egafd.com

We have a BIG BIG problem in this country with both the behaviour of children AND adults.

Children will only behave as badly as they are allowed to get away with, give them strict boundries, and dont let them go outside those boundries, and they will generally behave.

But unfortunatley we have a whole raft of society where ADULTS misbehave. Getting drunk, taking drugs, criminal activites (and this is not always the "poor" who are responsible for this behaviour).

If many adults "dont care" then why should children.

When I see how well behaved familes are abroad (both adults and children) I am ashamed of how we behave in this country.

I have travelled a lot on business all over the world, and children and adults are generally much better behaved abroad than in this country.

It is entrenched in our society and I am not sure what we can do about it.

I got a good example of how they treat youngsters differently abroad than in the UK.

I was in the USA a few years ago, and there was an American football match on in the local city. I am not really interested in American Football but decided to go for the experience.

As I walked up to the booth to hand in my ticket the person in the booth was a 17 year old kid, something you would never see in a UK sporting arena.

All around the inside of the ground there were about 50 retail outlets (small outlets selling burgers, mexican food, beer, flags and other momentos etc).

In almost all the booths the people serving were youngsters (in their late teens or early 20s). Youngsters were being given responsibility at a fairly young age.

Go to a UK football or other sports stadium and most of the people behind the bar or serving food seem to be 70 year old women.

So not only were these youngsters being offered the responsibility, they were also TAKING IT.

This is almost exaclty the opposite to this country were we dont seem to trust any youngster to do anything properly. So the youngsters feel on the outside of society, and so behave accordingly.

Involve them in society more and maybe they will start to become members of society.

We don't know the sample size and we don't know what the questions were. The survey was commissioned by a children's charity and they may have had a vested interest in the outcome eg funding streams, legislative change etc.

Yes it is a social problem but it always has been. If it's worse than before then it's partly due to the absence of leadership with genuine values and a vision. Politicians as managers and not visionaries and leaders.