The year we lost the kids
When the angry young man kicked me, I couldn't help but think of the irony.
His mate was busy punching my cameraman as others stamped on and smashed up his equipment. But despite the panic and the pain, the situation felt otherworldly: a curious, dramatic postscript on the story I was writing - how we have become frightened of our children.
The incident comes to mind as I reflect on the events of 2008. The last year, among other things, may well be remembered for exposing deep and dangerous contradictions in the relationship between generations in Britain.
The attack happened last March at the scene of a fatal teenage stabbing in North London. I had gone there to illustrate a television report on young people. Time magazine had just produced a front cover proclaiming that Brits were scared of their kids.
As the flashing fury in my assailant's face exploded in spittle-laden expletives, I understood the fear.
I had inadvertently trespassed into a gang's private mourning. A public street was their private territory. One of the "crew" had died from a blade less than 24 hours before.
Tearful young women comforted each other beside fresh flowers laid at the spot. Brooding men sat on a wall, shock and bewilderment in their eyes.
I should have realised before stumbling in. I was alien. From another world. And like the immune system fighting infection, they rose up to defend themselves.
It was a metaphor for the disconnect I see between young and adult in this country: a generational segregation that breeds distrust and fear. Children are taught to see every adult as a potential abuser. Adults are encouraged to see every teenager as a potential mugger.
We gasp with horror at the abuse and torture of a small boy in North London. We wring our hands at the violence of teenage gangsters in South London. Perhaps the two are related.
As I look back on the past twelve months, our contradictory responses to children are exemplified by those two moral panics - knife crime and child abuse. Bad kids and evil parents.
The United Nations this year identified a "general climate of intolerance and negative public attitudes towards children, especially adolescents". The Time magazine headline read: "Unhappy, Unloved and Out of Control - an epidemic of violence, crime and drunkenness has made Britain scared of its young".
"Compared to other cultures", the article suggested, "British kids are less integrated into the adult world and spend more time with their peers. Some children are bound to be left in the cold".
A fortnight before that report came out, I read an inspection report from Oakhill secure children's centre near Milton Keynes.
"The scale of the centre's difficulties," inspectors said, "was illustrated most starkly by the staggering levels of use of force by staff". Over nine months, force was used on children 757 times. On 500 occasions, this involved the highest level of restraint requiring at least three members of staff, with one holding the child's head.
Teachers working inside the centre were said to be "frightened and intimidated" in an "embattled" atmosphere. The inspectors suggested that the centre be closed down.
It was just a nib of a story: it didn't attract much attention. But it is indicative of a breakdown in relations between adults and children in this country.
Apart from increasing the use of physical force, we seem to have run out of ideas on what to do.
From Shannon Matthews to Baby P, we despair at the cruelty to children, but then casually describe young people as behaving like animals, as vermin which infests our streets.
As the young man's swinging foot connected with my leg, I winced. He had hurt me. But not nearly as much as our society hurts some of its children.
I'm 
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We describe young people as behaving like animals because a large number of them do just that. The father who was beaten up in my hometown whilst pushing his baby's pram can confirm that. There's no excuse for this behaviour and the sooner we all stop making excuses for these thugs the better.
As for the title of your blog, we didn't lose the kids this year, we lost them years ago when we abandoned discipline and simply expected them to develop naturally into fine upstanding citizens.
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Mark
The first question that has to be asked is where was Mr. Plod whilst all this was going on? Surely, this was an opportunity for them to appear at the scene and gather information about the murder. If the participants at the scene were unprepared to provide details then move them along and nick those that won't.
Easy-peasy but unlikely as Mr.Plod was busy elsewhere entrapping the innocent, shooting the law abiding, raiding Parliament, running a car rental business and being in every way possible utterly useless to those very people who pay his wages.
Now at the expense of sounding unreasonable the only way to deal with thugs and bullies is to treat them as just that.
No doubt there is a time to reason with children but that has to be in the years before they go out into the world tooled up for a bit of GBH and worse.
Yes, there are some we have lost but we haven't lost them all. We need to temper our approach which is why these multiple agency task forces exist. Or so I am told. I just think many of these task forces are just talking shops as nothing seems to get done.
I am all for improved methods but they have to work. Where they are allowed to work they work well, but in many areas I see no evidence that they exist let alone work.
If we don't get the law to work in the way it should, then we will have to revert to getting the job done the old way: feeling collars, throwing people down the station steps, banging cell doors and bringing Inspector Verbal out of retirement.
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Am I alone in finding the two comments above an all-too-familiar, predictable but disappointing response to Mark Easton's thoughtful piece? I hope not. I have two children, now in their late teens, who I think are fine, respectable young people. All of their friends are the same. I suspect that the same can be said of most of this country's young people. Why, then, do we lump them all together with the thugs who form a relatively minority of our youth? And why do we -- all too often -- demonize them all, and call for the sort the return of 'Life on Mars' attitudes to punishment.
If the young people of today are to grow up into the sort of citizens we would like them to become we all have to start treating them in the way we would have wanted to be treated when we were their age and not in the way exemplified by the previous contributors to this thread.
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The main problem with people of all ages is that they have lost, or never been given, a sense of responsibility. They all know their "rights", but have no conception of the fact that rights bring responsibilities. It is not just Britain. The whole of the Western World has become dominated by the "I want" syndrome, instead of the "I should contribute" syndrome. Nobody is allowed to punish properly (and I do not mean "abuse"). When I was growing up, actions had consequences. Now there are no consequences for actions, just excuses for why they happened. The sooner we accept the consequences of our actions, the better off we shall all be.
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'I had inadvertently trespassed into a gang's private mourning. A public street was their private territory.'
So it's acceptable to react with physical violence in a situation like this, is it? It's ok to kick the c**p out of someone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? These people were not 'rising up to defend themselves' - they were deliberately and viciously attacking someone because they felt like it - and until they learn that this is unnacceptable, we will continue to see stabbings & shootings, and nearly all for no good reason - just because the perpetrators have no self control and happen to be armed.
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It's nice to see a voice sympathetic to the youth. (Although they are not as rare as some may have you believe)
As an 18 year old myself I'm often saddened to find that many seem to expect me and my peers to be violent, thuggish types.
I couldn't agree more that the fault lies with both parties, but not say that all adults are evil when we read a story about an adult rapist, or murderer
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Having worked in a children's Education and adventure Holiday camp.....I know that the vast majority of children are fantastic ...but sometimes the councils sent groups of problem teenagers who almost always ended up being sent home early because of their uncontrollable, disruptive behaviour. Although everyone did their best to give them a chance it just wasn't possible.
In my opinion those particular type of teenagers could 'only' have been controlled by very tough men with army style discipline. I don't know if that could have done anything to change them in any way but they were certainly the types you always see in the gangs, in their hoodies, stealing cars, taking drugs and beating people up. The sad thing is that if it wasn't for their complete inability to take any discipline they were mostly quite likeable.
I don't know what the answer is for those types but it must need to be something different.
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More "fear of crime" propaganda. People do not have negative attitudes towards the young in general, only towards hooligans.
We need tough punishment for thugs of all ages (now that is equal opportunities), not more of the hug-a-hoodie appeasement policy.
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"Children are taught to see every adult as a potential abuser."
Sorry but this is a hugely inaccurate statement.
Children are taught to see every MAN as a potential abuser and every WOMAN as always innocent or a victim.
Charities, the government etc all go round demonising men and most departments of the bbc are just as bad.
The most recent example I saw was a campaign by the "charity" Women's Aid
They have set up a website especially for children so they can "learn" all about domestic violence.
Government statistics show that 1 in 6 men suffer domestic violence compared to 1 in 4 women - yet of the nine depictions of abuse in their videos every single abuser without exception is male. The message to kids couldn't be stronger women are good, men are bad.
And of course this despicable organisation gets most of its funding from the taxpayer, so it is you and I that actually fund such propaganda.
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I beleive Mark is right on some points and wrong on others. Some of these children are behaving as those in The Lord of the Flies, They have no adult supervision as youngsters and are unaware of safe behaviour. Parents should try to protect their young children and let tyhem have a childhood
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I insist that we are rational, we were all young and we did things then that we would not do now. I hope that you all agree and now we can start building on these foundations.
We and many other countries have social problems that we, and they, have to tackle. It is crazy to assume that they were something to do with the orbit of the moon. They are the unforseen consequences of our bad social policy. If the police are not on the streets because 80% of their time is report writing then give them an Ipod, a video camera and a microphone at £50 per head (the cost of one hour of their time) such that all incidents are on indisputable record. That would multiply the Police presence by 5 fold. Reduce benefits, we now have to, such that we don't have to search the globe for quest workers who will happily do the work that we don't think it is worth getting out of bed for when we are better off on benefits.
David Lilley
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If you are in a gang you are one of the one in four families without a male role model. The father left because he wasn't able to provide as much as the state, after tax and NIC. The state should instead worry about governance and the rule of law and not step in to replace fathers when fathers can do the job better. If we so tax the father and give the money to, what is the expression that the BBC use 100 times per day "the most vulnerable in society" then the father is off, except for the 1m LATS who replace the mothers income with single parent incentives. And that is the key word, INCENTIVES.
Go back to the beginning, people are rational, if their neighbour is better off on benefits why should they get up at 6am every day. They are more depressed than them. They can take prozac just as well. The Chiness can do the work as they don't have benefits. Gordon seems to what it that way, why should I argue?
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I'm delighted that someone in the media is taking this approach to the problem of our juvenile citizenry. If I may add my own thoughts,if one takes even a cursory look at educational standards around the world it is abundantly clear that they have declined.Education is becoming elitist.I am in the process of returning to education at a world renowned university.The truth of the matter is that I am not a particularly gifted student,just that I have the means to pay for an "elite" education.State provided and thus free education has been eroded,deliberately I think,because a high standard is expensive to maintain.This translates into students receiving watered down education,becoming watered down teachers themselves,and teaching their watered down version of studies to students and thus the cycle perpetuates.Basically if you want to become soundly educated it is up to those with means to pursue it as their means allow.For me it is a return after many years away and a lifetime of work.
This has grave social implications.Under educated children become under equipped and under inspired especially when they know that society has failed them already
while they were still at school. They become exploitable and disillusioned leading to anger.This manifests itself in violence.This is not to say that their anger is justified and violence understandable. Morality should be a natural impulse,to know the difference between right and wrong. However when you live in a jungle,the law of the jungle prevails.Beyond morality,this is probably basic human instinct.
Educate our children.Give them hope.Don't blame them for all the ills of the world when it is our failure as parents and educators that is truly worthy of blame.
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1m brave, on your bike, individuals come here in 2004, 600,000 from the new EU states, 400,000 from Poland, many of whom are doctors, scientists and graduates to rescue our ailing market gardening and hospitality industries whilst the locals drink Stella and worship New Labour for the opportunity to binge drink. happy slap and avoid prison as only 6.8% of offenders go to prison.
Sorry, they are" the most vulnerable in society "and therefore on top of our tax and NIC contributions we should also pay their gas bills when they choose to spend their money/our money on Stella. We are horible if we install a prepay meter at great expence because they don't pay their gas bill and recover this cost with a surcharge.
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As a mother I am as confused as Mark Easton. On one hand we have children who appear to be feral and out of control and on the other we have a surge of highly reported abuse cases. In the middle is a fight for normal family life and disipline in a normal family home environment being turned into a battle ground.
The one commonality factor here is the media. If we took away the sensationalism of the media (gutter press and tv news alike) and stopped sensationalising every bad thing that happens just maybe we parents could actually discipline our children again without being made to feel evil if we do, or uncaring if we dont.
Children are clever and manipulative, they know how to get what they want and since they see the news, hear stories and are educated in things long before they need to be we are perpetuating the situation. Todays kids are tomorrows abusers and murderers, and teenage mums.Why? Because they know it all, how to and how not to get caught. They also know that the law is useless, that any form of discipline is frowned upon and that they will get away with it.
Give parents back the ability to smack a naughty child, police the ability to do their job and teachers the ability to threaten the cane again and its just possible that the next generation might be ok.
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With the minimum cost of a job standing at £5.73 per hour, plus employers NIC and 28 days holiday, a total of over £8 per hour and a 9 day fortnight culture for postmen, teachers, NHS and council workers and still 6m ex-workers saying they are better off on benefits we can only expect mass unemployment.
We asked for it.
They can walk past the closed pub ( a 3000% increase in licencing cost and a 60% increase in labour cost), the closed Woolies and 300 other yet to be closed retailers and thank the Chiness and the guest workers for paying their way. The young can join gangs to replace their priced out fathers, the money thrown at the benefit culture can fund binge drinking but tomorrow will not pay for these foul ways. We have starved industry of investment, taken £200b from the middleclass pension funds and burdened graduates with loans.
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Mark, I think you were involved in the reporting on the stabbing of Amro Elbadawi, the teenager was in a gang, the SD (Street Dreamz) Crew and was killed when an argument with a long-standing (16 yr old) friend spiralled out of control and he was stabbed in the neck.
I`ve posted here before that I certainly don`t see every teenager I meet as a potential mugger [or vermin] or young people generally as feral. You have a point that messed up parents tend to produce messed up children that in turn go on to be messed up parents etc just as its well known that alcoholism can run through generations of the same family. Bad parenting follows the same pattern.
I think I can glimpse the argument your trying to make; that absent parenting, lack of adult role models is leading youngsters to form `alternative` families, gangs for want of a better word, fiercely territorial and making and living by their own rules and codes. Newsnight a few weeks ago did a report on such gangs where an older member talked about how youngsters were recruited: `You show them love, affection and protection and they`ll do anything for you.'
There probably is something in this (particularly in areas where youngsters on their own feel very threatened and vulnerable on the street) and the underlying issues of poverty, lack of alternative activities, alienation, lack of aspirations and perceived opportunities etc. We also shouldn`t ignore that immigration from some countries has also resulted in the entry of (a small minority of) gang members from existing ghettos (e.g. Kingston) that act as a catalyst for forming new gangs here in the UK. It shouldn`t be forgotten that many gangs also act as apprenticeships in drug dealing and other crime.
Should we be worried by this growing development? Yes. That and the disturbing ease by which some youngsters seem to resort to violence to resolve tiny disputes or to make themselves look `big`. The same day Elbadawi was killed another teenager, Devoe Roach 17 yrs, died after being stabbed through the heart in the Stamford Hill area by a 20 yr old following an argument. A friend said: `These boys asked Devoe what he was looking at. He was stabbed because someone thought he was looking at them, it`s as stupid as that.` [Source: This is London website]
Do I have an answer, no; but we need to persist in attempting to find one. The recent Louis Theroux programmes shows what can happen when society leaves ghettos to fester.
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Mark, I suggest that you should be writing fiction stories. The flowery flow of this article only hides the facts that somewhere you may have included.
The truth is that you in trying to do your job were physically attacked by a gang of thugs. (Maybe you were too demanding in your quest as unfortunately some reporters are). The ?mourning? and ?tearful young women? on a public road , not their own private territory, were probably planning their revenge. Revenge, not justice.
This minority of younger people have no respect for people, property or law. Respect, that is no longer taught in schools or by parents. The social behaviour standards have for many years been slowly eroded in the western world and as a result the modern day culture has become a self centred culture with no regards for others or their property. Many different governments have permitted this to happen by their willingness to give in to the pressure groups that now abound demanding rights for criminals ect.
Many people refer to so many causation factors when it comes to crime and living in today?s social collapse . Government failures, easy money from welfare benefits, immigration, lack of youth clubs, ect.ect.
All of these do have some bearing on your experience and therefore you should be writing on how to overcome these causation factors and get everyone to teach, learn and practise RESPECT.
.
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Another BBC headline, you went in unnecessarily as agents provocateurs, and wonder why you were abused - amazing!
I just heard the latest statistic, shock and horror, police called out 7,000 times to schools this year, appalling statistic and dramatic headline. Hang on though, that amounts to less than one in four of all schools calling the police only once. It doesnt state for what, and it isn't clear whether higher education establishments are included.
FOR PITY SAKE STOP mis-quoting statistics and falsely generating these crass headlines, children need support and direction, NOT constant undermining by YOU the BBC. This is disgusting journalism of the worse possible kind, and demonstrates yet again the irresponsible attitude of the BBC toward it's public. You are not the gutter press, so stop behaving like it - please!
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Dostoyevsky message 3
Your comment about my post above would be more valid if you had bothered to read it all.
I possited an either-or.
Either the modern `good' methods are allowed to work or we have to revert to the old `bad' methods which at least worked after a crude fashion.
The question is our society a safe place to be? To me it is, because I am strong and ugly enough to carry a metaphorical big stick. One day I will be weaker and vulnerable as I once was when young. I know many people who are frightened. Where are the authorities for them?
There is no option in this matter our streets have to be safe for everyone or we surrender our civilisation.
My very frail elderly mother who gets around with a stick always tells me how kind people are to her. I acknowledge that and appreciate the kindnesses shown by young and old alike. But it will only take one bad'un to take her life.
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The 'kids' were lost when childhood was sentimentalised. When the conceit emerged that a child was an 'innocent', a perfect being, and that to grow into a perfect adult, all that was needed was for it to be given what it wanted and left alone.
It just isn't true. We are primates - complex, territorial, predatorial, competitive. That isn't just a cultural thing: it's hard-wired into our nerves, genes, metabolisms, minds. It is what we are. A civil civic society requires one thing above all: for children to be educated into the adults you want them to grow up into. It can be done, but it must be done unsentimentally, based on how things are, not how people wish things were. If you leave children to develop 'naturally' from some assumed perfection, they will turn into chimpanzees - not lovable cuddly animals (another ludicrous sentimentalisation), but forming gangs to rip rivals to pieces. Ken Dodd ludicrously described the laughter of children as "white laughter" in his rainbow of comedy, innocent, pure laughter. Terry Pratchett's response was the truth. It sounds innocent and pure until you get close enough to hear what they're laughing about.
The trouble is, of course, that the chimpanzee gang is the next generation of British adults. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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I have 3 sons and have their friends and acquaintances continuously around or calling .
They are all decent kids. They know good from bad and right from wrong. Increasingly I do not recognise the Country I live in from the media coverage. I do not lead a sheltered existence. I grew up in one of the worst areas in Scotland for perceived violence and drug abuse and never once felt threatened or took drugs!
The media seems intent, in drama or news, to portray minorities as the norm. I do not know any parents afraid of their kids.
However, I do believe we have become frightened of defending our principles. I do not mean canings and the birch - I mean voicing our principles.
I think we under-estimate the amount of influence we have allowed the media - especially television and music - to exert. And they always go cheap and try to demoralise. It is easy and lazy and predicatble journalism. And I mean the media as an entity - not this article and the comments in isolation.
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It doesn't help that in today's sad world men do not dare to be 'friendly' to children for fear of being seen as a pervert.
I am a divorced man and live alone..and so I certainly would not risk being 'friendly' to any of the local children or teenagers. The fact is I even deliberately behave unfriendly if a youngster speaks to me, simply because it's the best thing to do.
Yet I can remember quite a lot of old men being friendly and chatting to me when I was a kid...and none of them were perverts, just decent old men enjoying a chat to a kid......but I don't think that happens today.
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The media plays a huge part in this - and is running out of control.
The constant reporting of national crime - in the same manner as local crime is reported gives a skewed view of the world. When a vicious crime is reported the concept of 1 in 56 million is deliberately left out of the story in order to create drama and personal attachment for the reader.
With all the free papers in the morning (which the kids all read) is it any wonder they are convinced they need to carry knives to protect themselves? What do you think those kids feel about their own safety?
Want a solution? How about this - every time a newspaper / TV or other media outlet gets it wrong - they get SHUT DOWN.
That would ensure that the reporters only report the FACTS. It will stop editors ramping up stories to make them more exciting. I've seen the inside of the journalist system and it's plainly obvious where the stories are getting changed - sadly the reasoning for these changes are flawed.
Freedom of the press should be taken away if it is abused like this.
Currently our media takes great delight in the pointing out the mistakes of others - and yet only apologises for it's mistakes in tiny notes hidden deep inside the paper.
It is the most hypocritical industry going. I have investigated many TV and newspaper stories and found them to be based on wild exaggerations, vital information ommitted and in some cases outright lies.
Take the 'Branson daughter' story of yesterday - a minor story - but originally I saw it reported as:
"Branson's daughter saves man's life and tells pilot to land"
later I found out from another source that she is in fact a qualified doctor and (as her hypocratic oath dictates) assisted a man with oxygen who was having heart trouble - the pilot made the decision to land.
Now this is a minor story, but I saw it reported yesterday and NOT A SINGLE REPORT MATCHED. It was like there was 15 different Branson stories yesterday - created from a single (minor) incident.
Now if you apply the same logic to a more important story you start to see the picture.
The baby P is a classic case in point. I have seen so much written - a lot of which turned out to be wrong - and not a single apology from the papers. They are all happy to 'string up Miss Shoesmith' - but I don't see any journalists standing up to be counted by volunteering to help social services in their free time or actually doing something positive to address what has been an issue for a lot longer than the 6 weeks the press has had it's claws in it.
Just look at the emotive language used - have you seen a story about baby P which didn't have the phrase 'blood stained cot' in it?
In a world where it 'appears' to be socially acceptable to lie, cheat, exaggerate and be hypocritical - I am amazed that our kids haven't gone off the rails sooner.
Instead of teaching them useful things for later in life - all they know about it Cheryl Cole and the wonderful 'x factor career path' - don't work hard at school, just make yourself pretty (by any means neccessary, platic surgery, anorexia etc) and hopefully you'll get picked to be a star where you can 'live the dream' of the other plastic lobotomy possee - swanning around in flash cars and having your nails done.
The first time I saw Nadine (long before Girls Aloud) she was 15 and lying about her age - she even lied when they stood there with her passport in their hands saying 'but it says here you're 15'
- apparently it's OK to lie as long as you get what you want. It's therefore OK to cheat, and steal, and mug, and stab etc - to get what you want.
I'm not saying Girls Aloud are the cause of the social ill's of this country - but they are the epitomy of what yougsters hope to achieve. Sadly - like winning the lottery - most people do not achieve that. I believe Plato lived his life as a pessimist, to avoid the disappointment of bad luck.
What do you think it does for children to live in the eternal optimism that one day they might be 'discovered'? What about the day when they realise they won't be rich and famous? Where do you go then? What other path will lead you to riches and flash cars - Drug dealing, robbery, theft etc - all suddenly seem appealing.
The Government pretends to address the situation - but of course it's the most hypocritical of all. Too busy taking back handers from corporations to actually be socially responsible.
A lot of the posts hit the same point - the media gives a false impression of real life - which the country then reacts to by changing it's behavior to suit.
If you (think) you live in a hostile environment - then you will act hostile yourself as a base form of self preservation.
Can't the media see the effect they are having? Just look at the poor boy shot in Liverpool - the gang was just convicted for it's involvement. They described themselves as 'Soldiers' fighting a 'war'.
...now where do you think that idea came from? I've been to Liverpool and although there have always been some rough places - there are no wars there.....or maybe there are - wars on crime, wars on terror, wars on criminals.
The emotive language of the media is there for all to see.
Freedom of the press is not a 'freedom to say what you like and not live with the consequences'
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The main reason for our feral young is due to the mess this government have made of the criminal justice system. What motivation does anyone have to abide by the law if there are no consequences for breaking it? Politicians love headlines (like Gordon Brown's laughable "five years for possession of a knife" nonsense - they're lucky to get 6 months inside even if they have 250 previous convictions these days, and where are the prison places we need?) but have no interest in action because it doesn't affect them.
Imagine, if you will, a "feral" child, aged 5, with an absent father and mother on benefits who pays no attention to the child at all. One day, this child climbs onto the kitchen worktop and touches the oven hob that was left on, burning their hand severely, being in lots of pain.
Does this child touch the hob again? No. Why? Because there were immediate, severe and uncompromising consequences to their actions.
If children are taught from an early age to hate the police, disrespect the law, not care about other people or their property and that they can do whatever they like, it follows that they will end up "feral". Zero tolerance from an early age is the only way we can solve the problem.
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no disiplin anymore thats why. is it any wonder that this has come about not too soon after we stopped punishment in school like the cane?
bloody liberals, kids need disiplin and all we want to do is molllycoddle them and spolil them with play stations and MSN, is it really any surprise?
i was a bad kid, i was naughty, but when i got caught i got the crap beated out of me and i never did it again, oh no.
Kids just have no respect becuase parents these days are pathetic, i mean utterly and woefully pathetic, i would say 80% of parents are just awful.
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IMHO, the real problem here is that the reasons why so many kids are out of control are many and complex, and yet politicians are incapable of dealing with complex problems.
They want soundbite solutions that look good in headlines in the Sun and the Daily Mail, whereas those sorts of solutions are unlikely to solve anything. In fact it's probably because of such solutions that we're in the mess we're in now.
One thing is for sure: if you want to create a world where all kids are well behaved model citizens (or at least the vast majority of kids, because there will always be psychopaths), then it's going to take a well researched and complex approach.
I'm not holding my breath.
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spot on!
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I was astonished during a recent visit to Korea when my companion, a young, small, female, Korean teacher, marched over to a group of youths waiting at a bus stop and demanded that they put out their cigarettes. In Korea there is a very strong culture of respect for one's elders, and sure enough the youths meekly put out their cigarettes and looked suitably chastened.
I couldn't help comparing that situation with one in which my elderly parents were abused and intimidated for trying something similar on a train in England.
Which society is more civilised?
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This blog post is in the same strain as you have been developing over some time; the necessity to dig deeper and understand problems in society, particularly children. You are not moralizing, not ranting and not reacting in ill-considered outbursts.
This attitude of calm and rationality marks you out in the media but also develops an opportunity that I'm not sure you've considered.
Do you realise that these very qualitites mean you are an extraordinarily attractive voice for the youth you report on. I'm not "disaffected", but am a young person. There is a real joy in being able to listen to a reporter who does not start from a premise of "all young people are monsters"/"we need to return to good old discipline"/"you can't go out at night"/"kids worked harder in my day".
I'm not really in the habit of New Year's resolutions, but if you were to have one, I'd propose that you bring your cool and positive message to children as well as adults.
Merry Christmas, and many thanks for this blog throughout 2008.
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Spare the rod and spoil the child. Many people don't seem to realise that the old wise saying is a warning not an instruction. In churchill's opinion at age 30 I am on the cusp of youth and maturaty. Young enough to remember the smacks and single time I was caned by mum but old enough to know that if she didn't put me straight on occasion I would be even more of a gobby git than I am today and have no respect for authority. What ever you give a child they will push for more so set the boundries at a strict level and soon the worst crime will be back to scrumping apples not stabbing people.
I've travelled, a lot. The city I felt safest in was Tangier in Morocco. While I admit it had other problems, law and order didn?t seem to be one of them. If you're caught fighting on the street you're just thrown in jail for what seems like an arbitrary amount of time. People fear and respect authority. The children I spoke to even in early teens could speak at least 3 languages and were very studious. After all studying is the only way to ensure you have a good life. Here in the UK if your idea of a good life is a wide screen TV and getting drunk, don?t worry the government will pay you to do that!
I saw no drunken people on the street. Apparently everyone is to busy trying to make a living and feed their family to get into trouble. Yes they'll try and scam or rip off naive customers but out right robbery, especially violent robbery seemed almost non-existent.
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It seems to me that ultimately the adults have to take responsible for the way their children are reared. If children are taught to respect their parents, siblings, and others AND above all have parents that are involved in their lives, then the great majority of them will be decent teens and young adults.
It has been well established that children seek love and attention as well as the need for structure and discipline. As a biological function, any fool can bring children into the world, but more and more it seems many children are left to their own devices for a variety of reasons. Without proper parental guidance and nurture, the problems such as detailed in this story will happen with alarming frequency.
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This is all scare-journalism, just like today's report (courtesy of the Tories) about police call out numbers to schools.
I used to work in a youth club dealing with kids from a particularly difficult area of London.
Kids as young as 10 carried knives - big ones often - or sharpened combs. We had a 12 year old attempt to attack a 17 year old with a broken bottle before we leapt on him. We had girls as young as 13 pregnant - one girl who was 14 showed off her twin girls (she already had an older son).
Most of these kids were part of gangs (sometimes rivals) who hung round menacing passers by, staying out all hours, getting drunk and smoking at any age, taking drugs. Many were excluded from school and had little or no prospects.
It was everything that people describe of 21st Century Britain.
Except this was 1978. 30 years ago.
My father used to talk of EXACTLY the same troubles in the area where he grew up in the 1920s. Yes, this is a problem, but it is not new.
Back in the 70s, most of the crimes committed by the young never got reported; the Media was simply not interested. They almost never turned up at children's court for press releases, they would not come and talk to us about the club and what it was trying to do - it was simply not on their radar.
When I look back to that time, and when my brother (who is 13 years older) looks back to his youth in the 50s and 60s, we think that if anything it is better today.
We dont have mods and rockers roaming the streets like we did back then. We dont have the massive weekly gang fights between gangs and the Special police squads. At that time "A Clockwork Orange" seemed a definite possibility.
Yes, we have many, many problems, but the biggest difference?
The media have just worked out that it sells papers.
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Mark:
It is true, in reality that we lost the kids in the year of 2008....
I wish and hope that society, can do some more things to regain the trust in the kids before it is too late...
Also, I am sorry for the injuries that you and your crew took, during the coverage of your story....
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One of my ex?s has a six year old daughter (not mine) and due to circumstances lives pretty much on benefits. Apparently to some partaking in this debate my ex is the source of all the ills in the world and her daughter is going to be the next in a long line of vicious delinquents. Unfortunately for those who see the world through a darkened lens this isn?t actually the case. Jo got into a relationship young and had her daughter too young (in my opinion) only to find out that her ?better? half was an abusive lay about, because of his lies and those of his mother she found herself on the street saddled with debts that were not really hers and trapped.
I tried to help but as these things turn out mine and Jo?s relationship didn?t last, though I still see her and her daughter. She is now in a good relationship with a decent though poorly paid man. Her daughter is one of the brightest children I have met, and I trained to be a teacher, who has prospered because her father was absent. Will she turn into a violent gang member it?s possible, but unlikely.
People, who apparently are experts without ever experiencing the lifestyle they condemn, are focused on a very visible minority of children. They forget that there is an equally visible minority of adults who behave in a very unsociable manner, not all of them live on housing estates on benefits I assure you. Some of them are well paid and well educated, but are just horrible human beings ? and I speak from experience having attended university and now working in the City.
As some here have said it seems that the media cannot focus on the good, probably because the morally indignant are more interested in reading about the filth other people do. It is a shame that most of those who shout most about social responsibility seem unwilling to get involved. Instead they label the young as animals then seem surprised when the young accept this label.
Change starts with the individual, if you want society to behave better then start helping those less fortunate than yourselves, preferably without preaching to them!
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So many comments... I am from South Wales but now live in Japan. Street violence is almost unheard of. Elderly people's homes are hardly ever burgled. Why? Because the education system is strict and instills social values from the age of six. It is a little boring for the children, but there is no corporal punishment and the society functions extremely well.
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We should never underestimate the PRESS's responsibility in all this. The press have done their fair share of portraying over negative attitudes of young people and encouraging the mistrust between teenager/children and adults.
Its about time the press became part of solution instead of been part of the problem.
"Children are taught to see every adult as a potential abuser. Adults are encouraged to see every teenager as a potential mugger."
You said it yourself... where are these perceptions originating from ?????
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I'm sorry, I don't understand- you seem to think that these people were justified in what they did to you? I'm 22, and I'd never dream of attacking someone like that!
I'm sure there will then be lots of comments about not knowing what these people have been through, but as far as I can see, these people need discipline. Look at the recent story about a teacher who is in trouble for trying to stop a pupil walking out of class after he had asked him to stay behind- children in school can pretty much get away with anything!
I'm sick of being looked at like a second class citizen when I got out in a hooded top because people think I might mug them or stab them (or maybe kick them in because they've wandered onto once of 'my' streets). The people your story is about don't act like that because people abandon them- people abandon them because they act like that.
They aren't being seen in the wrong light- just making it so that people like me also get seen in that light too!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
A nice blog Mark.
The youth are from from lost though, its our interest in them that is lost, in our drive for services that pay.
Cheap booze to wash away the week, drugs at any age. They are just making the best of what they are given.
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Number 9 and 33 have it right.
Well said.
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We have most definitely not run out of ideas of what to do. Wonderful, pioneering organisations like Leap Confronting Conflict are helping to train peer mediators and turn around the lives of thousands of young kids - I'm looking now at their report for 2008, which says
'Around 4700 young people and 1380 adults have been trained in conflict resolution by Leap this year. They, in turn, have passed on their skills, benefiting an estimated 22000 further young people and adding value to many other youth organisations.'
More reporting on things like this please, Mark, to show what can be - and is being - done.
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Thanks for your reporting, Mark, and especially for this piece, which is balanced and fair in a way that so little of the hyperbolic reporting of teenage violence. I was shocked as I started to read that you and your cameraman had been attacked, but the understanding of why that happened (which you have) seems far more important to me than the blame assigned to pretty much everybody in the course of the comments here. Whether the importance laid on child abuse in the media is the root of all evils, I doubt, but I definitely agree we have a hugely dichotomous attitude to children in this country and it's bound to have a negative effect.
Anyway, thanks for being a voice of reason amongst all the hyperbolic doom-mongering.
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I once saw some boys of about 8 years old throwing stones off a motorway bridge at cars passing underneath .....I told them off and they laughed at me and said 'so what'... 'what are you going to do about it mister?' ......In my day any adult would have given me a good hiding for something like that....yet I realised that I didn't dare to give them a good hiding and the last thing I wanted to do was to phone the police and spend my day involved with it, so I walked away and left them to carry on throwing stones at cars, even though it was possible they could kill someone.
It may just be one small incident but doesn't it seem to sum up why so many kids in this PC society grow up to feel as if they can do absolutely anything they want.
For all I know, those boys might have moved on to beating up old people by now... and how much would my walking away have played a part in making them feel as if they can do it if they want to.
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Demonise young people at our peril. I'm always appalled when I hear young people spoken about in negative terms. It is little wonder that some feel alienated. Can we honestly expect our children to grow up into confident, thoughtful adults when they are viewed as thugs and vermin? How would we have responded to such attacks when we were finding our feet as young adults? Let's be positive and encouraging. At the very least, let's not join the anti-youth bandwagon. It's all too easy to contribute to this destructive paranoia.
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Mark
I wish to report that i was attacked this morning in the Supermarket, my attacker was upset that the service she was recieving from th customer Service Desk was to slow and that although i got to the Desk after her, the assistant who served me did so quicker even though our enquiry's were the same.
The 'Old dear' hit me several times around the legs with her walking stick.
This' Feral' OAP should be locked up.
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I regularly hang out with a large group of teenagers. They are all polite and friendly, their main interests being music and chatting and dancing. None of them are violent and they do not fight. Please do not forget about these children. The only people who treat me unpleasantly are older, more mature, well dressed and should know better.
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No. 1 Christian Citizen is absolutely right. There is no excuse for such behaviour. It's mindless. Not only is it time for us to stop making excuses disciplinary reaction is long overdue should be imposed swiftly and severely.
People who inflict physical pain and property damage must be stopped with physical restraint and loss of rights and privileges which they claim to freely.
Why are those in authority and protection so pathetically ineffective?
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When I started school at 5, my mother went back to work - in the afternoon/evening so she wasn't there when I got home. I swore I would never do this to my own children, and have always ensured that I was there for them. But I had so little interaction with my mother that I feel I don't do enough with my own children. Whilst I am sure mine will be OK, some of their peers are in a different category and invariably they are the ones who go 'home' to the child minder and whose parents have no time for them once they are at home.
Society (Govt) today is desperate to send mothers back to work (removing job vacancies from the work place), when there should be a parent at home guiding children as they grow up. The big problem is, as I am finding, that many mothers have already lost the necessary skill because their own mother was never there.
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Interesting article, and the responses are even more so.
The police are not at fault, we as a society are. We have allowed family to break down, and children no longer have any fear of repurcussions for their actions. They know they can do whatever they want, and scream "IM A VICTIM" and escape prison time.
Why is this happening? Because they are totally unremakeable individuals, a forgotten demographic. Twenty something white males, one of millions, and totally unimportant in the new britain.
They have nothing that sets them apart from their peers, they are useless and unwanted, and treating them as such is human nature. TV is saturated with talentless celebrity, and all these wasters who are too lazy to work at something just expect fame for being alive.
Nothing can prevent this problem, and it has been spreading like a cancer for years. The solution is one that people are far too scared to implement.
Stop making excuses. Bring back the death penalty for murderers and rapists. There are too many people in this world already, so why keep dangerous, aggressive, thugs in society?
This phoney sense of morality we hold in this country is staggering. Bring back the death penalty. We are not rare and precious, and life is not sacred. We are the same as any other animal on this planet, and we can afford to lose the bad elements of society. How do they possibly help us achieve long term goals?
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Mark's right. Children are almost completely excluded and then - suddenly - at 17 or 18 we expect them to be fully functioning members of society.
Look at the way kids are there in resturants in Spain and France - no one thinks of leaving them with a babysitter at night.
Look at countries with national service - kids know it's their responsibility.
From long parental working hours to a child support system that's only interested in finance to a school system that values only academically bright children to a society that tells you your worth is about how much money you earn.
No wonder we loose kids along the way and it's all our fault.
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When I was a teenager we all still had respect (and a little fear) for adults. If one told us what to do, we did it. There were a few rebellious exceptions but even they did not carry knives and guns and kill people for looking at them in the wrong way. The difference back then was parents and teachers were allowed to shout and, within reason, smack children, could send them to bed and stop priviledges without being told it infringed their human rights or risked being arrested. In the past 20 years we have been too soft. Even at nursery they are not allowed to use the word "naughty", even if the child is a nightmare. If a kid at school hits another, it gets its name in the consequence book, full stop. No punishment, nothing. So what does that tell the child? All through school he can do what he likes and knows there is no meaninful punishment coming his way. That child grows into a adult thug who still thinks the worst he will get is his name in the consequence book. By the time he has commited such a serious crime he does get to prison, it's too late both for that child and society. We need to stop pussy footing around and start being stronger with our children, set boundaries and keep to them, and if parents can't be bothered to keep their children in line, at least let the nurseries and schools do it for them.
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You're right Gurubear (Post 33), it has all been happening for a long time, but there was no media interest. As a teenager living in suburban Birmingham during the 70s, in my area there were 3 gangs who enjoyed almost weekly fights and almost all carried knives- one carried an axe. At my secondary school, some girls did get pregnant, the first in 4th year (Year 10). It has all been happening for a long time, but no-one wrote about it and hospitals and teachers didn't report it.
The vast majority of kids ARE well-behaved and hard-working and are a pleasure to work with. For those that choose a life outside the law, the consequences must be accepted, these should be harsh and certainly for the first conviction, the 'short, sharp, shock' treatment appeared to work.
Make no mistake though, these people have always been here, though Mark, you probably don't associate with that 'type' very much. Kicking a stranger is not an expression of grief, it's a challenge. Don't make the mistake of believing your standards are universal, they simply don't apply in this world. Some of these kids will simply grow out of it, some will go to jail and inevitably some will die.
What has changed is the toleration of violence. All types of violence against the person are now recognised as a crime. Gone are the days when teachers ignored bruises on children, or neighbours shut their ears to domestic abuse and corporal punishment is illegal. A Saturday night punch-up would now result in a criminal record. This has led to a much more conformist public, with the exceptions appearing much more extreme.
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I wonder if the teenagers who kicked Mark will be reading his report and be pleased that he 'understands' them so well.
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I don't care how upset they were over their friend's death. A public street is NOT 'theirs'. If they break the law (which I believe they did in assaulting you and your cameramen) they should be treated like the crinimals they are. And yes, I blame the parents, and probably their parents as well. They have cast of their parental responsibilities to these children, and expected them to absorb the concepts of good/bad/right/wrong by some kind of osmosis. And frankly, that's never going to happen. I didn't appreciate the strict discipline imposed on me by both my parents and, in a moral way, by the religion we were brought up in, but by God, I can appreciate it now, especially when faced by the kind of thug who never had the benefit of either influence in their own life. And they should appreciate it too - those influences on me are somethimes the only thank that stand between them and the prospect of me not just walking past them, but giving the kind of thrashing they deserve! Well, that and the prospect of being locked up, as is always the fate of any law-abiding citizen who forgets that the police will always arrest them, and not the thug who pushed them to breaking point.
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Reading through your blog raised a bit of discussion amongst my older children.
My 22-year-old son tells of a teacher at his old school who took some of his pupils aged 15/16 to the pub. At the school in my village, the head teacher regularly takes pupils aged 11 to the pub for lunch with with his colleagues. This is their reward for achieving an arbitrary points target in the classroom.
When I was 11, I was one of my teacher's star pupils and he treated me and some others to tea at his house, which entailed a three mile walk through the streets of Battersea and Battersea Park. Of course, he wouldn't be allowed to get away with that nowadays but it was all innocent and above board - but who knows what could have happened?
The pupils in the pub scenario can only occur because of the relaxation of licensing laws over the last decade - who knows what the head teacher may have got away with in a previous era? There will be those who say that it is a good thing to teach our kids to treat alcohol with respect but all that seems to happen is that these kids will be itching to get in the pub on a weekend and then we find the city centres around the country are littered with the inebriated bodies of young people who HAVEN'T learnt the lessons of alcohol abuse. And by the time they are in their mid-20's, they are clogging up the NHS clinics with liver problems!
Went off at a tangent there a little but my point is that we seem to be too keen to treat our kids as adults much too soon, before they have fully enjoyed their childhood. It seems that the desire to treat children as adults in order to gain their respect is getting out of hand in modern times. Why don't we, as a society, treat children as children and recognise that there should be an age limit for what we should all see as privileges granted for acceptable behaviour and punishment for unaceptable behaviour?
The problem is that it is not just a case of fixing one problem in society in one go - so many aspects in the world we live in are inter-connected and so require such a complete overhaul that it is just not possible to carry it out. So many things have to be fixed, it would take more than one generation to do the job and so all we are left with is the "Broken Britain" which, it seems, can not be fixed.
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I think if people believe it's completely wrong to physically punish children or teenagers...then at least they should come up with some sort of 'punishment' to replace it....... I watch these TV crime shows where teenagers in gangs are swearing and behaving so badly towards the Police and yet the Police do absolutely nothing about it... probably because it's not worth all the paperwork or something.....Yet what kind of message does that send out?? Even when the teenagers steal cars or are violent they are lucky if they ever get anything worse than going to court and getting a caution for it. Even a few weeks in prison can hardly be called 'punishment' these days.
The teenagers that Mark is talking about, knew very well they could behave as violently as they wanted with little chance of being punished for it in any way that would bother them. Mark even seems to think it's his own fault for entering their 'territory'. I think that is bizarre.
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The England I grew up in the 50s and 60s was a society that tolerated casual violence in a way that would shock most of today's children. As a schoolboy I was caned three times, for things I probably shouldn't have done, but violence from teachers took place on a daily basis. Violence between adults and between teenagers was also common and often went unreported. Street fights on weekends often went unreported - it was seen as in no one's interest to criminalise youths who were seen as going through rites of passage - and most other violence was simply never recorded. We fought as children, were bullied and bullied others. Domestic violence was seen as normal - woman were often described in ways that implied they deserved what they got.
I suspect that the violence we see now in a few communities has always gone on, although the use of weapons does seem to have increased.
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Youths hang around with other youths and their immature views get reinforced. They no longer go to work or scialise with a broad mix of ages. Scouts and other such organisations have been neutered by successive govts so now we pay for outreach workers, counsellors and social inclusion ofiicers, but this doesn't help the kids learn how to behave.
The nanny state knew best, families and communities have been destroyed and yet we still blame the kids, while the social engineers come out with even fancier theories and rake in even more from the public purse.
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As a home educator this quote really stood out:
"Compared to other cultures British kids are less integrated into the adult world and spend more time with their peers. Some children are bound to be left in the cold"."
The fact that my child does NOT spend the majority of her time with children the same age is something that most people view as odd. How will she learn social skills? I'm asked. Most people are so conditioned by the school model that what was once the norm, growing up as an integrated member of society, is now viewed as suspect.
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I think the answer lies in the article - children only know how to relate to their peers and most of this is down to enormous secondary schools where they only ever mix in their own year groups.
Even our local church runs its youth groups based on the year children are in at school.
Grandparents/parents are working longer so there isn't as much family time spent together and don't even get me started on split families.
We need to stop running around like headless chickens trying to earn enough money for the latest gadget which is usually out of date as soon as you've got it and actually give children and others what humanity needs most - time. Time to listen, to chat, to give a hug, to make everyone feel special. It costs nothing - makes the world of difference.
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Well this government, with the aid and backing of the EU has systematicly reduced this country to a level of war in some palces. The war is between the generations and is the ideal way forward to a 1984 society where truth is lies and black is white.
The media continue the mis information that all men are paediphiles and rapists, thus driving a wedge between children, Women and men. the attitude is now that any man seen leading a child that is distressed is a paediphile and this leads to men now ignoring distressed children.
The suituation will not improve until the stygma that has been thrown as a blanket over men, in particualr, is removed and society is able to operate equally to all.
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As a teenager, and a blogger myself; I'm so glad to finally begin to see posts and articles such as this which highlight an issue which is often just left at "well, the children are out of our control".
The truth being, as you have rightly highlighted is that if the children of today are wrong, they must have been wronged in the first place. The problem doesn't lie with us, the bad seeds, but with the parents before us; they were the ones who have shaped the society I, and my peers live in, they are the ones who have taught us our morals, right and wrong, and have shaped our behaviour.
It seems to me, that the problem goes further than this, and that actually, because young people have no voice, no way to become politically involved, or even use mainstream media to put their side across, we're seen as a an escape goat. Load all of societies' problems on to us why don't you, after all, we can't can't complain?
What needs to change here in the UK, is these imposed fears that taught to us on so many different levels. We fear age, we fear people, we even fear seeing a bag on a bus in case we're going to be blown up by it. Our society is encased in this envelope of growing fear and mistrust; and it's extremely wrong. Just go to a Primary School, and you'll see what children are being taught about men and women. Men as it seems are not to be trusted, whereas women are a lot safer - what is this doing to children?
We need to evaluate as a whole what exactly it is we want in society; the way things are going I fear, and I almost know that one day a type of segregation, or system of discrimination will come about, because society will be so greatly divided that we couldn't unite, and thus our strength as the majority will vanish.
Once again, thank you for highlighting and making clear some important points.
Samantha.
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why does everyone comment about this topic as if its a brand new problem? Can we really believe that todays generation of young prople are any worse than the previous ones? The problem is that too many grown ups forget that kids in the past were just as bad and remember the harmless scraps they had with rose tinted glasses. The difference now is that 24hr journalism reports every gory detail of incidents which may have been treated much differently decades ago and of course I suppose it helped that in the past we sent our young men off to express animalistic violence on other young men in the name of war, which presumably is ok?
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"Inadvertently". The one word in your blog, Mark, that gives the lie to your whole anecote. You "inadvertently" went somewhere - with a film crew. Now, I'm sure this happens to you a lot, but you're making an enormous and somewhat self-centred logic error if you believe that what happened to you was random violence by feral teenagers crazed by bereavement.
As far as they were concerned you were an ambulance-chaser - yet another hack making a living off their misfortune. Sadly, the way your profession blatantly treats the old, the young, the domestic and the foreign as "raw material" no longer comes as a surprise to people: naturally, they seek to avoid such a situation, for fear of being misrepresented: and here you are, misrepresenting them.
I've lived, worked, and done club security work in pretty much all the areas of London widely reported as 'violent' by the media. I've done that kind of work with, and without, film crews around, and the fact is that the people out of touch with society are the media frontliners. They imagine that the mug punters around them are too stupid, too un-streetwise, to comprehend the impact of a film crew on their lives and their behaviour. Of course they're not! It takes a couple of minutes of pleasant conversation with anyone - and I do mean, anyone, from bouncy Khat-chewing migrant workers to dog-on-a-string Goths - to make sure that nobody is unhappy with what's going on. Only the media think that poking a bloody great camera up someone's nose is "polite social behaviour".
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Much has been said about cause and effect, and with good reason. I am sure it is true that if given proper upbringing (cue debate on what that means, though we all think we know) fewer of our offspring would be thuggish. However, at the time and place of the assault itself, it happened for only one reason, and that is because the perpetrators felt confident they could and would get away with it. No one owns any street, nor should they be allowed to labour under that delusion. We've always had bad areas and bad people, let's face it, and perhaps we used to simply put them in uniforms and send them to the four corners. What we haven't had is the overt spread of their malaise into wider society, nor the reticence of the good to stand up to the bad. Did Mr Easton report the crime, and what was the follow up. I think these pieces of information may be instructive.
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I suspect that you could probably plunder the writings of the ancient Greeks or Roman social observers, to find similar complaints about the irresponsibility of youth. The truth is that there has always been a "feral" minority element in any generation, whilst the huge majority are reasonable, cheerful young people, who occasionally test the boundaries/limits of society by getting into ridiculous situations. We often need to learn by our own mistakes and the majority of young people fit into the "making mistakes" category, whether it be having too much to drink in public, fighting with their peers (a primeval instinct to establish pecking order) or experimenting with mood altering substances. Most will grow through this phase and become wiser because of their experience. Don't get me wrong, I believe that they should have to deal with the consequences of those mistakes, as that's the true learning experience. But demonising a generation helps nobody. In addition, the majority of teens are often invisible - I have the joy of knowing many wonderful ones from online. They use the internet to communicate, they have sophisticated understanding of the technology, they have a highly developed sense of fun and they learn at a ferocious rate. They're also happy to debate ethics, current affairs, politics and things that concern them directly, like the education system. We don't have enough media coverage of this positive sector of the next generation. Check out the social networking sites and see how much love and affection is expressed on those. The older generation has a lot to learn from these people about the way that society will turn - in many ways, they are moving towards a more egalitarian less ignorant and bigoted society with or without us. I'm not saying that they're little angels, far from it. They're human, same as every other generation, no less intelligent than any previous generation, just lacking as much life experience as some of us, that vital stuff for learning.
Talking of life experiences, I also feel that they are restricted in someways to the virtual world, rather than exploring the world in a more physical way as their parents and grandparents managed. Their explorations are more through television and internet. Ours was climbing trees and riding bicycles and playing mass scuffle games like Bulldog and piggy-back fights. I can't see that either course is "better" just different. And that's how we need to encourage them - they're the ones poised for the future, they'll assume responsibility when they need to - they shouldn't have it thrust upon them when we are self-centred enough to demand it.
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Your blog reveals you as a far too tolerant person, perhaps typical of the left-leaning BBC?
The long and short of it is that these "young people" are out of control and while we continue to hand them benefits and a second-rate education system they will remain so.
It's not fashionable to call for national service or a return to proper values in education - but that's what it will take to check today's feral youth.
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"The attack happened last March at the scene of a fatal teenage stabbing in North London. I had gone there to illustrate a television report on young people."
You went to film some feral youths for a story and by the sounds of it you didn't ask permission before you started filming.
"One of the "crew" had died from a blade less than 24 hours before."
One of their friends was murdered and you had so little respect for them you were going to use their personal grief for you own financial gain.
You weren't attacked for being an outsider, you were attacked for being a deeply callous person who has no respect for others.
These kids were clearly learning from your example.
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Why are most of you ignoring the whole point of this article.
you are using it as an excuse to continue complaining about all youths when it was making the point that it is a minority of them acting in this way?
i am 23 i may no longer a youth but only a few years ago i was. i never stole a, caused damage or hurt anyone but still i felt like a criminal when i walked down the road. feeling like that made me angry and made me wish i had done something bad to deserve it.
we live with a justice system saying you are innocent untill proven guilty why do we not live in the community with the same principles?
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if you have lost your children its because they did not receive proper training initially. look at yourselves, because children, most of the time, mirror the parents. this seems to be the result of self-esteem boosting liberalistic society re-engineering gone amok.
"the acorn does not fall far from the tree"
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the sad thing about this whole bit is that it will take generations to work this out. these kids will grow up to produce (note I did not say "raise") children who will be even more offensive, more than likely.
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I am very sure that they wouldn't have even thought about kicking me.
Approaching 40 though I may be I look like kicking me maybe the very last think you ever actually do and will at the very least result in you getting an almighty smack back.
These children have learnt that they can do what ever they want and nothing that is doled out as 'punishment' holds any fears for them at all.
What they and nearly all adolescent males need is a healthy dose of fear-of-retribution.
I speak from experience of having been a wayward adolescent male, unless you can say the same, your opinion hardly matters does it?
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The problem with our feral kids can be summed up by 'too many rights - too few responsibilities' - a real problem with our top-down controlled welfare state system.
The article in 'Time' was correct - British kids spend too much unsupervised time with each other and not enough time with adults.
Their parents don't know (and don't care)where their kids are, the kids have no discipline and no role models - I think a lot of Brits have kids and then find out they can't look after them.
The fragmentation of our culture by unrestricted immigration has not helped either - our society is split into far too many 'special' groups who all want their own laws and feel it is their right not to integrate, and to retain their culture at our expense.
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Our young, and not so young, people are what they have been allowed to become. Our society has placed wealth, fame and personal freedom (selfishness) ahead of community, wisdom, family and responsibility for 40+ years. Parents have been too indoctrinated in the "must have" culture to understand, or value, the vital role they have in nurturing their children. The television doesn't require a response, a dialogue. Its second hand living; a resource, not a parent substitute. Many parents need to grow up and act like adults. Be prepared to be unpopular sometimes, but be respected and that, is love. Children turn to gangs because they haven't received what they needed at home.
We pay people to waste their lives away living on benefits and contributing nothing, with no routine, no reason to get upi in the morning. No wonder the kids have no respect. We're far too soft. We need some "tough love" and real justice from the top
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Our young, and not so young, people are what they have been allowed to become. Our society has placed wealth, fame and personal freedom (selfishness) ahead of community, wisdom, family and responsibility for 40+ years. Parents have been too indoctrinated in the "must have" culture to understand, or value, the vital role they have in nurturing their children. The television doesn't require a response, a dialogue. Its second hand living; a resource, not a parent substitute. Many parents need to grow up and act like adults. Be prepared to be unpopular sometimes, but be respected and that, is love. Children turn to gangs because they haven't received what they needed at home.
We pay people to waste their lives away living on benefits and contributing nothing, with no routine, no reason to get upi in the morning. No wonder the kids have no respect. We're far too soft. We need some "tough love" and real justice from the top.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
You cannot let under 12's 'raise' themselves without paying the consequences for it as they become older and more violent. You can't leave them to be raised in the streets and then be shocked and surprised that they turned out the way they have.
You have to reach out to them as their are babies and toddlers to teach them better than their parents are doing so right now.
The problem in slums has always been that they are too violent for those living in them, but that the violent ones become that way as a means of survival. These kids 'adopt' each other as too many have them don't have families who want them or can care for them or about them.
Those that want to step in and help have always been labled as "do-gooder liberals" but in fact the smart thing to do is to reach out to these babies and toddlers and make a better society that benefits all, those that live there and those who they affect later in life.
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Nothing in the article is particularly surprising, but I found the item intensely depressing. I do not think it is just young people who we should be concerned about, although they are the future, I just think there are certain people in our society, who seem to lack feelings of humanity. While mercifully the majority of us could not bring ourselves to inflict pain on someone else, too many seem to be able to do it with disturbing ease.
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"As the young man's swinging foot connected with my leg, I winced. He had hurt me. But not nearly as much as our society hurts some of its children."
Mark, that is one of the most truthful and poignant statements I have heard for some time.
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"The way we treat our children they will then treat their world..."
Where can one possibly begin to understand the childhood traumas driving these acts of violence?
I urge you all to read "PARENTING FOR A PEACEFUL WORLD" by Robin Grille. It should be read by the Head of the United Nations, each head of State, the World Health Organization, each policy maker, and any person driven to find out the answers. It should be a compulsory text for any one in the field of psychology, health, education, social change... etc etc. This IS the most important book you will find on parenting and all matters relating to world peace.
For more information take a look at Robin Grille's website: www.our-emotional-health.com
In PARENTING FOR A PEACEFUL WORLD Robin Grille looks at the history or parenting in Western civilisation and notes "...we should view much of human history as a holocaust against children." (p92)
He goes through the five modes of parenting. If you think the state of parenting is bad now, you just need to look back a few hundred years to realise it was atrocious then. It IS getting better. This book gave me HOPE FOR THE FUTURE!!!
He also looks to the future, the lessons learned and how the Rites of Passage all Homo Sapiens Sapiens children need to experience in order to develop emotionally.
My comments aren't doing justice to the importance of ROBIN GRILLE'S work... please please read!
Any violence is a distress signal... our society is in a position to ACCELERATE CHANGE!!!
.... with love and good parenting skills.
EDUCATION and LOVE are the answers!
Blessings to you and your families!!!
Just a reminder, check it out: www.our-emotional-health.com
You can contact the author to find out how to order a copy in the UK. I know it is being published there.
From Sydney with love...
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PS otchie1 - In response to your comment: "I speak from experience of having been a wayward adolescent male, unless you can say the same, your opinion hardly matters does it?"
I think I qualify:
THEN: Depression, suicidal thoughts, manic depression, marijuana abuse, abusive relationship... does that qualify enough?
NOW: Happy marriage, amazing daughter, satisfying relationships.
It's all about RELATIONSHIPS.
Just read PARENTING FOR A PEACEFUL WORLD...
BBC - please do BOOK REVIEW of it!
It is PRECISELY the type of book that needs to be a BEST SELLER WORLDWIDE!
Any help would go a long way!
Blessings to you...
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I understand the UK publisher of Parenting for a Peaceful World by Robin Grille is: The Children's Project.
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We spend far too much time worrying about childrens rights and not enough time worrying about childrens responsibilities.
We spend less and less time with them bringing in laws to make it easier for career people to have children that end up neglected and given money as a replacement for love and no boundries. We end up with the most poorly behaved children in the world and how do people deal with it?
We bring in more and more laws making it harder and harder to dicipline children. You can't thrash them, you can't even defend yourself if they attack you.
So the question is, why on earth would we not be scared of our children? Seems pretty logical to me.
You see a child breaking the law what do you do? Confront them? This would end in at best a mouthful of abuse, at worst being assaulted. If you defend yourself? Your life/career is over because the childs word is taken over yours.
The child can even accuse you of abusing them, if they do, you have no defence, once again your life is over.
And to cop it all off if a child makes a false allegation of abuse and is found to be lying or admits they are lying there is no punishment, under the law!
So why shouldn't we be frightened? What possible reason would we not be frightened?
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Here's the link to the publisher's website with info about Parenting for a Peaceful World, how to buy it and how they came to publish it: www.socialbaby.com
PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE...
PREVENTION = better parenting.
CURE = healing the heart.
Too may casualties and victims out there already...
Peace.
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I would like to know a couple of things...
How many times is the media going to write this story? Albeit by different authors and different organisations, and
When are people going to stop blaming the government for their inability to raise their own children?
Children are tempted/urged into some actions through peer pressure, a powerful force in the world of 'fitting in with your mates'. Parents should be doing the same. I have just turned 40. When I was a kid and other kids did wrong their parents were visited by other parents to explain to them what happenend and to get a response. This would help the undisciplined parents feel the weight of their inaction.
But the main way to solve the problem is to make sure parents are parents, not friends or doormats. People need to understand that you choose to have kids when you have done everything else you want to do in life. It is like this because if you are going to raise a child properly it requires ALL of your time, not the odd 10 minutes here and there.
I have a 19 month old daugther who can put on her own shoes, closes doors behind her, sits down to drink her milk and when asked not to climb on the table or climb the stairs alone, comes back in the room to play. It's not difficult, it's just time consuming but the time you spend is also the joy of parenting. If you haven't got the time, don't have the kids, wait until you are ready but please don't try and blame others for your own inadequacies.
Children are a picture of their parents so if you are punishing a child for an offence, punish the parents too as it is their responsibility, not the governments responsibility. Maybe this is a change in law that would help. We have to do something involving the parents because that is where the children learn (most of the basics are in place by 5 years old) and if the kids are not taught to have respect for others, it won't be there.
The other possible eventuality is that we absolve ourselves of all responsibility over our children and the government are forced to license children, including a test for parents. If they are not up to scratch, they can't have kids, but do we, the people, really want to create the police state we all fear so much? It seems we do as we are trying to pass off as much responsibility to government as possible.
The ills of the world are generated by the ignorant and the lazy, this is not an easy life, it is a tough life of work and reward so lose your excessive expectations (they don't pay off - see 'credit crunch') and get ready to earn what you want.
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#24 (amongst others)
The concept you describe here is called 'anomie' - a theory of Emile Durkheim.
Society formulates goals and a legal and moral framework in which these goals must be attained. This is what we call 'success' and it is the aim of most people to be successful. However, the vast majority of the population will never achieve the goals set by society (within the established legal and moral framework). People live their lives knowing that they will never 'succeed' - when this happens 'anomie' sets in. It is disenchantment, it is 'inequality', it is 'unfairness'.
Durkheim identified various categories that people fall into when this happens: In the 20th century, the goal in Western societies, was to become wealthy. For the vast majority of people this was not possible. Most individuals excepted this fact and just got on with life. They suspected that they would never be rich but went to work, put food on the table and hoped that the next generation would have it better. If they wanted a new car they would work and save for it. They would not go out a steal the car because society deemed this 'wrong'. They conformed and as such Durkheim categorised them as 'The Conformists'.
There were others who accepted the goals of society but rejected the legal and moral framework in which these goals were meant to be attained. Durkheim termed these people 'The Innovators'. A good example would be Al Capone - he fully accepted the Amercian dream, he just chose to pursue it using unconventional methods.
Another category rejected the goals aswell as the framework to achieve those goals. These are 'The Retreatists'. Examples of these could be new age travellers and other groups who try to form their own micro-societies.
Gangs can be thought of as falling in between these two categories. They accept the goal to be wealthy but reject the rules that society as set on the attainment of wealth. At the same time they have their own micro-society, with its own definition of success and its own rules.
Now more than ever we live in a society where anomie is pervasive. Now the goal is not only to be rich but also to be a 'celebrity' thus making the chance of 'success' increasingly unlikely.
Until we reassess what the goals of society should be, we will always have this problem. Most of us will conform and as such lead lives we perceive as being worthless but others will achieve the goals of society by any means necessary. They will lie, cheat and kill to be 'successful'.
This will not change in my lifetime. This way of thinking about success is far too ingrained and it will only get worse. As inequality of wealth increases so will 'anomie'. The only way to turn the tide is to bridge the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots', to decrease the inequality of wealth.
Either that or just start again, reset the clock to year zero. But someone has tried this before - his name was Pol Pot.
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I'm a teenager (don't be scared). I am sitting in my room, quietly, revising for tomorrow's Biology AS exam. I'm listening to music, but the volume's low and the lyrics aren't about stabbing someone. I go to a state school, but I don't hang about on street corners, smoking and drinking. In fact I try hard at school and I'm polite and courteous to teachers and my parents.
Yes, i agree, there are some horrible adolescents, aggressive, abusive and detestable, but it's worth remembering that we aren't all bad. In fact I would say of all the adolescents I know around 70% are polite, kind and generous. By all means talk about the minority of bad adolescents, but remember the majority who are kind and polite. You may say you never see them, but it's because they are in their bedrooms, revising for the Biology exam tomorrow.
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Imagine how you - a child - would you feel if you were:
- conceived with love
- nurtured during your stay in the womb
- welcomed into the world with open arms
- swept up into your mamas arms and witnessed her world of everyday activities
- surrounded by a loving community and that community helped your mama so your mama felt supported
- trusted
A lot of children feel this way... many more than 50 years ago... and in 50 years time this feeling will be normal for most.
Parents are doing a good job.
I'd love to hear more stories about how things have changes and how much better things are going to get.
I don't turn on the news anymore because all the media chooses to report on are acts of violence. Can't you choose to report on acts of love. Your readers would feel happier and might actually want to read what the media has to say!
People are fixated on celebrities because they're the happy people the media talk about most. It's not about fast cars and big mansions, it's about a happy beautiful face. Beauty - I mean - resonates from the soul. They're successful because they've connected with that part of themselves and want to share it with the world through their art.
And I reckon the gangs are about family too... they just want a mama and papa and the godfather there to protect them.
Fair dinkum mate!
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I am a 16 year old...and me personally hang around with "hoodies, chavs, thugs, anti socails" whatever you want to call them. There are some huge differences between people who have been brought up in good circumstances and those who haven't.
Ive done things i regret, and so have I. Its all good and well just saying how voilent people are and saying they should be punished...but surely look at the reasons?
My friend has been in a young offenders, but to be honested im not suprised...his mum will give him money just to get out of the house, and his dad used to beat him. He would spend that money on drink and drugs...why?
Just to feel good...did his mum make him feel good? And his dad...i really dont think so.
So next time you see a "thug", "hoodie" just think why there drinking, or why there in a gang...because maybe thats the only way there going to feel happy or feel part of a family.
Maybe they are defensive because they are looked down on?
Attuides in both young people AND adults need to change...not just the young people.
Because at the end of the day...a child learns what they sees...
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I see you can buy Parenting for a Peaceful World (by Robin Grille) from www.amazon.co.uk and that you can get it delivered for free in the UK.
It was published in the UK a few months ago. It was first published in Australia 3 years ago.
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I forgot to add an important point re how you - a child - would feel if:
- you (including your physical and emotional needs) were always responded to with love and empathy.
In Australia there is an organisation called the 'Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Inc' -and it's free of red tape. They have 2 position papers which should be worked in to all policies relating to children and parenting. They are short and simple to read, look under Policies and Submissions - www.aaimhi.org
Reading it will validate how you as a child have a right to feel and be responded to.
If our cries are ignored from the day we are born there's no wonder we feel like our voices doesn't count. That it's just not worth speaking up. That we need to sever our relationships in order to be heard. That to truly find some peace we need to separate ourselves from the cause of our pain... the parents who won't love us as we are... but who separated themselves from us first. Maybe because they thought that to help us be independent we need to be pushed away... but that's not how it works.
This morning I went for a walk with my daughter and on the way home we met this very cute, friendly dog and his owner. The owner told me that her dog is a Papillon - French breed. They're a small, social and friendly dog bred for Parisian apartment living. Louis XV (I think?) had 8 of them and carried them around on his arms. I said to the lady 'funny that as I bet he didn't do the same with his kids!'. No, of course not. That was a time when most babies in Europe -irrespective of socioeconomic background - were sent away from their mothers to wet nurse for up to 3 years. No contact, nothing but separation. And in some cases the wet nurse in order to make ends meet took on too many babies and so in order to manage them she'd wrap them up attached to a board and hooked up to the wall. She didn't even give them the comfort of her unfamiliar breast.
So I want to know... how come people cared so much for their pets and abandoned their children? Who - then - has the right to criticise us for 'crying' out for help?
Ask The Jigsaw Man, Paul Britton, how it feels to pick up the shattered pieces. Poor man. Poor children.
When is this violence towards children going to end? And when are we going to read the headline article in the BBC that hails "The Year We Found Our Hearts and Listened to Our Kids"?
Godspeed.
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Check out aTLC's site:
www.atlc.org
= Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Kids
(also free of red tape)
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Dear Moderator - Could you please forward this note to someone who can forward it on to Mr Paul Britton, The Jigsaw Man. I would like to send him an email to him directly but he doesn?t appear to have a website. It?s a message of HOPE and I sincerely feel he would appreciate it. It would help me heal my heart too.
Thank you.
TS
?Dear Mr Britton
As I don?t have your email address I am taking the opportunity to write in this blog that I have been blessed to express my thoughts on over the past few days.
I was profoundly shocked and affected by your book ?The Jigsaw Man? which I read in 1999/2000. But it inspired me. It educated me. And it showed me the importance of psychological profiling and good systems in order to solve crime. I grieved when I read your book and I grieved when I realised how profoundly inadequate our systems were in my own home town and the dark capacity of the human being.
It was May 2001. I had been walking through the Botanic Gardens one morning when I noticed a man expose himself. I pretended not to see him and kept walking. A hundred metres down the track, and out of his line of sight, I met up with the park rangers. I told them where the man was and asked them to call the police. I asked the police to organise some counselling for him as he was crying out for help. I was still a ?child? and ignorant of police process. ?No, young lady, that?s not how it works, you have to press charges.? So I did, to help him and also because I didn?t know what he was capable of so to make sure he didn?t go unnoticed. At the police station it took the better part of a few hours to make the simple statement. The police man was gentle with me and I with him as he struggled to type the statement in the old computer system that didn?t allow to insert or go up rows. He could only erase everything he?d typed if I needed to change part of my statement. Not proper word processing but black and green monitor... whatever that system was called, I can?t remember. His boss came in a few times and screamed at him. ?We could have rapists on the streets and you?re wasting your time on this harmless flasher?. But the kind police man told me not to worry. He realised how important this was for me. After I read your book I could not ignore my duty to respond to this cry for help and make sure that his profile was taken. In my heart, all I wanted was for the man to get some counselling but that wasn?t for me to decide. I had to rely on the system.
The irony was I desperately needed counselling myself.
My life was falling to pieces. I didn?t have any energy this day to make a report but I felt I had to and so I did. I hadn?t slept for days, my life was falling to pieces, I had quit smoking marijuana cold turkey (after smoking heavily every night) and the chemicals in my brain were shooting neurotransmitters faster than I could think and keeping me awake night after night.
My emotional wounds were bleeding.
?The Jigsaw Man? changed the way I saw my world. I was scared of what I saw. The dark side of man was all around me. And it felt so much worse as my own darkness grew.
September 11. September 13 - I made a good choice. Life was too short to waste any more. My family supported me and picked me up. I got through the roughest time of my life and I started to heal myself, to heal my heart, to heal my emotional wounds.
That was then.
Many times since, I?ve tried to pass on ?The Jigsaw Man? to someone who could make use of it but somehow it followed me wherever I went. I have it here, right next to the keyboard as I type this letter, as I?ve typed these blogs, sitting right next to ?Parenting for a Peaceful World?.
I recall... you couldn?t not do your work as you were helping people but you were tormented every moment of your life by what you knew and saw. My skin has shivered for you many times since.
As man is capable of such dark acts he is also capable of immense love. A BABY/CHILD WHO IS RESPONDED TO WITH LOVE AND EMPATHY IS INCAPABLE OF CRIME.
Does it not stand to reason that the highest priority every government should make is to protect and provide GOOD parenting education for parents?
As you know the SYSTEM must be put in place and at the moment it is flawed.
Harmful parenting advice needs to be abolished.
These are simple equations.
I don?t want to beat about the bush.
This is a puzzle you deserve to play with.
I hope you find it as enjoyable as I have.
Thank you and best wishes.
An Australian mother.?
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BigDave @ 91 wrote
"So next time you see a "thug", "hoodie" just think why there drinking, or why there in a gang...because maybe thats the only way there going to feel happy or feel part of a family.
Maybe they are defensive because they are looked down on?
Attuides in both young people AND adults need to change...not just the young people.
Because at the end of the day...a child learns what they sees..."
This is right, but it is a thorny issue.
A section of our youth as been failed by society - poor education, lack of discipline, weak parenting and much else, but the rest of society has a right to be protected from the rogue elements.
It is no use however just locking them up and throwing away the key. Some sort of exmple must be set by society, and the media in the portrayal of youth.
Ponder this - do more youths now carry knives because they are violent, or because they are convinced that everyone else has one?
I wish I had answers but I don't. However, I'm pleased to see Mark's posting giving a sympathetic ear to young people whose lives are often simply dreadful.
It is now too late to resolve the problems of today ... but more thought must be given to the future - not with political "sound bites" but genuine long term planning for education and formation of social values.
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I am a single mother of a 17 year old son,whose father was an alcholic and left the family home because he chose drink over fatherhood. Despite my son being regarded as another statistic of Blairs/Browns Britain, he acheived good grades at GCSE and is commencing college in September to study art and music, he does not wear a hoodie, he is not part of a 'cru', he has not been on probation, got an asbo or any of the other trophies associated with single parent families, I am very proud of him
and I dont think he is an exception there are many more kids just like him but their story does not sell newspapers like the sensational stories we have come to associate with 'Benefit Britain'.
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