When univ students run scared of kids
I read this in the paper today and thought it was priceless. But it brought to mind an earlier entry where I seem to have gone on a bit about children in the UK. I believe I said I'd "rather not come across (children) in a group". And that they are largely characterised by their "rampant, violent, bullying and ASBOs (anti-social behaviour orders given to young offenders)". Well I am sad to say that events in the last few months have proved me right over and over again.
The news is flooded with stories on "happy-slapping", a practice adopted by bored youngsters, who beat up people for kicks and often film themselves on their mobile-phones while at it. Stories of girl gangs violently bullying their classmates for being good-looking or doing well in class or being fat or thin or not being like them or for no reason at all. There was one story about a girl having her face slashed open with a razor. Another of a boy setting fire to a half-blind girl's hair for fun. Of an 11-year-old girl hanging a four-year-old boy from a tree because he kept following her (fortunately he survived). Of these girls receiving so many threatening and abusive phone calls on their mobile phones that they were forced to pull out of their schools. Of a town council banning hoodie-clad youngsters from its town centre, and banning young people from wearing baseball caps which obscured their faces from the gaze of the ubiquitous CCTV.
And in the news currently is the story of this bright, popular young boy of 16 who, walking home down Swansea's beach one night, was kicked, beaten, stripped and drowned. Allegedly for his mobile phone and debit card. Allegedly by three boys, themselves teenagers. After he had bought those very strangers pot-noodles earlier (because they were hungry). Heartbreaking, this one...
In themselves, these stories may be freakish enough to make the news. But they are symptomatic of a darker undertow of life in the UK, which seems to me to be swelling. So much that even the government has been moved to take steps. From imposing Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) on offenders, which could prevent the child from staying out after a certain hour, or from visiting a certain neighbourhood, or meeting his `friends', et al. To establishing parenting classes for rowdy families. To having `nannies' intensively supervise family life for 15 months to reduce anti-social behaviour.
Why has it come to this? Excessive liberalism, lax discipline, elastic boundaries, broken homes, irreverence all play a role, but are not the whole story. After all these very factors have surely contributed to numerous well-adjusted children at the other end of the scale. I suspect that what children consider `cool' today has a role to play as well. Let's face it, nice, well-mannered, hard-working children are hardly cool; hardly likely to be role models. But `bad' is cool--bigtime cool. That calls for an altogether deeper social change. No easy solutions here.
The news is flooded with stories on "happy-slapping", a practice adopted by bored youngsters, who beat up people for kicks and often film themselves on their mobile-phones while at it. Stories of girl gangs violently bullying their classmates for being good-looking or doing well in class or being fat or thin or not being like them or for no reason at all. There was one story about a girl having her face slashed open with a razor. Another of a boy setting fire to a half-blind girl's hair for fun. Of an 11-year-old girl hanging a four-year-old boy from a tree because he kept following her (fortunately he survived). Of these girls receiving so many threatening and abusive phone calls on their mobile phones that they were forced to pull out of their schools. Of a town council banning hoodie-clad youngsters from its town centre, and banning young people from wearing baseball caps which obscured their faces from the gaze of the ubiquitous CCTV.
And in the news currently is the story of this bright, popular young boy of 16 who, walking home down Swansea's beach one night, was kicked, beaten, stripped and drowned. Allegedly for his mobile phone and debit card. Allegedly by three boys, themselves teenagers. After he had bought those very strangers pot-noodles earlier (because they were hungry). Heartbreaking, this one...
In themselves, these stories may be freakish enough to make the news. But they are symptomatic of a darker undertow of life in the UK, which seems to me to be swelling. So much that even the government has been moved to take steps. From imposing Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) on offenders, which could prevent the child from staying out after a certain hour, or from visiting a certain neighbourhood, or meeting his `friends', et al. To establishing parenting classes for rowdy families. To having `nannies' intensively supervise family life for 15 months to reduce anti-social behaviour.
Why has it come to this? Excessive liberalism, lax discipline, elastic boundaries, broken homes, irreverence all play a role, but are not the whole story. After all these very factors have surely contributed to numerous well-adjusted children at the other end of the scale. I suspect that what children consider `cool' today has a role to play as well. Let's face it, nice, well-mannered, hard-working children are hardly cool; hardly likely to be role models. But `bad' is cool--bigtime cool. That calls for an altogether deeper social change. No easy solutions here.
posted by Sabiha | 11:16 AM
3 Comments:
What could induce them to behave like this? Boredom? No one calling them to account? Not enough deterrents, repercussions?
Very upsetting.
Sabiha, I was reading Alexander McCall Smith this week and he says in Tears of the Giraffe in a context that's not so dire but still similar:
But this was the way young men behaved these days and there was nothing he could do about it... The realisation had depressed him, and he had thought of writing to the Minister of Education about it and suggesting that the youth of Botswana be instructed in these basic moral ideas, but the letter, once composed, had sounded so pompous that he had decided not to send it. That was the difficulty, he realised. If you made any point about behaviour these days, you sounded old-fashioned and pompous. The only way to sound modern, it appeared, was to say that people cold do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and no matter what anyone else might think. That was the modern way of thinking.
Sheetal, am about to pick up Tears of the Giraffe, having finished the first book just over a week back.
Was just discussing similar issues with A, and were thinking that if UK is like this now can India be far behind. Considering that media is bringing global values and ideas of cool to India very quickly, I give it 20 years before the seeds of anarchy are sown there. Though I hope deeply I am proven wrong about this one.
please chk for new posts on http://doiturselfbigtime.blogspot.com. Blogger problems mean that I can't post on this old version of my blog anymore.
Thanks,
Sabiha
Post a Comment
<< Home