To think children are more immature now

[lesley33]

I am surprised all the time about how immature some children and teenagers are and how little some can do for themselves. AIBU in thinking this is because children/teenagers are so often over protected these days and so naturally take longer to grow up?

They are less equipped to deal with the things they know too much about.

Less motivated, less pushed, less passionate.
The internet means that ideas take too little time to develop, they become cliches too easily and save teenagers especially from having to think.

Am in danger of becoming fierce anti-Luddite!

• not anti! Just plain Luddite!

The bigger problem is this thing of being bored all the time and needing to be entertained and not being bothered about things.

But I know people in their 60s who have never negotiated public transport.
Heck, living in Norfolk, no shortage of older folk who have never even left the county...

The anecdotes about parents getting involved with University results, reminds me of well-published story about Toby Young's dad ringing up the Head of College to ask why his son's place at Oxford had been withdrawn. That was what... 30 years ago?

The only big then-now difference I see is that so much more is expected of parents now, and we are expected to be in much more perfect control of our kids (and their safety), and their academic outcomes. We are expected to protect them and control them much MUCH more than my grandparents ever expected to control their kids.

Otherwise, what Spatchcock said.

Really people in their 60's who have never taken a train, bus or tram? I don't know anyone in their 60's who have never ever used public transport.

I know there are some kids/teenagers who have always been over protected. But in my teenage years I honestly didn't know any kids who weren't allowed to go out by themselves. Now in the very same area there are young teenagers who are not allowed to go out without an adult.

Things have changed.

Sadly, you don't know Norfolk. Or California (sigh).

I am thinking of people who drive everywhere and consider it a huge sign of immaturity to do otherwise.

I don' think it's anything to do with having choices made for you at school, reallytired. Dd has always remarked on how mature and independent Swedish teens are compared to British ones and I remember thinking the same (though to a lesser degree) 30 years ago- yet their educational system has always been far more prescriptive in terms of subjects studied (more like a baccalaureat). Swedish 13yos go to the beach on their own - it's got nothing to do with the fact that they are all expected to speak (and I mean actually speak) at least one modern language.

For one thing it is a less litigious culture: schools still allow children to climb trees in the playground because there is no perceived risk of parents sueing, parents let their children walk alone to school or stay alone at home from a fairly young age because they know nobody will think it was their fault if an accident happens, two nursery teachers will take a whole class of nursery children out on public transport or let them play all day in the snow because there won't be any pursed lips or mutterings from the general public and parents won't be writing letters to the Editor about teacher/pupil ratio. Funnily enough, they don't seem to have higher figures of child accidents.

I think it's gruesomely biological. Younger parents find it easier to expose their dcs to risk because they are young enough to have more dcs if one dies. A 48yo parent of a 10 yo cant do this. I dont in any way think this is a conscious thought, just a hardwired reality.

May well be something in that, margery, but still doesn't explain the difference between the UK and the Continent. Parents aren't that much younger in Northern Europe.

I agree Cory. In many European countries they would be aghast at the idea of a non SN teenager not being allowed to go outside without an adult, or not being allowed to be left at home alone.

I think cory's got something with the litigation culture and the expectations put upon parents here that they should be protecting their children from all harm.

I remember when ds was a baby, remarking to my dad how nice it was to be in stores with toilet cubicles large enough for the buggy. He looked at me a bit oddly and said "Are you really that worried about someone kidnapping ds or something?"
I said no, not really - but I'm bloody terrified of all the other mothers and little old ladies telling me I should be!

When I was 3, just learning to read, my parents would leave me in the town bookshop while they went off and did their banking and other errands - then return an hour or two later, buy a book, and we'd all go home. Ds is now 3.
If I tried that in my local library or a small friendly bookstore in my parents' town, do you think I'd actually manage to get out the building before the police were called?

I don't know what changed or why, but it seemed to be in the mid-1980s, around the same time that my mum started to be scared to tell teenagers to take their feet off seats in trains and generally to tell unrelated children how to behave.

though to be fair, they do have loutish teenagers in other countries too (seem to have spent a fair proportion of the summer glaring at Feet on the Seat

Immaturity is possibly due to the lack of strict discipline.(?)
They can behave however they like, say what they like . Infact i sometimes think children come out of the womb being cheeky... We have 3/4 yr olds being incredibly rude. My sisters 3 yr old spits at her, kicks her, scratches her face..
OMg if that was my child his feet wouldnt touch the floor..........ggrrhh!

I don't think I agree. My teenagers and their friends seem perfectly capable of organising a really complicated social life involving several changes of public transport. They are mature and confident and aware of current events which I certainly wasn't.

On the other hand, the boring stuff that I want them to do seems beyond them

Agree, especially with notcitrus and cory

When I was a kid if someone died, we were told they were ...dead. Even at 4 I dealt with that. Now people agonise over what/how to tell a child someone is dead. Death is a fact of life, you can't pretty it up by telling lies. All it does is confuse the child and delay the inevitable.

I think this extremely child-centric attitude to parenting now is a mistake. It just postpones the child learning about realities like death/money problems till an inapporopriately late age. This creates these kidults with infantile expectations in an adults body.

They, then are the ones who get left behind at work/college.

When I was small if we midered my parents for money we were told there was none as Daddy had no job. I don't have a problem with that. It was the truth. I don't think it's right this attitude of childhood being this little perfect fairytale bubble of delusion. That is for the parents benefit not the childs. Life is difficult and contains disappointments/harsh realities. Children who are over-protected from that are ill equipped for the future.

I don't think it's hugely surprising that many children are more mollycoddled than used to be the case. Our prevailing elf and safety culture treats even adults as though they're children unable to take reasonable precautions for their own safety, and the nasty business of ambulance-chasing liability claims reinforces this through legal precedent. When even adults expect not to have to engage their brains in order to avoid mishaps then it's no wonder this gets exaggerated in the way we treat children.

I think when people do mollycoddle their children it's often not because they really believe it's the right thing to do but because they fear the judgement of other parents.

For eg, leaving children in hotel bedrooms alone or how old they are before they go to the shops, sometimes people are over cautious because they are worried that they will be seen as at fault if anything did go wrong when really it would just be horrific luck (unless they are truly tiny!)

In other generations I think there were exactly the same emotions going around but in reverse, so you would be judged if you stopped a child who wanted a job from having one because they were too young other parents would probably think you were mad, so you might let your children start working at younger than you really thought they were ready/able to do so.

Yes, people are very self-conscious these days, sponteneity is limited that way (and in the less obvious areas it would manifest itself in).

I think when people do mollycoddle their children it's often not because they really believe it's the right thing to do but because they fear the judgement of other parents.

+1

So true!

Maybe it was all those stranger danger ads in the 80s.

I agree, it's hard to find the balance though between letting them grow up and not letting them grow up too fast.

More discipline and more responsiblity required upon our children .......to promote maturity.

I have just read a book by called No Fear Growing up in a risk averse society (or something like that) It claims that children need to experince risk in order to be able to cope with it in later life.
It's a really interesting read actually.
I read in it that on average 79 children a year are killed by their parent or other person known to them.
On the other hand, between 5 and 7 children a year are killed by strangers.
Both figures have not changed for decades. It's a sobering thought to think that children are at more risk of being killed by their own parents than the lpacal paedo who hangs around every street (according to the daily fail)
The starnger dnager obsesssion seems to have made our children less safe, not more as people are now too frightened to intervene when they see children at risk in the wider community.
I also think that we have created a whole generation of children suffering from 'learned helplessness'.

I work for the jobcentre and regularly have a parent come on the phone to ask about their childs benefit,signing time etc.

I ask to speak to the claimant and am invariably told that either they are still in bed or are sitting right beside them on the sofa. The message being that poor didums cant possibly be called on to ask questions themselves.

I have to speak directly to the claimant though and its quite often only passed to them with much huffing and puffing from both of them. Usually after exclamations of ,
"But I'm his(sorry but it is usually a boy) mother/father " which is expected to be the key to open the door to all sorts of permissions

One young person I eventually managed to speak with was waiting to into the army. I wonder what his Sergeant major thought of him.