the difficulties the country is facing with degrees of disaffection amongst the young will take many years to overcome. Huge issues abound here and lots of social u-turns will be required in our society to restore cohesion between the generations for the benefit of the whole.
Problem is, that there is a clear and present need to stem the unacceptable behaviour that blights life for so many in schools and in communities with the products of ineffective parents. It seems counter-intuitive to turn away from using measures in schools which, though unpleasant, could help stem the selfish behaviour of those who are clearly not deterred by the present controls. As things stand the success and effectiveness of the existing measures in schools seem to depend more on the goodwill of learners and their parents, than the power of school management.
Leaving aside the emotional debate surrounding the cane, fact is that it is an effective punishment in a way that detentions and anger management sessions can never be. It has a real value as a deterrent to all but the most determined. Unlike procedural forms of control in school, time between disapproval of seriously poor behaviour and taking corrective action about it is short. This means link between cause and effect is publicaly underlined and everyone can move swiftly on. This is in stark contrast to what currently takes place in unruly schools and why the cane should be considered as an option. The disruption and lost teaching time from staff in our schools fighting against the tide with poor controls and variable support is great. Unfortunately, it is those who most wanting to learn and take advantage from calm and order in schools, who end up suffering from the lack of it.
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Perhaps policy makers should take note of what young people tell us. This might be a casual observation, but I've noticed over a period of several years, decades in fact, that young people have been consistent in their answer to a question like "why are you involved in vandalism, drugs, alcohol etc.". The answer is nearly always along the lines of "there's nothing else for us to do...".
Yet I keep hearing about both fledgling and long-running community schemes that would help having to close or under threat of closure due to lack of funding. At the same time, more resources are poured into policing and punishment schemes, treating the symptoms, not the causes.
Please God can we have some intelligent policy-makers with intelligent policies?
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our local YMCA close its doors to youth as the funding ran out for many of the afterschool activities.
No profit in children unless you make it through the criminal justice departments.
I sit on a panel that gives out money for sport the police came cap in hand for £2500 of it to take away 12 of the worst young offenders in the area, we aggred the money but personaly I was furious. the result was a quiet summer in the area. Low crime low ASB the 12 kids had a great summer around the country doing outdoor persuits. I notice no one asked to take away 12 good young people over the same period who have worked hard all year.
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Why would anyone want to be a good upstanding citizen?
Think about it.
All you hear about is greedy banks fiddling hundreds of thousands of pound worth of peoples money and getting away with it.
Drugged up Pop and rock stars making millions
Millions of people in thousands of personal debt.
the list is endless.
And then you find out if your bad enough you get a free activity holiday....
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"actively promote positive and non-violent forms of discipline and respect for children's equal right to human dignity and physical integrity"
Yes, just a sound byte I know but... What respect did these children have for us when they walked past our house last night and kicked down the front fence?
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When 3 good men in a street stand up and say NO more then it stops when the rest of the street say's NO then things change.
When we stop being individuals in our community then things change. It's all to easy to blame goverment and the police... but do they live in your street?
I know you hear the storys of how people are abused and hurt even killed by these young people, again these people have stood on thier own in most cases they have little knowlage of who thier neighbours are. The result is usualy poor when 1 person makes the stand. My advice to anyone suffering ASB is get to know your neighbours swap phone numbers, talk to each other. Use the FACT that you are a community (even if most have forgoten how to take part). One man shouting makes for confontation Three men talking makes for change. This works we changed our area and the children in our area, young and old talk and work together we removed the differances and found ballance.
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It's very simple really. The only effective behavioural control is exercised by the community. The UK is one of the most atomised societies in Europe (the others are in some of the Eastern European countries, where the transition smashed any notion of collective or community). Laws simply cannot fulfil the role and the self-appointed guardians of values such as the tabloids and politicians (from Labour to Conservatives and the so-called Libdem Party).
However, my interest was spiked by the teachers' demands (or some teachers'). Perhaps I would listen more willingly, if they were not allowed to output spoils, waste (16-year olds who can't read or write or count or have no idea of the state of science of today, the beauties of visual art, the diversity and commonalities of peoples of Earth, etc.) that is, like a worker who spoils some component during his work, would have to rectify it in their free time, teachers would do the same or face disciplinary action.
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social services are a joke along the same lines as care in the community is,
this country by its own admission is a biggot,foul mannered, brainless concoction and every attempt to europeanize us comes to the same problem.
the british are individuals and we pride ourselves on that fact throughout history.
we should never have joined the common market or the EU simply becouse we dont play well with others and have stood alone on many occasion at times against european countries.
the problem we have is lilly livered dogooders etc pushing us into europe when the majority thinks its a bad move.
our current government is a yes mob to europe and the usa and sadly they were voted in but in there last 11 years they have failed to keep many election promises that should be enough to call a general election and try to get a government that will work for the peope of this once great country.
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I agree there should be a mechanism whereby the electorate can force a General election if manifesto comitments are not met.
Maybe through some sort of court abritrition or something?
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Say, what would UN do when the teenager refuses to stop playing that vilolent computer game?
____________________________________
@3
Maybe realise that unless there is a good reason, the teenager has every right to play that game? Its a game, not a training regime or incitement to commit violence.
Perhaps though i'm wrong, though in that case we should ban large quantities of TV, books, films, history and most definitely those troublesome religious texts too. Far too much violence in those to expose our impressionable young to.
Why can people not accept that those who take inspiration from fictional acts of violence, and re-enact them in the real world had a major underlying psychological problem which needed help, rather than trying to blame it on today's "media victim of choice" for encouraging it. In the 50's/60's it was rock'n'roll, now its "violent games".
Guess what, there was violence and killing before electricity was even invented. Shocking I know.
Sorry for the slightly off topic rant there, but it really gets my goat when people try and foist misinformed rubbish on the world passing it off as fact.
Perhaps if these people weren't so fearful and out of touch with the young, they might be able to earn their respect and instil a sense of discipline by example, rather than trying harder and harder to beat it into their young. And they say we are violent....
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Mark, I am just surprised that you are surprised.
"The British pride themselves on their tolerance, their sense of fair play, their respect for the rule of law and human rights."
Who on earth ever regarded this as being true? You only have to watch fellow Brits abroad to see the small-Island mentality in all its embarrassing glory. Tolerance, respect for the law - you have to be joking. For the majority; law is something that only applies to others, the mentality being that being British somehow absolves us from any responsibilty to abide by it. This attitude is not solely confined to teenagers or twenty-somethings either. It is high-time we woke up and smelled the coffee and stopped having such a misguided and over-blown misconception of our own goodness and behaviour in relation to others.
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Whilst I think it is right that government and society have provided the background for the breakdown in young people's behaviour through excessive concentration on rights rather than responsibilities, it doesn't mean that it is inevitable for children to grow up with loutish, selfish and destructive behaviour. Parents have the most important role to play and from the very earliest age. I hear a lot of parents saying they cannot get even their very young children to do what they want or to listen to them. When you observe the reason why, it is generally because the parents never follow through when they ask their children to do or not to do something. They appear to give up and give in all the time so no boundaries are set.From the earliest age children will learn this pattern of behaviour and, as is their natural instinct, will capitalise on it to their own benefit i.e. to get what they want - food, activity, toys etc. So as they grow up they have this approach with everything and it snowballs. Unfortunately after a while they hit something called society which, when it observes this behaviour, calls it an outrage and asks for some more severe sanction like the cane or other corporal punishment. If this is then used the learned response from the child/youth is to carry on as before as it will always 'go away' and 'they don't really mean it', rendering it ineffective now.We are where we are in terms of society's behaviour. We cannot return, but we can do something about the next generation by teaching them respect and boundaries from day one (simple things like going to bed on time, not hitting little brother, stopping something when asked, such as you see in the current spate of supernanny programmes). If we do this then the need for corporal punishment should not arise and the other more liberal forms of child rearing using reward etc. would have more effect than they seem to today. However one without the other will lead us further down the path we are already on.
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Childrens behavior here can be pretty awful too...who wants to eat in a restuarent with children screaming,running about and throwing food? We migt try to consider just how irrational our fears of teenagers actually are when some roam the streets in gangs with knives. A large proportion of burglars are under 18.
I think it comes down in the end to awful or nonexistant parenting and the general impression that there are few sanctions available to control children and teenagers who have got out of control. No one wants to lock them up as it often just further brutalises them but there comes a point where the needs of society to be protected come first.
I do not think it is fair for schools to have to put up with continually disruptive and disaffected students who wreck lessons and spoil the school experience for other students. There should be a 'three strikes and you are out' rule with special facilities more geared for disruptive children being built.
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To comment on the poster regarding how Holland rear their children ? I can only assume you live in a completely different country to me as my views differ radically.
The children in this country are the rudest and most ill-mannered I have ever encountered. There are absolutely no manner taught in the home or at school. If you observe Dutch people eating you will realise they have absolutely no table manners or social manners. They will push, scream, shout to get first on the train or bus. I witnessed a shocking scene recently where a pregnant woman was trying to get a pushchair out of a metro but was being pushed back by the stampede of people pushing their way through.
Unruly and anti-social behaviour of youths is epidemic here ? crowds of 10-15 year olds stoned and drunk going around neighbours causing problems. I?ve spoken to the police and they recognise there is a huge problem.
Unfortunately the Dutch media keep this sort of stuff out of the newspapers as they don?t want to upset the citizens with bad news.
I have rarely encountered such behaviour in kids or adults as I have here in Holland. There are no rules or boundaries, they never say thank you, they interrupt and dominate households, with their parents giving in to their every need. Consequently the adults never really progress from the age of about 12 and have huge social problems ? a huge percentage seem to attend therapy and they have therapist attending schools as the kids seem not to be able to cope with everyday life.
As for the kids in the UK ? I put the blame 100% on parents. Kids copy and repeat parrot fashion the people they are most in contact with which is their parents. Why should a teacher take the place of a parent if the parent can?t be bothered to do the job themselves? The reason the government has ended up being a nanny state is the huge amount of parents who are incapable of raising a child themselves and the kids have to be protected with directives from the government. Unfortunately the good parents also have to follow these ridiculous guidelines.
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As a parent and then a teacher I have seen a direct link between indulgent parenting coupled with parental lack of respect for authority and increasing appalling behaviour from children.
A child who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'No' throws tantrums to get their own way.
A child who is used to getting everything doesn't know how to share
A child who plays video games and watches TV all the time has no social skills.
A parent who gives in to a child at an early age (around the terrible twos) when the child demands something and gets it creates a cycle of reward for bad behaviour.
A parent who never supports and questions a teacher's decision regarding their child perpetuates the control a child expects to have.
These parents will brag about their children being perfectly behaved at home - of course they are! They are allowed to do exactly as they please with no awareness of responsibility for their own actions.
Result - hormonally ravaged teenagers with anger issues which spill over into aggression at a whole world which they cannot control.
Children need rules to feel safe. If they make the rules they believe they control everything, develop primal pack behaviour.
Watch Supernanny - you'll see what I mean!
Being a parent is the hardest job I have ever done in my life - noone is perfect, but we are role models and protectors for our offspring. I HAVE NEVER HIT A CHILD IN MY LIFE - I HAVE NEVER NEEDED TO.
Parents need to be brought to book for their children's behaviour and they need to support teachers.
I was once threatened with physical violence by a parent (in front of their child) when I moved the child's friend up a spelling group but not the child. The child concerned was struggling in his group, so to move him would have destroyed his confidence completely.
Teachers are professionals who work very hard to ensure every child progresses to the best of their ability. They deserve support from parents so the children can learn well.
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Tigerjayj
Great post I agree completely
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lets all jump ship!!!
Clearly the unruly youths should be left to it and we should all go and live somewhere where people are decent and unintimmidating, like our goodselves! Maybe Japan...
Or have a look at what has been produced by decades of failing parenthood.
The youth of today are as every generation before them have been.
A more concentrated copy of the generation which raised them and taught them social values.
We're so scared because we see the worst of ourselves in them!
Only one solution, lets have a massive world war.
This will teach the youth of today the value of a human life while at the same time getting them off our streets where they're scaring everybody.
...Incidently, this will probably stave up our flagging economy while we're at it ;)
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Most of us know that the reason we have problems with our Kids - and hence their up-bringing, behaviour and 'neglect', is because we have wrapped them in too much cotton-wool, thanks to our Government and 'wooly-minded' minority Groups. So much so, that the Kids themselves lack respect.
Like it or not, this situation will not get any better until we have discipline that starts at Home and continues throughout Society.
Do we really like our Kids growing up as they are now? - I doubt it very much. We need to Pillory our MP's en-masse! Then they MAY just take some notice...
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While I am all for supporting the children/youths that have respect for others and generally act as they should I cannot believe some of the 'lets give kids what they want' attitudes on here.
In the last 12 months I have been mugged 5 times thanks to youths/animals attending two of our local academies. The police have arrested, bailed and then smacked their wrists in court despite the muggings occurring with weapons used and while I have my children present. On one occasion my 5year old daughter was punched as an 'incentive' for me to hand over my handbag quicker.
On a daily basis you see at 3-4pm fights between students and other youths which endanger themselves, passerby's and motorists.
I am a single parent and have raised my children to be tolerant to others, have respect and to behave in public as they would at home. On the other hand two of my friends have 'feral' children, they are married and have raised their children the same way I have and yet frequently they are suspended from school and brought home by the police. My friends have tried absolutely everything to get their children under some type of control to no avail and yet on here are comments suggesting that parents also be penalised !!
Children/youths know the difference from right and wrong at an early age, blaming it on the fact that Daddy isnt home for dinner etc because of work is unacceptable.
Throwing children in prison is also unacceptable but I do not believe that children/youths should have as many rights. They are quick to go lay hands on others and assault them but if we even try to restrain them or defend ourselves we must 'respect' their rights not to be harmed.... my view is if you are grown enough to perform such actions then you are grown enough to receive the same in return.
The Government needs to stop ASBO's as they clearly do not work and allow us to restrain, discipline and raise our children without worrying about the Law coming down on us because of childrens rights.
My children and I have the right to walk unharmed down the street and keep my money and phone, where are the bleeding hearts protecting our rights ?
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It's all very well talking about Rights but as has been pointed out - most children know their Rights they're just hazy about Responsibilities.
Teachers are often dealing with incredibly poorly behaved children/teenagers who know that sanctions are a paper tiger. We are dealing with teenagers who are the product of the 'Me' culture which we now see collapsing around us (re the credit crisis). These kids have been poorly parented (not their fault) but the responsibility for a child's behaviour lies squarely with parents and in many cases they are still 'kidults' themselves unable to control their own behaviour. Alternatively there are parents who think the sun shines out of their offspring's rear end and cannot believe their little darling would ever behave in the manner the teacher is claiming.
Given the arrogance and aggression amongst some of these schoolkids I often think a dose of public humiliation would do some of them a great deal of good. I'm not necessarily advocating the cane but when you are faced day in day out with rude, arrogant youth - believe me your hand really does itch to wipe the smirk off their faces.
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TezNat2
"Do we really like our Kids growing up as they are now? - I doubt it very much. We need to Pillory our MP's en-masse! Then they MAY just take some notice..."
You say its the parenting then say the above? how that going to help?
Its about Parents being rubbish, thats got nothing to do with the Government.
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Silver_Cat
Bring back stocks in town centres they'll soon behave after a few hours in there.
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Misbehaved said
"friends tried everything to get their children under control to no avail"
and has asked why they should be held accountable.
How on earth did these friends find it so difficult to control their kids? You start when the kids are v. small, teaching them manners, respect and give them boundaries, rules and lots of encouragement. Children brought up in this sort of environment will not be out of control.
I'm sorry I don't believe your friends and I guess if a secret camera was put in their home that would tell a different story. I can only guess the kids were indulged and given in to which then gives them a sense of entitlement and power.
Why oh why don't they give parenting classes? To own a car you need driving lessons, but to be in charge of a human being and all the responsibility that involves you need nothing.
It's the arrogent loud-mouthed kebab scoffing crowd (who Jamie Olivier has been trying to educate in food but don't want to know) who won't take any advice and drag their numourous kids up only for them to turn out to be disfunctional and anti-social. Then everybody else has to step in, but by that time it's too late. They have caused havoc and mayhem and now get taken care of by the state on our tax money.
What is the point? If you can't bring your own children up to be law abiding and decent human beings then don't have them. Full stop.
Why should decent people be terrorised and harmed by these feral kids ruling the streets? It's a disgrace.
Don't blame the government, don't blame the teachers, don't blame the police. Blame yourself.
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Why should decent people be terrorised and harmed by these feral kids ruling the streets? It's a disgrace.
Don't blame the government, don't blame the teachers, don't blame the police. Blame yourself.
The goverment and the UN and you the voter gives the tools of the trade to the youth so yes the government and yourselves are a disgrace.
Yes do blame the government they create the laws they support drugs in the hands of children. DONT tell me they dont!!!
MODA 71 is the foundation of this.
Please do tell me otherwise. but be carefull it will take more than a blinded sheep to answer.
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I'd like to know the full picture - this blog mostly compares Britain to Europe and the EU, yet the initial publication is from the UN
I for one would be surprised to see the US given a glowing report - I can't quite see them banning smacking either, but this article makes Britain look like a conservative outcast, when there are much more conservative countries (like the US and Australia) out there
I don't quite know how Europe are doing a better job than us, they surely can't be adhering completely to the restrictive human rights act
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