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

[Lerasai]

I think as you get older you just hate kids more.

Really, though, the only children I care about are my nieces and they are awesome, the rest are somebody else's problem. I will just mind my own business and occasionally rub in the fact that my little buddies say "Please" and "Thank you" and pronounce my name adorably.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

the kids i teach arent less intelligent, friendly or hyperactive than we were when we little.
BUT they are more confident and most of the time less prejudice. Of course there are insecure and ignorant little basterds between them, but thats ,as it always was just the fault of some retarded parents that should better have had sex on a railway instead without protection.
I met some really witty and funny kids, a little bit wisecrackery sometimes but i liked even that to some degree. They seem to be a little bit more, well how to put it, down to earth than i was myself. They completely know and understand what happens around them and are pretty good in manipulating the grown ups in the fewer occasions they interact with them.
I as a kid didnt really cared about the old peoples buisiness, i wanted to go out in the woods and play knights with my friends. The modern urban kids got much more insight in the real world out there.

 

[DrunkPickle]

Yeah, I've noticed that as well. From what I've seen, I'm the only kid in the whole school who doesn't curse. Like with many problems, there's probably more than one cause. Although, my guess is that it's the parents' fault. It's important to expose the child to a safe, non-violent environment, before the age of 3 (those are the key years); later, the child develops the not-so-common common sense, and learns to think and reason for him self. After that, it becomes much harder to raise the future truck driver as a nice, intelligent, non-vulgar child we all wish we had.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

In an age of growing moral, technical, and scientific awareness, allot of kids are starting to see the world for what it is, instead of what their parents are trying to make it into (usually a narrow backward view of traditions instead of a wide open perspective of the future).

Interpret that as you will.

I prefer to see what our kids are going through as a generational learning phase.

Think about it. People who were born in the 70's (you know, disco, drugs, hippies, breakout culture) are just now turning 30 & 40, which means their kids are the ones who are now in our high schools and colleges.

There's bound to be repercussions when traditional family values are starting to evolve.

 

[Darren716]

I think they are getting worse because they know for a fact that their parents can't physically punish them. Also i think they are getting worse because of the Jersey SHore i bet about 60% of the kids in my city get life lessions from that school and it saddens me when i see a freshman thinking he's hot shit and can treatwomen like crap because of a damn "reality" tv show.

 

[Jack O'Shea]

i've had an interesting experience with younger kids at school. i spent the the first ten years in public school and the younger kids were annoying and but didn't take it to far, they would get in your way or talk to loud but if you told them to stop they would or at least till you were where out of earshot.
but for the last two years of school, i went to a private school and the kids there were ten times worse. Always complaining about things like the line at the school canteen was too long or the teacher was personally persecuted by the teacher for telling them to pick up rubbish.
this might be a controversial thing the say but i think the strict no-bullying thing that the private school had allowed the students to be entitled little shits, as in the public school if a student complained about the canteen line being too long, they would be picked up by a year 12 and placed out of the line (probably in the nearest bin).
Instead the private student whinged and whined, spouting 'i pay $25,000 a year to go here and you can't be bother to do my homework for me' to the teachers in justification for them doing no work.

 

[aei_haruko]

I dislike the hypersexualization of society nowadays, and how it makes kids little cretons who seem to have a f@@@ party ever week, it disgusts me

 

[Sir Strange Of The House Lycan]

Nope. We haven't quite hit the downside of the bell curve yet. It not the kids that are getting worse, it's humanity and culture in general. Sex, violence, drugs and other adult themes are getting to the little ones quicker that they did before. This means they have more time to adapt to it and integrate it into themselves. Some can take this adaption and not have to try and use it in real life (I liek to try and think this, but I am an incredibly violent person, so maybe I'm just as bad as the others), but the majority just think that all those drugs and sex must be awesome if they're in shows and such in high amounts. At least, that's what I think. I may be horribly, horribly wrong.

 

[xXDeMoNiCXx]

I wouldn't say kids are getting worse, just teenagers. Once they turn 13-14 they suddenly think they run the world. They think they're the shit, that they're the toughest people out there and always full of drama, trying to act "gangster", and just being arrogant pricks.

Also, I actually do like Wal-Mart.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

One thing that every adult should always keep in mind: You are the "lazy, worthless, good-for-nothing kid" that some old fogey expected to be dead or in jail by now.

How'd you turn out?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

People have been complaining about such things for most of recorded history.

On the whole, I'd say kids are getting better at the moment. A mere hundred years ago, people, kids included, were far less tolerant than they are today.

To be fair, most kids 100 years ago didn't have access to proper literacy or numeracy, and expected to be working at 12 years old after a scant 'mandatory' 6 year school education. This was the case in -Australia- 100 years ago, of which has always maintained a vastly superior quality of life compared to nearly all of the Western World over it's developed industrial period.

You think that's bad? in the US you had boys and girls working in cotton mills at the age of -12- if their fathers had carked it.

Do you know how infinitely better our lives have been in only 100 years?

And of course people were far less 'tolerant'. Entire towns in the US, Australia, or Canada.... Hell, even in Europe... were so isolated that they *relied* on community cohesion at whatever cost. A society that could not function as one unit was doomed to fail, and so established notions arose concerning conduct, sexuality, religious and political appeasements is expected.

The answer is simple ... humans are humans. They aren't better, or worse ... they are just a little more knowledgeable and a lot more judgemental of those from the past.

We might scoff at our grandparents but you'll find that ridicule yourself in 80 years time when your grandkids look at you and see a fossil of the past with alienesque notions of community.So the answer is neither posted in the poll. The answer is this ... humans are arrogant shitheads regardless of the era they grew up in. They split hairs about bullshit concepts that frankly don't even come close to broaching the subject of whether people are better or worse behaved.

The answer is that despite the far more extensive options a human in the Western World has, all their additional rights of Man, healthcare, access to higher education ... Man is arrogant regardless the era.

All we can do is hope every generation is a little more healthier and happier than the last, and that every generation recognize that making lives better for future generations is more important that current, short term goals.

 

[Yopaz]

Just like all foreigners yell into the phone in a language you can't understand making you wonder why they need a phone when they can be heard all over the country all kids in the world are getting worse.

Yeah, generalizing based on the cases you see will leave you with bad experiences. You don't notice a quiet kid who's not doing anything wrong. It does seem like there's a whole lot of rude kids out there, but if I really think back there were a lot of bad kids when I was younger too.

 

[Astropenguin]

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority and disrespect for their elders. Children nowadays are tyrants.
-Socrates

Socrates was alive roughly 120 generations ago. If children had been getting worse with each generation, then they must have been the equivalent of angels when this quote was made.

 

[orangeban]

i've had an interesting experience with younger kids at school. i spent the the first ten years in public school and the younger kids were annoying and but didn't take it to far, they would get in your way or talk to loud but if you told them to stop they would or at least till you were where out of earshot.
but for the last two years of school, i went to a private school and the kids there were ten times worse. Always complaining about things like the line at the school canteen was too long or the teacher was personally persecuted by the teacher for telling them to pick up rubbish.
this might be a controversial thing the say but i think the strict no-bullying thing that the private school had allowed the students to be entitled little shits, as in the public school if a student complained about the canteen line being too long, they would be picked up by a year 12 and placed out of the line (probably in the nearest bin).
Instead the private student whinged and whined, spouting 'i pay $25,000 a year to go here and you can't be bother to do my homework for me' to the teachers in justification for them doing no work.

I've also gone to both a state school and private school, and I think that a lot of the self-entitlement that private school kids have comes from being rich. So you get kids saying stuff like, "Why should I pick up rubbish when that's the cleaner's job?" (actual example).

I suspect bullying actually doesn't have much to do with it. Think who the most obnoxius kids are, then think who the real bully magnets are. They tend not to be the same person. In fact, the obnoxius kids are often bullies as well.

I don't really see how a no-bullying policy makes you entitled. I see it more as basic human rights, and possesing basic human rights hardly makes you "self-entitled".

(which human right? Specifically, article 5 of the Universal Declaration)

 

[drisky]

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?

Grind, it was a typo.

 

[JdaS]

To a certain extent. The post-90s realization that discipline = child abuse is mostly to blame if you ask me. Blackmailing and bribery work only until your child figures out that he can actually exploit those methods.

Anyway, the ones that are bad are really annoying but there are good kids out there too. It's not all that black & white.

 

[Smagmuck_]

All I'm going to say is that reading this thread makes me feel old. And I'm only 17. -.-

I'm ashamed of my generation, someone save me.

 

[Guffe]

I think the kids are cursing more (not only using curse words but more than my class did) but that's the only change I've noticed, and it isn't a big one.
Then again I think that as older you really notice the "bad" things younger people do.

 

[Psychedelic Spartan]

It's not true at all. If anything, kids today are less intolerant then ever and actually fairly considerate. Problem is, you would never notice this because the only children that catch your attention are the annoying ones.
Think about it, the only kids you see on XBOX Live are the ones who were raised by crappy parents who would let them play on XBOX Live. If you play shooters, you're bound to run into a foul-mouthed little brat at some point...or a foul mouthed full grown brat as the case often is.
I have a decent amount of hope in the next generation despite what I may say about humanity. All kids just seem awful after you grow up. If I ever met myself at 10-15 years old I probably would smack me for being such a little asshole.
It's only the bad ones you notice...At least I hope so.

You know, I've got to agree with you. I was in a match of Modern Warfare 3 yesterday when I randomly threw a knife across the map about 7 minutes in and got a kill. The resulting string of curses from some 7 year old kid who I decided to report because excessive foul language is against XBOX lives rules was just awful. It lasted for a whole 2 minutes before he rage quit. It made me think about the generation that's 7 years younger than me. I'm not saying I'm perfect by the way, I, like many 14 year olds am far from perfect, but I really think that those strings of cursing are just awful.
EDIT: It was a nice kill with the throwing knife though, went right into his arm...

 

[LarenzoAOG]

I say yes, but I'm incredibly biased, other than 2 little girls I more or less helped raise, I hate kids, they are small people who aren't able to do anything useful, what about that is good?

I'd say that 1/2 of the kids I've met would be classified as assholes if they were a bit older, and the rest are so incredibly invisible to me.