How and why are teens allowed to roam the roads freely for hours?

[LadyGillingham]

Where is parental responsibility? My parents had to know where I was, who I was with and it was always timeboxed. Good behaviour was expected at all times. I’ve seen young teens on bikes, at all hours, hanging around the high street - shouting, littering, damaging property etc.

Parents must be held accountable and charged for neglect alongside violent crimes by children. That old man (Bhim Kohli) didn’t deserve to be murdered. Why aren’t parents being held accountable? Feral kids are a result of neglect.

I think kids are a lot less feral than they were when I was young. Don’t see that many hanging around now. When I was younger there would be huge gangs of us and Dee would have all been drunk on cheap cider downed straight from the bottle. Kids these days spend more time in doors and don’t seem to cause the havoc we used to.

That said if you do get teens causing issues, the issues may be worse. But it’s a lot less frequent and the average teen isn’t doing it now.

When I was a teen I used to go out with my mates all day at times, in to town shopping, cinema, ice skating, on the bus to visit my friends. From like 12/13 onwards. I mean, I wasn’t hanging around the streets or doing anything antisocial or violent, but I could have been. Teens being out on their own for hours isn’t new??

Oh come on, teenagers are parented more than ever. If you make this a generational thing you are losing the argument. This generation of parents aren’t the ones who needed a TV campaign to remind them to parent at night!
The incident you’re referring to has nothing to do with other parents parenting.

I don't think kids are out and about any more than they used to be.

I do think they are angrier and more aggressive, though.

Well I grew up in the 70s and 80s, parents hardly ever knew where we were ( from a young age ). No phones, no tracking, no being forced to sit indoors …

my parents weren’t neglectful at all.

I do not believe parents should be trued for children’s crimes.

i do think we need to look at societal breakdown as a whole, discipline, respect, and we need to teach kids about resilence, knock backs, emotional intelligence, ambition, work ethic etc etc. all of which have been dumbed down in favour of political correctness.

people don’t like to hear it but we also need to look at the absence of me role models in lots of kids lives/ not just dads but teachers, uncles, sports etc…

Yes I would agree with this. All my mates were laid in fields / grave yards etc drinking cider! My teens don’t go out half as much and if they do, it’s somewhere specific like the cinema etc. Neither of them are at all bothered for drinking alcohol etc.

I also think the difference is, the ones that are out are much more anti-social and could be carrying knifes / drugs etc. They are not scared by the police telling them to go home (like we were), they often have e-bikes / scooters to move at high speed as well.

I don’t think you are being unreasonable and I always wonder why parents aren’t held more to account.

Two mid teen boys from the city I live in were killed when their illegal e-bike was hit by a bus, they were evading the police at the time. The police officers involved have only recently had it confirmed they won’t be prosecuted…for doing their job. The parents acknowledge no responsibility whatsoever for the deaths of their sons, who barely in their mid teens were well known to the police and were, as mentioned, on an illegal e-bike in the middle of the day when they should have been in school.

If someone under 18 is charged with a crime the parents should also be charged

What's wrong with teens hanging around?The antisocial stuff you've mentioned is obviously wrong, but you're lumping everyone together. Accusing people of bad parenting because their 15 year olds walk to the shops together? You're being ridiculous. You're probably on other threads complaining about kids being glued to their playstations and having no social skills.

Also agree that teens being out on their own for hours isn’t new. What is new is the active distain for authority, some of the extremes of behaviour and, most of all, the refusal of some parents to even acknowledge their child's behaviour, let alone discipline them.

Far too much responsibility for parenting has already been ladled onto teachers and other public roles. Parents and children have also been taught to mistrust anyone from outside the home, e.g. 'stranger danger' - ironic given that you're most likely to be abused at home.

Unfortunately your politicians really don't care, and are doing absolutely nothing to hold feral parents to account.

Ok and what was the reason in the 1970s and 1980s when there were constant public information films to remind parents to check your kids were not playing in a disused quarry, climbing a pylon, on railway lines, or out throwing fireworks at little kids?

Parents are far more engaged these days in general and teenagers are actually allowed to go out and about on their own, it's entirely age appropriate!

It doesnt take much intelligence to have a child, but it takes more than a little intelligence to raise a child not to be a a criminal or socially inept

Oh here we go.... is this not a bit ageist? You're kinda lumping an entire generation I to one category here. I have teens and I know other teens none of them are like what you describe.
Teenagers need to be social it's part of their development it's essential. Not every Teenager you see is committing a crime.

It starts early on with lack of parenting.

If a child is encouraged and praised for learning and doing their homework or some other activity or sport from KS1, they are absorbed in that and accept that as the normal way to spend their evenings.

My DS wouldn't want to roam the streets aimlessly because he'd want to get his homework out of the way, and have time for a swim or some gaming with his mates online.

But if a child is not encouraged, doesn't have alternatives, doesn't have access to gaming or sport, that leaves a void. There are a group of children near me, aged 7 - 15 who roam the streets from 3pm to 6pm because their parents are out working, and they have no-one keeping an eye on them. That is their social group and their norm.

Add a bit of domestic violence and racism to their childhood's and you produce the sort of kids who beat up the old man.

But the councils are overwhelmed with neglect cases and can't help everyone.

Our village has started a youth club for the younger ones, to give them somewhere to go, some activities and a sandwich, but it relies on three determined retired teachers and a local charitable trust. No council help.

Oh rubbish, that's nothing new at all. How old are you? Have you heard of skinheads, punks, mods and rockers? Teddy boys?

It's not normal or necessarily right (in some situations it might be) to know where your teenagers are at all times. They are growing up and heading quickly towards adulthood and need to be granted more and more independence as they grow.
The issue is not teenagers hanging out, the issue is them not learning how to behave respectfully as they grow up, the breakdown of trust in society, not having enough responsibility at younger ages or, conversely, too much responsibility and rebelling against that. Harsh school regimes where everything is punished so they feel they might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. And easy access to drugs doesn't help.

Hear hear. I left a local FB group because there were so many moans about groups of teenagers who were merely hanging out with their mates.

I agree with this - but there are a disruptive minority of feral parents who allow this problem to occur through an inability to parent their child properly, apply appropriate discipline, and accept advice or support from other people, formally or informally. I'm sorry, but we need to be much, much firmer on these parents, and by this I mean not only legal and economic sanctions, but ones that would hit home, e.g. social media bans, etc. I live in an area blighted by this and I can see the damage that results.

I am near retirement age, so obviously I have 😂
I think you have misunderstood what I was saying tbh.

The case you have quoted though the kids were out in the middle of the day in a park which is something most parents of kids that age would allow.

I think the divide has grown.

On one hand... you have the parents who don't know. And don't know how to care. They are just parenting how they were brought up.

Then at the other end is the micromanaged teens.

We were always out and about, but there were consequences for bad behaviour and we had to be back by dark or dinnertime. If we weren't back on time, there were consequences, as there were if we talked back.

A phrase that springs to mind is "just you try that and see what happens", you never wanted to see what would happen. 😅

We just wandered about when I was teen. No phones so had to be back at a time but parents had no idea where we were as plans were pretty fluid. That said we were pretty boring. No sex, no booze, no drugs a few cigarettes.

Im sure there are lots of similarly boring teens although it’d be vaping these days. You only here about the extreme incidents though. Not about the millions of teens who got up to nothing.

I know lots of people think rural living isn’t great for teens but it does mean you know where they are all the time.

When I was a teen in the 90s, I was never in the house. I’d be out all day and my parents didn’t know where or what I was doing. I miss those days.

I think it's difficult to have a conversation about this online as people's view will be strongly influenced by the area they live. In my London, it is undeniably a huge problem. Since the school holidays security has been upped nd there is an increased police presence due to antisocial behaviour. We had a couple of teens throw a sofa from the third floor of a shopping centre, raids of the Tesco and Sainsbury's local, vandalism, groups of 20+ teens causing absolute mayhem. I can't say whether its better or worse than previous years. I grew up in a different area. Yes we used to be out throughout the day on bikes and skateboards, but we were playing on the street not causing criminal damage. I do think that parents should have to take more responsibility - kids taring through the shopping centre on roller skates, and giving backchat to security when asked to leave... I think they should fine the parents. If parents have to cough up £300 each time, they aren't just going to shrug their shoulders and say "teens need their independence"