to not see the problem with banning schoolkids from the shopping centre?

[Vintagejazz]

A friend of mine has steam coming out of her ears because her child's school has made a rule that children in uniform cannot go into the shopping centre down the road from the school. She's banging on about it being an infringement of her teenager's rights.
Personally my sympathies are with the school and the shop owners. Up until recently gangs of teenagers used to descend on the centre at lunchtime and from 4pm - pushing, shoving, shouting, tearing around and knocking into people, and daring each other to steal things. A lot of people started avoiding the place at those times, which can't have been good for business.
I imagine the school also got the brunt of the complaints from annoyed shopowners and shoppers.

So AIBU to think she should stop going on about her DD's rights, and show some sympathy for the business owners being driven demented by gangs of badly behaved school kids?

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

So as I said earlier - if it is such a problem, why does your shopping centre not have security guards to help? Have you read the entire thread? Many of the things you're saying have already been discussed.

Of course, there will always be a few miscreants, but to ban ALL of them from the shopping centre is unfair and discriminatory.

Shoppers shouldn't have to be constantly requesting teenagers to move out of their way, but that could also be said of chatting Mums with pushchairs taking up the entire aisle, or men lounging around on the public seating with their feet up discussing the football. They're in my way too - simply one of the hazards of shopping!! Should they be banned too, because I find them a nuisance? No, of course not.

I'm going out now (shopping)

[Summerbreezing]

There's a limit to what a couple of security guards can do. To employ more costs money.

A friend of mine opened a small cafe beside the library in his home town. It was thriving at first but was then discovered by the local school kids who just started to take it over at lunchtimes and in the late afternoon. They would buy a can of coke and a bag of crisps each and then spread themselves and their coats, bags etc across several tables, shouting from one table to the other, throwing salt and sugar sachets at each others heads, and basically driving away the other customers who were actually buying cooked food and sandwiches etc.
He rang the school who told him to get the names of the pupils and they would deal with them. But of course when he asked the kids for their names he was told 'Mickey Mouse', 'Hitler' etc. The Principal went down for a few days in a row and sat in the Cafe at the relevant times drinking coffee, which deterred the pupils. But it wasn't practical for her to do this everyday and they just came back. He couldn't afford to install and maintain a decent CCTV system and was already working fourteen hour days without also having to spend hours trawling through it with the school.
He was really worried he was going to have to close down as he was losing very valuable lunchtime trade so he just banned all kids from the school, with the Principal's support.
Was he supposed to risk his livelihood for the sake of the small number of pupils who had the maturity to ignore the gang mentality and behave themselves? I don't think so.

[TillyTellTale]

in addition to the points about mosquitos already made, the mosquito things aren't safe for young children.

Teenagers have the choice to avoid centres with mosquito devices fitted. Small children with parents don't. Adult shoppers with young children can't hear them, don't realise they're there, and their children can be exposed for prolonged periods. How many parents with upset young babies and toddlers are going to figure out straight away that it's a mosquito device?

[TillyTellTale]

SummerBreezing

I don't want to sound dismissive, but when rowdy adults do that in cafes (and I've seen it) the management ask the individuals to leave, and call the police if necessary.

[CoffeeTea103]

Summerbreezing that's exactly an example of which I referred to earlier. I avoided a lovely cafe for this reason and after a few weeks I noticed there weren't kids anymore so started going back. I assumed the owner banned or did something about it. Unfortunate for the good kids, but nobody has the time to watch them and then chase up with the school etc. It's easiest just to ban all.

[Summerbreezing]

I know Tilly. But this wasn't just one group of kids. This was kids from the school coming in in droves and egging each other on. You don't really get adults who behave like that. If you did it would usually be just one random group and it would be simple to ask them to leave. But teenagers are more peer influenced and it's easier for the situation to get out of control.

[Summerbreezing]

I agree CoffeeTea. In an ideal world schools and business owners could spend hours isolating the individual troublemakers, following up with parents etc. But in the real world it's often too time consuming and people who already have demanding jobs just don't have the time. It's just simpler to ban them all even if it is a bit unfair on the better behaved kids. But if more places did it, peer pressure might start to swing the other way...

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

So why didn't the owner ask them to leave and call the police? It's quite clearly common sense.

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

It's not "a bit unfair on the better behaved kids" - it is grossly unfair on them.

Speaking hypothetically now, Summer - I don't know how old you are, but for argument's sake, let me suggest you're about 30.

So today there were several 30-yr old women in the supermarket who really annoyed me. I was seething. They were getting in my way, sprawling all over the aisles, jabbering away, I heard several swear words. I couldn't reach the tomatoes or get to the coffee machine. (It didn't happen really, I'm still giving a hypothetical scenario)

Therefore, now I think all women aged around the 30-mark should be banned because they all annoyed me.

How would you feel about that? You haven't done anything wrong, but you're banned because your peers have annoyed the other customers.

Of course, you would most sensibly agree that this would be a perfectly ridiculous suggestion, wouldn't you?

[pointythings]

in addition to the points about mosquitos already made, the mosquito things aren't safe for young children

And aren't great for some adults either, I'm 46 and I can hear them.

[pointythings]

Quite, Evans. Demonising teenagers seems to be a national sport in this country.

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

Thank you, Pointy!

[Summerbreezing]

Evans
As I said in a previous post, I have teenage children. I'm actually in my mid forties.
And the reality is that other age groups do not have the same general tendency to take over a place and create annoyance as teenagers do. So your example really doesn't make sense.
I have often often heard people complaining about a gang of teenagers being rowdy and annoying on the train, or in a restaurant, or in the library or the cafe. I have never heard consistent complaints about 'thirty year olds' or 'middle aged women' or whatever creating noise and disturbance. Isolated incidents about one or two individuals, yes. But not frequent stories of gangs of people in a particular age group causing issues like this.

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

Oh, for crying out loud - I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall here.

Do you understand the word "hypothetical". I was giving an analogy to show how unfair it is to blanket-ban ALL teenagers from somewhere based on the bad behaviour of a few.

Is that really so desperately difficult to understand?

[TillyTellTale]

It is true that people complain about badly behaved gangs of teenagers far more. But I would disagree that it necessarily follows that badly behaved teenagers are more frequent than other badly behaved people to the same extent.

People aren't objective in the way they react to behaviour. They do react differently to people, based on their grouping.

They react differently to teenagers being pains than 30-year-old women being pains, because of pre-existing social biases. We notice teenagers being pains, and mentally put it under the heading of "teenagers" in our heads, whereas for other groups, we're often far more willing to ascribe bad behaviour to an individual being a prat.

Take another age-group, that gets it in the neck unfairly. Notice that on MN, a rude lady on the bus will always have her age mentioned if she could have been of pensionable age. If it's a rude 40-year-old, it will be discussed here as 'bloody woman on the bus'. Rude 60-year-old? It will be "bloody old bat on the bus". And thus it seems as if middle-aged to elderly women are abusing fellow bus passengers in their masses!

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

Excellent post, Tilly

[AngelsWithSilverWings]

I used to get annoyed by this ban when I was 15 ( I'm 44 now and I still remember how annoyed I was!)

At 15 I was responsible for buying my own non school clothes and if I wanted make up, toiletries etc I had to buy that myself too.

I worked all day on Saturdays and shops were closed on Sundays so I used to pop into the local shopping centre on a weekday during the school lunch hour. I would usually have my two best friends with me. We were well behaved, well mannered young girls.

We would be hassled by security staff constantly. They would follow us, tell us we couldn't sit down on the benches and also barred us from entering shops. We had done nothing wrong but they just had a problem with kids in school uniform.

I wrote to my MP in the end as I felt I was being bullied. I got a written apology from the centre manager which I carried around with me whenever I went shopping.

[TillyTellTale]

I know Tilly. But this wasn't just one group of kids. This was kids from the school coming in in droves and egging each other on. You don't really get adults who behave like that. If you did it would usually be just one random group and it would be simple to ask them to leave. But teenagers are more peer influenced and it's easier for the situation to get out of control.

Human behaviour is complex, but part of the reason adults don't get carried away in groups as much is because they've learnt about unpleasant consequences like police officers taking their name and addresses.

I can appreciate why your friend thought the banning route was easier and caused less unpleasantness and aggravation, but I think a hard-line of throwing out trouble-makers and calling the police if necessary would have worked as well.

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

Good for you, Angels. But what a shame that you had to go to such lengths - disgraceful.

Just reinforces the argument against blanket-banning.

[EvansOvalPiesYumYum]

It will be "bloody old bat on the bus". And thus it seems as if middle-aged to elderly women are abusing fellow bus passengers in their masses

I have argued exactly the same point on another thread Tilly - people calling people over a certain age "old bats" or "old bags" as though they have no right to exist.
Just as annoying as this thread. I cannot understand why or how some people can completely dismiss an entire swathe of a community based on one or two actions of a few bad apples.

Most bewildering

[Summerbreezing]

My goodness you're rude Evans.

A hypothetical argument still has to have some basis in reality,which is the point I was trying to make.

Anyhow, I too feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall where you're concerned so perhaps we'd better leave it and agree to disagree. Otherwise we're both going to have one mighty headache tonight.

[Summerbreezing]

I take your point Tilly, but just going on my own experience I really don't believe it's a knee jerk reaction to teenagers. Even looking back to when myself and my friends were that age, I really don't think we realised how loud we were, or how standing around in big groups was getting in other people's way etc. I think part of growing up is going through those self absorbed, desperate to be cool and one of the gang, years - and it does lead to more general bad behaviour from that age group. Obviously not all teenagers behave like that, but a sufficient number do to create a certain prejudiced view of them.

[Summerbreezing]

I meant to add that most of them grow out of it pretty quickly once they leave school.

[TillyTellTale]

Evans Humans are really good at forming stereotypes and impressions, aren't they? It's like finding out you're pregnant with twins- you suddenly see twins everywhere and it seems like there's been a twin boom. Actually, you just didn't notice them when you had no especial interest.

A few months back, my FIL announced that "90% of the mobile phone calls" that he overheard in the town centre weren't in English. What he means is, he notices the people on the phone who aren't speaking English! I am sure of it, because as it happens, I am a languages enthusiast who listens out for non-English phone calls, because I like trying to identify the language! I also spend far more time in town than he does, because I live in the centre.

[MistressDeeCee]

I cant understand why, because SOME teenagers are bad , all must be punished? It smacks of envy of youth - some people forget they were once young. Or are jealous that they're no longer young.

I can't fathom why anybody could think the 'label one label all' mentality has anything fair about it. & rubbish behaviour is not the sole remit of youth.

Silly attitude