Poll: Are the generation of kids getting worse and worse over time?

[idarkphoenixi]

welcome to the Digital Generation
Things like sex, drugs, violence and foul language are extremely common in all forms of media. It's just become accepted now. While I'm not someone who would say "violent games = violent kids wahh wahh" theres no doubt that seeing these things every day would have an influence. How many of us tried to immitate our heroes when we were young?

It's not indicative of every child though so theres no real reason to worry. Much of it is probably down to peer pressure which will no doubt end when they find real friends.

There is one problem though: are we getting dumber? I want to say no, what with the absolute torrent of information available on the internet. But those in power are certainly making it harder to gain an advanced edcuation (tripling student fees etc...) and the information available on the internet is currently under a struggle to remain free (net neutrality). So it's still up for debate I guess.

 

[lettucethesallad]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

You know who that's attributed to? Socrates. Hesoid said something along the same lines in the 8th century BC:

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"

So no, not really. I think young people will always act out and do their thing and that older people will ***** and whine about it, and with age people will notice what's appropriate and what's not, and develop some kind of manners. I know kids who used to be awful, but became really sweet once they'd gotten a little older and a little more mature.

There's always a bad egg or two, but on the whole I think people outgrow this.

 

[Raven's Nest]

Some kids are right little shits these days. i think you've always had a proportion of kids who will stand out as annoying/bad but some of the so called "parenting" I've seen recently just makes the problems worse.


Rewind 50 years ago and go to a family restaurant. If you even saw one kid running around screaming they'd be smacked and Draggedhome by their ears.

Today i had breakfast in a hotel, 8:30 in the morning there were 7 children running around screaming their heads off for half an hour, no-one around to "correct" them.

This has happened in nearly every restaurant I've been to for the last 5-10 years. if you don't think kids are getting worse you should sure as shit acknowledge that parents are...

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Depends what country you live in. Here the proportion of kids that are chavs gets higher every generation of them.

 

[Vault101]

nah....thats just human nature for you

though it does make you wonder....in the time we live in all this new information..EVERYTHING at your finger tips on demand..there is almost NO reason for kids (or me for that matter, unless I got out to get games) to go out side

they say that social awkwardness may become the new norm....

hmmm have you been reading cracked?

OT Ahh so now its this gens turn to be the old man saying "Back in my dayyyy"

haha...yeah, I seem to get all my "insightful" information from cracked

anyway I thin its fine...hell when I was 13-15 everyone thourght us kids were probably on the way into oblvion....and Im perfectly fine so yeah

plus Ive had hardly any first hand expereince with kids

 

[Chesterfield Snapdragon McFisticuffs]

Yeah I think they're getting worse, but you have to remember, when a child is born it's a blank slate. Free will is a lie, they get their personalities from their parents and other external influences and experiences. What this means is that children are little shits pretty much exclusively due to the fault of others, and as generations get worse, so too does its offspring. You ever seen the tv show Teen mom or 16 and pregnant? Think of a generation raised on that and to yourself sigh - "We're Fucked".

 

[Vault101]

I've noticed them learning to become shit heads earlier, I guess the plus side of that is that they would learn to stop being shit heads earlier too, maybe. When you see 12 year olds grid dancing its just not a good thing, but just because middle schoolers are terrible people doesn't mean they will always be.

"grid" dancing?...whats that?

I'm a high school teacher.
Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

yeah but how long have you been teaching? I think highschoolers have always been shitheads..mabye thease days they can just get away with more

 

[Vault101]

Yeah I think they're getting worse, but you have to remember, when a child is born it's a blank slate. Free will is a lie, they get their personalities from their parents and other external influences and experiences. What this means is that children are little shits pretty much exclusively due to the fault of others, and as generations get worse, so too does its offspring. You ever seen the tv show Teen mom or 16 and pregnant? Think of a generation raised on that and to yourself sigh - "We're Fucked".

oh please..with the amount of people "complaing" about how screwed younger people are (which is nothign new) then it clearly shows that there are enough non-shitheads out there to prevent our destruction

plus...you know, people are always one-dimentional charachatures untill you actually know them

EDIT: and in the end...who cares? I dont want to waste my energy pondering "the children"...screw them, I just need to be the best that "I" can be, because if (god forbid) children are on the downward turn then theres nothing else I can do

 

[Rapamaha]

or perhaps we are just getting older...

 

[Henkie36]

Well, it's not that bad over here, the 6th graders getting pregnant is because Americans are too prudish to give proper sex education. And kids getting more disrespectful, I do agree with you, their parents just don't have them under control.
But I do think (sounding like a guy in my old-man-government) that the internet has a fair share of hte blame. Everything is just out there, free for everyone, unrestricted despite of your age. This is where the parents come in. And if they don't have enough influence on their children, they become the annoying little brats that you were so eagerly describing.
That said, take another look at the key-words ''fair share''. If no one tells you the risks of getting pregnant at the age of 12, you probably won't find them out by yourself. And a big part of the way you are being raised comes from school, so maybe there should be more attention for that.
But in general, I do agree with you. Kids are becoming more and more annoying.

 

[Who Dares Wins]

I would like to make a minimum content reply, saying that you are just getting older and that it's the previous generations that are awful parents. Also this:
http://scoutmaster.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/24/story.gif

 

[Flamezdudes]

The kids that I see younger than me are generally a lot less well behaved, it gets worse the younger it gets. I cannot even believe the behaviour a lot of them have, its disgusting. And I know the whole quote about human adults always complaining about the new generation but look at it objectively for goodness sake, their language is rude and vulgar at an extremely young age and are very unbehaved.

 

[Susurrus]

SNIP

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."


"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have
no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all
restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are
forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."

Attrib. by Socrates, to Plato.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Nope. Mostly because your notion of "bad" is entirely arbitrary and is changing as fast as the kids are. What was bad or good when you were a kid is different from the next generation or the last generation. Compared to depression kids who dropped out of school to work a job you were a horrible slacker. Does that means anything? No, because standards change.

 

[Sariteiya]

This whole "kids these days" phenomenon frustrates me. It's like some kind of diversionary tactic to distract from adults failings. Older generations have all had their share of entitled, rude, thoughtless people, and the newer generations will too, it's not a thing unique to new children, like there was something wrong with the water and they were all born assholes.

Besides which even if this new generation was the "Worst" generation, it would only be the older one's fault. We raised them.

 

[Hamtier]

i noticed its pretty much still the same,only a bit more extreme.
like the bad kids are worse but the "good" kids are alot better as well.
so it has more to do with the decade(/era) they live in,rather then they themselves.

 

[mrF00bar]

Depends on location really, where I live, the kids need a good, stiff beating with a pointed stick. Now I think about it, so should there parents for letting them behave this way. I'm about to turn 19 and in all my life I have never behaved like these little jerks but on the other side of the coin I am far far worse than these kids, at least I had respect growing up.

 

[JemothSkarii]

I'm gonna go with Yes, and this is why:
The last two years I was at high school (being the two years before this one), we were renovating our school by building buildings for the senior students, which put us on the other side of the school. Several days a week we would get assembly's with the teachers telling us that the Junior part of the school (where the Year 7's-9's were, Freshman and Sophomore's for 'Mericans...aka the 12-15 year olds) was in ruin.

Windows were constantly smashed, students had threatened teachers with knives, several students had been found coming to school drunk, others being found that they were having sex in the toilets, tables and chairs destroyed. Graffiti, Graffiti everywhere, thefts of computers and projectors, mass litter...the list goes on. What was done? Well the student who held a knife at the teacher was suspended a week, supposedly the Police couldn't do anything, just as an idea. The teachers were begging us to go over there and be 'positive role models'. When we head over there, we were treated with filth and disrespect (Save me, I was in an electric wheelchair and quite popular; hundreds would come to my aid if something happened, one of very few perks of being in a wheelchair).

I know this isn't all of them, I know this isn't every child, but the slice of life that I've seen over the last 5 years has been worrying.

(Note: The school has 1400 students, with about 300 off at different campuses, one school being where they sent all the 'ferals' as we called them).
I know there are good kids still, but this generation of kids is scary. Yes, I'm 19, but I think my opinion is valid.

 

[RagTagBand]

SNIP

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."


"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have
no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all
restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are
forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."

Attrib. by Socrates, to Plato.

I was going to write something but I think i'd rather just point of that quote and let the fact it's about 2500 years old sink in with everyone who voted "Yes" on the poll.

Children do not get worse over time, an Adult's ability to judge the past accurately, however, does.

 

[Aulleas123]

Two things:
First, our generations actually get better and better with more experiences available to them. This explains how, after the 1954 record of Roger Bannister, lots of people have been able to run 4-minute miles (not lots of people but many more than before) or why lots of people have climbed Mt. Everest since Tenzing and Hillary did it in 1953. This is called the Flynn Effect, and it's one reason that our kids will be able to figure a whole lot of stuff out that we can't seem to figure out.

Second, Kids and teenagers are just that: kids and teenagers. Older folks have been complaining about them since we started farming fields. Don't worry, we're all irrational, disrespectful, and generally irritating at that age. Kids and teenagers grow up and all gets better with age.