Parents don’t want to raise children anymore

[radiator2]

As some of you may be aware some children have been arrested in relation to the murder of an 80yr old. The mother of one of the rioters has also jetted off on holiday with no regard for the fact her child was due in court. While these are two quite extreme cases they seem to represent a bigger issue and I feel like nobody can be bothered to parent nowadays. I work around children and I see it daily, parents unbothered with discipline or actually raising their kids. It feels like some parents have no clue what their kids are up to meanwhile kids younger and younger are committing crimes and getting in huge trouble at school. I genuinely fear for the future with some of those in this generation of children and I can’t work out if more kids are just terrible people or if more parents have kids with no interest in raising them. I might be being a little dramatic but these kids don’t seem afraid or anything or to care what damage they cause

There’s very little deterrent now if my son was in trouble at his prep school I was behind the school a lot of parents aren’t they blame the sschool the teacher the weather anything sort from their terrible non existent parenting

There's always been children like this unfortunately.

Edited to add, there's always been feckless parents, they would have usually beaten the crap out of their children as well but it wasn't a deterent.

Some parents.

I feel that growing up in the 80s, myself and many kids I knew were pretty much feral and left to roam free for hours. I don't believe this is as common and helicopter parenting is more prevalent.

Maybe we just didn't know about all these things going on growing up as we only had a few news channels and our newspapers! Now we know every single time anyone sneezes so of course it will feel like society is falling apart.

There have always been crap parents or overwhelmed parents trying their best. I guess what's different now is more single parent families which does make life much harder. There's less fear of Police and authority which isn't necessarily a terrible thing based on how abusive we know these systems are / can be.

I don't know how we can easily measure or quantity whether things are getting worse; tough one.

This is so true. But in the past it would only have been in local news unless really notorious. I'm thinking Mary Bell or the Bulger killers. Today with social media details are available nationally and internationally within minutes. It would be interesting to know if the number of children involved in serious crime has really increased (in proportion to population increase), or just people's knowledge of it. If kids in the past had not been in trouble there would have been no need for Reform schools or Borstals to exist would there.

There's been bad kids for as long as I can remember.
I'll never forget the Bulger case.
Remember the 'I don't like mondays' girl? She was 16.

I think it's becoming more frequent for sure though.

There's a sickening mix of bad kids / absent parents / lack of.law / social media.

Sweeping generalisation based on a few awful cases. The vast majority of parents put their best into raising their children, but this doesn't make the headlines

People seem to forget that in the past it was possibly easier to 'get rid' of problem or unwanted children. There were orphanages where most of the kids in reality had one living parent who could not or did not want to look after them. Putting kids into Approved schools or Reformatories was also an option. Sending kids to Australia or USA was another option. There must have been kids who did wrong but there just wasn't all the press and social media making cases known so widely.

I’m not just talking about those cases. Children are committing crimes a lot younger. School expulsions are up and teachers themselves have remarked on the bad behaviour of children. As I mentioned I work with kids and see day to day the appalling behaviour of kids and the even more shocking parenting or lack there of from the parents

Of course if you work with children the ones with challenges are the ones that occupy more of your time. The trickiest people take far more of my time than the majority who are great. Children are far more likely to be the victims of crime by adults than vice versa

I've noticed in general, that children seem to have little respect and get treated like small adults rather than children. They don't get told what to do, they get asked. Parents spend hours with them navel gazing.

They spend hours in their rooms on social media or gaming instead of being around people and our in the fresh air exercising. I believe this is partly why we have a children's mental health crisis.

There are few boundaries, children need boundaries and consistency to thrive. There's no discipline or consequences for their behaviour. Parents don't support teachers.

Parents off load parenting onto schools expecting them to brush their teeth, potty train and teach them basic skills. They also want to be the child's friend, they are more worried about being the bad guy than doing what's right.

Some of this lax parenting is neglect for example giving children unfettered access to the internet. They are being groomed, watching porn and are bombarded with unhealthy messages. They can't get away from anything with 24/7 social media and bullying follows them into their homes.

But yes. More violent and disturbed behaviour was an inevitable consequence of locking children in with their abusers for months, which is one of the reasons I campaigned for reopening schools despite getting a lot of abuse from teachers

How far back are you comparing with? One generation? Two? I seriously think that if you go back to say 1940s there were kids playing on old bomb damaged sites, chucking stuff about which today would be seen as seriously bad behaviour. School truancy was far higher even in my school days of 1970s/early 80s. Schools didn't really care if troublesome kids didn't turn up because it made their lives easier. Also if kids are getting into trouble younger, why were were Approved schools and Borstals? There must have been kids sent to such institutions. I think there has always been poor parenting.

The people I hear say this the most are adults full of their own superiority who are bitter and lonely.

@radiator2 I have no stats to make any comparisons I can defend.

What is clearly different is the power teachers and schools had to discipline and also abuse pupils. That has now shifted and it feels that there is a larger proportion of people less afraid of authority or what the neighbours might think.

Quite frankly, I'm glad that these institutions and parents can no longer get away with abuse; because every time I encountered an institution with too much power, abuse is rife.

I'm so glad I come from a culture where parents have strong authority. We are often criticised for being too controlling of our children but I can guarantee you we know where are kids are at all times and who they are with. I wish wider society weren't heading in the direction it is because it's really scary.

I remember the free range parenting of the 80s. I also remember my friends and I were really boring park , library erm possibly another park. Where I grew up was really rough drug/ alchohol use / football casual was an aspiration.

If you avoided the problem parts you wouldn’t have known it was happening two streets away so it was easy to dodge. Now children have a phone in their pocket and are hyper- connected which I don’t think helps.

Also I think we all had a bit more fear/ respect of adults. I would never have been rude to a teacher or any grown up. There would of been consequences. When I was at high school two teachers both publicly hit students (more than once!) they kept their jobs. You never heard of any teacher being sworn at or assaulted.

Im not saying children should live in fear but we spend a lot of time explaining their rights without explains that those rights come with responsibilities.

@Lovelysummerdays yes you're right, I agree with that. I would have behaved impeccably most the time running wild - through fear. Sadly I saw so much abuse of that power and authority.

News headline: Something horrible but astonishingly rare has happened.

Mumsnet: OMG, the whole of society is collapsing!!!!!!!!!!1!

@samarrange I'm yet to encounter stories as disturbing as those from my younger years; Bulger, Stephen Lawrence.

Sorry, who’s trolling who? Not least I wasn’t in the minority on the other thread - posters can have a difference of opinion.

Every generation says this about the next. This generation are no more awful. There’s nothing to substantiate what you’re saying.

Is that supposed to be funny or something?

Or do you think children committing murder is a sign of a prosperous society?

Parents have never been more hands on and Involved, and aware of what their kids are doing. Children have never been more closely parented. No, kids are not committing crimes younger, statistics reflect that many acts that would previously have been dealt with by parental or authority punishments (physical
Chastisement) are now criminal offences (rightly so) Children murdering people ( in the U.K.) has always been and remains vanishingly low. There have been decades of parents unaware what their kids are getting up to. This generation are the most scrutinised, monitored, inhibited and assessed in recent history.

To summarise, your post is a load of bollocks. And maybe think about getting a different job.

Personally I think if they are still children in the eyes of the law new legislation must be brought in to personally hold parents responsible for their child's antisocial behavior through mandatory fines for small offences to jail time to major offences maybe then we would see some change & some parents might actually parent ...