Budawang

Just read this truly shocking news report.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/jee...651211750.html

rabsody

Really horrible isn't it. How people can be so vile is beyond me, it really is. :curse:

backagen

I just don't understand what is happening to society or what goes through the minds of idiots like these.

It's beyond belief really and extremely sad. To think that that poor lad experienced such uncaring and abusive things just before his death, and that possibly his death could have been prevented had these people been more responsible is extremely upsetting.

The police ought to at least try charging the main offenders with something. Isn't it still an offence to assist / induce a person to commit suicide?

Sadly I must admit hearing things like this tends to put me off moving back because I just get the impression that a lot of people in Britain just seem to have become totally negative, totally uncaring, violent, superficial and backstabbing.

That's an awful thing to have to say about my own country but I do get that sad impression sometimes from news reports. Thankfully I know some really good decent people in UK though and I keep trying to remind myself of that!

Fleaflyfloflum

I dont think it is a geographical issue as in Aus v UK. I feel it has become a generational issue. I will probably sound like a grumpy old fart now, but I find the new generation of teenagers coming through to be soooo sooo self absorbed and full of the me me me attitude that is it frightening. It was obviously a bunch of younger "adults" doing the goading in this incident, but it is definitely not confined to UK. I remember the scandalous news a while back of some Aussie teenagers setting fire to a mentally retarded girls hair and filming it on their phones laughing and mocking her.
Maybe the internet generation has been adversely affected in some way by the world becoming smaller and gaining access to far more than we ever did as kids. Add to that us as baby boomer parents not doing the old fashioned job of instilling respect and setting boundaries for our growing kids the way our parents did and you get what we have now.... a generation of selfish, uncaring, all about me adults. I find it quite scary.

backagen

So do I!

I don't find it very surprising though when you consider that:

- More kids than ever are not living with both natural married parents

- Even if they are those parents are likely to be both working long hours and very tired and stressed

- There's little or no discipline in most schools

- Immigration and emigration is out of control leading to a lot of social tensions and family breakdowns (don't I know all about that!), and

- The criminal justice system is a complete joke with virtually no chance of most offenders receiving timely and appropriate punishment and rehabilitation.

Until governments take much more serious action to address all these issues the problem is not going away!

If I'm being honest though I would probably have to say all of these problems are actually somewhat worse in UK than in Australia, which is again a sad thing for me to have to admit.

Jerseygirl

Why did the police allow the yobs to stay and shout abuse at the poor guy? They should have moved them on or better still arrested them.

backagen

Good question. I'd love to know the answer.

Dorothy

Agree with you Flea. I know it makes me feel like an old fart, but a lot of kids today just don't understand that these things are not funny. With the garbage they routinely post on YouTube and the like and millions of people watching, it's not a wonder they find this behaviour acceptable. Just look at the Jackass series of movies for what young adults are finding humourous.

Fleaflyfloflum

Exactly..

Being vile and cruel to other people is now an acceptable form of humour. The ironic thing is, it is borne from the pinko liberal parenting ideaologies of over indulging our kids at a young age and making them think they are the most important thing in the universe above all others. Screw anyone else. Screw other peoples feelings, wants and needs. They, and only they, are to be considered. Makes me sick.

backagen

I don't think I will look at the Jackass series, I'll take your word for it!

I have studied psychology at university (specialising in criminal psychology) but I still cannot even begin to understand what is going on in the minds of these people. It is indeed very scary.

rabsody

I think it's more than that though.

It's occured partially due to some pretty major social changes i.e.

• people having less children and less time so revering/indulging those they do have more,
• feminism taking women to the workplace and away from the home (not saying this is a bad thing but it has no doubt contributed),
• more divorce (often as a result of women's increased equality and financial independence) and single parent families,
• Litigation culture (thanks America) so society has to cotton wool kids so they don't hurt themselves climbing trees or on climbing frames and teachers are unable to discipline children.
• Fear of crime, paedophiles, car accidents etc. meaning kids no longer play outside for hours on end exploring like we did and therefore don't learn by their mistakes or learn personal responsibility so readily.

As you rightly say the fashionable permissive parenting style is also part of the problem (sorry, but it's bloody difficult, nay futile, to reason with a two year old and, frankly, who wants to spend half a day repeating yourself parrot like when a swift smack will do the trick).

I think we, as a society, have not yet found appropriate solutions yet for the problems that have arisen from these social changes.

I also think child rearing is a fashion anyway (bloody Dr Spock!) and I think we will swing from permissive back to authoritarian again. I think the tide is already turning.

Fleaflyfloflum

You are, of course, right in everything you say. I was just too tired to delve that deep..lol

I have been thinking about htis subject a lot lately what with living with my grandchildren and watching their bevahiour from an independant observers perspective.
It made me think about the mistakes I made when raising mine. I was caught in the trap of being a single mother running my own business. I am all too aware of the negative effects it had on my kids. If i had my turn all over again I would do things very differently (wouldnt we all!!)

I shudder to think what will happen a few years down the line when these kids have their own kids... good grief...
Although i suspect the results are already showing... kids unable to be responisble parents because they were parented incorrectly themselves.
Where will it all end! ...damn.. i best go to bed i am thinking too much. It is bad for my insomnia and i am starting to ramble on and on

Exile

I've been thinking about some of these issues since I returned.

I'm wondering if the origin of this problem lies not in permissive parenting but more in that authoritarian style of parenting itself and the remnants of Victorian attitudes to children. The idea that children should be seen and not heard, and preferably not seen either.

In many ways, it seems to me that the UK is not a very friendly place for kids. Could this have resulted in a large number of alienated kids, who do not mix well with the adult world and seek solace in like-minded peer groups of equally disaffected youth, the dark recesses of the internet, media, booze, mindless celebrity culture, etc?

Reading some of the comments above, it seems strange to me that the social problems among youth in the UK seem worse than in cultures that really do indulge their children a lot more than we do. I'm thinking of some southern European countries, where the family bonds seem stronger, Australia, where the generations seem to mix more easily, Japan, where young kids are highly indulged but eventually become very (too) obedient.

I understand the calls for tougher parenting, and it is no doubt needed in many cases (any kind of parenting would be a good start in some cases from what I've seen). But I can't help thinking that these calls are an understandable knee-jerk reaction in response to the symptoms, but that they don't deal with the cause, and in fact may be part of the cause.

I'm no bleeding-heart liberal. I agree that boundaries need to be set and kids have to know there are consequences for wrong action. But since I've been back in the UK after nine years in Japan and Australia, I've been left on occasion wondering what the hell we are doing to our children.

It seems to me that large numbers of children end up feeling not valued, even demonized, and as a consequence they are not integrated into the adult world. It creates a vicious circle, and the gap just gets wider. They look for acceptance in peer groups instead, and start living by a different set of social rules, based around showing off, attention seeking, etc, which is generally done via anti-social behaviour. The behaviour gets more daring. The call for a return to medieval values becomes louder!

An article I read the other day summed it up when it said that in Britain children are regarded as a separate species. Not true in all cases, obviously, but I really can see their point.

AliJ

Great post Exile. After 3 years in Aus and 3 years back in UK we've now returned to live in Aus again (only back 1 month!).

This is probably not the right forum to discuss as I'm back in Aus but I felt I must comment on our experience. Once back in the UK I found myself looking at the country through my children's eyes and I could see their struggle to settle back "home" after their Aussie experience. Children are not valued by the adult population, they are deemed a nuisance, there is very little patience, teachers & parents running on a short fuse (work/school pressure?), children & adults are just not mixing, its them and us.

What really struck me about this news report is the role the "bystanders" took in this tragic event, it disgusts me. Both my children had quite nasty experiences of bullying at school back in the UK. What was most significant about their bullying was the "bystanders" who watched them suffer, these bystanders were their so called friends who did nothing to help. At senior school my son's "friend" of 8 years watched as my son was punched to the ground, this so called "friend" then landed a punch on him the following week. I spoke to the parents who then blamed my son for over-reacting :curse:, my son was assaulted! We've not spoken since, we had known them for 10 years. In this case we had the full support of the school but by then we'd had enough and decided to leave for Aus.

Bullying research says that bystanders have alot to do with the bullying culture, the bully is nothing without an audience. Look at UK TV, bully culture is alive and well and we watch it, Simon Cowell etc. there is always a Mr Nasty on any judging panel, Big Brother offers the token bully, the soaps are so violent, the Brits are lapping up the bullying, the media is very influential.

All I can say is we are happy to be back in Aus, its not been easy but my children are smiling again, they are being spoken to by the adult population and feel positive about their future. I'm not going into the emotional scarring my children suffered BUT they have suffered its been very painful. I love the UK, the UK is in my heart, always will be but I'm happy to be an Australian citizen and for my children to grow up here.

Thanks for listening

JRB

This is not a UK vs Aus debate as there are horror stories from both countries e.g bullying happens alot in the Aussie schools too and the recent horror story about a 7 year old Aussie kid who broke into a zoo and cold bloodedly killed several animals totally emotionless or the teenage girls in Collie who killed their mate. Sadly,bad awful things happen in both countries as well as good things. Personally we live in a great part of the UK with family and friends around and kids are growing up feeling valued and accepted in a town with a real community feel in a caring school. I actually think some kids feel more alienated in Australia growing up in sterile suburbs with not much sense of community unless you count sports events as 'community stuff'. The suicide rate is actually very high over there. So really it's not a UK vs Aus thing. I do, however agree that parents need to parent their kids and nothing annoys me more when some little kids is being a bully or cruel to others and the parents just ignore it. I always think of supernanny and her advice to nip things in the bud when they are young as it will get harder and harder as they get older and bigger. In both 'Australia and the UK nothing annoyed me more when some kid would come along and thump my daughter and then the parent would say something like ' he's such a boy!' or something along those lines. Grrrrrrr.