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Is Great Britain a nation where children are bringing up their parents?
October 13th, 2009I am intrigued to read, almost daily, that a majority of children are able to behave in a way that seems to be contrary to what we would consider acceptable within our society. In my youth, children were encouraged to be seen and not heard! Seemingly, children, especially those in their early ‘teens, are all too often seen and heard. This is a marked change! We are treating parents like children and children like adults. This needs to stop!
Children and young people seem able to dominate their parents, and society, all too easily. If the youth of today wish to take over a village, town or city centre to engage in all sorts of unacceptable practices, then they can, almost without consequence. Those who pay their Community Tax (adults) are almost denied the right to have an evening in their local community, because of ‘youth behaving badly’!
The entire Human Rights criteria has gone mad. Adults, who pay for this society in which we live, seem to have less and less power to preserve the quiet of our communities, and the police seem to be increasingly liberal minded.
DECLINING STANDARDS IN SOCIETY
One-third of all teenagers claimed to have been unconscious from binge drinking in the last year (BBC ‘The Big Question’ today).
One teacher on the same programme suggested that it was alright and acceptable for a teacher to be seen in public, intoxicated, showing his midriff, and also claimed that it had absolutely nothing to do with his ability as a teacher. Complete hogwash!
Teachers have to ‘walk the talk’, as they are role models for those they teach. They have a responsibility to set moral examples for the young, and to take exception to inappropriate behaviour, but only when they have learned to set the right examples themselves.
In The Acorn School we have a Parents’ Charter, and teenagers have to choose to uphold the charter (as do their parents). The charter specifically states that drinking alcohol under age at all, even after school hours, smoking cigarettes at all, even after school hours, and taking any form of illegal drug at all, even after school hours is not acceptable. Students wrote the charter, and all uphold it. It is quite simple; if the young people of this country value their education, such principles are not only very easy to monitor, but to uphold. The education must be valued, and it certainly is at The Acorn School!
What seems quite ridiculous to me is that the vast majority of young binge drinkers are breaking the law, and there seems to be no punishment. Young people are controlling society, and we have absolutely no way of changing this trend except to have school like this available to everyone. Schools are too big, too impersonal, unwieldy, and also demonstrate through the ridiculous state education system, that standards are so low that almost all young people can pass examinations.
At The Acorn School, state examinations are not offered for the reason that they are narrow, too simple, and a totally unreasonable way of assessing young people.
I exonerate from blame almost all teenagers who are struggling to find a sense in society, and who are therefore compelled to find their own identity in celebrities. The false impression in television programmes that fame is just around the corner has a lot to answer for! We do not offer facilities for young people, who will therefore get into trouble seeking their own threshold experiences on the streets.
Young people rule their parents! If they want to drink, they drink! If they want to smoke, they smoke! If they feel that taking drugs is what they wish to do, they do that! Television, films, modern music and celebrities encourage these things almost every second of the day. The images that present themselves to the young are responsible for the breakdown of the family. Many young people steal, swear, abuse police, hold up roads ambling drunk through the local community, threaten the old, and seem to be absolutely oblivious to what is decent and respectable. In a way there is a war in this country! Yet, young people are full of potential and could achieve a considerable amount more than they do!
Anthony Giddins, in his latest book on sociology, stated that ‘the world changes in thirty seconds, more than it had changed since the beginning of time.’ Anthony blames the cyber age for this. He is right! ‘X’ boxes, violent computer games, mobile phones by right, sod the drinking laws, money without earning it, indicates to me that we have sold our young people down the river.
Children have the right to be able to grow to adulthood, without experiencing the freedom that adults do, and to be treated as developing human beings. Children need to be saved and protected. I do not condone the yob culture, but education, politicians and the family have given rise to it! Long live children!