Kids Gone Wild

By Kim Warner
New York Times
Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005


"Children should be seen and not heard" may be due for a comeback. After decades of indulgence, American society seems to have reached some kind of tipping point, as far as tolerance for wild and woolly kid behavior is concerned.

Last month, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans said they believed that people are ruder now than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and that children are among the worst offenders. (As annoyances, they tied with obnoxious cellphone users.)

The conservative child psychologist John Rosemond recently denounced in his syndicated column the increasing presence of "disruptive urchins" who "obviously have yet to have been taught the basic rudiments of public behavior," as he related the wretched experience of dining in a four-star restaurant in the company of one child roller skating around his table and another watching a movie on a portable DVD player.

In 2002, only 9 percent of adults were able to say that the children they saw in public were "respectful toward adults," according to surveys done then by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan and nonprofit public opinion research group. In 2004, more than one in three teachers told Public Agenda pollsters they had seriously considered leaving their profession or knew a colleague who had left because of "intolerable" student behavior.



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/weekinreview/27warner.html?pagewanted=print

overdue

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Observing what we "intelligent" beings call those in the "wild" -

The "wild" teach their offspring life-skills, and normally raise them into "adulthood"

The family unit in the "wild" is consistent, us humans are not

So gee whiz - wunder why we have so many confused humans . . .

Don't blame the "kids"

They are just the product of their parents

What a disappointment.

Why WOULDN'T our children emulate them, selfish, get drunk and party all the time. On top of that they have their stooge Dobson state what wonderful Christian examples they are...

Far too many parents would bring their children in and ask us to teach them, in addition to the martial skills we taught, "morals, ethics and values". We would have to gently explain to these parents that we were not a pay-to-play substitute for their parenting, that we did not teach such things outside of the need for them to be responsible, very responsible, about the skills we were teaching their children. We also gently told them that we made a poor substitute for good and active parenting in their children's lives.

We spent some time trying to figure out what was in play. The best we came up with was a mixture of overworked, two-working-parents families and just flat out immaturity on the part of these parents. We saw a lot of immaturity and a lot of attempted parental responsibility offloading.

The school's head sensei and his wife, also active in the dojo, were both Masters plus 30 in Education and active teachers, he in High School, she in Elementary. They reported that the same things occurred in the public schools with amazing regularity. They also said that this was also fueling the rise of psychotropic medications in school-age children: the desire for more tractable children. Give them a pill and your problems abate.

my responsibility of a parent. the schools have been conditioned that they are to teach all this to children, parents have handed over their power. i refuse. i accept the responsibility of my child and no one can do the job like i can. too often i see schools blamed and other outside forces blamed for what is happening with children. i squarely put the responsibility on parents. i also agree with your assessment that it is in the busy two working family and an immaturity and selfishness on the parent.

don't the papers and MSM just love to put Paris Hilton and her ilk on the front and center?

Isn't "wild" all the rage these days?

society..... His idea of greed is good, do as you want as long as you come out ahead style of society is now here and people don;t much care for it...

The selfishness that was made popular by Reagan, It's my money, not the governments, really spoke unconscious volumes to the susceptible middle class who are presented with pragmatism gone wild by the GOP...

bring back corporal punishment in schools. and lighten the offense on physical punishment for parents. To many kids nowadays get the idea in their head early they can get away with what they want because they can just call the police on their parents for beating them.

I tried that with my mom ONCE, she handed me the phone, offered to dial. I realized how good I had it after that. So I respect my mother. Im almost 24 and I am still afraid of her. =P

once. i am going to call the cops. call em i say. who do you think they will side with. tis true.

live in poverty in the good ol' USA today? I mean, we got the worst pResident in the history of the country and a war killing teenagers that was fomented by the paper of record in this country, and we have to read about noisy kids ruining some douchebag's $150/plate meal or some other folk's $5 cup of coffee.

Just stop by any 'family friendly' restaurant and witness parents abdicate their duties assuming their precious darlings (urchins?) will be cared for by the waitstaff.

Unruly and disrespectful kids are the result of parents that cannot or will not say "NO".

Honestly - if ya need a license to fish a license to breed is definitely in order.

been to restaurants i have not seen these ruly kids that seem to have taken over restaurants

When I was in the restaurant business, in a very wealthy area, I dealt with unwatched and unruly children on a daily basis. The parents took the attitude that it was my waitstaff's job to keep an eye on their kids who were running all about the restaurant because it was their au-pair's day off It was like my place was a day care that served good liquor.

why just some people (generally those without kids) seem to attract these out of control kids with parents that expect the help to be babysitters.

and i have been ot many fancy restaurants with "rich" kids. i keep my eye open so i can spot these kids, but not seeing it

I dont know how much it is as I've never been to one. We've 3 young 'uns and cant afford that, no way.

We do go to the 1/2 star places every Friday as a family though, and I fail to see what the hell you are talking about in my kids nor any other.

License to breed? Nah, we should just bring back Jim Crow laws, call 'em Jimmy Crow Jr, and segregate society by age.

Seems to be the trendy thing these days, that and $5/cup coffee

Nice to see something's about to be done, I regret to say. But having been the victim of too much as a kid, it's about damn time.

Let's hope the bullies are dealt with for the crimes they commit - and not their victims for being vulnerable to bullies.

cellphone users as an annoyance. Aren't they the same thing most of the time?

obnoxious kids. Parenting has a lot to do with it. When I taught 7th and 8th graders way back when, parent conferences gave me tremendous insight into why certain kids behaved the way they did. The kids in class who were most respectful of adults had parents who were concerned and supportive. The parents of the kids who were most out of control were inevitably rude, defensive, and looked at the teacher as an adversary rather than a partner. By and large kids take their cues from parents and learn their social skills from their parents as well.