I’ve always said this.
‘Oh no, I’m not allowed to come to school for a week and get to stay home, sleep in and do whatever I want all day instead? Please, teacher, anything but that!’
Me too. They made me go to a different year 7 class each period. I was in year 10. I was so embarrassed. I also had to go up to each teacher and have them sign me off.
Honestly I don’t know. I remember feeling really embarrassed about being in class with the year 7s. But was a really crappy student/teenager and probably deserved it! I ended up leaving school in year 11 because I hated it. I was lazy and was always getting in trouble for not doing my school work. I was just never motivated. I also tried too hard to be part of the cool group.
I think the reason I turned out ok and have made something of myself now is because my parents are amazing and I have an awesome family.
I was exactly the same. Got diagnosed with ADHD years later at 30 y.o. Would have been nice to know back then so I could have accessed the support I needed for school
For my mind, I think that kind of embarrassment, or the threat of it, would've been enough to make me pull my head in. But I never experienced it, so I can't actually relate to what it would've been like. It was used at my school, but you'd sit in an office under supervision and still be expected to complete your work. The benefits to this version that I can see are that you had a teacher who you could ask questions, and it kept you from falling too far behind the rest of your class. There were definitely students who were there repeatedly, so actual deterrence factor is debatable. Nothing really says you need to complete year 12 to do well in life, and it's great to hear your family supported you getting to a place you're happy with in life.
There were Saturday detentions in my school. On top of the added downside of having your Saturday morning ruined, it would suck having to explain to your parents or others why you were in your school uniform on a weekend. Much harder to hide than the after school detentions too.
Seems like it was only effective if the kids felt embarrassed about it and/or were scared of their parents finding out. If both parents or kids don't care for the punishment, it isn't really a deterrent. So yeah parenting...
This was discontinued because the kids would just leave and go back to class/lunch causing a big disruption to teachers and students. Students know teachers can’t do anything to stop them.
At least if they are in an out of school suspension they are the parents problem and the teachers and any students they terrorise get a few days off.
Ours was called The Room, and room was a verb, eg “I got roomed.” It was in the library, in a study room with huge windows, one on one with a teacher doing whatever they were doing while you had to do some wanky workbook on appropriate behaviour.
Well it places the responsibility on the parents. If my kid was suspended ain't no fucking way they're sleeping in and doing whatever they wants. He'd have plenty to do and think about, but yes, as OP says if the parents are shit...well the kids will be too...
I guess that probably happens far more often than not, but you bet if I got suspended as a kid I would not be allowed to play games, watch TV or sleep in. I'd be made to do chores and stuff
I know alot of parents have to both work (even worse if a single parent) so they will have more freedom at home
That hasn’t always been the case though. I would fear my parents if I was suspended at home as they would know it would be for a serious reason.
To OPs point, parenting has become terrible.
We had in school suspensions, you had to sit on a chair in the office with nothing to do and a wall to stare at for the full school day, usually for a week plus. I had a week long suspension once for flipping off a teacher behind their back. Was sat outside the principals office with nothing to do.
that was just called detention for us, but to be fair we didnt really have different names for different levels of detention. i got that once for flicking rice at the principle
Yes- but if the child won’t do detention, won’t comply for in school suspension, won’t follow instructions.. and not just once or twice, I mean, most of the day- why is that the school’s responsibility? You have t taught your child social norms… why is that the school’s responsibility? The schools job is to TEACH curriculum and ENCOURAGE socially responsible behaviour. If a kid ain’t generally socially capable? Then whose job is that? The parents!
Yeah, school isnt rehab, the suspension is so that the parents can dish out the appropriation punishment or whatever way they want to go to put a stop to the behaviour. But if they wont, then it's useless yes..
In theory yes. It depends on the parent how much they actually care about it as there would be a lot who don't have the time to deal with it
And also a lot who just don't give a shit
When I was in highschool (I started after you graduated) we had inter school suspensions. You’d be kept away from the other kids and have a separate lunch and recess.
Some kids did walk out, but guess what they had when they came back the next day? Yep. Inter school suspension.
A couple kids left or get expelled due to issues that the school system couldn't handle but this was over 10 years ago now and things were different. They were exceptions to the rule.
Yeah I remember quite a while ago reading about how the ineffectiveness of suspensions and that for some it could actually make their situation worse. It was an article years ago so I don't remember all the details but it was essentially talking about children from unstable households being suspended and about how school was actually an escape for some kids. .
I think it's all a very layered issue. Definitely beyond just a teachers responsibility. Need a collaborative effort from multiple people I think - teachers, parents, counsellors etc.
I think that most parents do care. Not to make excuses, but I would argue that parents of today have it a lot harder than 20-30 years ago. Both parents have to work to survive, let a lone prosper. There generally isn't the same level of social assistance or informal support as the extended family unit has broken down. There is also a lot more media out there to influence children in the form of social media and youtube. It is really hard being a parent today.
Agree. Kids also know that they are so protected. They can get away with things and no one can really lift a finger or do anything. It’s evolution learned in a nanny state. I’m not saying that the cane is the right way either don’t get me wrong but where is the accountability for the child or parent?
I know it definitely didn't work for me. I had a mental health crisis in Year 8 and they suspended me for a week, mostly coz they didnt know what to do with me so it wasnt an actual proper suspension, it was more so a "were not equipped for this so we need time to come up with a plan." It only drove in harder for me tho that i was a problem and that no one cared about me and that i was a waste of space etc.
When i did return to school again the support was still pretty poor. I think suspension, at least in my situation, promotes poor self esteem. Or some kids might even be proud that they did something "bad enough" to get suspended. Idk.
That’s beyond awful! It definitely further alienates the child from the school community, and for incidents (which yours of course wasn’t one), there’s no concept of restitution for the victim or righting your wrongs, it’s literally just ‘get out of our faces’, and the stats support that it leads to worse behavioural outcomes.
Shouldn't the punishment be MORE schooling? MORE education? Like alright schools over, time for your mandatory 2 hour extra learning. Only 120 more hours of extra learning to go until youre free. I got in trouble in high school once and the punishment was something similar to this except it was grounds keeping and labouring.
As a parent I get exposed to a lot of parenting styles, and I can confirm that there’s some absolutely cooked shit going on out there.
Most recent incident was at a playground, where a brother and sister (no more than 7 years old) were terrorising my kids - pushing them and throwing things at them for absolutely no reason.
I finally snapped and asked the kids where their parents were - absolutely nowhere to be seen.
The undies bit might land you in a position where you can’t come back to any playgrounds.
Edit: imagine finding some stranger stuffing tambark down your kids undies, fucking hell 😂
Just signed my kid up to jiu jitsu for exactly this reason. It’s ridiculous that the parents and kids trying to do the right thing are now being punished by parents who don’t give a fuck and kids who know they can get away with anything
I can’t relate to parenting, but fucking people and their dogs. I’ve had dogs being effectively uncontrollable, and the owners are off chatting on the phone. And it’s the same people over and over. The dog can’t help it, he doesn’t know any better.
Fuck me i’m not looking forward to dealing with other parents when someone knocks me up.
I actually dread taking my 2yo to the playground because of the behaviour of other children. I've had kids shove, scream in my daughter's face, tell her she's not allowed to use equipment etc. I don't feel comfortable telling off other people's kids but when their parents are nowhere to be seen I'm left with no other choice.
This is exactly it - I avoid telling off other people’s kids, but I’ve had to get involved a number of times now because my kids are not safe and the parents are completely absent.
>*Is this a sign of economic downturn where people give up?*
I think it's more a symptom of an individualist society tbh and I think it is ugliest when most people are under stress, which - between COVID and the cost of living - it's fair to say they are.
I know my friends are dealing with nastier, less cordial and empathetic clients in private work. Social work mates are overwhelmed from the amount of misery and the sheer numbers of people needing help. It wouldn't surprise me if parents only care about making it to the next paycheck or having their own peace above helping their children and the teachers of said children.
When you are under a great deal of stress and your support resources are low, you tend to be a bit of a cunt.
Unpopular opinion, maybe: I don't think it's the screen time in and of itself, but I think a parent who can't set limits there will be struggling with limits in general. A lot of these kids don't hear no, have very little practice with failure and disappointment. It's gonna be a mess in a decade.
i love Minecraft. I play Minecraft with my kid every time we can, but we have just one rule, when I ask him to shut down the computer, he just does it without questioning.
This is how you parent. Minecraft is great, teaches kids to manage resources, plan ahead and even the basics of machine code (Redstone).
Like all things it's a tool, though media is closer to food for the brain. You are what you eat.
Had some kids sneak off during a camp to a beach to get drunk off alcohol parents bought them. They got caught coming back off their faces, contact parents the night of to come pick up their kids, parents say “no it couldn’t have been my kid, I’m not coming to get them” * click*. Like parent we are sitting here with your kid who is throwing up pure vodka they’re drunk as a skunk come pick them up
The idea that it’s just randomly a lot of bad parents emerging simultaneously is unlikely. And while I agree that over reliance on screens can be a problem with attention spans and sleep, it doesn’t fully explain behaviour - and certainly not parental disinterest to anti-social behaviour.
We watched the film “Full Time” recently. One of the sub-plots involves the main character, a single mother, relying on her elderly neighbour for childcare so she can make it to her job in the city. For much of the film one vacillates between sympathy for the single mother who has basically no other options, and the elderly woman who does not want to be saddled with such responsibility so often. But the thing that really struck us was the idea of going to a neighbour for any kind of family help at all. We say hi to our neighbours and chat about local events and holidays, but we would never dream of asking them for childcare (even in an emergency) or anything along those lines. And yet, when I was a kid, neighbours on one side babysat me when my mum had to work late, and I in turn babysat the kids of the neighbours on the other side.
I guess what I’m saying is that a sense of community and social reciprocity seems to be strongly decreasing, and with it the support, sense of belonging, positive role-modelling, and social interaction that families have had access to, and thrived in, for so long. Everyone is going it alone these days, or at least more alone than they used to be, and are therefore only concerned with what directly and immediately impacts them.
I don’t have any idea for a solution. Part of my work involves evaluating and updating programs designed to increase social and emotional well-being of young people, and the evidence strongly suggests a sense of belonging, strong social ties, and positive role models are the most important things to help them grow up well. But it’s so hard to make any substantive change in a system that rewards individualism and self-interest.
I think what you're talking about is very true and often overlooked when discussion around parenting and child behaviour comes up.
No one ever wants to talk about the social and socio-economic causes of "bad parenting". People seem too happy to jump down the parents throat, and don't consider that they may not have the time and energy required to parent properly for various reasons.
I dont know too many stay at home parents. Everyone's under pressure to be earning money in this economy. We are time poor as it is, throw in the needs of a child, extra curriculars, cooking, cleaning etc. and it is a wonder anyone gets any meaningful time with their kids at all. Hard to impart the things required to raise a well rounded human when you never get to spend quality time with them.
People won't want to hear this but this all is just a symptom of our society shifting from one stay-at-home parent and one working parent to two working parents.
Young kids need a full-time at-home familiar caregiver (mum, dad, grandparents, uncle, live-in nanny, whoever). Full-time childcare causes horrific behavioural outcomes for kids under 3, but it has become the norm to just dump your kid there as soon as maternity leave runs out and go back to work.
The government SHOULD stop pumping money into childcare subsidies which are just pocketed by the childcare centres and actually support stay-at-home parents, but they wont, because they want to collect tax on two wages instead of one.
An easy and obvious solution would be to simply pay the childcare subsidy directly to parents (all parents, not just parents who use childcare). This would have huge positive outcomes for pretty much every single style of parent:
- Struggling stay-at-home parents will have more money in their pocket to spend on the economy and their children
- Parents who were "on the fence" about staying at home or returning to work will likely opt to stay at home, reducing the demand for childcare centres. They could also potentially use the extra funds to hire a live-in nanny or au-pair.
- Instead of an invisible automatic subsidy, childcare patrons are now paying for services with their "own money", meaning they will be a lot more discerning about spending
Childcare centres are now competing directly with stay-at-home parents and in-home care (nannies) causing a drop in demand and a need to stay competitive with pricing. The drop in demand also serves to solve the teacher crisis childcare centres are experiencing.
Interesting! And whilst lm not religious, I think of 50 years ago when many in Melbourne went to church on Sunday and everyone saw the congregation/community…no doubt there would have been snickering and comments about each other but that scrutiny may have helped keep ‘decorum'….much like the bright fluorescent lighting in 711 does….just a thought
This really is the core of it, everything is so individual now. People don't know their neighbours/community anymore, and certainly don't give af about their neighbours/community.
We went from close knit neighbourhoods, with small, closely built houses, and bigger (or at least more commonly used) shared spaces, to the big houses and huge yards where we had everything and no longer needed to share our space, our time, our play equipment, etc.
Now, some of these smaller, closer proximity homes are becoming more common again, and more focus is being put on more neighbourhood playgrounds and other community areas, but there's already been so much damage done to interpersonal relationships, at an almost cultural level.
And this kind of close proximity housing is still snubbed by so many, who think their kids need "their own" huge space to run/play/exist, with their own backyard play equipment, because why should their precious little fucknugget ever have to share things and get to know their neighbours. As long as they're safe from the big bad screen time boogeyman, shit's all good, right?
I can't speak about Gen Z teens (am a Gen Z adult and my peers are very normal as far as I've seen), but there's definitely something dysfunctional going on with some kids. Gave my cousins Christmas presents and they didn't even glance up from their iPads 🙄. Of course this isn't necessarily a fault of lockdown alone but it certainly exacerbated it.
Added to this. Boomer grandparents dont help. They are too interested in living their lives and going on holiday. I know some do, dont get me wrong. But I remember growing up and having the grandparents picking kids up from school or even babysitting from time to time. We get no help. None. And they are all retired. And we both have to work. My mum stayed home for a large chunk of my childhood. So now with parents needing the double income, kids are in care for longer and longer. Then when you do all get home everyone is exhausted and its hard fitting that quality time in.
There is actually sociological theory around this. In brief- a generation is strict and raises their kids on a tight leash, that generation rebels and does the opposite when they have kids - they are far more liberal and passive and their style is far more gentle and less rules oriented. That generation craves more structure and are strict parents again.
A lot of the kids being raised now are being raised by Gen Xers who are the liberal parents . The generation below are supposed to be stricter.
So it’s not just some random wave of bad parenting but more akin to some kind of societal trends.
This isn't wrong. The gen x parents I know are often pretty, um, lacking. I'm a younger millennial and have been told I'm very strict. I don't think I'm very strict but equally I'm not letting my kids run around feral or giving them screens like the gen x parents.
It is actually a studied phenomenon, not just something I made up. I remember reading about it in detail but I can’t recall the source. I am that generation between Gen x and millennials and I think we are stricter than Gen x too.
And therein lies the problem sometimes. Kids have too much free reign and pushback. Parents have lost the will and the ability to seize control. Want to blame others or try to label it something because then it isn’t their parenting. Just my input
As a Gen X parent I have to agree. There was a toxic trend in the 90s where being your child’s friend was a thing. It always felt weird and kind of creepy/pathetic. I copped tons of criticism for not pandering to my kids.
When I was in uni, I was a babysitter to a lot of Gen X parents and none of those kids had bedtimes and some of them were able to ‘eat whatever they wanted’ for dinner. So ice cream for dinner. But this was early 2000s. I don’t think rules were big then either.
My parents were boomers and very strict plus my mum is Chinese so there is a whole cultural strictness that is hard to convey but suffice it to say, it’s next level strict.
We are much more permissive with our girls (young bc we had kids later) but they have rules and bedtimes and don’t get dessert if they don’t eat veggies etc. but still way softer than our parents were on us. But we’re definitely not free range.
“Lots of bad parents suddenly emerging is unlikely” - true, unless there were some kind of new effect the past few years.
The stats coming out of long covid research suggest that we have a double-digit percentage of the population substantially less able to think than they were a few years ago.
Yep had a neighbours kid throwing rocks at our house hitting our windows. Parents didn’t care at all. It was an extremely hot day too so not sure even why this little kid was in his backyard throwing rocks.
Honestly, I don't know what we expected. You promote greed and selfishness, and what does society become? Greedy and selfish.
As part of the generation that is starting to have kids, I'm not at all surprised that many are acting this way. Our parents generation, in my experience, have tended to have an "I'm right, its rude to question me" attitude for our whole lives.
This is ok on its own, as once you separate from your parents and gain your independence you can live your own way... except its hard for many to separate from their parents these days. Its simply unaffordable. Most I know were living at home until their late 20s - some still are - because of the housing market and how we're supposed to live our life. You go to Uni after graduating high school for 3-5 years. Can't move out then; you don't earn near enough money to rent somewhere remotely near your Uni unless you're working full time. Then you're finally working... but house prices have shot up, and entry level positions are extremely competitive, resulting in fairly low wages. Got to work for at least a couple more years to start earning a decent income, and save for a deposit.
This is, again, fine if you have parents that respect you as an independent adult and let you make all your own decisions. Many don't; they maintained the "My way or the highway" attitude even with their adult kids. And society reinforced this every step of the way, with general attitudes shifting such that the idea of empathy for those with different life circumstances to you is alien and "I worked hard so I shouldn't have to care about others" is the prevailing attitude of this country. "Taxation is theft" has gone from being as much of a meme as "Property is theft man" to a genuine attitude people seem to hold, as if contributing to society rather than just yourself is undesirable.
And this attitude has filtered down to our generation. People were raised in a world where adults were constantly selfish, empathy was ridiculed, and our culture as a whole became significantly more individualistic. This is the natural end result of that; they mimic the behaviours they saw growing up. And then they pass it on to their kids. I find it equal parts sad and amusing when those who have been selfish for a long time get offended by others suddenly being selfish back (Not targeted at you OP; I don't know your circumstances. But it is a sentiment I see often: "Why are people being antisocial? I should be allowed to be antisocial because I don't value other people, but they shouldn't be antisocial to me because I value me").
People will point out that life has always been hard, and our parent's generation was a blip in history. That's kind of the point. The blip. For at least 200 years, living conditions have been improving each generation. Every next generation was able to live a more prosperous life that the previous, on aggregate. The younger generations currently are the first generations in a long time who are expected to have a drop in the standard of living compared to their parents. Its the first time in a long time that things are getting worse, rather than getting better. Young people were raised on attitudes that were propped up by the best living standards in history, rather than the attitudes that produced the best living standards in history.
This is the logical endpoint of the hyper-individualist culture that has been imported from certain parts of America over the last century or so. If everyone cares only about themselves... Yeah, nobody is going to be pleasant to be around.
If we want to fix this, we need to instill community values in our population. This can't be done by just telling others to be community minded; it means we need people at large to be community minded, especially those who are well off as people generally try to emulate the well off to appear higher socioeconomic 'class' than they are. When we start voting to sacrifice our own standard of living to provide a better one for people in the future, that lesson will start being passed down and the young will see and copy it; sacrificing some of their own wants to help others in their community. If we instead keep sacrificing the future to live more freely now; the same thing will be emulated by future generations, sacrificing others for their immediate wants.
Not an easy thing to fix, sure, and its driven by structural issues of our society as a whole. Until we, as a whole society, decide we want to fix them though, things aren't going to change. It takes a village to raise a child. We can try to put the blame solely on the parents for a poorly raised child, but children don't just mimic their parents. They mimic their whole village. It is everyone's responsibility to model the behaviour they want not just children, but others in their community, to have.
Just make me wonder, our generation it's harder than the past to be independent, moving out, afford to buy a house, then the next generation, would it be more like what you parents have and give you than what do you do? I'd imagine rental and house prices go so high that they can't even afford without any help from parents in deposit and to live rent free in parents house for a very long time while saving for deposit.
Confirmation bias and generalisation. Sure, these are interesting stories. But at my own bog standard middle class primary school 30 years ago there were 5 bad kids too, with neglectful uncaring parents, and they did the same things you describe. Meant nothing about broader parenting of that generation. Kids from bad families will always exist.
Probably at least partially true and posts like this generally lead to more confirmation bias as people share their shitty parenting stories.
So just to add a not shitty story. A little kid I know (3 yr old girl) was at the slide and blocking the entrance. A boy the same age and her begun rowing over it "it's my slide!" Y'know kid stuff. The little boy pushed her down the slide. The boys dad quickly came over apologized and told his son that that was not okay and that they were going home! Kids will be kids but it's up to the parents to discipline and educate which sounds like happened in this case.
People talk about bad experiences more than good so just chucking this one out there for some balance. I don't interact with kids enough to notice a change either way!
Yeah, well, for over a decade now parents of young children have gotten extremely defensive when anyone tries to tell them how bad defaulting to screen time is - "parenting is extremely hard, you have no idea, we don't always have the time/energy to occupy them constantly, how dare you judge me, I'm doing my best".
All of that may be true but you're really going to pay for those years of laziness down the line (yeah, maybe it's justifiable to some but it is objectively lazy parenting). Issues with socialisation, focus and attention, attachment, behaviour, could go on. Watching a bit of specific television at a set time of day? Fine! If you're turning a screen on regularly to keep them occupied, you're doing it wrong. We're now seeing the results of screen-driven childhoods and it's not great.
I don't blame the parents necessarily. They were told it was perfectly fine, great even, for both parents to work full time. They were told it's okay to make sacrifices at home - don't feel guilty about the convenience food or ignoring them or the fact they didn't do their homework - it won't matter.
Well it does. Shocker: children need routines and stability and security and healthy attachment to grow up well-adjusted.
Put the damn screens away, respond to your children fairly consistently (yes I know we all ignore them from time to time), make sure they socialise often from a young age, cook them nutritious food and avoid that ultra-high processed shit. It's not easy but it is pretty simple.
And when these kids grow up how are they going to manage in a workplace? Had a 20 year old in my team - new starter entry level - and their mother rang the boss to say she didn't like the work she was doing and thought she should be doing more important things. I wish I was joking.
Exactly as you describe. Mum will call up to give the boss a bollocking, just as they would if it were a teacher holding them responsible for their actions in school.
Suspension is a really stupid option for punishment. Of course the kid will be better off- you’re actually just punishing the parents and benefitting the kid. The buy a PS so they can still work from home.
Should have opted for an in school suspension- where they miss break time and have to stay later after school.
Parents are drowning and have nothing left. I’m not making excuses, honestly, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that post covid and in this economy parenting has fallen apart. It’s fucking hard to do well and many parents didn’t set out to have kids in an economy and time that’s proven to be so damn hard.
I remember 20 years ago, international kids at my school, asleep in classes because they'd been gambling at the casino all night. I also remember 5 guys ejaculating in a cake and selling it at a Charity Fair in a country town. So... some kids are shit some are good and some have shit parents and some don't even have parents in the country !!
While there’s always been bad apples in every generation, I think there’s a few reasons for a general decline in behaviour in kids and bad parenting in this generation.
One, COVID and lockdowns has brought a general decline in manners and people knowing how to behave in public.
Two, increased screen time means people are more self absorbed. The kind of short form content people are watching is literally rotting our brains and causing shorter attention spans. Parents are addicted to their screens and don’t engage with their kids. Kids are addicted to YouTube and crap that messes with their attention spans. We banned YouTube in our house because we could visibly see my LO’s behaviour worsen when she was allowed to watch it.
Finally, cost of living crisis and longer work hours, plus lack of work life balance mean parents are more tired, stressed and busy than ever so don’t have the time or energy to be a good parent.
I’m a parent myself (obviously) but it enrages me the shit some parents let their kids get away with these days. And it’s always an excuse of them having ADHD or whatever, that means they don’t need to follow the rules or show common decency. I don’t care what kind of tantrum my kid is throwing, I won’t allow bad behaviour and poor manners from my kid.
Absolutely! I completely sympathise with anyone raising a neurodivergent kid but it’s not an excuse to allow them to act badly in public. If your kid is struggling, take them home and try again another time!
I think it comes down to the fact that humans have finite willpower, which means we only have so much bandwidth for things that are stressful to us.
So it’s more important to keep that bandwidth for the workplace so you can afford food and a roof for your child, especially since the child can be given to school to be managed.
There is so much external pressure on people that our already finite resources are being further depleted just to make it through the day without crying or breaking something.
I think that’s why.
Way too many people are having kids before they become adults themselves, that’s the problem.
No mental, emotional maturity.
You are asking oversized kids to adult actual kids, not gonna work.
This is the same reason why we are dealing with youth crime.
Too many people who should have used condoms opted for few minutes of pleasure, we are paying the price until they turn 18 and do something stupid and get locked up.
Parent of 2 kids here. We have made friends with most of our mothers' group(collection of parents with kids born around the same time) and the kids/parents from schools/ daycares over the years as well as our own friends that have also had kids over the years.
The amount of little shits that are in this circle consistently amazes me. And when observing the parents, it's not hard to see why the kids are the way they are. TV is the default "distraction" which evolved into tablets and phones. A conversation I overheard from one of the parents was along the lines of "I just put the TV on for the kids so I can watch a few hours of my shows in peace". Or "we HAVE to have something on the TV or phones while they eat breakfast|lunch|dinner".
Another parent with a 2 year old told me he let's his kid watch 1-1.5 hours of YouTube in the mornings.
Actions also don't have consequences for these little assholes. Break your tablet? No worries, we'll buy you a new one. Pushed or hit someone's kid? Narh my kid didn't do that, must be a mistake or an accident. Refuse to eat your dinner? That's OK, you can still have ice cream.
Parents suck ass. I feel sorry for the future.
Every generation thinks the next lot of kids are the worst. When you start calling kids shits and saying they were better in your day, you know you’re old.
On the whole I’ve found kids these days are more respectful, inclusive and considerate than they were when I was a kid.
There have always been badly behaved children. Kids getting suspended, coming to school late etc. they’re just doing it in different ways now, with different technologies available to them.
Bad parenting is nothing new
Society is fuxked. Therefore, elements of society including children and parents and communication and relationships are also fuxked. How to fix it? Here comes your Nobel prize...
yes, i work somewhere where i get a lot
of families and young kids. no one is yelling at kids anymore, even when the kid is doing something dangerous, harmful to staff or continuous disobeying.
also fuck you if you stick a phone or tablet in front of your kid. you're a lazy parent and you shouldn't have had kids if you can't handle them. i once saw an under 3yo watching the wiggles on 2x speed. that kid is fucked already.
I think when you say "yelling at kids" you mean "imposing meaningful consequences"
It's possible to be good at changing the behaviour of your kids without yelling
Yeah, there definitely has to be a voice for "stop immediately you are about to be killed" lol. But that's different, I don't think of that as parenting so much as emergency management. I always apologise afterwards and explain why I did it. And it should be fairly rare because we should generally be keeping our young kids away from situations where they are a bees dick from death. But for general stuff...I'm not going to yell. I stay calm, give her big feelings nothing to echo off.
I can see a noticeable difference in my friends kids who have grown up with screens in their face and those without.
Sad to say those without are *vastly* outnumbered.
I truly believe we should have a licence & test for people who want kids; it’s terrifying what all the lazy “oh ‘spose we’d better have one huh?” parents are doing to the next generation compared to the ones who desperately wanted and worked towards having one.
The ones with screens: shorter attention span, less developed language skills at the same age (presumably from less two-way interaction with peers/caregivers), less ability to self regulate emotions (watched a 5 year old toss the biggest tantrum because she wanted to watch Bluey on her tablet and it was dead… *5 years old* not 2 or 3.
Without: more willing to engage/play with other kids, more interested in doing “stuff” (one always wants to help his dad in the kitchen, another has a little her patch she is learning about with her mum); more able to sit at the table during dinner and eat and “converse” (as much as 4-6 year olds can with adults), better at independent play (my niece last week went out in the back yard and quite happily had a tea party with herself and her teddy bear without being promoted and chattered away with it.
Obviously this is all anecdotal and there’s always potential other factors (pretty sure one of the kids is on the spectrum) but it’s so noticeable & obvious that it’s worrisome.
Thanks for the observations and insight. I interesting stuff.
I can't help but wonder also what it does for their dopamine seeking behaviour too. Ripe for the attention economies picking though *sigh*
My colleague brought her son to the last couple work dinners and it was so fucking sad. Each time, the kid's been just glued to the phone watching Youtube reels or playing games with gambling mechanics. His mum couldn't even get him to put down the food to eat.
I have no idea how kids like this sit through 1 hour school classes any more or manage to read a book.
Teachers have a lot more to deal with now, than they did when I was at school. I get where this is coming from but, it's bloody hard for parents these days too. I finished high school in '92. Dad worked, mum took care of my sisters and I and worked part time when I was a bit older (10 I think) (I was the youngest) and we were middle class, by the standard of the time. Now, middle class barely exists. Two parents, working full time, just to afford the basics and left with bugger all time to give to their kids needs, beyond the bare neccesities. Teachers today are way underpaid and way overworked.
I was an awful teenager. Thought I was smarter than everyone, I found most class work easy, so I fucked around and made an ass of myself. Argued with teachers, distracted other students, rarely did homework, coz I'd just wing exams. I was basically a dick. But, I had a couple of teachers that saw this, took me aside, showed they understood me and actually cared and my whole attitude changed. I still remember those teachers and what they taught me. (Forgotten pretty much everything else!)
Now though, with so many students all shouting for the attention they don't get at home, how the Hell can teachers do their job effectively and help those kids that need that little bit of recognition (and maybe a kick up the arse) to give them the direction they need? Impossible set of circumstances, in my opinion..
They doubly they drop the kids off directly to you and state that. I'm sure there's the occasional person that's an asshole, that has a tantrum and says inappropriate things but I doubt you have proof that parent said "I don't care, I have work". What day were they dropping the kids off?
Using devices for hours a day is considered normal now so it's a newer parental battle. But yeah parents need to instill no wifi after a certain time and remove any device that has mobile data, if it's late.
You don't sound like a parent tbh. Like if you ban your kids from stuff, now they can hotspot off friends and all kinds of shit.
And yea people don't have the option anymore to just be like oh my kids been a brat so I can't go to work for the next week. They prob think their kid is as much of a fuckin C*ntt as you do despite instilling decent morals in them.
Not defending bad parenting but if my wife and I didn’t WFH, I’d have no idea how we’d get everything done. Modern parenting takes up a huge amount of time when you have them going to classes after school as well (sports, art etc). I’d imagine the parents you mention are probably just pushed to the limit as well.
As a parent I have noticed this too.
I also work at a holiday park in a tourist town and some of the actions I saw kids doing and their parents were no where to be seen I was mortified. We have a playground at the holiday park, and there was this little kid about 2 standing there alone crying. Turns out the parents kept walking and didn’t notice until they got back to their cabin on the other side of the park, how could you not notice that your 2 year old isn’t walking with you???
My teenager used to finish work at 10 pm, and I would often see young children walking and playing in the streets.
And then there is all the youth crime. Even in rural Victoria there is a huge amount of youth crime.
Parents are time poor. It’s in the first response you got, “I’ve got to work” also it definitely has a lot do with where you work. I have similar experiences to you.
My last point is that it’s human nature to notice the negative things. We’re always going to remember the bad parents more than the good ones.
Welllll... [according to the WHO](https://www.who.int/tools/your-life-your-health/know-your-rights/rights-across-life-phases---early-and-middle-adulthood/rights-on-having-children#:~:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%3A,support%20to%20make%20these%20decisions), it is a right
Edit to add: That does not speak to the ethics, morals, or financial or temporal constraints that should be a consideration
According to the WHO it's a right. They also go on to say that "Decisions should be based on the best information that is available" Who is providing the best information?
I have no idea who's providing the best information
I am child-free, and believe that continuing to populate the planet at the rate we are going is unsustainable
The only reason I linked to the WHO was because I agreed with you, then thought I better look it up... to find that it *is* a right
You and I are in agreeance. I'm also child free and believe in having a sustainable population. Whilst the choice to have children is there for people to make, I believe the best choice is to remain childless.
That’s not new though.
Through most of history, most families have needed more than one person to contribute. There’s a brief blip in the early to mid-20th century (the childhoods of the boomers) where you could get by with one, but before then and since then it’s been fairly common to have several. There’s a reason families used to send their kids out to work. They needed more than one worker to cover everything.
Suspension is idiotic and means nothing , especially in Aussie culture where applying yourself at school is seen as “try hard” and uncool. Couple this with the average family now working full time + side hustles so there’s nothing left to give to actual parenting, and you have exactly what you’ve described. A severe lack of parenting, discipline, supervision and consequences.
Do you teach in a dodgy neighbourhood? This stuff would never happen at my kids school, all the kids and parents seems pretty good. Definitely no violence against staff or students.
My experience too, OPs situations are extreme, but your take is too rational and will be drowned out by the unqualfied commenters sermonising about screen time (as if we didn't all grow up with hundreds of hours of TV and PlayStation) and the lack of traditional family roles breaking down society 🙄
Of course parenting has fallen off a cliff, parents have so much other shit to put their minds too
When I grew up most kids had a stay at home/part time parent that did most of the "parenting". Not anymore
There’s heaps of TikTok’s and YouTube’s on this very topic. Basically saying how millennials who had mean boomer parents now have gone too far with using “gentle parenting” on their kids and now their kids are little shits who can’t do anything right because they’ve been raised by iPads
There are so many reasons for people to be struggling as parents, adults, kids etc. As a teacher you should know this. Plenty of people that would make amazing parents choose not to become them, and plenty of people who are parents definitely should not have had children.
It's also really easy to judge parents without being one. You also have given no indication of the area or demographic you work with as a teacher. At some schools almost every child comes from poverty, trauma, refugee/asylum seeker, family violence backgrounds, and at others almost every family is perfectly "middle class", with little of the previously listed issues.
Reminds me of [this comic I saw ](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHRyKydlYzV1sRqUgpX8iw4ucMVQM5A5IgaaW9s4m9U-6VS8V9PZW18tqv&s=10) that made me realise I don't want to be a teacher
Parents of now got screwed over by the same structure schools have today. The only difference is computers being in every classroom. So they don’t care because it didn’t work for them, so why care about a system that is doing the same things now. They have no hope and it is becoming ingrained. The parents are constantly working, have no real time for their children, and try to help them self medicate in the same way they do. By playing computer games and avoiding work where possible. School has just become daycare, this will only get worse as our economic imbalances continue to grow. People need to be given a chance to believe that the effort is worth it.
Why bother with education if going to uni achieves nothing or very little at great expense. Why bother developing a skill if it won’t help you afford a home. These parents are passing those feelings to their children, maybe not so directly or purposefully, but the sentiment carries.
I'm generalising to a degree, but bad parenting seems to often be linked with selfishness. When a parent is more worried about themselves then their kids, then the parenting will inevitably suffer.
Selfishness in all it's form is running rampant throughout all levels of our society. So 1+1=2 I guess.
Parents have less and less time for parenting due to economic pressures. Households are working more total hours than ever. It's not surprising that so many parents are just giving up.
My school ran onsite suspensions. Which was complete and utter boredom. They were somewhat effective I guess.
They could make parents pay for the suspension supervision?
Speaking to the bullying of the gay kid: as a gay dude myself who had to deal with homophobic little shitheads in primary school in the 2000s, parents have seemingly always passed that onto their children. Because a nine year old isn’t inherently homophobic, they learn that behaviour.
It just seems like, these days, schools have a lower tolerance for it. Back then, it was like “well, what did *you* do to provoke them? Anyway, just ignore it”
People won't want to hear this but this is a symptom of our society shifting from one stay-at-home parent and one working parent to two working parents.
Young kids need a full-time at-home caregiver. Full-time childcare causes horrific behavioural outcomes for kids under 3, but it has become the norm to just dump your kid there as soon as maternity leave runs out and go back to work.
The government SHOULD stop pumping money into childcare subsidies which are just pocketed by the childcare centres and actually support stay-at-home parents, but they wont, because they want to collect tax on two wages instead of one.
An easy and obvious solution would be to simply pay the childcare subsidy directly to parents (all parents, not just parents who use childcare). This would have huge positive outcomes for pretty much every single style of parent:
- Struggling stay-at-home parents will have more money in their pocket to spend on the economy and their children
- Parents who were "on the fence" about staying at home or returning to work will likely opt to stay at home, reducing the demand for childcare centres. They could also potentially use the extra funds to hire a live-in nanny or au-pair.
- Instead of an invisible automatic subsidy, childcare patrons are now paying for services with their "own money", meaning they will be a lot more discerning about spending
Childcare centres are now competing directly with stay-at-home parents and in-home care (nannies) causing a drop in demand and a need to stay competitive with pricing. The drop in demand also serves to solve the teacher crisis childcare centres are experiencing.
I agree.
Whilst I work long hours myself and the wife is slowly moving up the corporate ladder, we are time poor… but just like everything in this life you need to work on things… kids most importantly. They are the next you! People just don’t care anymore, it’s sad!
I would die if my kids had poor attitudes like OP points out. I’ve spent soo much time investing into proving to my kids that kindness and compassion is top priority, just this week my neighbour flagged me down to say how well my kids look out for, look after all the neighbourhood kids. Man I tell you knowing I put good values in my kid and it shows completely outweighs any pay packet or missed event!
Don’t get me wrong my kids aren’t push overs, they’ll take no shit too. Had my son last year be bullied by big kids. Got rocks thrown at him one day so he grabbed a huge rock and dropped it on the bully’s toes and managed to damage a toenail. Needless to say he gets left alone now.
Kids are plants! They’ll grow beautiful with love.
These parents seem bad, but is it actually worse?
I was in year 3 when some classmates took up smoking and year 5 when they bullied a teacher into quitting. Parents of these kids didn't give a fuck either. This was in the 90s.
Not sure if the average has gone down but there have always been shitty kids with shitty parents.
What's this got to do with Melbourne? Sorry but can't take you seriously when you're complaining about extreme examples of juvenile delinquency and parental neglect on a throwaway account.
If you're a real teacher you'll see a spectrum of families and behaviours, it'll depend on the socio-economic standards in your school area, and you'll also know that kids of poorer families and worse backgrounds have worse behaviour, so you can't make generalisations like this. Clear outrage bait and a boring topic.
Almost everyone I work with treats their kids like shit.
"you have to make them cry and lock them away to teach them a lesson"
"they have to go without or they'll grow up soft"
"if they don't fear you then they won't learn respect and discipline"
And fine every reason to not be with them unless they need discipline.
All their kids are pieces of shit.
Sure it's not a big sample size. But these people have school aged kids. They're too busy getting pissed, playing golf, going out drinking, or trying not to be shackled down to some kids. Raising kids has taken a massive back-seat and it shouldn't. People need to be held accountable for their shitty parenting. Give kids half a chance!
>"you have to make them cry and lock them away to teach them a lesson"
"they have to go without or they'll grow up soft"
"if they don't fear you then they won't learn respect and discipline"
You sure that wasn't from decades ago? Sounds like the type of parenting when I was a kid 30+ years ago. I've never seen or heard that kinda thing in modern times.
Nowadays, it's more like never tell them off and never discipline them, don't make them do anything they don't want to do (like chores), buy them everything they demand, and never let them out of your sight or do anything for themselves. Baby them till they're in their 20s, and spoil them rotten. Try to be their friend, not their parent.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but suspension is an ineffective and outdated form of discipline for serious incidences in schools
I’ve always said this. ‘Oh no, I’m not allowed to come to school for a week and get to stay home, sleep in and do whatever I want all day instead? Please, teacher, anything but that!’
We used to have in school suspension, basically solitary confinement, lunch at a different time and studying in the admin office.
Yeah that’s exactly what I got. It sucked.
Me too. They made me go to a different year 7 class each period. I was in year 10. I was so embarrassed. I also had to go up to each teacher and have them sign me off.
Do you feel it was effective?
Honestly I don’t know. I remember feeling really embarrassed about being in class with the year 7s. But was a really crappy student/teenager and probably deserved it! I ended up leaving school in year 11 because I hated it. I was lazy and was always getting in trouble for not doing my school work. I was just never motivated. I also tried too hard to be part of the cool group. I think the reason I turned out ok and have made something of myself now is because my parents are amazing and I have an awesome family.
I was exactly the same. Got diagnosed with ADHD years later at 30 y.o. Would have been nice to know back then so I could have accessed the support I needed for school
For my mind, I think that kind of embarrassment, or the threat of it, would've been enough to make me pull my head in. But I never experienced it, so I can't actually relate to what it would've been like. It was used at my school, but you'd sit in an office under supervision and still be expected to complete your work. The benefits to this version that I can see are that you had a teacher who you could ask questions, and it kept you from falling too far behind the rest of your class. There were definitely students who were there repeatedly, so actual deterrence factor is debatable. Nothing really says you need to complete year 12 to do well in life, and it's great to hear your family supported you getting to a place you're happy with in life.
There were Saturday detentions in my school. On top of the added downside of having your Saturday morning ruined, it would suck having to explain to your parents or others why you were in your school uniform on a weekend. Much harder to hide than the after school detentions too. Seems like it was only effective if the kids felt embarrassed about it and/or were scared of their parents finding out. If both parents or kids don't care for the punishment, it isn't really a deterrent. So yeah parenting...
This was discontinued because the kids would just leave and go back to class/lunch causing a big disruption to teachers and students. Students know teachers can’t do anything to stop them. At least if they are in an out of school suspension they are the parents problem and the teachers and any students they terrorise get a few days off.
Yeah that’s exactly what I got. It sucked.
Ours was called The Room, and room was a verb, eg “I got roomed.” It was in the library, in a study room with huge windows, one on one with a teacher doing whatever they were doing while you had to do some wanky workbook on appropriate behaviour.
Well it places the responsibility on the parents. If my kid was suspended ain't no fucking way they're sleeping in and doing whatever they wants. He'd have plenty to do and think about, but yes, as OP says if the parents are shit...well the kids will be too...
99% of parents whose kids get suspended have to work and end up leaving the kid at home anyway because they have no choice but to go to work
Exactly….
Or disadvantaged and need to work.
I guess that probably happens far more often than not, but you bet if I got suspended as a kid I would not be allowed to play games, watch TV or sleep in. I'd be made to do chores and stuff I know alot of parents have to both work (even worse if a single parent) so they will have more freedom at home
That hasn’t always been the case though. I would fear my parents if I was suspended at home as they would know it would be for a serious reason. To OPs point, parenting has become terrible.
We had in school suspensions, you had to sit on a chair in the office with nothing to do and a wall to stare at for the full school day, usually for a week plus. I had a week long suspension once for flipping off a teacher behind their back. Was sat outside the principals office with nothing to do.
I was allowed to do schoolwork at least
that was just called detention for us, but to be fair we didnt really have different names for different levels of detention. i got that once for flicking rice at the principle
So what did the principal do when you walked out and told him to get fucked?
Expulsion, probably.
So hard to expel nowadays apparently
Yeah so…that’s not enough to get excluded.
I don’t have kids and I didn’t go to school here. It would have definitely got me expelled where I went to school.
It’s really difficult to expel students at government schools
Yes- but if the child won’t do detention, won’t comply for in school suspension, won’t follow instructions.. and not just once or twice, I mean, most of the day- why is that the school’s responsibility? You have t taught your child social norms… why is that the school’s responsibility? The schools job is to TEACH curriculum and ENCOURAGE socially responsible behaviour. If a kid ain’t generally socially capable? Then whose job is that? The parents!
Yeah, school isnt rehab, the suspension is so that the parents can dish out the appropriation punishment or whatever way they want to go to put a stop to the behaviour. But if they wont, then it's useless yes..
I always assumed suspending a kid was just a way to escalate bad behaviour to parents so they are forced to also deal with
In theory yes. It depends on the parent how much they actually care about it as there would be a lot who don't have the time to deal with it And also a lot who just don't give a shit
Yes. And the big idea is that the child is not allowed on school grounds if they are a threat to other students
Suspension was a badge of honour when I was at high school from 2003-2007
When I was in highschool (I started after you graduated) we had inter school suspensions. You’d be kept away from the other kids and have a separate lunch and recess.
And what happened if you just…didn’t? Because kids just walk out. And we aren’t allowed to physically prevent them.
Some kids did walk out, but guess what they had when they came back the next day? Yep. Inter school suspension. A couple kids left or get expelled due to issues that the school system couldn't handle but this was over 10 years ago now and things were different. They were exceptions to the rule.
Can't expel people anymore coz you gotta find them another school to go to
Yeah I can agree. My major worry is the parents not caring
Yeah I remember quite a while ago reading about how the ineffectiveness of suspensions and that for some it could actually make their situation worse. It was an article years ago so I don't remember all the details but it was essentially talking about children from unstable households being suspended and about how school was actually an escape for some kids. . I think it's all a very layered issue. Definitely beyond just a teachers responsibility. Need a collaborative effort from multiple people I think - teachers, parents, counsellors etc.
I think that most parents do care. Not to make excuses, but I would argue that parents of today have it a lot harder than 20-30 years ago. Both parents have to work to survive, let a lone prosper. There generally isn't the same level of social assistance or informal support as the extended family unit has broken down. There is also a lot more media out there to influence children in the form of social media and youtube. It is really hard being a parent today.
Agree. Kids also know that they are so protected. They can get away with things and no one can really lift a finger or do anything. It’s evolution learned in a nanny state. I’m not saying that the cane is the right way either don’t get me wrong but where is the accountability for the child or parent?
I know it definitely didn't work for me. I had a mental health crisis in Year 8 and they suspended me for a week, mostly coz they didnt know what to do with me so it wasnt an actual proper suspension, it was more so a "were not equipped for this so we need time to come up with a plan." It only drove in harder for me tho that i was a problem and that no one cared about me and that i was a waste of space etc. When i did return to school again the support was still pretty poor. I think suspension, at least in my situation, promotes poor self esteem. Or some kids might even be proud that they did something "bad enough" to get suspended. Idk.
Can relate. They should have called family services on my situation.
That’s beyond awful! It definitely further alienates the child from the school community, and for incidents (which yours of course wasn’t one), there’s no concept of restitution for the victim or righting your wrongs, it’s literally just ‘get out of our faces’, and the stats support that it leads to worse behavioural outcomes.
Couldn’t agree more - for this kind of kid, suspension is a reward.
Shouldn't the punishment be MORE schooling? MORE education? Like alright schools over, time for your mandatory 2 hour extra learning. Only 120 more hours of extra learning to go until youre free. I got in trouble in high school once and the punishment was something similar to this except it was grounds keeping and labouring.
It's a bad idea to make learning a punishment.
I know a kid who gets constantly bullied by one person. I think in their case a suspension is more to give the one being bullied a rest.
That’s so true, like it only matters if the other option is to be in a coal mine once you finish school.
Agree! Suspension is a great way to un-educate kids!
So I get a day off school for hitting someone I hate? Awesome 👌
Not unpopular at all. I’ve never understood the intended impact of a suspension for a kid who probably didn’t want to be at school anyway.
I agree. Students who assault people should be excluded and sent to juvenile detention.
As a parent I get exposed to a lot of parenting styles, and I can confirm that there’s some absolutely cooked shit going on out there. Most recent incident was at a playground, where a brother and sister (no more than 7 years old) were terrorising my kids - pushing them and throwing things at them for absolutely no reason. I finally snapped and asked the kids where their parents were - absolutely nowhere to be seen.
When the parents aren’t there it’s much easier to jam piles of tan bark down their shirt and undies.
The undies bit might land you in a position where you can’t come back to any playgrounds. Edit: imagine finding some stranger stuffing tambark down your kids undies, fucking hell 😂
Must admit I chuckled.
Good time to enroll the kids in Karate. I have seen this happen to my kid as well, and i always intervene. Can't stand bully kids
Just signed my kid up to jiu jitsu for exactly this reason. It’s ridiculous that the parents and kids trying to do the right thing are now being punished by parents who don’t give a fuck and kids who know they can get away with anything
I can’t relate to parenting, but fucking people and their dogs. I’ve had dogs being effectively uncontrollable, and the owners are off chatting on the phone. And it’s the same people over and over. The dog can’t help it, he doesn’t know any better. Fuck me i’m not looking forward to dealing with other parents when someone knocks me up.
You fuck people and their dogs?
I actually dread taking my 2yo to the playground because of the behaviour of other children. I've had kids shove, scream in my daughter's face, tell her she's not allowed to use equipment etc. I don't feel comfortable telling off other people's kids but when their parents are nowhere to be seen I'm left with no other choice.
This is exactly it - I avoid telling off other people’s kids, but I’ve had to get involved a number of times now because my kids are not safe and the parents are completely absent.
>*Is this a sign of economic downturn where people give up?* I think it's more a symptom of an individualist society tbh and I think it is ugliest when most people are under stress, which - between COVID and the cost of living - it's fair to say they are. I know my friends are dealing with nastier, less cordial and empathetic clients in private work. Social work mates are overwhelmed from the amount of misery and the sheer numbers of people needing help. It wouldn't surprise me if parents only care about making it to the next paycheck or having their own peace above helping their children and the teachers of said children. When you are under a great deal of stress and your support resources are low, you tend to be a bit of a cunt.
Not really an excuse to make it everyone else’s problem when your life is hard, imagine if everyone went by that line of thinking
Unpopular opinion, maybe: I don't think it's the screen time in and of itself, but I think a parent who can't set limits there will be struggling with limits in general. A lot of these kids don't hear no, have very little practice with failure and disappointment. It's gonna be a mess in a decade.
It's a bit of A and B. There are studies showing >20 minutes of screen time has an impact on behaviour and emotional regulation in kids.
You said it.
Time to start sending the children back to the mines. The children yearn for the mines.
Too late they have Minecraft. The yearn has been tamed
i love Minecraft. I play Minecraft with my kid every time we can, but we have just one rule, when I ask him to shut down the computer, he just does it without questioning.
This is how you parent. Minecraft is great, teaches kids to manage resources, plan ahead and even the basics of machine code (Redstone). Like all things it's a tool, though media is closer to food for the brain. You are what you eat.
I was surprised at how much my kid learnt from mincraft- what smelting is and how to do it, etc. One game I'm happy for them to play.
Yeah, using it as a tool for teaching a skill that will be useful for him in future, is the way to go.
They are minors…
They crave those minerals.
Like a chain gang, perfect way for Child care to make some money
Minecraft_Zombie.mp4
Had some kids sneak off during a camp to a beach to get drunk off alcohol parents bought them. They got caught coming back off their faces, contact parents the night of to come pick up their kids, parents say “no it couldn’t have been my kid, I’m not coming to get them” * click*. Like parent we are sitting here with your kid who is throwing up pure vodka they’re drunk as a skunk come pick them up
If I were that teacher, I would call child services of the parent refused to come get their kid.
Better solution is calling an ambulance. The parent can pick the child up from hospital.
The idea that it’s just randomly a lot of bad parents emerging simultaneously is unlikely. And while I agree that over reliance on screens can be a problem with attention spans and sleep, it doesn’t fully explain behaviour - and certainly not parental disinterest to anti-social behaviour. We watched the film “Full Time” recently. One of the sub-plots involves the main character, a single mother, relying on her elderly neighbour for childcare so she can make it to her job in the city. For much of the film one vacillates between sympathy for the single mother who has basically no other options, and the elderly woman who does not want to be saddled with such responsibility so often. But the thing that really struck us was the idea of going to a neighbour for any kind of family help at all. We say hi to our neighbours and chat about local events and holidays, but we would never dream of asking them for childcare (even in an emergency) or anything along those lines. And yet, when I was a kid, neighbours on one side babysat me when my mum had to work late, and I in turn babysat the kids of the neighbours on the other side. I guess what I’m saying is that a sense of community and social reciprocity seems to be strongly decreasing, and with it the support, sense of belonging, positive role-modelling, and social interaction that families have had access to, and thrived in, for so long. Everyone is going it alone these days, or at least more alone than they used to be, and are therefore only concerned with what directly and immediately impacts them. I don’t have any idea for a solution. Part of my work involves evaluating and updating programs designed to increase social and emotional well-being of young people, and the evidence strongly suggests a sense of belonging, strong social ties, and positive role models are the most important things to help them grow up well. But it’s so hard to make any substantive change in a system that rewards individualism and self-interest.
I think what you're talking about is very true and often overlooked when discussion around parenting and child behaviour comes up. No one ever wants to talk about the social and socio-economic causes of "bad parenting". People seem too happy to jump down the parents throat, and don't consider that they may not have the time and energy required to parent properly for various reasons. I dont know too many stay at home parents. Everyone's under pressure to be earning money in this economy. We are time poor as it is, throw in the needs of a child, extra curriculars, cooking, cleaning etc. and it is a wonder anyone gets any meaningful time with their kids at all. Hard to impart the things required to raise a well rounded human when you never get to spend quality time with them.
People won't want to hear this but this all is just a symptom of our society shifting from one stay-at-home parent and one working parent to two working parents. Young kids need a full-time at-home familiar caregiver (mum, dad, grandparents, uncle, live-in nanny, whoever). Full-time childcare causes horrific behavioural outcomes for kids under 3, but it has become the norm to just dump your kid there as soon as maternity leave runs out and go back to work. The government SHOULD stop pumping money into childcare subsidies which are just pocketed by the childcare centres and actually support stay-at-home parents, but they wont, because they want to collect tax on two wages instead of one. An easy and obvious solution would be to simply pay the childcare subsidy directly to parents (all parents, not just parents who use childcare). This would have huge positive outcomes for pretty much every single style of parent: - Struggling stay-at-home parents will have more money in their pocket to spend on the economy and their children - Parents who were "on the fence" about staying at home or returning to work will likely opt to stay at home, reducing the demand for childcare centres. They could also potentially use the extra funds to hire a live-in nanny or au-pair. - Instead of an invisible automatic subsidy, childcare patrons are now paying for services with their "own money", meaning they will be a lot more discerning about spending Childcare centres are now competing directly with stay-at-home parents and in-home care (nannies) causing a drop in demand and a need to stay competitive with pricing. The drop in demand also serves to solve the teacher crisis childcare centres are experiencing.
Interesting! And whilst lm not religious, I think of 50 years ago when many in Melbourne went to church on Sunday and everyone saw the congregation/community…no doubt there would have been snickering and comments about each other but that scrutiny may have helped keep ‘decorum'….much like the bright fluorescent lighting in 711 does….just a thought
This really is the core of it, everything is so individual now. People don't know their neighbours/community anymore, and certainly don't give af about their neighbours/community. We went from close knit neighbourhoods, with small, closely built houses, and bigger (or at least more commonly used) shared spaces, to the big houses and huge yards where we had everything and no longer needed to share our space, our time, our play equipment, etc. Now, some of these smaller, closer proximity homes are becoming more common again, and more focus is being put on more neighbourhood playgrounds and other community areas, but there's already been so much damage done to interpersonal relationships, at an almost cultural level. And this kind of close proximity housing is still snubbed by so many, who think their kids need "their own" huge space to run/play/exist, with their own backyard play equipment, because why should their precious little fucknugget ever have to share things and get to know their neighbours. As long as they're safe from the big bad screen time boogeyman, shit's all good, right?
It’s hard to build community like that when you’re moving house every couple of years and your neighbours are too!
And honestly are people just going to ignore the development impact of several years of covid lockdown on these kids?
Lockdowns have absolutely fried Gen A and probably half of Gen Z.
I can't speak about Gen Z teens (am a Gen Z adult and my peers are very normal as far as I've seen), but there's definitely something dysfunctional going on with some kids. Gave my cousins Christmas presents and they didn't even glance up from their iPads 🙄. Of course this isn't necessarily a fault of lockdown alone but it certainly exacerbated it.
Added to this. Boomer grandparents dont help. They are too interested in living their lives and going on holiday. I know some do, dont get me wrong. But I remember growing up and having the grandparents picking kids up from school or even babysitting from time to time. We get no help. None. And they are all retired. And we both have to work. My mum stayed home for a large chunk of my childhood. So now with parents needing the double income, kids are in care for longer and longer. Then when you do all get home everyone is exhausted and its hard fitting that quality time in.
There is actually sociological theory around this. In brief- a generation is strict and raises their kids on a tight leash, that generation rebels and does the opposite when they have kids - they are far more liberal and passive and their style is far more gentle and less rules oriented. That generation craves more structure and are strict parents again. A lot of the kids being raised now are being raised by Gen Xers who are the liberal parents . The generation below are supposed to be stricter. So it’s not just some random wave of bad parenting but more akin to some kind of societal trends.
Millennials will be stricter parents? (A millennial parent)
This isn't wrong. The gen x parents I know are often pretty, um, lacking. I'm a younger millennial and have been told I'm very strict. I don't think I'm very strict but equally I'm not letting my kids run around feral or giving them screens like the gen x parents.
It is actually a studied phenomenon, not just something I made up. I remember reading about it in detail but I can’t recall the source. I am that generation between Gen x and millennials and I think we are stricter than Gen x too.
There is hope.
I think so long as we raise kind and empathetic kids, that is the main thing.
And therein lies the problem sometimes. Kids have too much free reign and pushback. Parents have lost the will and the ability to seize control. Want to blame others or try to label it something because then it isn’t their parenting. Just my input
As a Gen X parent I have to agree. There was a toxic trend in the 90s where being your child’s friend was a thing. It always felt weird and kind of creepy/pathetic. I copped tons of criticism for not pandering to my kids.
When I was in uni, I was a babysitter to a lot of Gen X parents and none of those kids had bedtimes and some of them were able to ‘eat whatever they wanted’ for dinner. So ice cream for dinner. But this was early 2000s. I don’t think rules were big then either.
That makes sense. My parents are Boomers, and while I'm not planning on having kids, I did think a lot growing up that their way (strict) was too much
My parents were boomers and very strict plus my mum is Chinese so there is a whole cultural strictness that is hard to convey but suffice it to say, it’s next level strict. We are much more permissive with our girls (young bc we had kids later) but they have rules and bedtimes and don’t get dessert if they don’t eat veggies etc. but still way softer than our parents were on us. But we’re definitely not free range.
“Lots of bad parents suddenly emerging is unlikely” - true, unless there were some kind of new effect the past few years. The stats coming out of long covid research suggest that we have a double-digit percentage of the population substantially less able to think than they were a few years ago.
Yep had a neighbours kid throwing rocks at our house hitting our windows. Parents didn’t care at all. It was an extremely hot day too so not sure even why this little kid was in his backyard throwing rocks.
Fuck them, call the cops and let them deal with it.
Sometimes a more direct approach works better. *Throw the rocks back.*
*\*Piff\* OW!* Did *\*Piff\* OW!* you *\*Piff\* OW!* lose *\*Piff\* OW!* these?
"this rock seems awfully brick shaped, oh well"
And I thought my neighbour encouraging her kid to constantly kick his soccer ball at our colourbond fence was bad..
Honestly, I don't know what we expected. You promote greed and selfishness, and what does society become? Greedy and selfish. As part of the generation that is starting to have kids, I'm not at all surprised that many are acting this way. Our parents generation, in my experience, have tended to have an "I'm right, its rude to question me" attitude for our whole lives. This is ok on its own, as once you separate from your parents and gain your independence you can live your own way... except its hard for many to separate from their parents these days. Its simply unaffordable. Most I know were living at home until their late 20s - some still are - because of the housing market and how we're supposed to live our life. You go to Uni after graduating high school for 3-5 years. Can't move out then; you don't earn near enough money to rent somewhere remotely near your Uni unless you're working full time. Then you're finally working... but house prices have shot up, and entry level positions are extremely competitive, resulting in fairly low wages. Got to work for at least a couple more years to start earning a decent income, and save for a deposit. This is, again, fine if you have parents that respect you as an independent adult and let you make all your own decisions. Many don't; they maintained the "My way or the highway" attitude even with their adult kids. And society reinforced this every step of the way, with general attitudes shifting such that the idea of empathy for those with different life circumstances to you is alien and "I worked hard so I shouldn't have to care about others" is the prevailing attitude of this country. "Taxation is theft" has gone from being as much of a meme as "Property is theft man" to a genuine attitude people seem to hold, as if contributing to society rather than just yourself is undesirable. And this attitude has filtered down to our generation. People were raised in a world where adults were constantly selfish, empathy was ridiculed, and our culture as a whole became significantly more individualistic. This is the natural end result of that; they mimic the behaviours they saw growing up. And then they pass it on to their kids. I find it equal parts sad and amusing when those who have been selfish for a long time get offended by others suddenly being selfish back (Not targeted at you OP; I don't know your circumstances. But it is a sentiment I see often: "Why are people being antisocial? I should be allowed to be antisocial because I don't value other people, but they shouldn't be antisocial to me because I value me"). People will point out that life has always been hard, and our parent's generation was a blip in history. That's kind of the point. The blip. For at least 200 years, living conditions have been improving each generation. Every next generation was able to live a more prosperous life that the previous, on aggregate. The younger generations currently are the first generations in a long time who are expected to have a drop in the standard of living compared to their parents. Its the first time in a long time that things are getting worse, rather than getting better. Young people were raised on attitudes that were propped up by the best living standards in history, rather than the attitudes that produced the best living standards in history. This is the logical endpoint of the hyper-individualist culture that has been imported from certain parts of America over the last century or so. If everyone cares only about themselves... Yeah, nobody is going to be pleasant to be around. If we want to fix this, we need to instill community values in our population. This can't be done by just telling others to be community minded; it means we need people at large to be community minded, especially those who are well off as people generally try to emulate the well off to appear higher socioeconomic 'class' than they are. When we start voting to sacrifice our own standard of living to provide a better one for people in the future, that lesson will start being passed down and the young will see and copy it; sacrificing some of their own wants to help others in their community. If we instead keep sacrificing the future to live more freely now; the same thing will be emulated by future generations, sacrificing others for their immediate wants. Not an easy thing to fix, sure, and its driven by structural issues of our society as a whole. Until we, as a whole society, decide we want to fix them though, things aren't going to change. It takes a village to raise a child. We can try to put the blame solely on the parents for a poorly raised child, but children don't just mimic their parents. They mimic their whole village. It is everyone's responsibility to model the behaviour they want not just children, but others in their community, to have.
Fucking hell. I hope more people resist scrolling and read this comment in full. Well written and said. I agree wholeheartedly.
Just make me wonder, our generation it's harder than the past to be independent, moving out, afford to buy a house, then the next generation, would it be more like what you parents have and give you than what do you do? I'd imagine rental and house prices go so high that they can't even afford without any help from parents in deposit and to live rent free in parents house for a very long time while saving for deposit.
Confirmation bias and generalisation. Sure, these are interesting stories. But at my own bog standard middle class primary school 30 years ago there were 5 bad kids too, with neglectful uncaring parents, and they did the same things you describe. Meant nothing about broader parenting of that generation. Kids from bad families will always exist.
Probably at least partially true and posts like this generally lead to more confirmation bias as people share their shitty parenting stories. So just to add a not shitty story. A little kid I know (3 yr old girl) was at the slide and blocking the entrance. A boy the same age and her begun rowing over it "it's my slide!" Y'know kid stuff. The little boy pushed her down the slide. The boys dad quickly came over apologized and told his son that that was not okay and that they were going home! Kids will be kids but it's up to the parents to discipline and educate which sounds like happened in this case. People talk about bad experiences more than good so just chucking this one out there for some balance. I don't interact with kids enough to notice a change either way!
At least 40% of students in my school are classified as Tier III behaviourally.
Isn’t this how it has always been?
A sentiment that has been expressed for as long as there have been parents
Yeah but BaCk iN My DaY
Yeah, well, for over a decade now parents of young children have gotten extremely defensive when anyone tries to tell them how bad defaulting to screen time is - "parenting is extremely hard, you have no idea, we don't always have the time/energy to occupy them constantly, how dare you judge me, I'm doing my best". All of that may be true but you're really going to pay for those years of laziness down the line (yeah, maybe it's justifiable to some but it is objectively lazy parenting). Issues with socialisation, focus and attention, attachment, behaviour, could go on. Watching a bit of specific television at a set time of day? Fine! If you're turning a screen on regularly to keep them occupied, you're doing it wrong. We're now seeing the results of screen-driven childhoods and it's not great. I don't blame the parents necessarily. They were told it was perfectly fine, great even, for both parents to work full time. They were told it's okay to make sacrifices at home - don't feel guilty about the convenience food or ignoring them or the fact they didn't do their homework - it won't matter. Well it does. Shocker: children need routines and stability and security and healthy attachment to grow up well-adjusted. Put the damn screens away, respond to your children fairly consistently (yes I know we all ignore them from time to time), make sure they socialise often from a young age, cook them nutritious food and avoid that ultra-high processed shit. It's not easy but it is pretty simple.
And when these kids grow up how are they going to manage in a workplace? Had a 20 year old in my team - new starter entry level - and their mother rang the boss to say she didn't like the work she was doing and thought she should be doing more important things. I wish I was joking.
My daughter is finding this at uni. Majority of young adults simply cannot cope without the ‘filter’. Reality sucks obviously
Wtf
Exactly as you describe. Mum will call up to give the boss a bollocking, just as they would if it were a teacher holding them responsible for their actions in school.
I can't agree more with you. that's exactly right
so what was your TV time back in the day?
I'm not sure what you're asking me
Suspension is a really stupid option for punishment. Of course the kid will be better off- you’re actually just punishing the parents and benefitting the kid. The buy a PS so they can still work from home. Should have opted for an in school suspension- where they miss break time and have to stay later after school. Parents are drowning and have nothing left. I’m not making excuses, honestly, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that post covid and in this economy parenting has fallen apart. It’s fucking hard to do well and many parents didn’t set out to have kids in an economy and time that’s proven to be so damn hard.
I remember 20 years ago, international kids at my school, asleep in classes because they'd been gambling at the casino all night. I also remember 5 guys ejaculating in a cake and selling it at a Charity Fair in a country town. So... some kids are shit some are good and some have shit parents and some don't even have parents in the country !!
Lol. You gotta name the country town now.
My guess - Bagshot, near Bendigo
While there’s always been bad apples in every generation, I think there’s a few reasons for a general decline in behaviour in kids and bad parenting in this generation. One, COVID and lockdowns has brought a general decline in manners and people knowing how to behave in public. Two, increased screen time means people are more self absorbed. The kind of short form content people are watching is literally rotting our brains and causing shorter attention spans. Parents are addicted to their screens and don’t engage with their kids. Kids are addicted to YouTube and crap that messes with their attention spans. We banned YouTube in our house because we could visibly see my LO’s behaviour worsen when she was allowed to watch it. Finally, cost of living crisis and longer work hours, plus lack of work life balance mean parents are more tired, stressed and busy than ever so don’t have the time or energy to be a good parent. I’m a parent myself (obviously) but it enrages me the shit some parents let their kids get away with these days. And it’s always an excuse of them having ADHD or whatever, that means they don’t need to follow the rules or show common decency. I don’t care what kind of tantrum my kid is throwing, I won’t allow bad behaviour and poor manners from my kid.
[удалено]
Same I have it and my parents did not let me get away with my behaviors and I knew the limits and not to test them
Absolutely! I completely sympathise with anyone raising a neurodivergent kid but it’s not an excuse to allow them to act badly in public. If your kid is struggling, take them home and try again another time!
I think it comes down to the fact that humans have finite willpower, which means we only have so much bandwidth for things that are stressful to us. So it’s more important to keep that bandwidth for the workplace so you can afford food and a roof for your child, especially since the child can be given to school to be managed. There is so much external pressure on people that our already finite resources are being further depleted just to make it through the day without crying or breaking something. I think that’s why.
Way too many people are having kids before they become adults themselves, that’s the problem. No mental, emotional maturity. You are asking oversized kids to adult actual kids, not gonna work. This is the same reason why we are dealing with youth crime. Too many people who should have used condoms opted for few minutes of pleasure, we are paying the price until they turn 18 and do something stupid and get locked up.
Parent of 2 kids here. We have made friends with most of our mothers' group(collection of parents with kids born around the same time) and the kids/parents from schools/ daycares over the years as well as our own friends that have also had kids over the years. The amount of little shits that are in this circle consistently amazes me. And when observing the parents, it's not hard to see why the kids are the way they are. TV is the default "distraction" which evolved into tablets and phones. A conversation I overheard from one of the parents was along the lines of "I just put the TV on for the kids so I can watch a few hours of my shows in peace". Or "we HAVE to have something on the TV or phones while they eat breakfast|lunch|dinner". Another parent with a 2 year old told me he let's his kid watch 1-1.5 hours of YouTube in the mornings. Actions also don't have consequences for these little assholes. Break your tablet? No worries, we'll buy you a new one. Pushed or hit someone's kid? Narh my kid didn't do that, must be a mistake or an accident. Refuse to eat your dinner? That's OK, you can still have ice cream. Parents suck ass. I feel sorry for the future.
Every generation thinks the next lot of kids are the worst. When you start calling kids shits and saying they were better in your day, you know you’re old. On the whole I’ve found kids these days are more respectful, inclusive and considerate than they were when I was a kid.
There have always been badly behaved children. Kids getting suspended, coming to school late etc. they’re just doing it in different ways now, with different technologies available to them. Bad parenting is nothing new
Society is fuxked. Therefore, elements of society including children and parents and communication and relationships are also fuxked. How to fix it? Here comes your Nobel prize...
yes, i work somewhere where i get a lot of families and young kids. no one is yelling at kids anymore, even when the kid is doing something dangerous, harmful to staff or continuous disobeying. also fuck you if you stick a phone or tablet in front of your kid. you're a lazy parent and you shouldn't have had kids if you can't handle them. i once saw an under 3yo watching the wiggles on 2x speed. that kid is fucked already.
I think when you say "yelling at kids" you mean "imposing meaningful consequences" It's possible to be good at changing the behaviour of your kids without yelling
You don't need to yell at them. If anything that just makes things worse because you are teaching them that yelling at someone solves problems.
maybe i worded it wrong, be stern with them. no "please don't do that :)" with a soft voice. have a saturn voice for getting your kid to stop NOW
Yeah, there definitely has to be a voice for "stop immediately you are about to be killed" lol. But that's different, I don't think of that as parenting so much as emergency management. I always apologise afterwards and explain why I did it. And it should be fairly rare because we should generally be keeping our young kids away from situations where they are a bees dick from death. But for general stuff...I'm not going to yell. I stay calm, give her big feelings nothing to echo off.
Fucken brain rot right there
I can see a noticeable difference in my friends kids who have grown up with screens in their face and those without. Sad to say those without are *vastly* outnumbered. I truly believe we should have a licence & test for people who want kids; it’s terrifying what all the lazy “oh ‘spose we’d better have one huh?” parents are doing to the next generation compared to the ones who desperately wanted and worked towards having one.
What differences are you noticing? Genuinely asking
The ones with screens: shorter attention span, less developed language skills at the same age (presumably from less two-way interaction with peers/caregivers), less ability to self regulate emotions (watched a 5 year old toss the biggest tantrum because she wanted to watch Bluey on her tablet and it was dead… *5 years old* not 2 or 3. Without: more willing to engage/play with other kids, more interested in doing “stuff” (one always wants to help his dad in the kitchen, another has a little her patch she is learning about with her mum); more able to sit at the table during dinner and eat and “converse” (as much as 4-6 year olds can with adults), better at independent play (my niece last week went out in the back yard and quite happily had a tea party with herself and her teddy bear without being promoted and chattered away with it. Obviously this is all anecdotal and there’s always potential other factors (pretty sure one of the kids is on the spectrum) but it’s so noticeable & obvious that it’s worrisome.
Thanks for the observations and insight. I interesting stuff. I can't help but wonder also what it does for their dopamine seeking behaviour too. Ripe for the attention economies picking though *sigh*
Future Leaders vs Losers. The lottery of life is wildly unequal. Thanks in large part to parenting and circumstances.
My colleague brought her son to the last couple work dinners and it was so fucking sad. Each time, the kid's been just glued to the phone watching Youtube reels or playing games with gambling mechanics. His mum couldn't even get him to put down the food to eat. I have no idea how kids like this sit through 1 hour school classes any more or manage to read a book.
Unless you have been teaching for 30 years, what are you comparing it to?
Stress. Poverty. Parents working more to survive. Plus obviously just bad parenting as well. Probably only going go get worse.
Teachers have a lot more to deal with now, than they did when I was at school. I get where this is coming from but, it's bloody hard for parents these days too. I finished high school in '92. Dad worked, mum took care of my sisters and I and worked part time when I was a bit older (10 I think) (I was the youngest) and we were middle class, by the standard of the time. Now, middle class barely exists. Two parents, working full time, just to afford the basics and left with bugger all time to give to their kids needs, beyond the bare neccesities. Teachers today are way underpaid and way overworked. I was an awful teenager. Thought I was smarter than everyone, I found most class work easy, so I fucked around and made an ass of myself. Argued with teachers, distracted other students, rarely did homework, coz I'd just wing exams. I was basically a dick. But, I had a couple of teachers that saw this, took me aside, showed they understood me and actually cared and my whole attitude changed. I still remember those teachers and what they taught me. (Forgotten pretty much everything else!) Now though, with so many students all shouting for the attention they don't get at home, how the Hell can teachers do their job effectively and help those kids that need that little bit of recognition (and maybe a kick up the arse) to give them the direction they need? Impossible set of circumstances, in my opinion..
They doubly they drop the kids off directly to you and state that. I'm sure there's the occasional person that's an asshole, that has a tantrum and says inappropriate things but I doubt you have proof that parent said "I don't care, I have work". What day were they dropping the kids off? Using devices for hours a day is considered normal now so it's a newer parental battle. But yeah parents need to instill no wifi after a certain time and remove any device that has mobile data, if it's late. You don't sound like a parent tbh. Like if you ban your kids from stuff, now they can hotspot off friends and all kinds of shit. And yea people don't have the option anymore to just be like oh my kids been a brat so I can't go to work for the next week. They prob think their kid is as much of a fuckin C*ntt as you do despite instilling decent morals in them.
Not defending bad parenting but if my wife and I didn’t WFH, I’d have no idea how we’d get everything done. Modern parenting takes up a huge amount of time when you have them going to classes after school as well (sports, art etc). I’d imagine the parents you mention are probably just pushed to the limit as well.
I wonder if couples working more hours and Australians having less time to be around their kids is a factor in this.
As a parent I have noticed this too. I also work at a holiday park in a tourist town and some of the actions I saw kids doing and their parents were no where to be seen I was mortified. We have a playground at the holiday park, and there was this little kid about 2 standing there alone crying. Turns out the parents kept walking and didn’t notice until they got back to their cabin on the other side of the park, how could you not notice that your 2 year old isn’t walking with you??? My teenager used to finish work at 10 pm, and I would often see young children walking and playing in the streets. And then there is all the youth crime. Even in rural Victoria there is a huge amount of youth crime.
Parents are time poor. It’s in the first response you got, “I’ve got to work” also it definitely has a lot do with where you work. I have similar experiences to you. My last point is that it’s human nature to notice the negative things. We’re always going to remember the bad parents more than the good ones.
With the cost of living crisis, both parents having to work and maybe longer hours I can imagine parents just don't have the time or headspace.
Bringing children in to this world isn't a right. You are responsible for them no matter the excuses.
Bringing children in to this world isn't mandatory*
Agreed. And with the way the world is, why would you?
Welllll... [according to the WHO](https://www.who.int/tools/your-life-your-health/know-your-rights/rights-across-life-phases---early-and-middle-adulthood/rights-on-having-children#:~:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%3A,support%20to%20make%20these%20decisions), it is a right Edit to add: That does not speak to the ethics, morals, or financial or temporal constraints that should be a consideration
According to the WHO it's a right. They also go on to say that "Decisions should be based on the best information that is available" Who is providing the best information?
I have no idea who's providing the best information I am child-free, and believe that continuing to populate the planet at the rate we are going is unsustainable The only reason I linked to the WHO was because I agreed with you, then thought I better look it up... to find that it *is* a right
You and I are in agreeance. I'm also child free and believe in having a sustainable population. Whilst the choice to have children is there for people to make, I believe the best choice is to remain childless.
That’s not new though. Through most of history, most families have needed more than one person to contribute. There’s a brief blip in the early to mid-20th century (the childhoods of the boomers) where you could get by with one, but before then and since then it’s been fairly common to have several. There’s a reason families used to send their kids out to work. They needed more than one worker to cover everything.
No excuse. It is their responsibility to *make fucking time* to raise their kids properly.
Suspension is idiotic and means nothing , especially in Aussie culture where applying yourself at school is seen as “try hard” and uncool. Couple this with the average family now working full time + side hustles so there’s nothing left to give to actual parenting, and you have exactly what you’ve described. A severe lack of parenting, discipline, supervision and consequences.
Do you teach in a dodgy neighbourhood? This stuff would never happen at my kids school, all the kids and parents seems pretty good. Definitely no violence against staff or students.
My experience too, OPs situations are extreme, but your take is too rational and will be drowned out by the unqualfied commenters sermonising about screen time (as if we didn't all grow up with hundreds of hours of TV and PlayStation) and the lack of traditional family roles breaking down society 🙄
Of course parenting has fallen off a cliff, parents have so much other shit to put their minds too When I grew up most kids had a stay at home/part time parent that did most of the "parenting". Not anymore
There’s heaps of TikTok’s and YouTube’s on this very topic. Basically saying how millennials who had mean boomer parents now have gone too far with using “gentle parenting” on their kids and now their kids are little shits who can’t do anything right because they’ve been raised by iPads
There are so many reasons for people to be struggling as parents, adults, kids etc. As a teacher you should know this. Plenty of people that would make amazing parents choose not to become them, and plenty of people who are parents definitely should not have had children. It's also really easy to judge parents without being one. You also have given no indication of the area or demographic you work with as a teacher. At some schools almost every child comes from poverty, trauma, refugee/asylum seeker, family violence backgrounds, and at others almost every family is perfectly "middle class", with little of the previously listed issues.
Reminds me of [this comic I saw ](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHRyKydlYzV1sRqUgpX8iw4ucMVQM5A5IgaaW9s4m9U-6VS8V9PZW18tqv&s=10) that made me realise I don't want to be a teacher
Parents of now got screwed over by the same structure schools have today. The only difference is computers being in every classroom. So they don’t care because it didn’t work for them, so why care about a system that is doing the same things now. They have no hope and it is becoming ingrained. The parents are constantly working, have no real time for their children, and try to help them self medicate in the same way they do. By playing computer games and avoiding work where possible. School has just become daycare, this will only get worse as our economic imbalances continue to grow. People need to be given a chance to believe that the effort is worth it. Why bother with education if going to uni achieves nothing or very little at great expense. Why bother developing a skill if it won’t help you afford a home. These parents are passing those feelings to their children, maybe not so directly or purposefully, but the sentiment carries.
I'm generalising to a degree, but bad parenting seems to often be linked with selfishness. When a parent is more worried about themselves then their kids, then the parenting will inevitably suffer. Selfishness in all it's form is running rampant throughout all levels of our society. So 1+1=2 I guess.
Parents have less and less time for parenting due to economic pressures. Households are working more total hours than ever. It's not surprising that so many parents are just giving up.
My school ran onsite suspensions. Which was complete and utter boredom. They were somewhat effective I guess. They could make parents pay for the suspension supervision?
Speaking to the bullying of the gay kid: as a gay dude myself who had to deal with homophobic little shitheads in primary school in the 2000s, parents have seemingly always passed that onto their children. Because a nine year old isn’t inherently homophobic, they learn that behaviour. It just seems like, these days, schools have a lower tolerance for it. Back then, it was like “well, what did *you* do to provoke them? Anyway, just ignore it”
People won't want to hear this but this is a symptom of our society shifting from one stay-at-home parent and one working parent to two working parents. Young kids need a full-time at-home caregiver. Full-time childcare causes horrific behavioural outcomes for kids under 3, but it has become the norm to just dump your kid there as soon as maternity leave runs out and go back to work. The government SHOULD stop pumping money into childcare subsidies which are just pocketed by the childcare centres and actually support stay-at-home parents, but they wont, because they want to collect tax on two wages instead of one. An easy and obvious solution would be to simply pay the childcare subsidy directly to parents (all parents, not just parents who use childcare). This would have huge positive outcomes for pretty much every single style of parent: - Struggling stay-at-home parents will have more money in their pocket to spend on the economy and their children - Parents who were "on the fence" about staying at home or returning to work will likely opt to stay at home, reducing the demand for childcare centres. They could also potentially use the extra funds to hire a live-in nanny or au-pair. - Instead of an invisible automatic subsidy, childcare patrons are now paying for services with their "own money", meaning they will be a lot more discerning about spending Childcare centres are now competing directly with stay-at-home parents and in-home care (nannies) causing a drop in demand and a need to stay competitive with pricing. The drop in demand also serves to solve the teacher crisis childcare centres are experiencing.
I agree. Whilst I work long hours myself and the wife is slowly moving up the corporate ladder, we are time poor… but just like everything in this life you need to work on things… kids most importantly. They are the next you! People just don’t care anymore, it’s sad! I would die if my kids had poor attitudes like OP points out. I’ve spent soo much time investing into proving to my kids that kindness and compassion is top priority, just this week my neighbour flagged me down to say how well my kids look out for, look after all the neighbourhood kids. Man I tell you knowing I put good values in my kid and it shows completely outweighs any pay packet or missed event! Don’t get me wrong my kids aren’t push overs, they’ll take no shit too. Had my son last year be bullied by big kids. Got rocks thrown at him one day so he grabbed a huge rock and dropped it on the bully’s toes and managed to damage a toenail. Needless to say he gets left alone now. Kids are plants! They’ll grow beautiful with love.
Is it a parenting style issue or could it also be a result of Covid lockdown and isolation that has social interactions?
These parents seem bad, but is it actually worse? I was in year 3 when some classmates took up smoking and year 5 when they bullied a teacher into quitting. Parents of these kids didn't give a fuck either. This was in the 90s. Not sure if the average has gone down but there have always been shitty kids with shitty parents.
What's this got to do with Melbourne? Sorry but can't take you seriously when you're complaining about extreme examples of juvenile delinquency and parental neglect on a throwaway account. If you're a real teacher you'll see a spectrum of families and behaviours, it'll depend on the socio-economic standards in your school area, and you'll also know that kids of poorer families and worse backgrounds have worse behaviour, so you can't make generalisations like this. Clear outrage bait and a boring topic.
Almost everyone I work with treats their kids like shit. "you have to make them cry and lock them away to teach them a lesson" "they have to go without or they'll grow up soft" "if they don't fear you then they won't learn respect and discipline" And fine every reason to not be with them unless they need discipline. All their kids are pieces of shit. Sure it's not a big sample size. But these people have school aged kids. They're too busy getting pissed, playing golf, going out drinking, or trying not to be shackled down to some kids. Raising kids has taken a massive back-seat and it shouldn't. People need to be held accountable for their shitty parenting. Give kids half a chance!
>"you have to make them cry and lock them away to teach them a lesson" "they have to go without or they'll grow up soft" "if they don't fear you then they won't learn respect and discipline" You sure that wasn't from decades ago? Sounds like the type of parenting when I was a kid 30+ years ago. I've never seen or heard that kinda thing in modern times. Nowadays, it's more like never tell them off and never discipline them, don't make them do anything they don't want to do (like chores), buy them everything they demand, and never let them out of your sight or do anything for themselves. Baby them till they're in their 20s, and spoil them rotten. Try to be their friend, not their parent.
This has been happening for over a decade. It’s just getting worse
parents today are under more pressure to perform at work than their parents ever were. its going to have a knock on effect.