Where children really better behaved in the past or do people remember with rose tinted glasses?

[username5555]

This is inspired by a video online whereby a toddler was having a massive tantrum on a 8 hour flight.
A lot of the comments underneath basically were how terrible a parent the mother was and how in their day the child wouldn't have dared behave like that.
What is the alleged difference? What are we not doing that we did then? Or do people only remember the good parts and forget their children also behaved like that.
I personally as a mother of a toddler found the comments awful. I suspect the mother was not having the time of her life either.

Those who have worked with kids and young people for a number of decades, are all saying that kids behaviour has indeed got worse.

I don't think there is one single cause for the decline of behaviour in some children. I know I've sounded a bit down on teenagers in some of my posts but I do genuinely love working with them ( except the ones that bite us, kick us, try to stab us etc, that's never a good day)
There are some days where I go to some schools and the kids are amazing and good fun.

Thinking about my case load, I think I mentioned this earlier, I can't remember but every single one that I have the child's behaviour can be traced back to the parent through either neglect, abuse, severe mental health issues that haven't been properly addressed or supported or r through other adverse childhood expierences. We can help and support the child and family once the young are in the system but the family haveto accept our help and not sabotage what we are doing to try and keep the family together.

Policies often hinder our work. A member of staff tried to stop a teen girl who is known to go off with groups of men from getting in a car ( think about the Rochdale case). The member of staff was disciplined no told that she should have let the girl go as she wasn't under any court order ( the girl was 13 and extreme vulnerable and my colleague leftthe profession s she felt she failed the child )

The authority go out of the way to make sure that kids in care aren't stigmatised which is good but any kids use this theit advantage. They will have for example a new pair of Nike Air Walk or what ever is fashionable, these aren't cheap. They will sell them but the new demand that they need new trainers. New trainers are bought.

Before anyone jumps on my back, I am not speaking about every child who is a LAC in the whole of the country. I am talking about the expierences of me and my colleagues.

There are a couple of outcomes that I've observed over te decades.

1. The child has a child and the ircle keep going round and in several years time we get the child into our care. Generations of families are known to us.

2 The child matures, and young thetime they are20 have sorted their life out. This is the best outcome and I'm always thrilled when the 'old ones' come back to see us. They normally say something like ' Oh my god, I can't believe I was such a twat, how did you put up with me'
Just a side I was in Mand S over Christmas no a member of staff came up and said ' dad?, I thought it was you! Remember me from Lane ends ( youth club). This was 35 years ago and I was fresh young youth worker and this Madame gave me the run around! She was loverly and we had a nice hat.
The other options aren't great. We have lost a few kids once they got into their 20s either through suicide, drug abuse or murder. It always hits us between the eyes when we hear this. Awful
Some have ended up in jail, sometimes a serial criminal but some have straighten up.

I'd be interested to hear other people's stories that have worked with kids for many years, especially young people from complex backgrounds.
As I said purely my expierence but there are so many decent and lovely kids out there sometime I lose sight of that, especially if I'm having a bad day!
( ramblings form an old timer!)

notacooldad

An interesting and depressing read.

Sorry about the typos in my last post.

Second, manners. Most children I speak with round here are perfectly friendly. My peers would take the piss.
Bloody hell, I am older than you and we did not do that.

I completely agree that the attitude is handed down by parents. This is not exclusive to poor parenting on council estates/abusive backgrounds etc. A relative was a Headteacher in a private school. The parents were absolutely appalling, some of them. Entitled, demanding, selfish and spoilt. They had a dog eat dog attitude . No concern for others, rude to staff, demanding demanding and unpleasant. If you have seen the film Wonder, the parents who withdraw their child from the school to avoid him mixing with a child with disabilities hits the nail on the head.
These attitudes got passed down to their children who in the main were also obnoxious, entitled, rude and selfish. It was what they learned.

Then then are the 'liberal' parents who believe their little darlings have complete autonomy to run riot. They aren't taught to say please and thank you, interrupt adult conversations, shout, destroy people's possessions and expect to be waited on hand and food. They invariably have completely exhausted parents who worship their every move and word.

Then there are the parents who don't parent but let gadgets, nannies or the TV bring their children up. These children have no attention span, and don't know how to entertain themselves for five minutes without whining 'I am bored'. Their parents are usually both in high powered jobs and hardly ever at home.

This sounds harsh and stereotypical, but I have observed this pattern a lot. Most of us are muddling on in between, or a combination of the above. There aren't any norms any more. Sorry if these sound like gross over generalisation, but there are patterns to be observed.

I used to work with very disadvantaged kids and teenagers. One of my colleagues said the worst kids she had ever worked with was at a very very posh summer camp.

It’s excuses.

There’s an excuse for everything nowadays.

There’s a thread running at the moment about a 21 year old refusing to work or go to college and 30% of the replies are ‘are you sure it’s laziness and not anxiety/depression’?

And there’s no consequences.

My dd tries it herself - these past few weeks she’s been “too stressed” to keep her room clean, do chores or anything else other than lie on her bed on her phone. The stress soon disappeared when the WiFi password was changed.

The stress soon disappeared when the WiFi password was changed.!!
Ha ha!

Oh, I had a much better incentive. No teenage girl wants the door opened to their friends by a shorts wearing obese male whose vomiting warthog t-shirt does not quite cover his appendectomy scar. Especially if he's playing Reggie Watts.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome

Well worth remembering. Thanks.

I had to go up the school for a meeting with my sons head of year about his attitude and behaviour in year 8. When we got home I told my son that if I ever had to do that again, I’d be going to the school in my bikini (I’m a wobbly size 18 so not a pretty sight 😱)
He’s in year 12 now and I never had to carry out the threat!