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Kids Today

rynner2 said:
The survey of 1,000 people found that the current generation of 15 to 34-year-olds have fewer memories of 12 key countryside pursuits such as swimming in rivers or making a den.

The research found that three quarters of the older generation remember playing conkers or climbing trees, compared to two thirds of younger adults.

The 55 plus generation also had more memories of collecting fossils, visiting a farm or pond dipping.
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I'm at the upper-reach of this 'deprived' age bracket, but with a semi-rural and emphatically outdoor childhood, I'd certainly put myself in the older grouping. With friends in teaching and children in the family, I will note that I've seen plenty of first and second-hand evidence of children growing up lacking skills that would have been pretty much de rigueur in my neck 'o the woods: build a fire or simple tree-house, make a bow and arrow, fish, climb trees, knock-down conkers, go scrumping, make a swing-rope etc. I certainly put a lot of it down to over-protective parenting: middle-class kids who literally never leave their parents' sight outside of school or home. My own younger brother (now a father), who enjoyed the same lifestyle as I did (probably even more so), now thinks that 'you can't do that nowadays' - and, though I wanted to protest, I sensed it would be pointless and left the topic alone. They are, after all, his children and not mine.

Dr Mike Clarke, Chief Executive of the RSPB, said children kept indoors suffer from “nature deficit disorder”.
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Please tell me he just made that up on the spot. Such children don't 'suffer' from anything, let alone a medical 'disorder', although they certainly miss out on what I view as an integral part of childhood. Why the desperate urge to medicalise everything?
 
<shrugs> its often the only way to get attention.

Unfortunatley your brother is, to a certain extent, right.

Kids arent allowed to get mucky, and there are far less opportunities for them to do what you and I took for granted.

And parents, particularly middle class ones (who, round here at least, seem to be a soft target for social services) are often too busy to deal with it.

Attitudes are very different in Scandanavia where kids are encoraged to enjoy the outdoors at all seasons and play with knives.

Every kid should have a knife I think.
 
Not sure what to say about this. Should a 13/14 yr old be allowed to keep a baby? I wonder if she was given the option of adoption? Was she even offered an abortion?

Concern for missing Bristol teenager and baby daughter
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11225502

Tinishya Marshall and Sophie Tinishya Marshall and Sophie were last seen in Greystoke Avenue

Police are concerned about a 14-year-old girl and her baby who have not been seen since they went missing from their Bristol home five days ago.

Tinishya Marshall and her 11-month-old daughter Sophie were last seen at 1530 BST on Friday in the Greystoke Avenue area of Southmead.

Police are concerned about the baby's welfare as none of her belongings were taken apart from her pink pram.

It is thought Tinishya may be with a boy, 17, who has also disappeared.

Police said Tinishya told a relative she was going to the shops and took the baby in the pram.

She is described as white, 5ft 2in (1.57m) and of heavy build with dark brown shoulder length hair.

She was wearing a black velour tracksuit with a white top underneath. Her daughter was wearing a red velour track suit.

The 17-year-old boy is described as white, 5ft 5in (1.65m), with short mousy brown hair. He was wearing black tracksuit bottoms, a white T-shirt and white trainers.

Police believe that Tinishya and her child may be in North Somerset or may have travelled to the Devon or Cornwall areas.

Officers have asked anyone with information about their whereabouts to contact them.
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'Youngest' female double murderer jailed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-11218238

Lorraine Thorpe Lorraine Thorpe was 15 years old when the killings took place

A girl thought to be Britain's youngest female double murderer has been jailed for life.

Lorraine Thorpe, now 16, of Clapgate Lane in Ipswich, was found guilty in August of murdering her father Desmond Thorpe and a woman called Rosalyn Hunt.

Thorpe, 15 when the murders took place in 2009, was told at the Old Bailey she would serve at least 14 years.

Paul Clarke, 41, also convicted of two murders at Ipswich Crown Court, was sentenced at an earlier hearing.
'Appalling case'

Clarke, of Mountbatten Court, was also jailed for life and told he must serve a minimum of 27 years.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

Far from being sorry, Lorraine appears to have gloried in it, describing to her friends at one stage how she stamped on Rosalyn's head”

End Quote Mr Justice Saunders

Mr Justice Saunders said Thorpe could be "manipulative" and was not acting entirely under Clarke's control, adding: "She found violence funny and entertaining."

The bodies of Ms Hunt and Mr Thorpe were found at separate addresses in Ipswich in August 2009.

Both Clarke and Thorpe had denied the charges and gave no evidence during their trial.

They had repeatedly beaten and tortured Ms Hunt and then smothered Mr Thorpe to death.

The judge said: "Far from being sorry, Lorraine appears to have gloried in it, describing to her friends at one stage how she stamped on Rosalyn's head."
Paul Clarke Paul Clarke had denied the charges and gave no evidence during his trial

He said the only "possible explanation" for her father's murder was "the fear that he would go and tell the police what happened to Rosalyn Hunt".

Mr Justice Saunders described the case as "exceptional" and the story of Thorpe "appalling".

The court heard Thorpe and her father lived in "squalid" flats and sometimes even in tents.

"She was spending all her time with middle-aged alcoholics to whom violence had become normal," the judge said.

"It had become part of their way of life. The alcoholics fought with each other.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

To describe her upbringing as not being a proper upbringing would be an understatement”

End Quote Mr Justice Saunders

"They stole in order to get the drink they craved."

Social services could not keep track of her and when she was placed in a school she went back to her father, the judge told the court.

Through drinking the Thorpes met Clarke and lived at his flat for a time.

"She has been left with no real understanding of what is right and what is wrong," Mr Justice Saunders said.

"To describe her upbringing as not being a proper upbringing would be an understatement but it has left her as a violent young woman and a highly manipulative young woman as well."

Graham Parkins QC, defending, said: "It was highly inappropriate for this young girl to be playing a role of carer to her drunken and indeed very frail father.

"She never really had much of a chance in life."

Britain's youngest female killer, Mary Bell, was held at the age of 11 in 1968 for the manslaughter of two boys aged three and four.
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Oh, and where were the authorities in all this?

Where is my social worker anyway??
 
Schoolchildren who find body in stream then throw stones and take pictures on their phones
By Claire Ellicott
Last updated at 6:48 AM on 1st October 2010

A group of schoolchildren who discovered a dead body callously took pictures and threw stones at the corpse.

Robert Wilshire, who is believed to have been murdered, was discovered partially submerged in a stream by a group of youngsters from a local school.

They gathered around the body and some of the children took out their mobile phones to take pictures and film the scene. Footage is believed to have been posted on the internet. :shock:

Schoolboy Connor Gallagher, 16, was one of the first on the scene close to Dorcan Technology College, Swindon, Wiltshire, a mixed secondary school with 1,200 pupils.

He said: ‘We were just walking past. We were just looking over and we saw a dead body. It looked like a middle-aged man.
‘He was laid there. His head was just above the water and he was on his back.
‘Everyone started crowding around and people had their phones out. We were telling everyone else to shut up because everyone else was trying to take pictures and laughing.’

He added: ‘Some kids were throwing stones at the body. Some kids were crying.’

A post mortem examination revealed the man, from Galsworthy Close, Swindon, had died from head injuries.

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said that two men aged 53 and 48 were being questioned on suspicion of murder.
‘A murder investigation has now begun and a major incident room has been set up at Swindon’s Gablecross police station,’ he said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z115pwtHAn
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Something has gone wrong with this whole culture :nooo:
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I'm not convinced. Kids of any era might have done this (just ask William Golding). All that's new in that story is mobile phones with cameras and the internet.
 
I agree with Dr Baltar on this one, some kids in any era would have done this, there's just added technology. Stephen King's "Stand by Me" is another example of a fictional treatment of kids apparent callousness.
 
Dr_Baltar said:
BlackRiverFalls said:
Something has gone wrong with this whole culture :nooo:
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I'm not convinced. Kids of any era might have done this (just ask William Golding). All that's new in that story is mobile phones with cameras and the internet.
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I'm not sure I agree.

Golding's point was about the ease with which the veneer of civilisation may be stripped away; the point being that all societal niceties are, despite appearances, acquired and not innate, and inhibit natural urges and dispositions. Even his island-bound little terrors take a good few weeks/chapters to give up on the trappings and conventions of decency before all goes to hell.

Here we have children, still resolutely within our society, who have clearly never been raised to know how to behave in the first place. Their natural brutality may never have been curbed by what I would consider a 'normal' upbringing (at least not enough to stop them stoning a corpse). With an acceptance that children are capable of a lot more than we often give them credit for, I'd contend that the average child of the last few centuries, on discovering a dead human body, would seek an adult with authority pretty quickly; if only, in some cases, because they feared the results of not doing so.

Timble mentions Stand By Me (has anyone ever read The Body on which it is based), but for me that's another theme altogether. The characters there are hardly callous: they're merely given the rare-chance to indulge a curiosity at a time in their lives where the adult world has just begun to impinge more fully upon their lives. I may be misremembering the events and the tone, but I don't think they wanted to hurl stones or take photos. They certainly weren't laughing as these children were. It was more like a hushed awe.
 
I've read The Body, I only used the film title as I thought more people would recognise the story under that name.
 
Timble2 said:
I've read The Body, I only used the film title as I thought more people would recognise the story under that name.
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Any good?

I thought of reading it as soon as I saw the title in the credits, but I never have.
 
It's excellent. I believe it's in a collection called 'Four Seasons', which also contains 'Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption'. Well worth picking up.
 
See also River's Edge based on the murder of Marcy Conrad for an extreme case.

Children forever have covered every extreme of human nature from being murderers, thieves, dead-body pokers etc. to responsible, humane citizens. Kids, like adults, are both fascinated and repulsed by death. Look at the number of rubberneckers you get at any accident or crime scene. In this particular case, how many threw rocks? How many poked it with a stick? How many were upset rather than showing off in front of their friends? How many filmed it or took photos? How many ran off to tell an adult? Hard to tell when the Daily Mail et al are determined to tell us society's going to hell in a handcart. And a touch hypocritical of the media I might add given that where there's death and destruction, who are the first on the scene poking their lenses into anyone and everyone's grief?
 
Dr_Baltar said:
In this particular case, how many threw rocks? How many poked it with a stick? How many were upset rather than showing off in front of their friends? How many filmed it or took photos? How many ran off to tell an adult? Hard to tell when the Daily Mail et al are determined to tell us society's going to hell in a handcart.
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That's fair comment, and I should at least be a little more circumspect in my judgements, but it feels wrong (as reported). My group of childhood friends were hardly angels, but this kind of thing seems incomprehensibly different to what I consider normal.
 
theyithian said:
That's fair comment, and I should at least be a little more circumspect in my judgements, but it feels wrong (as reported). My group of childhood friends were hardly angels, but this kind of thing seems incomprehensibly different to what I consider normal.
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Virtually everything in the Daily Mail's world seems incomprehensibly different to what I consider normal. ;)
 
No reports of stone-throwing here:

Children 'may have photos of body in Swindon stream'

Children may have taken photographs of a man's body found floating in a Swindon stream.

Two men have been arrested over the murder of Robert Wilshire, 47, whose body was found in the stream opposite Dorcan Technology College on Monday.

Police have now appealed for anyone who took pictures to come forward as they may help the investigation.

Det Ch Insp Sean Memory said those coming forward to say they had taken photographs were not in trouble.

A post-mortem examination has revealed that Mr Wilshire, of Galsworthy Close, died from head injuries.

Police are trying to establish his movements between making a mobile phone call at 0430 BST on Sunday and his body being discovered at 1500 BST on Monday.

Det Ch Insp Memory said: "I am appealing for anyone who may have seen Mr Wilshire or spoken to him during this time to come forward.
"I am especially keen to speak to anyone including any school pupils who were at the scene and who may have taken photographs or video footage before the police arrived.
"I can understand the reluctance of anyone who has taken photos or video to come forward but I want to take this opportunity to reassure them that they are not in any trouble, but these images may be vital to our investigation and I urge you to come forward and make contact with us.
"If appropriate speak to your parents or teachers and I again emphasise that you are not in any trouble."

It is thought the pictures may have been published on social-networking sites.

Scott Sissons, head teacher at the college, said he did not believe any photographs were taken before 1500 BST.

One boy, who was found to have taken a picture, had deleted it from his phone before teachers had a chance to speak to him, Mr Sissons said.

"On Monday, when some of the students were just walking out the school gates, one of our Year 8 students actually saw what she thought was a body," he said.
"She called her friends back and confirmed it was actually a body and ran straight back into school to find a teacher and tell them.
"By the time she got back out, another teacher and a large group of students had gathered around the site and somebody had rung the emergency services."

Mr Sissons said: "The teacher actually got into the stream and checked for any signs of life. By the time he had done that the ambulance had arrived.
"At the moment, what we're doing with the police is seeing if there were any other students who took photographs."

He said eight pupils had taken up the offer of counselling following the incident.

The arrested men, aged 53 and 48, are being interviewed at Swindon police station.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-11440162

...but there is here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... ictim.html

(and in other places copying the Mail story)

But none of the serious papers seem to have mentioned the story at all, not even as 'Body found..', let alone mention of kids, phones and stones.
 
The boy of three trapped in the world of Thomas The Tank Engine after watching show for five hours a day
By Sophie Borland
Last updated at 9:42 AM on 4th October 2010

He should be running around laughing and playing with the other children at his nursery.
But because he watches so much TV, one three-year-old boy has already become cut off from his peers, trapped in his own ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ world instead.
The toddler, known only as Max, has spent so long watching the show that he barely speaks to other children at his nursery school and instead wanders around in a daze obsessively repeating phrases from the TV programme.

He watches the cartoon for as many as five hours a day – and doctors fear that it has had a long-term effect on his development and communication skills.
The programme is full of catchphrases, such as the character Thomas saying he wants to be a ‘really useful engine’ and exclaiming ‘well bust my buffers’, or those of his faithful coaches Annie and Claribel ‘We feel so full,we feel so full’.
Another well-known phrase goes ‘Silly old Gordon fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch,’ from the episode which shows the big green engine purposely running into a ditch to avoid pulling a goods’ train.

The boy, who lives in the U.S, is being treated by a specialist in California.
Doctors are so alarmed that they have reported his behaviour in a paper published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
The youngster’s mother reportedly lets him watch as much TV as he likes. He also likes to watch the Disney Channel, which includes popular programmes such as Hannah Montana and Phineas and Ferb.

However, his case is by no means unique and experts warn that children who watch too much television may be in danger of suffering learning difficulties later on.
Some doctors believe the problem is becoming so widespread that toddlers younger than two should be banned from watching any TV at all.

Researchers in Britain fear that television is increasingly hindering children’s communication skills and ability to concentrate as well as contributing to rates of obesity, because screen-based activities mean they are less inclined to be physically active.
They are considering drawing up strict guidelines which could even advise parents to ban toddlers from watching TV.

Stuart Biddle is chairman of the ‘sedentary behaviour and obesity’ working party, which is currently considering guidelines for the Department of Health.
He said: ‘We are considering what guidelines should say, and a statement around no television for the under-twos is potentially one of the more controversial ones.’

Some countries are already considering a similar policy. Last year, the Australian government began drawing up guidance suggesting a ban for children under two.
The advice, which is being finalised, also recommends that those aged between two and five should watch a maximum of one hour a day.
France has also banned any programmes specifically being made for those under five.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z11Nac7v26

I never saw any TV until I was about 8, and we only got one in our house when I was about 12, so whatever's wrong with me now can't be blamed on the telly!
 
rynner2 said:
The boy of three trapped in the world of Thomas The Tank Engine after watching show for five hours a day

...

The toddler, known only as Max, has spent so long watching the show that he barely speaks to other children at his nursery school and instead wanders around in a daze obsessively repeating phrases from the TV programme.

...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z11Nac7v26

I never saw any TV until I was about 8, and we only got one in our house when I was about 12, so whatever's wrong with me now can't be blamed on the telly!
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My researches show that regular readers of 'The Daily Mail', can often suffer from a very similar condition. :lol:
 
Dr_Baltar said:
Still, if there's a chance to blame TV, films, video games or immigrants for something...anything, the Mail won't pass it up.
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The paper was just reporting the concerns of specialists:
Doctors are so alarmed that they have reported his behaviour in a paper published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
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Other doctors and national governments are also concerned.

It's a bit rich to slag off the Mail, and then use comments from its readers as evidence for other causes for the boys condition! Do you (and they) think that pediaticians haven't heard of autism? You can't have your cake and eat it! ;)
 
Dr_Baltar said:
Still, if there's a chance to blame TV, films, video games or immigrants for something...anything, the Mail won't pass it up.
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It all gives you cancer. Or cures it. :lol:
 
I've been studying Germany 1918 - 1923. I'm now stuck in that grim period. Every so often I think I'm caught up in a rightwing or leftwing coup attempt. I keep calling people schweinhunde.
 
rynner2 said:
It's a bit rich to slag off the Mail, and then use comments from its readers as evidence for other causes for the boys condition! Do you (and they) think that pediaticians haven't heard of autism? You can't have your cake and eat it! ;)
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Why? Presumably a number of people commenting have come across the story in the way I did, not because they're neccesarily fans of the Mail. And not all Mail readers are uneducated idiots, only the ones that read it to be informed.

Of course I'm not suggesting that paediatricians aren't aware of autism, that would be patently ridiculous and is a straw man of your own invention. ;) I'm suggesting the Mail's reporting of the case is economical with the actualité, lead by what ever particular prejudice they happen to feel like displaying, in this case, 'TV IS BAD'.
 
Dr_Baltar said:
I'm suggesting the Mail's reporting of the case is economical with the actualité, lead by what ever particular prejudice they happen to feel like displaying, in this case, 'TV IS BAD'.
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Whatever makes you think they have that prejudice? Judging by the number of articles they have about Celebs (which I never read, post, or comment upon), the opposite is the case! 8)

But we digress. Is TV bad for kids? Discuss.
 
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