Do modern children stay at home too long?

[NotAnOtter]

is that wherein the problem lies?

in bygone times they would have buggered off by 14 into 'service' or somesuch

is the teenage phenomenon a modern day creation?

Young women would have in certain socal spheres however a lit of young men stayed at home. they did go out to work though, maybe that is the difference?
We are educating them for too long

the teenager was invented after WWII to keep jobs free for returning GIs, IIRC.

before that, a lot of people went to work at 14 or 15.

my grandfathers certainly did.

this is it then

the reason we dont live easily together is that they should be outta here by 16!

The eldest son on a farmstead would never have left though. And there would often have been an unmarried daughter hanging around somewhere.

Plenty of teenage type misbehaviour in the Middle Ages which is my area of research. Only difference was, if you had the right family background you might have access to a whole army of thugs by the time you got to 14.

And as for those tournaments... Very far from being the formal civilised affairs you see in historical films, at least in the early periods. More like riots.

suits me cory

eldest son can stick around - sadly he has ambition - something amiss in dd

Some would go into service, but equally children would often stay at home into mid-20s and/or until married, though (look at 19th century census returns).

stop it port! you are ruining my 'theory' o why teens behave ummmm like 'teens'

is the teenage phenomenon a modern day creation?
It started after WW1

Before WW1 there was no such thing as a teenager. So relativley new 90 years or so. We do keep people as children for much longer and avoid giving them responsability - which can and does at times have a detrimental effect. By not giving the responsability young people then don't have to become responsable and stay carefree and possibly a little imature.

Most left school at 15 and went and got a job as the money was needed to live. Now young people are staying at school and dont need to work or provide money for the home, staying like a child rather than growing up.

It may not be all bad, but there needs to be some balance.

Do you mean there were no young people behaving irresponsibly before WW1? Oh, try telling that to my medieval preachers!

One of the important motives for the crusades (and openly admitted by leading churchmen at the time) was that something had to be done about all those feckless young men who were just hanging around creating trouble and getting into fights.

YES YES YES!

fuckin' teenagers should be in cotton mills working 18 hour days. they don't know what hardship is

my the time i was his age i had a house and amortgage and a part time job and a child.

join the RAF and piss off.

I think it's because they're more mollycoddled than ever before. Why would they want to move when they get everything they want - without having to pay a penny? Plus lots of them can now have their boy/girlfriends staying overnight.That would rarely have been allowed when I was a teenager.

I think that the problem is that children who really hate school are being made to stay on until 16. It is very hard for schools to exclude unruly children as they have a right to education. British teenagers have very little choice in their lives and are protected against stupid choices like getting pregnant when you can't support the child.

What would be interesting to know is whether there are so many spoilt teenagers in poor countries like India, Ghana or Jamacia. Children there know that if they don't work they will end up on the street.

Children now reach puberty earlier than they used to. So if puberty defines the start of adolescence and adult responsibilities defines the end of it, then we have a much longer adolescence nowadays.

Education is too slow and too long in most developed countries.

We need to rethink education so that young people can become independent adults at the latest by their very early 20s.

i agree, anna.

i think kids staying at home, too, will begin to be something you see only among those affluent enough to continue affording the space the children occupied in childhood.

mine are going to have to grow up and shift out or pay full whack for any room they occupy, as we'll be looking for a one-bed as soon as.

needs must.

is it too early to ask my 13 yo and 8 yo to leave ?

just wondering....

I live in Italy, where people live with their parents for ages. And not just for the infamous Oedipus complex suffered by many Italians , but for two main reasons: slow education and really low salaries.

Mind you, I do find that Italians are quite spoilt, but the outlook for younger generations here is not amazing (unless they all become footballers)

LOL SF!
I think it's a combination of being mollycoddled and also of teenagers going on to higher or further education courses which do not actually give them any meaningful qualifications. In my day (old fogey emoticon) You left school at 16 and got a job, you do a vocational course or apprenticeship or did A levels and went to Uni. Now everyone seems to go to Uni.

The trouble is that the antidote to slow education is selective education, and it seems that the majority in most developed countries find the disadvantages of selective education are greater than the disadvantages of slow education.

Mind you, I do often wonder, since it appears that we are going to live longer (and therefore work for a longer time), why should we enter the job market so soon?? .

I think we need to enter the job market when we are young and energetic and earn as much money as possible to see us through those long twilight years when we won't have as much energy left

I also think that we need to rethink some jobs so that people can retrain (or do further training) in later life for some jobs that are actually better suited to the wise rather than the enthusiastic/energetic.

I already get frustrated with young whippersnapper doctors who don't know nuffink

You are being too sensible

Intersting topic!!!! T42 goes away to ponder...

I have been known to tell DS that had he been around 100+ years ago he'd be down the mines or up a chimney.