Kids these days: are they all bad?

Children are behaving like animals. At least that's what adults think, according to a new poll commissioned by Barnardo's. It found that 49 per cent of adults think children are increasingly dangerous to each other and adults. According to Barnardo's chief executive, people blame children for "up to half of all crime" yet they are only responsible for 12 per cent of criminal activity. In fact, a Barnardo's report shows that half of 16- to 19-year-olds help informally in their communities and a third to formal voluntary work.

But it's not the feeling you get on the street. The jostling, loud group of pre-teens and teens outside the school in my neighbourhood sometimes seems simply self-absorbed and clueless (which pertains to all teens, doesn't it?). Other times, as they smoke cigarettes and spliffs on the steps of nearby schools, yell curse words, drop rubbish and barge past adults on the sidewalk, their behaviour veers from rude to threatening.

Maybe it's just the worst examples that catch our attention. Maybe - and I suspect this is true as well - a lot of us don't remember that we acted just the same way when we were kids, when we thought we were cool and grown-ups were morons, when so much of our behaviour was performed for the benefit of our friends. Sometimes I feel myself infected by the kind of thinking demontrated in the Barnardo's poll.

I like to remind myself of a situation a petite, 20something friend of witnessed near Hatfield. A group of young teen boys boarded the train, pushing, yelling and generally taking over. Two slumped into seats next to her, one propping his feet on the seat opposite, while their friends hovered in the aisle. She put down her book and said, "Excuse me, could you take your feet off the seat? It makes them dirty."

"I'm sorry about that miss," the boy said, putting his feet on the floor.

It doesn't always pay to intervene with groups of youths. Sometimes it's dangerous or even lethal. But my friend's experience helps me remember that being loud, or silly, or even stupid doesn't necessarily make someone a bad kid.

Have you ever spoken up when you saw a child or youth doing something you objected to? Take the poll and post your comments below.

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Comments

[kb]

I can't believe some of the posters are blaming feminism....

I live in Cairo, where the attitude towards children is really loving and welcoming and generous. Children are so used to being out and among strangers that they're almost always well behaved, and even out in restaurants if toddlers are walking around the wait staff dote on them and they're no trouble.

A friend here who has a three-year-old, who in Cairo is used to all kinds of positive attention and smiles, was in London recently. Both she and her son were shocked to find people in London scowling at him and basically treating him as an obstruction and nuisance. They were both really upset. He in particular just clearly didn't understand why people were being so nasty to him.

This might not seem to have much to do with the topic at hand, but I can only imagine how it feels to grow up in a place where you're treated as though you're just in the way. I imagine it would make you pretty disrespectful of adults in return.

[LM]

Two interactions I recall in the last year or two -

First - at the playground, I reprimanded a 2 1/2 year old for pushing in (& trying to push my child & another off the digger - most popular thing in playground). The mother tore a strip off me for expecting a child so young to have manners & be able to wait its turn.

Second - a few weeks ago, I was being hassled/tailgated very dangerously by a couple of boys while driving on an arterial route (I guess I've reached the age where a woman driving a fast-ish car is bait for teenage boys. Is that the same thing as "a certain age"?). It went on through several lights and I was actually quite scared plus really annoyed. In the end, I decided to get behind them & follow them until they stopped & give them a piece of my mind. Which I did - and they apologised very nicely. Hopefully it made them think about doing it again as they were really pushing it (and I'm a fairly fast driver myself). I did wonder if I was being stupid doing this, but I live in a safe part of town, and I've never seen the level of road rage in the US that I've seen in the UK, so I decided it would be OK (and it was). Doubt I'd have made the same call in a British city these days though.

The message I'm getting from Barnados is that we are unfairly demonising children, that they're not that bad, etc etc. As if the fault is us, in deploring feral behaviour.

Yes, the fault isin adults - but not because we think there too many children are feral, but because, as other posters point out, the parents of those feral children are either utterly irresponible themselves, or so 'deprived/exhausted' they can't cope (isn't it so that most of the teens that get into gangs have awful home lives, not necessarily because their parents are junkies etc, but becuase dear old dad did a runner years ago, and mum is on her knees trying to earn the money to keep the family together, and the sons have no strong male role figure to father them, so they turn to the gang to supply the errant fathering their own waste of space dad didn't provide).

What next from charities, I wonder, some pro-single-mother charity saying that we have an unfairly hostile attitude to women who regard rearing children on benefits as their preferred career option?

[MJ]

"...49 per cent of adults think children are increasingly dangerous to each other and adults."

Well, statistically, they are, aren't they? Stabbings in city centres increase year on year, many tragically involving young people. Schools have huge problems with assault on teachers and students by a violent minority that simply wouldn't have dared to in years past. I'm not saying kids are intrinsically worse than they were, but if you go back 20 years the likelihood of being a victim of *random* violent crime was remarkably lower than today. So this one's probably true.

"people blame children for "up to half of all crime" yet they are only responsible for 12 per cent of criminal activity."

But these figures aren't comparable. People blame children (rightly or wrongly) for crimes they are exposed to in real life. The 12% figure is presumably based on reported crime, else it's fairly meaningless. But how many 'low-level' crimes - vandalism, minor assaults (swearing and threatening etc), underage drinking and the like aren't reported to the police? Most won't be, as nothing is done when they are. So they don't figure in the official statistics, but they do in people's perceptions - and many of these crimes *are* committed by children.

"45 per cent agreed that people refer to children as feral “because they behave this way”." In other words, 45% of people agreed that 'feral' was an accurate word to describe the way some children behave. Well, yes...

Not all the blame can or should be laid on children - the ultimate fault is that of parents and our society in general. We choose our government and leadership, so if we're not happy with their actions then we should choose differently, and demand action. But neither are kids innocently sitting around quietly whilst adults think up ways to demonise them. Children must shoulder some of the blame - and some of the repercussions.

[saul]

the bad ones are far worse than when i was young (15 years ago) and its getting worse i live in a small village near london and every week there is a mugging of some sort taking place. i can look after myself ,but what of my wife and my 11 year old daughter ?? and i have two young sons , what is the place gonna be like for them ? they will be prisoners in the family home.
it is very scary out there and i am just glad i am not a teen now .
i also think that these ferrel kids have become used to seeing violence on tv at home or on the internet . in some cases i do think the parents are to blame . but every case is different .if i was in power i would bring back national conscription . send them to the forces for two years but with no active duty , at the end of the 2 years they could be given a choice to leave or continue on to active duty . i am sure once in the forces they would see life differently.

The nice children remain nice, but the nasty ones have got nastier, and more violent, and more vicious, and more thuggish. That's the problem. The 'two nations' are more distant from each other than ever.

One thing is objectively true, surely - that knife murders amongst teens just did not happen a generation or two ago, and would have been regarded as exceptional, not normal. So, something has changed.

I'd say most adults are now 'frightened' of teenagers, and go out of their way to avoid them, simply because they fear that the teens will either attack them, or be on drugs, or be foul-mouthed back to them, or, alternatively, that any adult remonstrating with a teen will be regarded as some kind of abuser.

If teenagers don't want adults to think they are vicious, knife-wielding, drug crazed thugs, then they shouldn't dress like those who are.

[Guy]

If you:

a) Feminise the education system (so typical boy behaviour is seen as unacceptable)

b) Reward bad behaviour both from kids and parents (awards at school for the bad kids if they behave, but nothing for the kids who always behave)

c) Remove discipline in schools and take the ability from a parent to even smack a kids bottom for fear of prosecution

d) Give kids endless rights but never spell out the need for responsibility to go with those rights

Then you get what we have now

Things are worse now than they were even 10 years ago. I live in leafy Surrey but if I travel 5 miles into the London built up area then the atmosphere changes. Street fights between schools, knifings, youth on youth muggings and an adult population not willing or supported to get involved and take a stand

The New Labour rights culture has caused this and there's no easy going back

Most of my friends deliberately choose adult only pubs, restaurants, sports clubs, holidays and even cinema screenings for good reason.

Sorry but I agree with the poll completely

[Gipsy]

Was on a train, which was stationary in a mainline train station (waiting for its departure time) fairly latish in the evening (about 10pm) when a group of eight teenagers got on, they looked like they were aged 13 to 16, girls draped over boys, generally being quite loud and obnoxious, and they started smoking. There was the usual bristling and mutterings from the rest of the train, but no-one said anything. So I leaned in their direction, pointed out that we were still in the station and would be for some time so there was no reason why they couldn't just smoke out there. And they looked rather suprised and a bit shame faced, I think they'd been so wrapped up in their own world they honestly hadn't realised where they were, and they stood outside and finished their cigs (which you could still do back then).

[mjaybee]

Why blame children? Aren't their parents responsible for their children's actions?

Now that feminism and cultural relativism have destroyed family life, why do any of these issues surprise you?

[Paul Bush]

I thought the Times was an British paper. The article on children used the term sidewalk instead of pavement.
If you want to inform and educate these children please use the correct British words.

[KM]

I think it is very complicated. On the one hand children are very aware of their rights and don't like being told off by adults they don't know. You see this even with young children in softplay centres.
In some of the places I have lived children have been out of control and hurled stones, screamed abuse, were clearly wild.
But that has been the exception rather than the rule. Still, it has always shocked me when it happens - I don't think the majority of children are out of coontrol but when a minority are it is terrifying.

[mumoftwo]

With younger teens, such as 10-13 year old boys, I don't feel threatened and have, on occasion, gone out of my way to make a point (e.g. gang of teenagers being loud and boisterous and blocking the way so passers-by all stepping off pavement, I would politely walk through them, I've stared at swearing teenagers etc). In most cases, they are apologetic, say 'sorry for swearing' and there's no issue. However, I have been confronted by very scary young gangs in London, one steaming (if you know what that is) and mugging someone at the same bus-stop as myself, very frightening. So, I don't think it's entirely illusory that some young people (the 'have nots' that Laura speaks of) have less respect for other people and that this disrespect might be more widespread and profound than harking back to the old days ('mods' and 'rockers' fought each other, they didn't try to intimidate everyone in their path).

Plus, I wasn't allowed to stand on street corners when I was in my teens, never ever. Just hanging around wasn't an activity in my parents eyes, and just wouldn't have allowed me to do it. However, we had a big (late) teen culture of going to each other's houses and cooking/hosting evenings, and were also allowed into the pubs much earlier (about 14) to nurse our pernod and blacks, so perhaps hanging around was less of a norm. A sociologist recently published a study saying hanging around on street corners was essential behaviour for teens, helping them establish social boundaries. I would have thought the opposite was true.

[Jos]

I agree with the other posters so far - and I wonder what it must be like to be a teenager these days, knowing that so many adults view you as 'the enemy' just because you're standing on a street corner with your friends. Personally I find that the vast majority of children and teenagers are absolutely fine and certainly no worse than they were when I was their age. We're focusing all this time and energy on telling the world how bad our children are - let's invest some of that energy in helping the small minority who are genuinely causing trouble, and their parents.

[Jennifer]

Laura, so true. Love the "weak dope" line.

[laura]

Ah. The sweet bird of youth. It wears a hoodie and its song is a string of obscenities. Once it wore a clash t-shirt and orange hair. Before that it smoked weak dope and had long dirty hair...You see where I'm going with this. Youth just looks obnoxious and ill-directed to us because we're a bit, well, stuffy now. Bad manners are a pain. Obscenity rather over-rated. What really concerns me is that kids seem so divided into haves and have-nots, those that get it and those that don't. Are our schools doing enought to engage them? Is their behaviour a reflection of our failure to enthuse them, make them care? Are they cynical already? That's the scarry bit. By the way, I've found that when I tell them I care about something like bad language or poor conduct, they respond positively. Funny that.

[Hol]

I think it's very true that the actions of the badly behaved few often overshadow the otherwise normal kids who aren't bad natured, often do much good in their communities and are generally nice young people. It's easy to forget what it was like to be a teenager

A lot of the blogs recently have had an element of this in them, adults really looking down on children and not wanting them in the same space as them. I don't think that this is a good trend.

I haven't really interfeared with kids as I am only 23 but I did ask some girls to turn their music down on a bus once and they did.