to ask you to talk me through the mentality of a vandal

[PoppyPopcorn]

Because I'm stumped.

We live in a quiet, suburban area. Fairly affluent, lots going on for teens if they wish to join in. Recently we have had a spate of totally mindless vandalism on Friday and Saturday nights. Group of kids aged around 16 doing things like setting fire to the large commercial waste bins at the school, pulling playground equipment out of the playground and chucking it around, emptying residents' bins over the road, and last night someone not far away had their car windscreen smashed.

I just don't understand why any teenager puts "smashing car windscreens" at the top of their to do list for a Saturday night, especially in the rain. It's not something I did, or my friends did, and my 15 year old son wouldn't do. (He's not interested in aimlessly roaming the streets anyway). it's not about impressing girls as the group seen last night was exclusively male. There isn't a gang culture. They aren't graffiti-ing in a "I was here" manner.

It is just totally pointless and I don't get it. Anyone going to own up to doing this sort of thing in their youth and explain what was going on?

Oh, and if you live in suburban Glasgow and have sons aged 16 to 18, do you know where your little darlings are when they go out with friends at the weekend???

[DJBaggySmallpox]

Theres usually one kid driving it and a bunch trying to impress that kid ime.
I didnt do it but was on the receiving end of it, the crunch came when he threw a lit firework for my dog to retrieve. He thought I'd be a pushover after he bullied my brother for a year. I had to hurt him hard to make him stop.

[Tabsicle]

I remember my boyfriend doing it in his teens. It was a weird group thing. He said once "when we get drunk, we break things". No more justification than that. That was suburban Glasgow too. I guess to show no one was the boss of them and they could transgress if they wanted.

V v v obnoxious of course. Weirdly, they are all super respectable now and I bet would go apeshit if they thought their kids were doing anything like it. Teenage boys are not human.

[PoppyPopcorn]

Some teenage boys are human though and don't spend their Saturdays setting bins on fire.