Shocked by behaviour of some young kids in inner city. Scary experience.

[ObviouslyNotAMandy]

I live in a large ish city with 2 small children (5 &7). I was driving home through the city yesterday and 3 lads on scooters and bikes came round a bend on the wrong side of road and started hurling abuse at me. I was going very slowly (inner city traffic) there was no way I was doing anything wrong, it wasn’t a near miss, I got out of the way in good time, the lads even saw me coming before they launched themselves out.
I was alone in car with 2 kids in back and one of them started bashing my windows and was shouting things like “effing c*nt and I should smash your effing car in” and then rode off. My kids were terrified.
Just to be clear, there was absolutely no way I did anything wrong, just wrong place wrong time.
I thought of calling police after but city was packed and no way they’d find them.
what bothered me most is these kids can’t have been more than 11 and the thought of my kids growing up around this kind of thing, or growing up like this TERRIFIES me! How on earth do you keep your kids safe growing up in a city?!
Is it safer in smaller towns /countryside?
Has anyone else had similar incidents?
I’m feeling so rattled by the whole experience!

Rubbish. The blame lies solely with the the parents and no-one else. My teenagers were left to their own devices while DH and I worked. But we've brought them up properly. They know how to behave. We need to stop blaming wider society for the failures of parents to parent properly

The problem is the feral kids from 15 years ago are now feral parents with their own feral kids. And so the cycle will go on

Couldn't agree more 👏

Shit parents = Shit kids.

Are you seriously suggesting that this only happens in the UK?

I have noticed it's a UK thing too. I think that in the UK we give our children and teenagers much more freedom than many other countries to roam on buses etc, in comparison to many more molly coddled cultures from Italy to US to Middle East and Asia where you simply don't get teenagers roaming around in gangs without their parents. Thank God we don't have easy access to guns..

Only last night I was driving on a busy road and there was a group of boys throwing bottles full of water at cars. Someone could literally get killed. I don't want to hear any crap about how they are rebelling against not having the latest consumer goods etc, their parents literally don't give a flying fig. They will have 1000 reasons why their dc are misbehaving, from "we're wc/there's nothing to do/we're poor and you don't understand" but none of it is ever attributed to their crap parenting.
I volunteered as a CA in my dc's primary school and I'm not joking when I say that you could pick out in reception the ones who were going to get ASBOs.

I live in a rural backwater and we have the same problems in our local towns. I once witnessed a massive 10 plus kid fight in our one and only tk maxx! Our local police force is cracking down on gangs of kids causing trouble. Not all these kids are feral I think the good ones are being influenced by peer pressure/ SM.

It's definitely not the worst, but as I was walking down the highstreet pavement earlier, I was nearly knocked into the busy road by some tall, play fighting teens. They didn't give a fuck.

On a separate occasion I saw a little girl nearly knocked over waiting for a bus on the pavement by an older teen on an electric scooter.
I called him a dickhead with my arms wide open in protest and he removed his ear phones and shouted at me
'What did you call me?'. I repeated it and he looked furious and tutted and went on his way. Ignorant prick.

Just moved from a street in Kent to Dubai. In Kent I saw drug dealing regularly, guys on foot and on scooters, sometimes groups of men pulling up in cars at night and packages changing hands. I was sending police photos and number plate pictures whenever I could. Just before I moved the neighbours put CCTV up because some drug addicts with a machete had started squatting in an empty building. This wasn't even a very poor area either, it was just close to the town centre. Police would tell me we can lock drug dealers up if we get the evidence but it's the addicts who buy drugs that mean drug dealers come here to sell.

In Dubai, there is no violent crime I'm aware of. There is a lot of prostitution but seems to be only in hotels. Coming here and seeing how life is outside the UK, I really think the UK is in for a very rough time.

If this is the cycle at some some point communities break down.

I really don't think lockdown has anything to do with it. There were plenty of feral children before.

A post on our local Facebook page was shocked at a trio of young feral kids walking around in Tesco Express and blatantly shoplifting, the poster alerted the manager who said that they come in all the time ‘shopping’ and the staff are not allowed to confront or stop them because they are minors!

awful and very concerning😥

Not sure Dubai a great example of a decent society!

We live in London, and it’s so bad where we are. Absolute cretin children with scum parents. Friends from all over the UK have said it’s no better where they are from and we have now begun the process to completely leave the country.

Agree with itrytomakemyway
The balance has shifted so far towards trying to understand the behaviour that expectations and standards of behaviour are low. Most schools talk the talk about behaviour but it really comes down to survival of the fittest. Many teachers are so fed up of the lack of respect and of behaviour that prevents others learning that they are leaving or retiring early. I think many people in pastoral support are doing their best but they are also hampered by poor parenting and lack of sanctions. There is also a tendency now to offer a sympathetic ear. I have lost count of the times I have heard kids complaining and behaviour managers sympathising that the lessons are boring or the teacher is unfair etc etc

Nope. Shit parenting.

Parents are pathetic and allowing their scummy kids to behave like this. Tbh the parents probably give the example.

It's bonkers that everyone is allowed to have kids tbh

Quite right, and it's ALWAYS someone's else's fault....
-not enough to do/bored

• can't have any 'demands' of them, I.e follow rules/restrictions
• somebody else made me do it

Etc, etc

I grew up with this kind of behaviour on my council estate for most of my child hood. I lived in the same block where Damiola Taylor got knifed. PEOPLE screaming abuse at each other at night, neighbours blasting raggae music. Irish hanging out on the balconies smoking. Black on black crime was frequent. It was very very normal to me. kids whose dad's weren't around or in jail. Drug crime. Petty thieving. A lot of scraps, swagger, stealing of bikes, cars, selling drugs, counterfeit goods and gang recruitment. A lot of kids walked in groups for protection and carryknives. But you learn to be streetwise, head down, and you learn how to run. Fast. They have no role models and they have no where to turn other than their peer groups.

100% you can identify these troubled kids at nursery stage or even before. There needs to be organised social intervention because by the time the kids gets to secondary school age your battle is practically over.

Agreed. The most irresponsible people can have children who then don't stand a chance of a decent life and are unfortunately likely to be like their parents (as we all are).

@CookieDoughKid this was was the original purpose of Sure Start. Unfortunately doing work up until pre school isn't enough.

The problem of feral children is 100% caused by poor parenting. It is definitely increasing. You can identify the children with behavioural problems very early in their school career but the methods used do not really solve much as they go home to their families were poor behaviours are constantly reinforced.

It always amazed me the change in some children's behaviour following the 6 week summer holiday.

@LisaJool Very true. What a shame.