There is no doubt that the looting and rioting that took place last week, has nothing to do with the death of a man in Tottenham at the hands of the police.
I do believe though, that it is symptomatic of a country with real problems, and these people rioting, whilst not representative of youth as a whole; do reflect the opinions and attitudes of a lot of young people who feel they are not listened to and are marginalised.
How many families sit as a group and eat together, discuss issues together? Too many parents leave their kids for hours in their bedrooms with their computers, mobile phones and know little of what they get up to. Many kids are literally bringing themselves up, and there is a well developed sub-culture that is dominated by media and pop imagery that, to be frank I do not feel is at all healthy. Kids, as a result have become addicted to FB, BBM, Twitter and SMS as confirmed in an OFCOM report this week.
As for parents, we have a society happy to slag off working mothers, sack pregnant women, attack maternity rights and payments. Add that to a low wage economy, and you have parents having to work all hours to make ends meet.
Sadly because of the technology, family bonding has been replaced with TVs and computers which have now become a prerequisite for every child, whilst parents don’t do anything to understand the technology they supply their kids with! Leaving them with uncontrolled access to the internet and social network sites which exposes them to a range of potentially harmful things such as porn. This is a damn awful lack of parental responsibility. What sort of society ends up with over 50% of kids between the age of 10 and 14 viewing porn on the internet?
Appalling!
Even the huge number of safety software out there to prevent access to such sites and offer protection when kids are on FB etc are not being used.
The problems and causes are multi-faceted, and whilst there is NO excuse for riots and looting, the kids of today are angry, have no respect for others, and expect everything for nothing because parents have totally acquiesced to their demands.
There is a big communications gap and we need to address this and listen to them.
I am not saying all youth are like this, but there are far more of them than you think, believe me.
I do believe though, that it is symptomatic of a country with real problems, and these people rioting, whilst not representative of youth as a whole; do reflect the opinions and attitudes of a lot of young people who feel they are not listened to and are marginalised.
How many families sit as a group and eat together, discuss issues together? Too many parents leave their kids for hours in their bedrooms with their computers, mobile phones and know little of what they get up to. Many kids are literally bringing themselves up, and there is a well developed sub-culture that is dominated by media and pop imagery that, to be frank I do not feel is at all healthy. Kids, as a result have become addicted to FB, BBM, Twitter and SMS as confirmed in an OFCOM report this week.
As for parents, we have a society happy to slag off working mothers, sack pregnant women, attack maternity rights and payments. Add that to a low wage economy, and you have parents having to work all hours to make ends meet.
Sadly because of the technology, family bonding has been replaced with TVs and computers which have now become a prerequisite for every child, whilst parents don’t do anything to understand the technology they supply their kids with! Leaving them with uncontrolled access to the internet and social network sites which exposes them to a range of potentially harmful things such as porn. This is a damn awful lack of parental responsibility. What sort of society ends up with over 50% of kids between the age of 10 and 14 viewing porn on the internet?
Appalling!
Even the huge number of safety software out there to prevent access to such sites and offer protection when kids are on FB etc are not being used.
The problems and causes are multi-faceted, and whilst there is NO excuse for riots and looting, the kids of today are angry, have no respect for others, and expect everything for nothing because parents have totally acquiesced to their demands.
There is a big communications gap and we need to address this and listen to them.
I am not saying all youth are like this, but there are far more of them than you think, believe me.
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