Dominating the press in the UK recently (although I’m pretty confident that it’s not just here) is the perception that the youth’s of today have gone wild. It seems that almost every day we are hearing of some new incident involving young people. Stabbings are an everyday occurrence, adults being attacked en masse for standing up to kids and people are now too scared to confront these yobs. Yobs that don’t seem to care for themselves, let alone anyone who crosses their path!
I ask you a question…
Do you know where your child is right now? Are they where they say they are?
Many of you reading this right now will immediately jump onto the defensive and respond with “Of course I do, I brought up my child to be honest and show respect to me as a parent, he/she wouldn’t dare lie to me!” I ask you to think about this for a moment…
You were a teenager once, although respectful to your mother and father, I’m pretty sure that you pushed the boundaries. After-all, isn’t this the time when we are supposed to learn what boundaries are?
For me growing up, it wasn’t unusual to meet up with my mates on a Friday night in the park with 4 cans of beer under my arm, drinking and laughing until around 10.30pm when I had a 9.30pm curfew. It sometimes wasn’t out of the ordinary to have to carry one of our mates back to his parent’s house, telling them a little white lie, like he’d eaten a dodgy kebab or pizza on the way home. Usually, he’d just go to bed and that would be the end of it (Until next week!)
One thing that we weren’t though is disrespectful! We would never dream of shouting abuse at the little old lady walking her dog or the little boy on his way home from homework club! One thing was for certain, I would be embarrassed if anyone in my group did that – I probably wouldn’t want to be associated with them or much longer! I mean, I’m not suggesting for one minute that I and everyone around me was a complete angel, and I’m pretty certain that you reading this were not either. But one thing I do know is that if a neighbour caught me doing anything that wasn’t going to please my parents and they threatened to make them aware of it! I’d be s**t scared!
So where has this pride gone in today’s youth? Why is it that more and more youngsters are falling victim to crime, not by fully grown men or women taking advantage of them, but by people in their own age group! Are we as fully grown men and women actually becoming less frightened about traditional crimes like murder, rape, burglary etc, but are more frightened of the abuse, violence and possibilities that today’s youth can do to us?
Personally I have never had any serious trouble with these kids and have even in the past confronted them over issues like throwing litter, yet after the spate of stabbings over such trivial matters I would hesitate to do so again.
What has gone wrong? Why is the youth in society so out of control? And what is the answer?
Food for thought…
Dan
