I never said my parents, I said the older generation. my parents treat me very fairly, and yes they are busy BUT they make time for me because I'm their son.

And they are not young parents, my dad is at the age of 50 and my mum 45.


It is the older generation as a general that put stress on us, all the teachers who put pressure on us to achieve things we can't. The police who watch and wait for the most minute mistake to come and get you.

The news saying how unsafe we are on the internet and perhaps we shouldn't be allowed to use it. And the list continues.

And no I have never been stopped by the police and i am doing fairly well in school so I am not trying to complain about what has happened to me. I am talking about what I have seen happen to other people.

[edit on 29-4-2008 by umbr45]

Originally posted by Sleuth
Exactly. There are no longer real consequences for negative behavior. 1) When there is no fear of real consequences for negative behavior, negative behavior continues and escalates.

2) We are living with the results of the No-No-Bad-Dog Verbal Method. Needless to say, as a society, we're scr*wed.

You've just made a post that i can work with, star for you!



1) There are kids out there who don't respond to the physical method either - after all, there's only so many times you can hit a dog before it tries to take a bite out of you.

2) As a society we're not screwed, just hopeless.

All we need is hope for the future, and it's something that this generation, the Generation Y (of which i am part of) sees nowhere.

I mean, what is there to hope for, exactly?

Peace and Prosperity?

Don't make me sick.

true to your point one, but if they were smacked as a young child. They would stop misbehaving before it ever got to that point.

This is the thing; What we lose in actual physical knowledge and facts we make up for in psychology.

We are, after all, the government-programmed robots of the future.

Originally posted by Anti-Tyrant


Kids these days are too smart for it, friend.

I am one of those kids, my parents smacked me when I was young and by the time I got to the age where I would fight back like my friends I was no longer misbehaving.

I am only 15, so this wasn't overly long ago.

Kids are not too smart, smack an 8 year old a few times and he wont do whatever he was doing again. Smack a 15 tear old and you'll get smacked back harder.

Let's take a trip back in time. The following is a quote from Eighth Century B.C.

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words.

When I was a boy we were taught to be discrete and respectful of our elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
Hesiod, Eight Century BC

So, looks to me like every generation has had the same problem concerning the distrust of it's youth. My parents, who are dead now, thought the world was going to hell because of my generation. I blamed my parents generation for leaving my generation a huge mess to clean up. We keep passing the buck.

Guess what....the buck stops with the youth of today. We are in dire straights. We are on the verge of destruction. It is the responsibility of the youth to look back and realize the mistakes past generations have made. Get all the education you can. Get involved in politics. I know it is a dirty game but you can't change anything on the outside looking in.

Be smarter than past generations. Study the problems we have and find ways to solve them. You are IT. You are our hope.

It's too late for our generation, we're half way there. But for a generation to completely undo all the wrongs done by society, they need to be brought up right. The next generation is where I think it will change.

I'm 19 and graduated in 06'.

I did notice a lot of the same behavior that the OP was talking about while in High School. to the best of my knowledge i saw that most of the immaturity and bad acts where mostly done by aid of the media and television. Kids aspire to be like people on t.v. and movies and also music artists. Kids were a lot meaner to each other and also being in Southern California, there was a lot of racial groups that were segregated in school as well.

Usually the Mexicans would hang out with Mexicans and whites would hang out with whites and so forth, of course that wasn't the norm, but it was noticeable. Teenagers also use to drink on campus and drink vodka from water bottles and rum in Dr.Pepper bottles. Also many of the kids were doing drugs on campus and of course having sex as well.

It seems though after High School a harsh reality takes effect on a majority of the students and they stop being more immature and "grow-up".

Of course this is just IMHO.

thought i would give my two cents.

Too many people have kids that aren't willing to raise their kids properly. It is the height of selfishness and irresponsibility. Education is not something the government can completely take care of. The parents have the largest role in a kid's development, and if the parents aren't there, then there is no amount of money you can throw at the problem to solve it.

I love it when old folks say "You young people are our future." It's a joke really. Us young folks as a whole have nowhere near the competency or ethics (and work ethic) to hold this current system or world in place, much less grow it. Some of us are worth something, but as a whole, there is no chance. I actually think (and hope) that active 50+ year olds are more likely to run things from here on out.

I, as a 14 year old member and person currently experiencing the oh-so-wonderful acquaintanceship of others my age, am also disgusted by the way everyone acts. Whilst I do think that respect should be earned and NOT granted automatically by age, I also think that there should be an amount of respect that we should give to every living being, regardless of whether or not they're complete twats.

Honestly? Most people my age are truly embarrassing. As for education, the only reason that I still go to public school is for the credentials and to be with my girlfriend. I've taken it upon myself to teach myself everything that we need to be taught. (Actually, before 7th grade, we moved to the US. I had just finished year 7 in the UK (which is like 6th grade). It's been two years, and I haven't learned a thing from school, besides the fact that you guys really like multiple choice questions, don't you?)

On the topic of physical punishment, however, the only reason it "works" is because it incites fear. By definition, that's terrorism: This is the same tactic our supposed enemies, the oppressors, use. The only real way of remedying lack of respect is for the person to change themselves. Otherwise, there is no effective AND non-hypocritical (is there a word for this?) way of reform.

But most of all, us kiddies need to learn that we're not going to be kiddies forever. There will be a time that we all HAVE to grow up and learn how to take things seriously, and also learn that there's consequences to our actions.


OH, and sorry about the disorganized post. I just really dislike having to be in the same class as most of these fools. I ask a kid about gay rights, and he gets mad at me and goes off on a tangent about how it's disgusting, wrong, &c. I only wanted to know his opinion!

The first 2 years of college is a repeat of what children should have learned through high school. That being the case, I suggest that elementary through High School should be limited to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.
These are the only skills needed to be successful in any work environment, college and everyday life.