How and why are teens allowed to roam the roads freely for hours?

You can see from the teacher posts on here, that there is much more bad behaviour in general across the board.

I'd say parents know where their kids are more than ever. Most teens appear to want their parents to track their location so that they never experience the horror of their parents phoning or messaging them to ask where they are when they're with their mates.

I agree there is actually less of a lot of teenage 'bad behaviour' like public drinking these days. Doesn't mean there aren't some awful feral kids out there, but it's not like that's a new phenomenon.

Yep absolutely no violent young people in the 60s

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war

Very true, we were scared also.of letting our parents down etc.
It's all disappeared.
People might complain about us and our parents would back them up and tell us off.
Nowadays the parents will more than likely take the side of the child.

We had a horrible teenage shit next door to us years ago.
He turned up once with his dad.
His dad was just enabling his shitty behaviour.

When I was 15 I was having out in fields drinking white lightening. My 15 yr old ds goes out for a few hours with friends, gets a meal deal, plays football. If I wanted to I could track him on his phone.

My parents had no idea where I was for hours 😂

But there's another thread running right now where a few, not all, are basicalyl saying that actually, their child has exactly the same rights as an adult and they dont' see why their child should defer to an adult at any time. So.... [shrug] it's not surprising that some (and definitely not all, or even the majority) of children and teenages are complete wankers.

I'm not going to list my son's behaviours. I'm not sure that I would even know what all of them were as he never got caught.

But we're not talking shoplifting a bag of crisps or running through a wheat field.

What were they doing in the park though, they were looking for trouble?
Why do they have that mindset
It would never have occurred to.me or my friends as a teen to approach a dog walker, abuse them and kill them.
That's what we have to change, why instead of ignoring him or even having a chat with him and his dog, their minds wander to abuse and attack.

I don’t think they’re out and about anymore than when I was a teen in the 80’s.

The big difference is that back then if you were being a little sod an adult would have no fear of picking you up on it. That’s absolutely not the case today.

And when my son went off the rails:

1. We had tried to do that
2. Our kids were all teens
3. We worked and owned our home outright
4. If I'm in jail, who looks after my other kids? Let's put the good kids into the care system; that'll help.

A lot of people don’t actually understand that there’s no help. Police do nothing, SS do nothing and sometimes are actually disruptive (like telling parents they CAN’T lock their kid in the house or remove their phone permanently and they’ll be the ones in trouble) , services are understaffed, underfunded and overwhelmed, waiting lists are YEARS long and yes, if the young person won’t engage , that’s the end of it… if there even is an “it”.

The problem with OP's post is that it's so generic. In our area, we have this problem with anti-social teenagers. the ones who are skipping school, riding illegal e-bikes, out late at night in the town centre etc.

But we also have all the perfectly normal, well behaved teenagers who are just going about their lives, hanging out in groups, going to the park, getting mcdonalds or a kebab, taking the bus to play football or basketball etc etc etc.

If you've tried to seek help from various agencies, that is a different matter.

The problem is that there are plenty of parents who would be egging the kid on if he was deliberately intimidating teachers.

During my teens (80s) roaming all day was normal. It isn't roaming in itself that is the problem.

Are you joking? Are we supposed to keep them inside glued to devices rather than out getting exercise, fresh air and spending time with their families

Lockdown was horrific for children's mental health. Irs not healthy to keep kids locked up.

What do you class as petty criminal behaviour?
I think the poster means serious assaults and murders etc.

Yes, and often they hang around parks looking for trouble or roaming g estates looking for trouble and often they've been drinking.

Get a life...

One of my kids was involved in petty criminal behaviour in his mid-teens. We had no control over him. He literally ignored everything we said or did. Was attempting to intimidate female staff at school (He's over 6' and strong because, like good parents, we had encouraged sport and going to the gym). We asked for help but none of the agencies could do anything unless he engaged (which he refused to do) or until he was caught (which didn't happen).

We had years of Hell from that young man.

Pray tell me how I was responsible for the choices that he made, all of which went against everything we had taught him.

By “we” do you mean you and your group of friends or every single kids in the neighbourhood/area/town/country?

Me and my friends were the same as you , but we were also very aware that the rough kids existed and who they were. In fact, nearly every section of the town (how it was split back then) had its own gang of them. Sometimes there were fights/wars, especially since the only thing splitting them was a main street. “Fun” times.

Groups of teens have always wandered the streets. Maybe not if you live in a nice middle class area where mum only works part time & ferries their kids to activities but if you live in a working class area where both parents are working shifts and you can't afford to send them to football training or dance classes then there is nothing for these kids to do.

As a 13 year old I the 80's I wandered the streets with my friends. My parents generation had free youth clubs they could go to or were more involved with church youth groups.

I was a child in the 1960s/70’s and we roamed about all day with no phones and no parental supervision.
However we never ever did anything wrong, not even dropping a piece of litter never mind stabbing someone.
I don’t know why, we were just shit scared of doing anything wrong and making our parents angry; despite the fact that my parents didn’t really shout and I only once got a tap on the legs for being mean to my sister.
Im not sure why we were well behaved; society expectations?

They obviously got the Shein version rather than the branded ,good quality stuff.

As a teen I was always out wandering around the streets - I didn’t shout, litter or damage anything, was just out wandering about with my mates because we hated being in the house. Allowing kids out isn’t the issue, not teaching them respect for others/property is an issue.

A crackdown on what exactly? Are we talking curfews? Specific locations? Times of year? Ages?

Should I tell 13 yo DD she can’t go to the skate park tomorrow because Suzie on the internet thinks she shouldn’t be allowed out by herself until she’s 18?

It's not about kids being out a lot. I grew up in the 80s-90s and we were out with my sis all the time playing with other kids and parents had only a vague idea where we were. The naughtiest thing we ever did was run in the fields of wheat and that was when a neignbour noticed us and started shouting: 'You are stomping on bread!!!' We ran away scared. But today that lady would get lots of abuse.
Because what is happening now, is the fallout of the recent idea/trend to put the child at the centre of everything, prioritising the flattery over punishments and a crackdown of any types of disciplinary methods deemed now as abusive replaced by 'taking away devices' which IMHO simply does not work. Add to this 2 years of Covid that reinforced the isolation, smart phone/social media addiction. The families falling apart as a result of prioritising own happiness and 'self-care' (ego) resulting in traditional role models (teachers, the elderly) replaced by social media celebrities.
And now, how to fix it... maybe the Tory idea of the National Service was not that bad after all... it would reinforce some good ideas in our kids. Maybe some obligatory hours of voluntary work at secondary school in animal refuge, care home, hospital, etc. We have to do something.