To Expect Parents To Be Held More Strongly To Account For Their Children's Behaviour?

[BigFatBully]

I believe that parents should be held more greatly to account for their children's unacceptable behaviour.

For a case study, take the sale of alcohol and the whole fining/prosecution situation that we have in the UK around under 18 year olds purchasing alcohol. The burden of responsibility should always fall to the parents to ensure that their child doesn't buy alcohol or attempt to, not the poor shopkeeper. It should be the parents who are fined if their child attempts to buy alcohol, not the sales agent. As it stands, we have a situation where grown adults can't legitimately buy alcohol without carrying a passport or driving licence on them, even if they are considerably above the age of legal drinking. I was talking to someone the other day who said that they were asked to prove that they aren't a child to buy a bottle of wine at 30 years old. It's a ludicrous situation. On a similar note, I was behind a 40+ woman in the queue at a toiletries store and she was asked to prove that she wasn't a child in order to buy a pair of tweezers.

I don't know what jurisdiction other Mumsnetters are in, but in the UK we have a problem with children behaving wholly unacceptably and the parents not bothering to do anything about it because of lack of accountability. In my city, there are areas where the bus services have had to be curtailed of an evening because someone's little "darlings" (I could use other words but they might not be in-keeping with forum rules) are throwing bricks, eggs and goodness knows what at the windows. Social services should investigate as soon as the police raise concerns about illegal behaviour. The parents should take the blame for this behaviour.

A couple of months ago, there was a girl in a city centre that I was in who was threatening grown ups with a knife, whilst riding a bicycle on a pedestrianised street. The "mother" later emerged from a bookmakers, seemingly off of her face on some kind of substance. I told the mother she should teach her child how to behave and what's not acceptable and the mother didn't seem to care less. If it was down to me, the "mother" would be charged with causing an affray by neglecting to control her child, who threatened people with a knife.

Being a parent is not an easy job, and it's not a part time job either. When my children are older, they will not be loitering outside shops and trying to buy alcohol or to encourage adults to buy for them. They shall certainly be treating others with due respect. They will not be on the streets, bored and vandalising property. My husband and I will encourage them to develop hobbies and interests, such as football, music, art, even cinema. We have planned to reduce our hours at work and budgeted for it, so that when the children become too old for our au-pair, that we can ensure that they aren't on the streets, getting up to mischief. We are going to educate our children on the law and the consequences of breaking the law. Of course, we allow them to play and let off steam. They do push boundaries occasionally but we always let them know that certain kinds of behaviour is unacceptable and will result in sanctions such as no internet access for a week, or even longer depending on the severity of the misbehaviour. We allow our children to play and they do occasionally act up or be a little 'cheeky' but they are well aware that there is a line that they do not cross.

What do you think about the matter of unacceptable behaviour of other people's children? Does it anger you that the parents aren't held accountable as much as they should? Are your own children ever guilty of behaving in an un-savoury manner? Vote in the poll and share your thoughts.

Agreed. Unless you're with them 24/7 you have no idea what they may decide to do. Even the best of kids can poor decisions or succumb to peer pressure

Fellow 90s baby here too. The 1990s was policed differently than to how it is today. There wasn't as much pressure on retailers to 'Molly Coddle' the public as there is today. There wasn't the level of fining and pressure groups such as the "challenge 25" organisation that there is today. People were expected to do the right thing and be accountable for their own behaviour and that of their dependents. People took account for their responsibilities. My mother brought us up to say please and thank you, never touch drugs as they can be very dangerous and kill, actions had consequences. If we walked in to a room, we were told to close the door behind us as "it won't close itself". We received clear instructions and explanations as to why the instructions were important and that there would be consequences for not following the instructions. There have always been odd incidents of poor behaviour, not saying that everything was perfect in my day, or even my parents day but we had respect for our communities.

On the flip side, when I was at school, I don't think there was a fining system for truancy. And there used to be a lot of un-explained absences. Now that parents are held to account if their child misses lessons, it seems to have reduced and parents get in quite a flap about whether or not they'll be able to take their children away during term time. When I was a child, the little boy who lived on my street missed weeks of schooling just because he was moving house! So, holding parents to account does improve things.

Well, you seem full of outrage but curiously fuzzy as to what measures you would want to implement, other than vague references to social services. Who do not have the powers you seem to think they have. And my reference to eugenics was merely a response to your line of thinking that there are those who are 'not fit for parenting'.

Tell me you don't have teenagers without telling me😂
I'm sure your plans for perfect teens are wonderful...

Yes there are a fair number of people who should simply not have children. But it's not just those whose kids go off the rails. Plenty of good families with strong, nurturing parenting, have teens that act out, take risks, try drugs, etc.

So your children will have lots of healthy hobbies and sports.. excellent. If they act out you will ground them and remove internet for a week (barring homework one assumes) At least they will be fit enough to shimmy out of the bedroom window at night while they are grounded.

Parent of four here. We gave our children opportunities, sensible rules and support, and tried to balance independence with safetly. 3 were easy..worked hard at school, two went off to medical school etc etc.. One... well if there was a rule he broke it, if there was a stupid or dangerous idea, he was up for it. The teen years were hell. It had nothing to do with how he was parented; he was a ball of raging hormones who resented the world for a long period.
Yes he grew up and grew out of it (and is a lovely man with a good job and lovely wife) . But his personality is (and was) different to his siblings and he absolutely railed against our attempts to keep him safe, keep him sensible... he wasn't sensible ! Some are, naturally, some are not.

Come back in 10 years and let us know how it went...

Parenting teens is very different to parenting little kids. They are exposed to influences that you cannot control. I'm all for parents taking responsibility but to say it is always preventable and must be parent's fault is incredibly naive.

Supervised discipline from the children's social services and punishment for the child

What exactly would that supervised discipline from social work look like?

Absolutely the responsibility of shop keepers to not sell alcohol to children. Ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

As for the rest, come back once you have raised your children to adulthood.

All we can do is raise them as well as possible, to mostly make the right decisions, to hopefully not be led by their peers, but you can't hold onto them too tightly, they need to be allowed the freedom to make and learn from their own mistakes. Otherwise you just stunt their development into adulthood.

The kids with extreme behaviour issues, and their parents usually have much more challenges in life that we will ever, thankfully, know. What do you want to do? Fine them for money they don't have? Put them in jail, who has the child then, when there isn't enough foster carers to take them?

It is a fine looking high horse you are on there when you've never actually learnt to ride. I've raised mine pretty well I think, they made mistakes and learned from them, but I would never sit there looking down on another parent without walking in their shoes, because I would have struggled if mine had fallen in with the wrong crowd and was defiant (can happen to any parent, even you) and there were significant challenges. I was lucky.

I have outlined what I think should be done. Neglect cases brought in where a child commits a crime as standard procedure. Public order offence fines should be issued to parents who let their children commit public order offences, not just words of advice from the police. Child protection teams have the power to take a child in to their care if a parent is neglecting to meet their duties. Child In Need meetings are something they have the power to call with parents and local paediatric care providers. This should be done as soon as concerns are raised and should not be left until things deteriorate to a situation where a member of the public is harmed or their property is damaged. I would be absolutely mortified if one of mine vandalized someone's property, but some parents out there don't seem to care as they leave it to the state to deal with and put right.

Yes, there are people who are not fit to be parents but that should be dealt with via means of adoption, to the many couples out there who are desperate to give a child a loving home but are unable to conceive. No government should force someone to undergo a medical procedure. However, these pathetic excuses of parents should be warned that if they do have more children, that the child protection teams will take immediate custody based on the "parents'" previous neglect.

This is false. Truancy in the UK has not demonstrably decreased since the 1990s, and there is no consistent evidence that enforcement measures like fines and the criminalisation result in sustained reductions in truancy.

From DfE data -

Unauthorised absence rates (England, state-funded schools):

• 1994/95: ~ 0.9% of sessions missed were unauthorised (approximate, based on earlier data sets)
• 2006/07: 1.1%
• 2012/13: 1.0%
• 2018/19: 1.4%
• 2022/23: 2.2% (sharply up due to pandemic-related disengagement)

You would have to be living under a rock to not know what chat GBT is so which of your parents should be arrested for your obvious lies?

As for saying that parenting is a full time job? Interesting because parents need to work

Should schools bear responsibility too because they spend so much time telling children to be comfortable in their own skins and not a lot about accountability and the law 🤔

Grandparents take on a role too how much responsibility should they take? In the past they provided childcare and support does lack of support mean a decline in standards?

I think most teenagers try alcohol or smoking and it is almost a rite of passage. A lot depends on age, 13 is quite different to 15/16.
Today I am upset at the sentences given to those teenagers responsible for the horrific attack on Mr Bhim Kohli who died from his awful injuries.
At the time the children were aged 13 and 14.
The 13 yr old girl got handed a 3 year Youth Rehabilitation order. She had previously filmed another racially motivated assault.
The now 15 yr old boy was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment.
Children are not born racist. Leicester is ethnically diverse and we, mostly, live happily alongside people of Indian and Pakistani heritage.
These children have most likely been raised in a racist household and if this could be proven then the parents should be punished.

For SS to work with more families they need more funding. About 10 years ago there was a trial project where families who were at risk of their children going into care signed up to scheme where each full time family worker was assigned 2 families. Over intensively with just those two families, turning up unannonced on evenings and weekends as well as durring office hours. Fewer of these families ended up with their children being taken into care which in the long run would have been a lot more expensive. But the money needs to be there for the initial investment.

The parents often have signifigant issues and are parenting the way they were parented, or perhaps they weren’t parented. Some thing has to happen to help them make a change. These parents aren’t sitting around thinking fuck it, I just can’t be arsed to parent. They need to be taught the skills.

How old are your children op?

The OP was probably only programmed yesterday so maybe a day old 😂

Most parents don’t ‘let’ their child commit crime, and most parents raise their children to the best of their ability. You say you’d be mortified if one of your children vandalised something, under your own proposals you’d also be prosecuted and potentially lose your children to adoption. Are you really sure you would want that?

Child protection teams have the power to take a child in to their care if a parent is neglecting to meet their duties. Child In Need meetings are something they have the power to call with parents and local paediatric care providers. This should be done as soon as concerns are raised and should not be left until things deteriorate to a situation where a member of the public is harmed or their property is damaged.

How much more tax are you prepared to pay to increase the remit of social work services? You know the profession is absolutely on its knees at the moment and has been for many years.

As for removing children, it’s an absolute last resort as it should be. Removal into care doesn’t generally improve things for kids for many complex reasons, there aren’t enough care placements for children who do need them and adoption isn’t a good option for most teenage children. If you knew anything about children’s social work you would know this

And it’s not child protection teams who take children into care, it’s the court/children’s hearing system that makes that decision.

My parents should be arrested because I don't know what Chat GBT is? That's an odd thing to say.

You seem to shuffle the blame between different persons and organisations and that is a classic example of where discipline breaks down. It's not the grandparents' responsibility to teach children right from wrong. It's not the schools' responsibility to ensure that children know how to behave outside of the classroom. Responsibility for a child's behaviour should remain with the parents at all time.

The grandparents have done their work in raising their own children, they don't want to have to start all over again 20 years later. This highlights another off topic problem with people raising adult babies that never grow up, get a job, get their own house or take responsibility for their own life.

@BigFatBully you're really saying your post and consequent replies are all your own work, no AI involved at all? And you're a genuine person?

Hmm I've had 3 teens. 2 were involved in clubs, sports etc and never any trouble. The other one was smoking, drinking wkds over the meadows and pregnant by an unsuitable boyfriend at 17.

So come on tell me why this should happen when they had the same upbringing

So who do we fine once the child is in care and still committing crimes?

How will ss deal with all these families when they can't even keep on top of actual neglect?

If you really don’t know what ChatGPT is, you are so uninformed about current affairs that you have no right to an opinion.

Anyway, to the poster who suggested that the OP was written by AI, AI would form a much more coherent and complex argument and have much better grammar!

Many of those adoptive parents are finding themselves with those kids committing crimes or in need of services because early childhood trauma will out.

Punishing the mother of a teen who commits crimes does not get rid of
the prenatal and early life trauma he experienced from his exposure to domestic violence as a fetus and infant which has changed his brain forever.

Punishing the parent who works three jobs for being unable to adequately supervise her child isn’t going to magic up an income for her to be home and pay for those sports club you think will prevent your own kids getting into trouble.

Parents often beg for help for their traumatised and mentally ill children and get mere crumbs. I attended a parenting course that was wonderful for parents of toddlers still exploring discipline but attending were parents of young teens in crisis, it was totally inappropriate and unhelpful but this was the crumb they got and they all knew if they didn’t jump through this hoop they’d get no further help.

and already they punish parents anyway, if your teen steals from you or hurts you and they prosecute her, guess who pays the fine? The parent, the one who got hurt or whose money or property was taken. What does the teen learn from that.
teens already think their parents are to blame for everything. Holding teens accountable for behaviour is far more effective.

Sure,there are parents who are actually beyond hope, society should have stepped in years ago but most parents of teens in crisis are ordinary people struggling a lot, many of whom imagined that their kid ‘would never do that’. People like you.

Did you do any checks in a search engine re parental responsibility for children's crimes in the uk before creating this thread? In the UK parents actually can be held responsible for not preventing their children's crimes but, quite sensibly it depends on the circumstances. If anyone has enough detail and evidence of something that warrants action they should report it.
Selling booze and other unsuitable products to children has to be an offence, else there would be no disincentive to the retailer. Also, being able to refuse a sale on the grounds the person making the sale would be breaking the law is extremely helpful in supporting retailers say no. Rather like it's a help to babysitters to say that of course they'd let a child stay up late if it were up to them, but it's not, so go to bed.

The offence is selling alcohol to underage people, not underage people buying alcohol, so of course the onus is on the shop assistant as they have the legal responsibility to restrict alcohol sales.