Anti teen device

[popcornprincess]

Brilliant idea I think. Our area is full of intimidating hoddies! Do you reckon they work on husbands too? Here

Well, I was a teenager in the 80s and I grew up in a small and very pretty Kentish village where there was, to coin a phrase, "nothing to do". Funnily enough, I never felt the urge to go and hang threateningly around the outsides of shops or congregate on the field or loiter by phone boxes. I made my own entertainment.

People who are easily bored have no imagination.

Or live in home where they are not stimulated?

It's sad but true.

I honestly dont think the majority of teenagers hang and mean to be intimidating.

A lot more teenagers nowadys arent allowed friends round which i think is a huge part of the problem, at least inside a house theycant be doing that much harm. Mum always let us have loads of people round rather than gathering on the street, it put her mind at rest nd we were happy socilising.

That's what I do PP.. they still need to get out and about and 'hang' - we did it and we weren't actually doing anything to hurt others.

I think people find groups of teens intimidating but there's no real need to apply this to them all, some of them are fine, well brought up individuals whose only crime appears to be having more than one or two friends.

wistera totally agree

most teens arent intimiating threatening, about to knife you, they are simply hanging talking wtih friends, learning to socialise

I think this device is really disturbing - it will affect anyone under 20 - especially babies and toddlers. I'll be supporting the Buzz Off Campaign - launched today by the childrens' commissioner. I'll be writing my local authority to find out if its used in my locality so I can avoid taking my son anywhere near this device.

I saw a fabulous programme a couple of years ago about a streetsweeper in Munich who also worked as a "Streetworker" with the teenagers in the area. The streetsweeper, Frankie, was a fascinating guy. He was content with his life, and had no ambition to get a "better" job, in his eyes, he had the best job.

He went around the area, cleaning the streets, popping in for coffee and a chat with the local cafe owner. He read philosophy and classics.

And he spent time with the youths in the area. They opened a youth group and taught the teens how to paint, using graffiti techniques. They even had a show, inviting the local press. It was great to see the young people, going from hanging around the streets, getting into trouble to being proud of their artwork.

There are no plans to ban the Mosquito device.

I live in "commuterville" (aka East Nowhere) so the town is now basically set up for commuters and to a lesser degree, families. The local railway station plays classical music at full blast to deter the teenagers who congregated there in the evenings. This was eventually done after many people complained to their local press about being sworn at and feeling generally intimidated by large groups of youths hanging around.

Its just however, moved the problem on to somewhere else. There is a skate park now which has helped ease some of the problem but many teen girls don't particularly want to use such a facility. They need something else. There's nothing much for young people in this town which is free to use, small wonder they feel marginalised. There's no cinema in this town either which does not help. They can't drive out to these mutliplexes besides which no bus at all goes to the multiplex. The local bus company refused to run a late night bus service back to my hometown from the leisure complex for fear of trouble.

To be fair, not all the kids that are hanging around in groups are doing anything wrong it is just that people feel intimidated by them.

So yes, there are groups of kids out there causing trouble - swearing / violence etc but there are lots of groups that are just hanging about talking but the fact that it is a bunch of teens makes others intimidated and they are automatically classed as trouble iyswim.

hifi there are a couple of examples on this thread when teens HAVE tried to do things productive in creating something for them and others to do but it has been stopped by other people (adults) in the area - in the case for my husband, his uncle started the petition to stop him creating a "hang out" for teens. Nobody wanted it in their area. We did LOL when it turned into a half way house

on and fwiw I do think about this when my daughter grows up. I dont want her and her friends to be hanging around on a street corner as there is nothing else to do. So I have about 11 years to start planning something interesting in this area!!

it doesn't bother me that they hang around shops in the evening, i haven't had a bad experience with them doing this. it depends what kind of background they come from and parental input. most teenagers i know, with money or not have interests, or parents who are interested in them. it bothers me that its everyone else's problem not the parents who cant be bothered problems.

hifi - I sort of see where you are coming from, but drawing on my own teenage experiences, my parents cared a lot - they'd drive me and my friends a few miles to the cinema and we'd spend times at each others houses. I also spent a lot of time in - lucky enough to have the internet at home, my own TV etc etc.
But there were still nights where we went out and hung out on the recreaction fields. Summer nights when too nice to stay in, when people are out a little later. There was nothing to do - leisure centre shut, youth club shut, nowhere else to go.
My parents supported the idea of there being a place in the village for teenagers to go, lots of other parents did. But when things are often put out for planning permission etc, it can be the general pop (not nec parents) who say NO iyswim

we had a youth club, but after the age of 14 all we wanted to do was hang around with Boy's, i was lucky and my parents and friends parents accommodated us in spare rooms.
we also went to pop and crisp nights at local night clubs, not expensive.

it helps that parents are supportive, the money issue i sometimes question when you see that they can afford cigarettes and drink.

I dont think money is the only excuse. Sometimes it is location. Growing up in little villages etc limited what was around to do. Great in the summer holidays, being surrounded by fields, hiking in them and taking bike rides along the country roads etc, but not during school time.

Where I am now, the bus route is every five minutes, and there seems to be a little more to do. I go back to my parents and its same old around the villages - infrequent busses, not a lot to do.

Somebody on the local news pointed out that kids with ASD will be in pain from these but may not be able to tell their carers- immediately wondered if thats the cause of some of the boys meltdowns- who knows?

HATE HATE HATE the was all under - 25's are labelled as yobs. Deal with the ones who are but FGs alienating the ones who aren't won't exactly help will it?

And wearinga hoodie doth not a yobbo make (well unless DH is ) and he's far past these alarms now....

The teens congragate outside the shops and in the aprk here, it can be a bit intimidating to walk through a particuarly big gang of them but I usually just use the toehr side of the road. The park lot are a bit more disruptive I think- but there's nowhere else for them. nearest youth centre 3 miles or mroe away, and for the older ones last bus at 11.

Sadly, I think a lot of people are completely prejudiced against teenagers.
DD used to go to a youth club at the local baptist church - the people nearby complained that it was 'encouraging teenagers into their neighbourhood'.I've often picked DD up from there & I know that they weren't being noisy at all - the neighbours just didn't like the idea of a group of teenagers coming & going.

One week,one of the neighbours was passing by & spotted some of the youth club members outside the premises with paint spray cans.
They must have alerted the neighbours because within 10 minutes several people had rung the police to say they were spray painting the graves. When the police arrived, they discovered that they were actually painting banners for the 'Stop the Traffik' anti-slavery display they were putting on in a local shop at the weekend. They were nowhere near the graves & never had been, yet people were prepared to say they were, presumably just to get rid of the youth club.

I see both sides of the coin; I don't think that all teenagers should be treated as ne'er do wells... but I also work in a shop and regularly have to chuck em out or tell them off for causing absolute havoc . The fact is many young people do have a sense of entitlement and have a "you can't tell me what to do" attitude.

For pete's sake, I'm a bit fed up of the "teens have nuffing to do" line. When I was a teen (only a decade ago) my parents had my brothers and I doing CHORES round the house, garden, even cooking for the family... and we were expected to spend time with each other, ie family! There was little time for anti-social mischief.

Well we used to hang out in the park sometimes (holidays especially) and not get up to anything that was a problem, but these days a group of teens doing nothing of harm whatsoever is still see n as an ssue. And far less teens have family at home to be spending time with after school than when i was a teenager, so life isn't quite the same now, is it?

I used to spend Monday evening helping with brownies, Thursdays at St johns Ambulance and Sundays making beds at the local geriatric unit- but there was still ample time to hang out'

sometimes it's the amount of people gathering. In the summer, we get hundreds of youths from the villages around us gathering in the cricket pitch and playground. It's intimidating, just becasue of the amounts of people. If you add to that the vasts amounts of alchohol et al being consumed, it is a recipe for disaster.

SweeneyTodd - if the police were to police such areas, and arrest anyone who was causing a nuisance/drunk and disorderly/engaged in vandalism or underage drinking/selling or doing drugs wouldn't that solve the problem?

I imagine the regular presence of friendly local coppers might kill the mood at the cricket grounds and discourage large groups from meeting in the first place! Surely it is the policy of non interference by police, combined with any citizen being in danger of arrest if they intervene that causes the problem?

exactly Upwind. We have had the police patrolling when the neighbours complained, but we don't have consistent local police presence

I would agree with that, a focus on tackling the actual p[roblems- alcohol, drugs, etc- and less of demnising ordinary kids