Wednesday, November 01, 2006

BBC: British Youth is very worrying

Drinking, violent and sexual active ... British youth according to a survey. Our youngsters are agressive, rude and disrespectful compared to other European countries. Now compare that to the high proportions of teenagers who only hang out with their mates and don't eat with their parents. It also shows that children with married parents do better than single parents or even those with co-habiting parents.

And all this comes from a centre-left think tank!

UPDATE: BBC reporter said that next week's report on what to do about this won't suggest the normal idea of setting up a youth club! It will suggest that far from spending more time away from home, these kids need to be with their parents or other adults.

Interesting.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is basically what parents and teachers know already.

Project this impulsiveness on 10 years into the future with ASB, Narcisssistic behaviour, Violent Crime and Prisons, Freud, Personal Responsiblity, Alcohol and Drugs, Eating Disorders, Sex Binging/Crimes, Obesity and Mental Health issues(eg Depression etc)

Answer: We have a generational timebomb waiting to mature.

Robert Jackman said...

A quote on teenagers for you -
'What has happened to our young people? They disrespect their elders; they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying? What is to become of them?’
Which wise thinker said it? Read the post below the Lily Allen post on my blog to find out.
Comment please :)

Anonymous said...

Dont suppose you saw The Times Headline on ASBOs?

"Yobs want an ASBO as a badge of honour"

...well, quite.

Anonymous said...

hello! Mr Little! i am Tessy Joseph from the US Of A!.. I dont know if u still remember me or not!.. but I think its quite true, some British youth are worrying... :)
HOPE you are ok!

Anonymous said...

I wonder why parents have children sometimes, they spend so little time with them.

Anonymous said...

1) It's a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted - I just don't see what anybody can do to reverse this trend.

2) Those parents who want to spend time with their children will usually find time to do it. I overheard one parent once remark to another that he didn't like to eat with his children because he couldn't bear their table manners. Absolutely nothing about getting in there and correcting them himself.

3) Once people get to uni they generally get it out of their system - some of the stuff that happens on campus would make the hardest nut pale (including the guy who got very drunk and decided to scale down a 4 storey building to prove he wouldn't break his neck).

Anonymous said...

I confess I blame many things on this (but with good reason) – yet more people who have been failed by the education system. Parent and child relationships are just a small part of a much wider picture; I would not deem them essential for an admirable personal development from youth. Nonetheless, they are an important chess piece in the struggle.

It might also be of interest to look at this story: http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1939333,00.html

Hugging actively discouraged in school? What kind of clinically conformist society is this? A recipe for disaster surely…

Cameron’s ‘tough love’ (sounds a little like ‘tough on crime…’ hey?) is yet another example of him pushing all the right buttons and refabricating amicable, voter-bait concepts that are as old as time. As much as it pains me to say it though, I’m glad he’s done so, and about time too. This is fundamentally the concept of rehabilitation, much different to the Tory’s traditional harsher stand on crime and punishment, which will should yield interesting results; if nothing else – angry grass-rooters.

For every day, the Tories get less and less like Tories.

Anonymous said...

I do have to say Cameron's Hugging Huddies is political diven. One of his few mistakes. Why reward undesirable behaviour of a few. Kids spend most of their life under the change of "parents in homes and neighbourhoods" or "teachers in schools". Education is always going to fail for pupils whose homelife is dyfunctional or in crisis. SEN can be provided for in schools now, but schools cannot become fundimentally parental substitutes. Hugging or home discipline are not part of teachers duties, and neither should it. Education is not failing youngers who don't wish to receive education! Most youngster do not fall into this category and take full advantage of education (see GSCE results) and enjoy making friends in the school environment.

Anonymous said...

Whoever said rehabilitation was the same as ‘rewarding’? It’s about returning people to the kind of citizens we’d want in an ideal society. It is a direct way of reforming people compared to alienating them, and hoping some how they find their own way back to an agreeable norm.

‘Education is not failing children who do not wish to receive education!’

Quite the contrary. Call me an idealist, but in my opinion one of the most important things education will teach children is the want to learn, for the reasons why it’s beneficial to them and others. If education won’t do that, then it’s being ruthlessly discriminative and shallow.

Also, it is very true that children do spend most of their lives ‘under the charge of parents in homes and neighbourhoods’, but surely that beckons the question – who taught the parents? Ah yes, that education system...

I’m not suggesting teachers need to become stand-in parents or have anything more than a good rapport with their pupils, but perhaps education needs to do more to build (as Cameron put it) ‘social conscience’, so then teachers wouldn’t have to. Then again, maybe that’s the same as that ‘Citizenship’ idea, the one that’s statistically failing to keep up with teaching expectations. A tad too little, too late?

No offence, but is:

‘Education is always going to fail for pupils whose homelife is dyfunctional or in crisis’

...hardly the attitude for a supposedly ‘modern compassionate society’?

Always seems a little perfidious to label groups 'beyond help' so readily. Ostracising them will get us no where.

Anonymous said...

Peter C. I'd rather state reality that idealism. Kids are inquisative from birth and learn naturally whether or not channeled, I'm sure Antony can vouch for this. Give them credit. Personally I think hard worked teachers do an excellent job without overtime on social agendas. Teachers are Education, the facilitators of it at the least, and put the long hours in and naturally go the extra mile with pupils who fine learning a block. Lets not ask more from them or education, especially for a minority of disruptive an pupils. More must be with the parents to take responsibility, put the social and functional emotional time in.

Anonymous said...

Indeed, children will learn naturally, as you say, but they will not always learn what is considered most beneficial for them and society, as they may well favour selfish, arrogant and ignorant learning, which is only to be expected from their innate survival instinct.

In my experience, I can agree that many teachers are overworked. Nonetheless, I still believe more needs to be done to teach social conscious in some form or other, in order to keep children (and parents-to- be) in the know about social issues (and spending time with their offspring).

Otherwise, I fear that ladling the responsibility straight to the parents now would be like asking a traffic warden to build a wall with a hammer. Hardly a recipe for success.

That doesn’t mean I’m shirking the idea of parental responsibility. Maybe adult education towards social conscience is worth investigating. Adults are far less malleable in education however...

Anonymous said...

Parents and extended family, possibly religious influence are the key to social consciousness. Parents who can't take 90% of the responsibility for their kids, should have them! Also their is a danger of social nannying again from they state, which I'm against per say.
Perhaps like supernanny, parents should parenting courses a bit like a driving test, on social shaping of their kids.