UK teenagers are awful

All teenagers, of any country, can be awful. Thankfully, not all are. 🤷‍♀️

That’s because you live in a large and presumably very affluent village in the south east.

Move to a crap town in the south west or the midlands then you’ll understand.

I can’t get over how many affluent Home Counties types believe the rest of the country is as lovely and naice as their bubble and anyone who says it isn’t it exaggerating.

This ! I live in a large village in the South East, I can get a GP appt, have a NHS dentist, local schools are good, good public transport. I don’t get the UK bashing on this site. Local hospital abit meh, but they are improving it and I’ve heard trying to improve the waiting time. My friend was treated for cancer recently, and everything was done quickly and compassionately (NHS that we all bash)
we drove out early evening last night and saw some teens walking about, looking normal, having a laugh and actually commented on how nice it was to see youngsters enjoying themselves. They were heading to the local park (not vandalised) which is well looked after.

Our roads are a bit crap locally I’ll admit, but yes, I am pretty happy and content.

My local playground was vandalised by a group of 20 somethings, who also set a bench on fire.

It is just two villages though. The playgrounds near me are never trashed. Nor is the one in the village where I grew up. That’s a very fancy one. It received a huge grant fund not that long ago. A group of mums were complaining about it being old fashioned and the council had no money. They did a little fundraising. My father did all the legal work for them free of charge (complicated stuff as the land was in trust) and secured a grant for them. The vocal mothers never even wrote him a card or bought him a bottle of wine. The kids who use it are lovely. The mothers are rude and entitled.

I agree. I lived in Turkey for some years and this just doesn't happen - people would be appalled.

Shops are even able to leave some of their stock outside overnight and no-one nicks it. There is never any rioting that descends into looting and trashing stuff either.

There is a particular 'me first' and 'I'm alright Jack' culture here in Britain and a bitter undertone that I only noticed when I returned - when you live here all your life you have no other experience to compare so you think it's the same worldwide.

Because we are lawless Britain, not enough consequences for people's actions and not enough police

I hate it when people say there is nothing for them to do. How about taking up a hobby? Play sports at rhe weekend? I have two teenagers and a 21 year old and it wouldn't occur to them to trash the local park, however bored they are.
However I have always let their fringe come and go freely so they as do some of their friends parents so they have a place to hang out socially.

It's down to poor parenting

OP, teenagers can work from 13. Where I live they work in cafes.

https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2024/0207/1431003-mapped-the-fires-linked-to-accommodation-for-migrants/

Anyway, I'm in rural South West England and teens here do not vandalise or intimidate others. I'm willing to believe there are problem areas, but that doesn't mean UK teens are awful and we're deluded and unable to disagree. We are sharing our experience.

Why is the focus of these threads kids or 'society'? It's primarily mothers who raise them, so be bold and make a 'British mothers are awful' thread and let's see how that goes.

There is one playground in our area that gets trashed but it is by adult drug addicts. No teenager would go near it because it stinks of piss.

Glasgow isn't all like that. 🫣

Really? All German teenagers are polite and mature?

You understand that "both villages" isn't a big enough example to extrapolate?
Germany has significant social problems with young people, as do most countries.

Everyone is not born the same!
How naive to think so.

Not All Teenagers Are Like That

YABVU to just say UK teens are awful based on very little actual knowledge.

Teens aren't a homogeneous group. Some UK teens are awful, some aren't. Same for every other country.

My teen is lovely.

Football, football, football.
Growing up the lads (this was the late 60s/70s) all played in the local football club.

These posts are so unhelpful. A good friend of mine just moved back to the UK from Aus after 14 years for family reasons and a good job opportunity. She was in tears daily before coming over, she’s an avid mn user and was terrified by how awful the UK but especially England where she moved back to has become.

4 months later and she loves it. If you read MN it sounds like the worst place in the world but she said the negative changes are similar to what’s happened in Aus over her time there anyway (cost of living, housing crisis etc). Threads every day about how shit: teenagers/houses/days out/GPS delete as appropriate are so tiresome. Our local GP is great. Our local parks never get trashed. I don’t live in a fancy area so move here I guess? Vote with your feet and leave your area or the UK if you hate everything about it!

I don't recognise this at all. I live opposite a playground in fairly central London where teenagers hang out at night. They don't graffiti, or break things. I often pass them after a night out and never feel intimidated.

They sit on the play equipment and chat. They hangout there likely because they live in flats and don't have a lot of private space to hangout together indoors. They don't drink but probably do some drugs at times, but this doesn't lead to them being loud or trashing the place so doesn't bother me.

In contrast we do have a problem with drug users nearby who are openly using crack on the street. They also are often drunk and can be aggressive. None of them look under the age of 30. I can't remember the last time a police officer came past.

So just a reminder that anti social behaviour isn't exclusive to teenagers. We do have a number of complex societal issues in this country, but I don't think we can just blame teenagers

I do think it’s a cultural phenomenon too. The English are not rule followers and do not like to be told what to do. Which is to be admired I think but other countries conform to social etiquette and a sense of accepted behaviour and it seems to work.

We seem to struggle with a lot of anti social behaviour. Teachers see the worst of it and these children are watching their parents and mirroring disrespect to teachers and anyone else in authority.

That's one of the reasons I live a city. I remember from my own schooldays that the rural teenagers had nothing to do and were dependent on their parents for lifts everywhere so ended up getting drunk in fields, and taking drugs, and committing minor crimes and having sex just for something to do. My local parks are all in a pretty good state.

Where there aren't facilities for teenagers, either through isolation, lack of provision in general, or in areas where teens can't afford what's on offer or can't get there safely, that's when teenagers tend to become more antisocial.

There is a lot of lazy Parenting in the UK but anyone who points that out gets shot down.

We also work long hours here compared to Europe and our children simply cannot be prioritised as they are elsewhere in the world.

There is also very little mental health support for teens here and the weather is shit a lot of the time so they’re limited in their outdoor pursuits.

The worst was France tbh (I lived in the middle of Paris and there were a lot of badly behaved kids there) and the best was Scotland

Can I ask where in Scotland? Guessing not greater Glasgow with its ned/young team culture.