What the hell is wrong with kids?

Pecker

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alex8 said:
OK, so there are psychologically disturbed people, and some who have no respect for life, in every generation. How, though, does this warrant the hyperbolic generalization of the thread title: "What the hell is wrong with kids?".

"Kids!
I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!

Kids!
Who can understand anything they say?

Kids!
They a disobedient, disrespectful oafs!
Noisy, crazy, dirty, lazy, loafers!
While we're on the subject:

Kids!
You can talk and talk till your face is blue!

Kids!
But they still just do what they want to do!
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?

Kids!
I've tried to raise him the best I could

Kids!
Laughing, singing, dancing, grinning, morons!
And while we're on the subject!

Kids!
They are just impossible to control!

Kids!
With their awful clothes and their rock an' roll!
Why can't they dance like we did
What's wrong with Sammy Kaye?

What's the matter with kids today?"

(BYE BYE BIRDIE)
 

dong20

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Originally Posted by Honey_Grrrl83
"You would have to possess a truly warped,sick,mind to harm anything as defenseless as an animal"

We humans are animals too, just higher up the pecking order, and we are the ones considered the only species who knowingly inflict suffering on other species and each other for kicks i.e. not out of instinct as a cat plays with a mouse. Though that may not be 100% correct I can't read a cats mind. With intelligence comes choice and too often we seem to make poor choices.

I cannot abide child abuse because it's the duty of any 'intelligent' species to protect it's young not to abuse them. I cannot abide animal abuse, not because they may be defenceless (which most are not) but simply because it's wrong we should know better. Sadly in both cases our better angels are sometimes shouted down by our baser instincts.

We all know how cruel children can be so and I don't know what thought process led these kids to do what they did but if they had wrapped another kid in cellophane instead of a cat would we have been more willing to dismiss it merely as 'horseplay' gone a bit too far?
 

b.c.

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bigschlotsky said:
What's wrong with kids is the way they're treated by adults. Kids who abuse animals are doing it to get a feeling of power because they feel powerless otherwise. Kids have tons of adults telling them what to do without ever listening to what they have to say - parents, relatives, teachers, clergy, etc, are all guilty of this. I'm reminded of a scene from Bowling for Columbine when a rock musician was asked what he would say to the Columbine perpetrators if he had a chance. He replied: "I wouldn't say anything. I would listen to what they had to say, because that's what no one did."

Yeah, the poor little bastards. How inconsiderate of adults, all that free time they have on their hands, no worries about nuclear holocaust, the draft, and those kinds of mundane things. Nothing but text messaging, XBox, Nintendo, and online gaming to keep their little minds occupied. That kind of stuff gets old fast. Can we blame them? No wonder they're bored to tears and have nothing better to do than amass weapons, and concoct plots to go into their schools and take out their nasty old teachers and fellow students. "That'll teach 'em to assign homework!" So while school social workers have them in counseling sessions trying to understand them ("now we want you to draw a face that says how you feel") and while parents have now learned that hitting is not nice, and have been told all about positive reinforcement, and "time outs" and rewards and being "proactive" rather than "reactive" and letting them "vent", the little shits in turn sit around thinking of who they'd like to kill. The little darlings.
 

bigschlotsky

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b.c. said:
Yeah, the poor little bastards. How inconsiderate of adults, all that free time they have on their hands, no worries about nuclear holocaust, the draft, and those kinds of mundane things. Nothing but text messaging, XBox, Nintendo, and online gaming to keep their little minds occupied. That kind of stuff gets old fast. Can we blame them? No wonder they're bored to tears and have nothing better to do than amass weapons, and concoct plots to go into their schools and take out their nasty old teachers and fellow students. "That'll teach 'em to assign homework!" So while school social workers have them in counseling sessions trying to understand them ("now we want you to draw a face that says how you feel") and while parents have now learned that hitting is not nice, and have been told all about positive reinforcement, and "time outs" and rewards and being "proactive" rather than "reactive" and letting them "vent", the little shits in turn sit around thinking of who they'd like to kill. The little darlings.

I understand your anger, but your perception of the situation seems to be a combination of TV news and personal bitterness. The vast majority, and I mean VAST majority of kids are good kids who care about their parents and friends and even the world. I can say from personal experience as someone who works in the mental health field, that the vast majority of kids who show violent tendencies past the age of 10, have been the victim of child abuse. There have been many valid scientific studies that have concluded roughly the same thing. So yeah, I understand you (apparently) think children are somehow the spawn of the devil. But reality is we get out of kids almost exactly what we put into them.
PS - by the way you also appear to have no earthly idea of what therapy really entails.
 

b.c.

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bigschlotsky said:
I understand your anger, but your perception of the situation seems to be a combination of TV news and personal bitterness. The vast majority, and I mean VAST majority of kids are good kids who care about their parents and friends and even the world. I can say from personal experience as someone who works in the mental health field, that the vast majority of kids who show violent tendencies past the age of 10, have been the victim of child abuse. There have been many valid scientific studies that have concluded roughly the same thing. So yeah, I understand you (apparently) think children are somehow the spawn of the devil. But reality is we get out of kids almost exactly what we put into them.
PS - by the way you also appear to have no earthly idea of what therapy really entails.

I know the vast majority of kids are good and care about their parents etc. I know because two of that category are my own, and one of them is almost YOUR age.

I also know I generalized in my statements, exaggeration to make a point. The point being this: We (of my generation) may not have known all the answers, were not familiar with all the "psychobabble newspeak" regarding the raising of children, but neither did we have children plotting to go to their schools and take out everyone withing gunsight, and at a time when they (children) have access to more things, more information, more forms of diversion and entertainment. WHY??

I am of the opinion that somehow "we" (meaning, too many of us) have lost our way as far as what works, and what doesn't.

My kids turned out just fine. Tell ya what. After you have your own, you can tell me all about it, say...in twenty years.
 

b.c.

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bigschlotsky said:
And so says every generation about the next one.
bigschlotsky said:
And so says every generation about the next one.

Well, since you work in the mental health field, perhaps you can enlighten me.

Why is it that in a era when kids have access to so much more in the form of entertainment, technology, media, etc. we have what seems to be increasing incidences of some of them gathering weapons and making plans to kill teachers and fellow students?

I mean, even you must admit this is pretty hardcore stuff. We're not talking smoking pot or dropping acid. We're talking murder. And many of these incidences (past and present) seem to involve kids from affluent segments of society.

So perhaps you can tell me why. I'm all ears. (Well, not really).
 

bigschlotsky

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b.c. said:
Well, since you work in the mental health field, perhaps you can enlighten me.

Why is it that in a era when kids have access to so much more in the form of entertainment, technology, media, etc. we have what seems to be increasing incidences of some of them gathering weapons and making plans to kill teachers and fellow students?

I mean, even you must admit this is pretty hardcore stuff. We're not talking smoking pot or dropping acid. We're talking murder. And many of these incidences (past and present) seem to involve kids from affluent segments of society.

So perhaps you can tell me why. I'm all ears. (Well, not really).

School shootings are not new. They are getting far more media coverage than ever before. School shootings go back as far as the 60s. One could argue that the 60s began a change in society's attitude towards authority figures and the rule of law. Murder rates in the U.S. skyrocketed in the 60s and have remained relatively stable since.
Furthermore, the amount of children actually involved in things like this is so infantesimal as to be statistically insignificant. In other words, if you do the math, roughly 99.99998% of children will never be involved in a school shooting or attempted school shooting. In other words, there is no grand phenomenon at work here. There are a few extraordinary incidents that have gotten vast media coverage.
If we look at things on a micro scale we can hypothesize about what drives certain children to commit murder. But what drives anyone to commit murder? Adults still commit murder at a far higher rate than teenagers do, and certainly more than kids do overall. So perhaps a better question is why don't children do it more? We act like kids are supposed to be immune from the problems of society. We act like kids shooting up a school is so much more disturbing and perplexing that a disgruntled former employee shooting up a place of business. I think they're the same thing. Feelings of rejection, anger, lack of appreciation, a sense that nothing one does is amounting to anything, and on and on. We don't have a child violence problem. We have a people violence problem. We've had it for a long time and frankly given the widespread alientation and social isolation characteristic of both secondary schools and most places of employment, I'm shocked it doesn't happen more.
 

bigschlotsky

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Shelby said:
Sorry to flame or troll but in my honest opinion the mental health field is 90% snake oil.

I think most things are 90% snake oil.
As far as the mental health field, like any field there are people who do good work and people who don't. I think more than most fields, mental health is misunderstood by lots of people who have no direct experience with it. I also think a lot of men especially dislike it because men are supposed to be tough and not need help from anyone, especially for something as weak and pissy as an emotional issue. Follow my sarcasm.
Most people who seek therapy benefit from it. Some people don't. Bottom line.
 

MorganaDrake

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I'm a college student looking to eventually go out into the mental health field. I agree with Bigschlotsky on most everything he said. In fact I can't think of anything to add to what he said except for this...

He mentioned that a lot of men don't like therapy because it goes against the front they are suppose to put up in society. I'd say most people don't like therapy because society as a whole still sees it as something that is for crazy people. People don't understand the concept behind therapy. It's not a fix all, cure all thing. It's about learning to cope and accept things you've gone through. It's about redefining the way you think, so you think in a way more beneficial to yourself and sometimes those around you. I mean I could go on and on...but I won't. Really I just want to offer my support to bigschlotsky, both as someone going into the area of work he's in and as someone that has gone through counseling and can attest to being helped by it.

As for kids today, I can't speak for those younger than me. I'm 25 and I don't have kids of my own. But I can personally attest to the fact that as a youngster I was headed down the wrong path of life and my parents put me into counseling and you know what, it worked for me. So there was at least one less kid out there causing trouble then what there may have been if not for my parents loving me enough to get me help.

As for 90% of the mental health field being snake oil, hey I can give you that one. I can also make that same case about any area of the medical field or any area of science. I'd also add that anything out there is what you make of it. If you go in believing that something will work, a new treatment (by a regular doctor), a new method of counseling, etc...then it has more of a likelihood of working. Like anything out there, it works for some people and doesn't work for others. I believe a lot of it is the mindset a person has going into it.
 

redfraggle

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I found this article in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, here in Sydney, Australia (I don't normally read this paper, but was told by a friend to see an audition notice in it). As the audition notice was for a company I don't wish to work for, thinking I would get my money's worth, I flicked through and found this disturbling article.

The entire article.

The bit that may explain what is wrong with the kids:

Yesterday, unprompted, I received an email from a colleague.

"I had an appalling experience last night when I went to see the new horror film The Hills Have Eyes," he wrote.

"And no, it wasn't the film that was appalling; it was a great horror piece and easily one of the scariest trips to the movies I've had in my life.

"But why was it then upon leaving the cinema that my friends and I (totally freaked out by the material we'd just seen) witnessed three adults with two children by their side? One a male aged about six, the other, a female aged 10, both who appeared a little shell-shocked."

For those of you like me who have no interest in horror flicks, The Hills Have Eyes is R-rated. It is illegal for anyone under 18 to watch it – even with parental consent.

"We could not believe our eyes," he continued. "I immediately went to the cinema manager and reported the incident and they, too, couldn't believe it. 'What sort of parents would take their children to see that?' the shocked manager asked."

But legally, isn't it the cinema's responsibility to oversee that nobody under 18 sees these films?

Staff should be checking ID at the door before each session to ensure those who buy a ticket to Ice Age 2 for cinema three do not sneak into the R-rated The Hills Have Eyes screening in cinema four.

My colleague asks: "What kind of a society are we living in whereby a parent would subject their children to a film depicting all forms of sadism at its most extreme: violence, rape, cruelty to animals, mutilation and cannibalism?

"Had I been six years old and seen The Hills Have Eyes I don't think I would have ever got over it. Have these parents no decency? Any integrity?"​

I have said it before and I will say it many times again: "You need a licence to own a dog, but any mongrel can have a child"
 

sunsetapisto

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bigschlotsky said:
What's wrong with kids is the way they're treated by adults. Kids who abuse animals are doing it to get a feeling of power because they feel powerless otherwise. Kids have tons of adults telling them what to do without ever listening to what they have to say - parents, relatives, teachers, clergy, etc, are all guilty of this. I'm reminded of a scene from Bowling for Columbine when a rock musician was asked what he would say to the Columbine perpetrators if he had a chance. He replied: "I wouldn't say anything. I would listen to what they had to say, because that's what no one did."

that was beautiful.

Honestly, I know people that have done much worse. If the press thinks they're cracking a big story, they're wrong.