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.

One of my kids was involved in petty criminal behaviour in his mid-teens. We had no control over him. He literally ignored everything we said or did. Was attempting to intimidate female staff at school (He's over 6' and strong because, like good parents, we had encouraged sport and going to the gym). We asked for help but none of the agencies could do anything unless he engaged (which he refused to do) or until he was caught (which didn't happen).

We had years of Hell from that young man.

Pray tell me how I was responsible for the choices that he made, all of which went against everything we had taught him.

Yes, and often they hang around parks looking for trouble or roaming g estates looking for trouble and often they've been drinking.

Get a life...

What do you class as petty criminal behaviour?
I think the poster means serious assaults and murders etc.

Are you joking? Are we supposed to keep them inside glued to devices rather than out getting exercise, fresh air and spending time with their families

Lockdown was horrific for children's mental health. Irs not healthy to keep kids locked up.

During my teens (80s) roaming all day was normal. It isn't roaming in itself that is the problem.

If you've tried to seek help from various agencies, that is a different matter.

The problem is that there are plenty of parents who would be egging the kid on if he was deliberately intimidating teachers.

The problem with OP's post is that it's so generic. In our area, we have this problem with anti-social teenagers. the ones who are skipping school, riding illegal e-bikes, out late at night in the town centre etc.

But we also have all the perfectly normal, well behaved teenagers who are just going about their lives, hanging out in groups, going to the park, getting mcdonalds or a kebab, taking the bus to play football or basketball etc etc etc.

A lot of people don’t actually understand that there’s no help. Police do nothing, SS do nothing and sometimes are actually disruptive (like telling parents they CAN’T lock their kid in the house or remove their phone permanently and they’ll be the ones in trouble) , services are understaffed, underfunded and overwhelmed, waiting lists are YEARS long and yes, if the young person won’t engage , that’s the end of it… if there even is an “it”.

And when my son went off the rails:

1. We had tried to do that
2. Our kids were all teens
3. We worked and owned our home outright
4. If I'm in jail, who looks after my other kids? Let's put the good kids into the care system; that'll help.

I don’t think they’re out and about anymore than when I was a teen in the 80’s.

The big difference is that back then if you were being a little sod an adult would have no fear of picking you up on it. That’s absolutely not the case today.

What were they doing in the park though, they were looking for trouble?
Why do they have that mindset
It would never have occurred to.me or my friends as a teen to approach a dog walker, abuse them and kill them.
That's what we have to change, why instead of ignoring him or even having a chat with him and his dog, their minds wander to abuse and attack.

I'm not going to list my son's behaviours. I'm not sure that I would even know what all of them were as he never got caught.

But we're not talking shoplifting a bag of crisps or running through a wheat field.

But there's another thread running right now where a few, not all, are basicalyl saying that actually, their child has exactly the same rights as an adult and they dont' see why their child should defer to an adult at any time. So.... [shrug] it's not surprising that some (and definitely not all, or even the majority) of children and teenages are complete wankers.

When I was 15 I was having out in fields drinking white lightening. My 15 yr old ds goes out for a few hours with friends, gets a meal deal, plays football. If I wanted to I could track him on his phone.

My parents had no idea where I was for hours 😂

Very true, we were scared also.of letting our parents down etc.
It's all disappeared.
People might complain about us and our parents would back them up and tell us off.
Nowadays the parents will more than likely take the side of the child.

We had a horrible teenage shit next door to us years ago.
He turned up once with his dad.
His dad was just enabling his shitty behaviour.

Yep absolutely no violent young people in the 60s

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war

I'd say parents know where their kids are more than ever. Most teens appear to want their parents to track their location so that they never experience the horror of their parents phoning or messaging them to ask where they are when they're with their mates.

I agree there is actually less of a lot of teenage 'bad behaviour' like public drinking these days. Doesn't mean there aren't some awful feral kids out there, but it's not like that's a new phenomenon.

You can see from the teacher posts on here, that there is much more bad behaviour in general across the board.

A lot of these types of children, the antisocial and or violent ones, don't have proper parents, or functioning parents, or parents that care, quite probably their parents behave in exactly the same way. A lot of these kids don't have a loving or safe home to be in, it's preferably for them to be outside on the streets with people their own age. They've probably learned this behaviour from adults around them.

It's not a simple solution to punish the parents, especially if there are no parents. Culture and society needs to change and people need more respect for authority/police. But in many areas the police also need to earn that respect.

It's a massive problem with no simple answer.

My kids are teenagers they go out all the time
I do not want them indoors not knowing how to socialise - not being street wise - just siting in front of social media rubbish all night

Mist teens I come in contact with while they're out " roaming" are fine. I think it worse if they're stuck on their computers all day and night.

I mainly agree with this, but the shift in recent years has been in aggressive behaviour that is often condoned by parents and resource strapped public services meaning that there aren't accessible youth facilities, schools can't get on top of disruptive behaviour and lack of policing to manage criminally disruptive and violent behaviour.

Drugs are also more accessible now which fuels negative behaviours.

Anti-social and violent behaviour has spread beyond its traditional territory largely assisted by online resources and communications, and there does seem to be more innocent people getting caught up as victims rather than targeted territorial gangs.

It's not totally new, but there has been a gear change. Younger teenagers are hitting the news more frequently as offenders than in recent decades too.

It's going to take a lot of investment in youth services and public services to reverse the trends and that's not about to happen imminently.

Stop with the parent bashing. I have a really difficult teen. So loud and annoys people. Diagnosed Autistic/ADHD. From the outside, he looks like a really terribly parented brat with no actual issues. Each attempt at a bit of freedom I think, what are you doing. Don't mess it up.

There's no criminal behaviour, more annoying in this case.

My biggest issue personally is phones. I would never feel comfortable politely confronting poor behaviour anymore in groups of teens because the phone will likely come out and I'd struggle with that.

We were feral with no oversight growing up. I don't see that happening anymore. We're all tracking kids and checking in. There isn't a fear of authority generally as much anymore. A good thing and a bad thing.

I’m a member of the family and have been attending the trial almost every day. It was a tough day for all of us. We’ve tried to hold forgiveness in our hearts for the kids involved, but the family made that incredibly difficult. They would often come out of court celebrating—high-fiving each other whenever something went in their favor. It was deeply painful to witness their lack of remorse throughout the process. The only time we saw any emotion from their side was after the guilty verdict was read.

It was clear these kids were failed by their upbringing. Let this be a wake-up call to all parents: stay involved in your children’s lives. It’s our responsibility to guide them, to teach them right from wrong, so tragedies like this never happen.

We hope that these young kids take this time to reflect, learn, and grow into better individuals after serving their sentences.
Thus is from a member of Mr Kohlis family.

Op no point being annoyed at the kids or the parents. Be annoyed at a government that has so chronically cut funding to youth provision over the years that youth centres, services and spaces are on their knees unable to keep the doors open or staff in post. When you do away with those services then you will naturally find young people looking for other places to gather (as we all do within our social circles except they don't have the money to go for dinner together and aren't old enough for the pub). Some parents will do their best to monitor their kids but ultimately part of parenting is trust that your kids are where they say they are. When I was a teen I was extremely closely monitored by my parents. They wanted to know who I was with and where I was and what I was doing all the time. I got really good at lying but ultimately that was down to needing a bit of freedom and wanting a place where I could hang out with my friends. There was no resource near us so we got up to mischief instead.

The other issue is that many young people are being exploited and while parents are being told 'this happens' there's not enough support available or reliably enough funded to actually help parents when it does happen. They're told 'talk to your teens' but not how to talk to them.

Then of course you have vulnerable young people in the mix who are struggling at home and feel safer out and about but then can't regulate themselves and don't know how to behave appropriately because they and often the parents have had bigger issues which take focus - which is a job for statutory and community services which are also being massively cut back.