Is it something in the water?

GB_42_XYZ

Member
It's easy to feel like you are the only one dealing with difficult children until you come on this board and read someones post and think "that sounds exactly like me".

It just seems that kids these days (sound like something an old person would say) are just plain worse than when I was a kid. I know I wasn't perfect (pretty close), my brother was the wild one, but even he would be considered a saint when compared to a lot of the kids I know today.

Are kids are worse today than ever? If so, why?
food additives, video games, society?
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
I've heard a lot of the older generations say it's because you're not allowed to "take em out to the woodshed" any more. It's not just kids, though. Forget the violence on video games, how about the violence on the news? Most of that isn't kids doing it, it's adults. Our species is our own worst enemy, and I guess we have to be. Nature balances populations, but we've mostly removed ourselves from that cycle and have to provide our own population control. Maybe it's solar radiation mutating our brains. Or heavy metal poisoning, or anything else we've dumped into the environment coming back to us in our food, water, and air. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
So are populations that are away from modern technology having more issues with their younger generations than in the past? The answer to that might narrow things down some.
 

Jena

New Member
umm i'd say all of the above as to why their worse~!! additives, hormones in the milk, and chicken etc. the air, the media, the world around us basically. Also I think the dynamic of what "family" used to mean has changed alot also. Grown in some ways yet regressed in others. Years prior people didnt' divorce, it was unheard of (that could be bad or good). Also mental health wasnt' where it is now. So, alot of times if there was an out of control kid he was begged as "bad" and repremanded over and over again, yet alot of services werent' available and ppl def. didn't speak openly about it.

I think also ppl work more. years ago in families there was that truly defined mom stays home, dad works. i know alot of us here stay home yet i think in general alot of families today aren't home, their working to pay the mortgage, get the nicer car etc. also family dinners do not exist as much as they used to either in some families. Dinner was a huge part of family life for me growing up, it was just me and my mom for years before i moved in with-my dad yet dinner was mandatory. nowadays everyone's schedule is so conflicting alot of times family dinner's cant' always occur.

ok that was alot sheesh had no idea i was thinking any of that!! lol
 
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HaoZi

Guest
I don't think there is one thing you can definitively point to and say "This is it, this the sole cause." It's an accumulation of things.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
I'm not sure that it is worse...but it is more "seen" today.

Look at all the stuff available online that we didn't even know existed a few years ago. Doesn't mean it wasn't there....it just wasn't so publicized and readily available at the click of a button.

The other day, I saw a segment on television that discussed people with sexual fetishes for helium balloons. I'm not sure that I needed to know these things exist - but now I do. How long have they been around? I have no idea. It's just one of thoe things that have come to light through communication technology. And now people all over the world who get aroused by balloons can connect with one another and have conventions and celebrate it out in the open.

How many of us have felt alone with our difficult child until we came here? It is our communication that "exposes" the amount of difficult child-dom in the world.

In the past, faced with the horrible stress and struggle of a difficult child - I'm willing to be that a lot of those children did not survive to adulthood....they just "disappeared" quietly. The end.

Now that we can communicate and offer support to stressed out families...those kids are out in the community.

Are they worse? I don't know...

But they are definitely better off than the generation before.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
It would make a great sociological study.

I also think a contributing factor is that because we are such a mobile society extended family is not as close by for support. One of the things we have tried to do is keep our difficult child involved in my husband's extended famiy. There are 40 aunts, uncles, and cousins that get together twice a year as a group and I know for a fact that this has helped difficult child stay connected to us.

Nancy
 

GB_42_XYZ

Member
It would make a great sociological study.

I also think a contributing factor is that because we are such a mobile society extended family is not as close by for support. One of the things we have tried to do is keep our difficult child involved in my husband's extended famiy. There are 40 aunts, uncles, and cousins that get together twice a year as a group and I know for a fact that this has helped difficult child stay connected to us.

Nancy

Good point. I had a much closer relationship to my relatives (Aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) than either on my kids have. They hardly ever see their relatives except for Xmas.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I'm 57, no k id, but we Babyboomers kind of started the drug/sex bit. At least at my school and in my neighborhood, teens way back then were every bit as wild. I was one of the few drug holdouts and sex holdouts that went to high school in my neighborhood and the degree of drug abuse and sexual behaviors really upset me. My best friend got pregnant and I was shocked. She had not told me she was having sex with her boyfriend. By the time my fourth friend did, it was kind of numbing. They all had abortions. Two of them were heavily into drugs. We had a drug overdose at school at least once a week. This was in the early 1970's.

Before the 60's there was less access to illegal drugs and a lot of things were hushed up, like alcoholism or domestic violence. If a kid was a problem, you didn't go around talking about it...you hid it. And not as many kids had cars so they could cruise the neighborhoods in the 1950's, which is the last time (I believe) kids were said to be well behaved. I recall every generation since bemoaning the kids being "worse than ever."
I do think broken homes, stepfamilies, kids having to deal with Dad one weekend (and his new honey and her kids) and the opposite the next week, and full time working parents is a real problem. My Grandson was put into infant care at SIX WEEKS OLD. I didn't say anything, but these days kids are not being raised by their parents. There are a lot of negatives going on out there and they all come into play, however I don't think kids have behaved for a very long time...
 
K

KentuckyGentleman

Guest
the world we live in today just isn't very kid-friendly. Gone are the days were you played outside with your friends until your parents called you inside. Today, you get home, realize none of your friends live within walking distance, and are forced to make due with talking to them on AIM or through texts. And even if your friends did live within walking distance, your parent's would be too scared to let you walk over. So you sit at home, surf the internet, and become a cynical little ******* at the ripe old age of 12.

Could a society that thought up infant daycare really care about it's kids? no
 
Also no support for parents, especially moms. Often no tight circle of women to problem-solve and offer wisdom (similar idea to having an extended family), and if no wisdom is to be had about a particular kid, then time-honored ways that women use to comfort and heal each other. Women are often isolated these days

Jo
 
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