Youth of today

[CarerWhoCaresTooMuch]

What is it with them.?? Whilst I know I’m going to sound like my gran probably get a roasting too but I just don’t get them. Im working in retail and what I’m seeing these days just disgusts me. Foul mouthed , Cocky , vaping youths who think it’s their absolute right to steal , trash the shops and even abuse anyone who would question any behaviour, I know kids will be kids and it’s part of ‘Growing up’ , yes times have changed but what the hell has actually happened? They genuinely don’t give two monkeys about what they say or do, There’s no respect , common curtesy , manners . Some of the mischief as it was put to me just this evening ‘ a bit of entertainment’ is actually criminal damage , disturbing the peace . They don’t even care if they are on camera , seems like there’s nothing to stop them.
Yes I know there are also some absolute cracking youngsters out there too.
I’d love to know what the parents of these youngsters actually think and how they would feel if they knew what their child was up too. Obviously things were different when I was growing and I know the world we live in now is also very different, so I guess I’m just wondering how everyone else feels and what they think.

It's a cyclical thing really. We are / were once those kids, we grow up, feel they're too different and radical, and judge their tendencies like the generation before us judged us.

There's a theory that suggests this is why we die. Youth are essentially a mini-step towards evolution, and if we didn't die our values and mentality would be a hindrance towards peogress.

Imagine English people from the 18th Century seeing London today or discovering America which was a lost colony is now the ruling Empire of the world.

Clearly I haven't answered your question, just thinking out loud.

Good answer though.

I think the youth of every day has had a mixture of respectful and disrespectful ones.

Socrates 470bc

"Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants.”

Criminal damage etc is def not acceptable, but I imagine that most damage done around a town is not by children.

I've had this conversation a hundred times with work colleagues and family, and I don't know. I think because of how I was brought up and how my friends, work colleagues and family were, the typical view is that society as a whole is the "snowflake" generation, where you can't do right for wrong etc, and this is something that the youth tend to pick up on. They know they can do pretty much anything and there will be zero consequences to their actions.

Where I currently live most of the crime that's reported and in the local paper is usually from people aged 13-21, there was a 26 year old stabbed here a week ago by a group of 6 people, with the oldest being 15. Unfortunately a lot comes down to parents who are happy to have their kids out on the streets as its out of sight out of mind in my opinion...., but where is the line drawn?? Do we give the police more powers to give them a beating like the old days? Do we give them actual consequences to their actions? What ever is decided to be correct it is more than we currently have in place.

I honestly think that their are so called parents out their that have kids and after a few years they really don't care to much about them. The kids are never corrected. They are not told what's right or wrong. The parents don't care where they are or what they are up to.
They don't know who their kids are going around with either so the kids end up with friends that are just bad news.

I had a friend of mine who's child was bullied in primary school. They went to the school who did nothing. They went to the bullies parents who did not believe them. The bully is now 12 and his mother won't correct him. His father meanwhile just does what his wife wants for a quite life. I can see this child getting into a lot of trouble in the new few years.
My friend decided to send her child to another school a few miles away to get them away from the bully and his pals. Her child is doing well in their new school.

I know a number of parents with kids at the moment. They are correcting kids and teaching them right from wrong. They know where their kids are and bring/collect kids from events or arrange that they take turns with other friends parents to bring kids to and from say football matches ect.
They are also know the kids friends and encourage the good friendships.

I always think that if you want to cast aspersions on an entire generation, then you should may be first think about which generation it was that raised them and taught them everything they know.

I agree ! Stop moaning and be a good example.
I have taught my child manners. He was 4 holding the door open to older people. I watched for ages and not one was polite or had manners and thanked him. Made me realise the kids are doomed. They only get blasted, no chance to do anything good really.

I don't think they're any different to my generation who brought them up, except that they drink and smoke far less, take a lot fewer drugs and have half the underage pregnancies.

The vast majority of young people are lovely

The badly behaved ones are upsetting and intimidating, but no worse than the youth of any other generations

Agreed.

Today, on my local Facebook group, I saw a post of a lady thanking an 11 year old for giving her elderly father 34p that he was short in the shop for some milk. He was in the queue behind. His Mum didn't know until she saw it on the group.

www.theguardian.com/education/2009/mar/17/ephebiphobia-young-people-mosquito#:~:text=Later%2C%20in%20the%20fourth%20century,streets%2C%20inflamed%20with%20wild%20notions.

StevenB1.
Thats it lack of consequences and they know it, so they go out in their little gangs of friends , dared to do whatever knowing nothing will happen. An adult will then try and intervene minding not to overstep and before you know it’s the adult that’s wrong for attempting. I’m not sure we’ll ever have an answer on how to sort it …

ihadenough22 .
That’s good to hear your friends child has settled and doing well. I also think in some cases it’s todays living ie working the hours we do that also has a lot to answer for some parents not knowing what their child is up to.

Sep200024

absolutely , good point.

brightare
oh absolutely. Hats off to those parents who are doing the best giving their child /children the best start instilling the values etc , there are plenty well mannered , polite children out there doing their bit. Sadly those not so great just spoil it for them as the whole generation get tarnished with the same brush
It terrifies me when I think the potential world my grandchildren are going to grow up in in the years to come.

Elm26
aww that is fabulous. Puts the feel good back for the youth of today. A credit to his parents for sure.

I always think this! It always makes me laugh when it's the generation who brought up the "youth" that they are moaning about!

I think that most teens are great - funny, bright, engaged, enthusiastic and want to be a part of society. But also that a large minority have been lost to us for various reasons (parenting, lack of police, awful education system, no alternative to academic schoolwork etc, etc) and this cohort is far worse than we used to be. I'm 50 and young teens stabbing and killing other teens and older people simply wasn't a thing. The answer is systemic change in how we raise these children, starting with a new political system and working all the way down.

Way to make the OP feel old!

It's getting worse, that's for sure. Whilst the common view is that every generation thinks subsequent ones are disrespectful and nothing is actually changing, actually I think it's that each generation is slightly (maybe 10%) worse than the previous one, and this has been going on for centuries.

I think this is correct because it makes sense that a generation who raise their children "incorrectly" will produce children who go on to raise their own children even more "incorrectly" and the cycle repeats.

It will continue to decline until one of two things happens, either there will be a reactionary push towards corporal and capital punishment, or society will just collapse because the generations being raised are so incapable of thinking of anyone other than themselves that they will refuse to work, there will be no income from taxation and nobody will be willing or able to do anything.

Missing the point entirely, but Socrates was sentenced to death in 399 BC and was aged about 70. So if he'd put that quote out in 470 BC he'd have been about 0 or 1 years old. It would have been remarkable that he could articulate such a view at that age but also ironic because he would be part of the generation that he's talking about.

@CarerWhoCaresTooMuch Yeah, you sound like my nan used to!

I would kindly suggest that the kids coming in to muck about and nick stuff are not typical but the exception. My kids wouldn't do this in a million years, aren't foul mouthed and are respectful. As our most of their friends. Or they at least have the good sense to keep swearing out of ear shot of adults.

When I was a kid there was a grp of kids like that on our estate - ran amok. But again, exception not the rule. My nan thought another war would teach them hard work and respect - despite lhaving to work in a factory for 6 years, losing her home, 2 of her brothers dying in France, and having her sisters emigrate with GIs.
Just goes to how you - rose tinted glasses!

'It's getting worse, that's for sure. Whilst the common view is that every generation thinks subsequent ones are disrespectful and nothing is actually changing,'

Really??? The Victorians thought the 'bright young things' and flappers of the 20s were compltely immoral. Look at what the war generation thought of the 60's - they must have thought the world went F-ing mad when they saw teens in bell bottoms taking drugs, talking about free-love and refusing to fight for their countries...

And the other thing - these are OUR kids! People complain about the younger generations as if they had nothing to do with raising them, teaching them or creating the cultural they're growing up in.

In the village where I live you can see a pattern develop. Quite young children are allowed out on their own with other kids and they seem to "rule" the streets - scooting in the road in front of cars, terrorising people at the park, being verbally abusive, throwing food, littering, etc.
The parents of these children see nothing wrong with letting their kids go out on their own because that's what they used to do when they were young. I'm not sure whether or not they are aware what their kids are up to but I highly doubt it. There's no-one there to say to these children "That's dangerous/unkind/damaging the environment" They are growing up thinking this is acceptable behaviour.
These kids are between 5 and 10.

The same parents outwardly flout all rules that the school impose so the kids are taught not to respect authority.

Generational parenting issue. Not sure how it can be solved.

I'm guessing you are talking about one particular group of young people you have seen.

The vast majority of young people are absolutely fine, as they always have been. The noticeable ones (same with adults) are the ones who are shouting loudly and behaving badly.

It is no different to how it ever was.

But you're describing exactly the sort of uninvolved, 'non snowflake' not-parenting that these threads usually start waxing lyrical about. You read it loads on MN, "oh in my day we weren't pondered to, we went out all day and only came home when it was dark."

I'm 50 and young teens stabbing and killing other teens and older people simply wasn't a thing
Bollocks. Stephen Lawrence was murdered 30 years ago. Mary Bell strangled a 3yo in the 60s. James Bulger was abducted and killed by children in 1993. Philip Lawrence murdered in 1995, after intervening in a gang attack on a schoolchild. None of this is new.

this cohort is far worse than we used to be. I'm 50 and young teens stabbing and killing other teens and older people simply wasn't a thing

Wasn't it? Or is it just that we hear more about it, due to 24 hours news, social media etc. I agree it can seem worse, but I'm in my 50s, and there were just as many problems then as there are now. Also, our population has grown, so the incidences of bad behaviour are bound to have grown along side this.

When I was a teenager, there were gangs of kids shoplifting, doing drugs, smoking, drinking, cherry knocking, shouting abuse at passers by. There was racism, sexism, assaults, stabbings. But you only heard about these things via word of mouth (unless it was a really big case) as the news was only on for half an hour at a time, and there was no social media. These days local social media is full of people moaning about kids, dogs, car parking, littering etc, and I do think this can fuel a sense of things being worse than before.

But the teenagers/young adults I know are very well behaved, don't do drugs or smoke or drink the way we used to when we were young, and anti-social behaviour seems no worse to me. I think people often look back with rose-tinted glasses and forget what it was really like back then.

It all just goes back to the parents really. I’ve got two cracking teenage nephews, polite, empathetic, thoughtful, always have been.

I live in a less desirable area and although the kids play out in the street they’re mainly polite. The ones that aren’t I know their parents, and they are awful too.

And then you’ve got the youngsters who may have great parents who fall in with that crowd led by youngsters with a troublesome home life and get stuck in that cycle until they grow up and realise (mostly)

Like someone said it’s a cycle that will only continue to evolve.