What's wrong with our youth? Is it a psychosocial disorder? Is it the parents?

[cheerfulgreek]

I think normal behavior problems require praising for good behavior and punishing for bad behavior. I think for problem kids the strategy is slightly different. I think sometimes punishment can be ineffective. As children are punished (the ealier the better) they improve overall and begin to know how far to go. The problem kids would probably only improve slightly if at all. This is when I think it's time for the meds to be prescribed, or otheriwse we're looking at another highschool or college shooting spree.

[epchick]

Originally Posted by epchick

I don't know if any of you remember George Lopez's comedy routine about the Mexican mother vs the American mother in a store w/ the crying child. Race/ethnicity aside, this analogy holds true. You have more and more mothers nowadays who think that by taking away a "gold star" will teach their child how to improve their behavior.

So I was reading over Why you crying? by George Lopez again, so I thought i'd put the excerpt up that I was talking about earlier.

Kids these days talk back, man they talk BACK. I never talked back. You see Anglo kids in the store. "No, I wont."
"Now you listen to me, Dakota. I'm the parent here. You will. Believe me. Do you want a gold star when you get home, Dakota? Because you're going--you won't get The Lion King on DVD. You're not. Do you want a consequence?"

I love going to the stores and seeing parents actually get down on one knee. "Can you understand me, Tyler? This behavior is inappropriate. Well I need to aoplogize to you because I was using my outdoor voice inside."

My grandmother was old-school. She would pick me up. "Vamanos, cabron, we're going. Mira, como no, que no. Vamos. Mira, you don't want to go. Bullshit, you're going. Mira well, you know what, wait in the f--- car. Wait in the car. Wait in the car! Why you crying? Why you crying? Well, roll down the window so you can breathe."


The part I bolded is the way I feel many of these parents act towards their kids.

[nikki1920]

A lot of parents are trying too hard to be friends with their kids or go out of their way to not have their kids be afraid of them.

WTF is that?

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by nikki1920

A lot of parents are trying too hard to be friends with their kids or go out of their way to not have their kids be afraid of them.

WTF is that?

Well, now the cops will come if you hit your kid.

[DSTRen13]

Some parents definitely still hit their kids. I don't know how much good it does, though, to threaten your kid with a heavy metal picture frame to the head in the middle of a Target

It seems like around here the parents are in two camps - they are either yelling and hitting their kids like crazy, or they're just letting their kids run wild. There has to be some middle ground there.

[cheerfulgreek]

I remember parents could slap their kids in public and get away with it. If they tried that now, some moron would report it and the cops would show and try to take the kids from the parent(s).

I think "Time Out" works. It worked for me when I was a kid, and I turned out great.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by DSTRen13

It seems like around here the parents are in two camps - they are either yelling and hitting their kids like crazy, or they're just letting their kids run wild. There has to be some middle ground there.

That pretty much sums it up.

One of these days I'm just going to snap and scream even louder than one of these kids who's pitching a fit because he can't have a toy or something, just to see what happens. "I can scream louder and longer than you, and I can probably sing Journey's greatest hits while I'm doing it. So give it up."

[nikki1920]

Time out works for some kids. My child gets spanked, sparingly. Taking things away from her is more effective for HER. If I have other kids, it may not be as effective for them as it was for her.

Cops can't take my child for DISCIPLINE. ABUSE, yes.

33girl, bwhahahahahaha at the last sentence.

[Educatingblue]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

I remember parents could slap their kids in public and get away with it. If they tried that now, some moron would report it and the cops would show and try to take the kids from the parent(s).

That's true. I know my mom would shoot me that, "Don't make me give you a spanking when we get home look," and that would normally straighten me out. If all else failed, she would turn into an a** sniper and find some covert way to get in one good lick when we least expected it and no one was looking!

It seems like children are no longer afraid of their parents anymore. My brother and I hated to see our parents upset with us. I guess a lot of it was psychological because we never wanted to feel like we disappointed them.

[AOII_LB93]

Originally Posted by Educatingblue

It seems like children are no longer afraid of their parents anymore. My brother and I hated to see our parents upset with us. I guess a lot of it was psychological because we never wanted to feel like we disappointed them.

I wanted to quote this because it's so true. I see that in the school where I teach...daily. I also see too many parents wanting to be "friends" with their kids...and these are parents of all races, not just whites. Part of me wants to say, "Your kid has enough friends, be a parent!"

I too was more afraid of disappointing my parents than anything else...so when I'm angry with my students, I tell them that I am disappointed. It works better than yelling anyhow.

[fantASTic]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

o.k. I did a little research on this topic. Here's what I found.

I was right. It has gotten worse. What you guys said about this not being new material was correct, but the problem has gotten worse. There's a book on psychosocial disorders in young people. There's a child psychiatrist and a criminologist that both said there has been a steady rise in youth crime following the 2nd World War averaging a fivefold increase from 1950 to 1990. They weren't just talking about the U.S though. They were talking about developed countries including the U.S.

There was also a psychiatrist that said there are two distinct types of teen criminals. She said that one very common type takes up petty crime in adolescence, based on peer pressure. The other is what I was talking about earlier. She said the other was more problematic, and they start showing signs of antisocial behavior in kindergarten. She said that these kids have biological predispositions to behavior problems. That was pretty much my point. I want to add something to what she was saying. I think this paired with an environment of bad parenting, poverty or abuse puts these kids at high risk of committing violent crimes and spending their lives in and out of the prison system. I don't think it's all genetics.

I also looked at more data from other material, and I found that in both boys and girls who went on to become criminals were likely to have shown some kind of early onset neurological impairment or difficult temperament early in life as young as age 3. The graph that I was looking at also showed an increase.

So how am I wrong. I'm not saying you guys are wrong, because you've made some valid points, but I'm not wrong on the whole issue either.

I really don't believe that kids today are more violent than before. I think there's a lot more exposure of it, though.

You can't really take those statistics as fact, cheerfulgreek. For example...as a scientific reviewer, I would instantly ask you this question: "The standard of what counts as violent crime has been greatly lowered since WWII. Did reviewers take that into account?" It's also worth finding out how much research was actually done on violent crime after WWII...I would definitely believe that a lot more crime went unreported in those days.

Statistics != science.

[DSTRen13]

All I would ask is parents, PLEASE:

Do not let your young or mentally disabled child roam unattended throughout my store. We are not your daycare, we do have some creepy customers, and we do sell porn here.

Once your young or mentally disabled child does begin to throw their inevitable fit in the middle of my store over god-only-knows-what, please leave immediately with said child. No one (the employees or the other customers) want to hear the screams, the crying, your threats, and/or your pathetic attempts to soothe your child that never work. Just take the kid out of the store, where it will be much more obvious to them that they will not be getting whatever it is that they wanted. If they calm down, then MAYBE come back.

Do not purchase products for your children that state on the label they are for an older age range, then come back to the store complaining that your child broke it/it was inappropriate/whatever. Please.

End rant.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by Educatingblue

It seems like children are no longer afraid of their parents anymore. My brother and I hated to see our parents upset with us. I guess a lot of it was psychological because we never wanted to feel like we disappointed them.

Of course they're not afraid. They know the law on child abuse, and they take advantage of it. Kids don't even watch cartoons anymore. Their idea of a Saturday morning is surfing the internet. When I was a kid I looked foward to Saturday mornings and donuts while watching the Smurfs.

Parents now are afraid of disappointing their kids.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by fantASTic

I really don't believe that kids today are more violent than before. I think there's a lot more exposure of it, though.

You can't really take those statistics as fact, cheerfulgreek. For example...as a scientific reviewer, I would instantly ask you this question: "The standard of what counts as violent crime has been greatly lowered since WWII. Did reviewers take that into account?" It's also worth finding out how much research was actually done on violent crime after WWII...I would definitely believe that a lot more crime went unreported in those days.

Statistics != science.

I agree a little, but you have to look at the big picture. Look at what's being sold in stores. You see tabloids and most of what you see is negative. It shows celebs doing illegal things and getting away with it, or serving little or no time in jail for their actions. The gun laws have also changed in some states which is also a problem. The respect level for parents from their kids now is much lower than it was years ago. I totally disagree with you when you said it's not any different. The graphs that I looked at showed a steady rise in crime from adults who were at one time problem children. A lot of teenagers are also doing serious crime now.

It's really not that hard to see. It really doens't take science, statistics and graphs to figure it out. My opinion was pretty much right on, and I didn't need to look at any graphs or statistics to make that determination.

[AGDee]

I guess I'm bothered by the broad brush you're using to paint that generation. The vast majority of kids are still good kids. When I worked in adolescent psych, I saw the most difficult teens on a daily basis. I got pretty worried, much as you are, that the whole generation was awful. I had to open my eyes though. We had a 20 bed unit which was not usually full, yet there were thousands and thousands of youth in our cachment area. The percentage of kids we saw annually was quite small compared to the total population and a lot of the kids in our program weren't even violent/acting out kids. Many of them were more depressed/suicidal. I started making a point of spending time with my very healthy, productive, and fun nieces and nephews.

Now? I have two middle schoolers myself. I went to an Eagle Court of Honor tonight and saw a large group of great boys who are very dedicated to bettering themselves and society. I have a Girl Scout as well as a Boy Scout. I am surrounded by kids who do well academically, are wholesome, thoughtful, nice kids engaged in healthy activities. I am impressed by their ability to converse about global warming, politics, and their belief systems. The majority are goal oriented. Do they have some classmates who are starting to get into drugs, having sex too early, etc? Yeah, they do. They also talk about how those kids are stupid for doing those things. They are also way more into community service than my generation was. I don't ever recall, outside of Girl Scouts, doing any kind of service projects. These kids do them a lot, in school, for various activities and even on their own.