AIBU to feel uneasy about teens congregating outside shops?

[fld]

Is it just me that I don’t feel comfortable with kids and teens congratulating outside shops so making it difficult for people to leave and enter.

Plus they swear.

This behaviour isn’t big or clever.

Why are you scared of teenagers? Do you have the same problem asking school mums to stop blocking the path, or pensioners to move up in a bus stop? What about toddlers when they’re hogging the slides? I find all of those groups rude at times.

They’re hanging out in a well lit area, with adults nearby. Feels fairly sensible to me, tbh.

I agree they can be intimidating, but in my experience they normally back down pretty quickly if you stand and confront them, l normally go with" l know your mum do you want me to call her?."
However we live in a small town so that probably wouldnt work well in a large city.

Why?

There are lots of things teens do that aren’t easy to understand to be honest!

Hanging around isn’t a new thing. Every day after school from the age of 14-16, I hung around outside the ‘cheapie’ which was our local corner shop. There’d be loads of us there every day- that was where all the gossip happened and people asking each other out etc. Most of us were harmless and the shopkeeper was very nice. He was friendly but firm - wasn’t afraid to tell us off if we were getting in the way of people using the pavement/swearing loudly etc.

Mind you we were lucky to also have a really good local youth club- it’s a shame kids today don’t have that resource in most areas.

@itsgettingweird I remember the spokey dokeys in cereal packets!

As Rowan Atkinson said about teenagers in The Thin Blue Line: “I admit we don’t like them, but if it were illegal to be sex mad, tone deaf and impossible to understand, we would have to arrest the entire population of France.” In those days (mid 90s), people frowned at them because the boys were skinheads, and the girls were popping babies out all the time. (With the boys’ help, of course.)

I remember a time my mum told off a gang of teenagers who were messing about on a train: she ranted at them in her best teacher voice, saying “I shall not hesitate to get the guard” (back when trains had guards, and if they do exist now, they are powerless). I was eleven or twelve at the time, I think this was one of my biggest “embarrassing parent” moments. I think they did “melt away” after that, but they were much bigger than her. But I saw first-hand “dispersal of teenagers” in action.

I was doing this in the 60s. They too will grow out of it. Scuse me lads!

Agree with this. The chuggers are far worse. I'm sure there are some of the kids that are being deliberately intimidating, but most of them are just hanging out. It's just preconception.

True, it's not all of them; but the ones who do act like this are the main problem imho. If they're just gathered and amusing/enjoying themselves, I don't really see an issue - although I would wonder why they'd chosen a shop and not a park or similar.

I think their body language makes a big difference, whatever their age. People sometimes worry that, if they aren't already occupying themselves some way, they could be looking at you to provide their 'entertainment'.

I'm sure plenty of them do like it; but if you're trying to look and act 'cool', you probably wouldn't rush to admit that you're enjoying it. Kids and teenagers who aren't trying to project a 'hard' image may well unashamedly enjoy it.

They have always done this.

I work with teenagers, they generally tend to be lovely on an individual basis. They just appear intimidating as a group but they really aren’t generally.

I don't know.... I think modern teens are a lot more open and honest about their different interests.