UK teenagers are awful

German teenagers, especially ones in bigger cities, seem to enjoy decorating most available surfaces with grafitti.

Out of interest, what's the teen culture there instead? This summer there's been a lot of "children are too controlled" messaging (partly Kirty Alsopp inspired, appreciate that's a different issue and her teen isn't trashing anything), but what do teens do in Australia? I'd assume they spend a lot of time outside.

Did op go to every city in Germany?

Also it’s not all idyllic btw. Last time I was in Berlin there was a manhunt on for a person intentionally contaminating playground sandpits with shards of glass. Don’t think it was teenagers though.

Last time I looked not in the UK then.

I have lived in both places and things are notable. These are a few of my reflections . German teens are given more practical responsibility and trust from a younger age. Walking to school alone, taking responsibility at school , and so on. A few funny things that struck me in a German school... the kids have cleaning spray under the desks and at the end of lessons they cleaned the classrooms perfectly before moving to a new room. Lovely. Also sex education.The kids were much younger and the lessons were more thorough , with both sexes taught together about everything, in depth. No separating the girls off for the period talk.
Homework! They have so much that it doesn’t allow a great deal of time for pissing around after school, there are real consequences for children that don’t comply.
Uniform is rare in German schools, and they are less like prisons.
German teens have more access to wholesome leisure facilities, good swimming pools, excellent cycle lanes, sport centres, tables tennis etc. There’s less need to hang around on street corners and playgrounds if there are age appropriate activities available.
Also some German cities have curfews for teens. Each year of age has a different curfew , and if children are in the streets alone after the curfew time parents can be fined.
Then there’s the possibility of older teens enjoying a beer in a bar legally at 16. Here we’d rather they drink vodka in parks 🤷‍♀️
In a nutshell, Germany has retained a lot of the facilities for healthy teenagers that have been eradicated in the Uk.
We give our teens less and less autonomy and wonder why they’re off the rails . Just look at the recent uproar about the interrailing 15year old. Crazy.

I agree op. My 6 year old recently fell in some glass at our local park and it was just awful (he had to go to hospital). It fills me with rage that the parks get trashed in this way!

Reading this thread, I'm starting to think Sunak's National Service idea wasn't so bad after all 😂

There is one country in Europe that has had rioting and looting by rightwing hooligans this summer and it wasn't Germany

Maybe, due to cuts to youth services, they are just bored and frustrated

The cuts to youth services since 2010 have been awful.

Where in Spain and Greece did you live?

The irony ...

I think it is very dependent on where you live, but also that you seem to have been very unlucky.

The teens here are bloody lovely! Thinking locally, it’s sort of a mixture of expanded villages all merged together, old mining villages and mill towns. Two are a bit upmarket, 4 are quite “working class”.

No major problem with the teens in any of them. I’m sure a few are objectionable, the same as any other demographic, but we certainly don’t have gangs roaming the streets and vandalising things. You are more likely to get a smile and a “good morning” than have to cross the street to get away.

Because I disagree with you I’m lying? How arrogant.

Neither does the play park at the back of me in the really quite deprived area of my Northwest town.

No embarrassment from me cos you're talking BS 😂 no way could you have and still have the opinion you do 🤣

Embarrassed yourself there!

In my experience of working in parks, drunken vandalism is not restricted to teenagers. Round here it's mostly men, mostly in their 20-40s, mostly a combo drug & alcohol addiction, homelessness, and probably a long list of ACEs. Don't blame teens unless you see them do it.

Germany isn't all that nice either, see: AfD. It's not all Laptops und Lederhosen und Spielplätze.

@Blueybanditbingochilli yes but going by what the OP has said she is comparing 2 villages in England vs a small area of Bavaria.
I live in South London (oh the horror 😱). Our playparks don't get smashed up by "teens" (or even adults).

Course you did 😂😂😂

Teenagers and villages aren't really a good mix. Nothing for them to do. Not excusing the behaviour at all but I'm in SE London and we don't have this problem, presumably because there is more for them to do.

I grew up in a very small village. We drank MD 20/20 and smoked in the park but didn't trash anything.

I'm a Brit living in Germany and get what you're saying 100%. The majority of teenagers here are very different, more mature, don't yell things at you in the street or intimidate people. I don't feel scared walking past a group of teens here.