Before anyone jumps in with and OK Boomer! statement I want to be heard out. I grew up in a very different time than we are in right now and yes, I realize that exactly the same thing was true with the generation who came before. I am sure my fascination with things like computers and video games were quite perplexing to my parents and grandparents just like my observations about teenagers these days and their fascination with apps and phones and the recording of everything that happens in their lives is basically the same thing, only 30 years apart.
People change, this is part of life and I get that. What I don't understand is why it is and how it is that people have seemed to become considerably more violent in the latest generation. Kids these days seem to be much quicker to not just anger, but actually violence. The respect that was drilled into me as a kid doesn't seem to register nearly as much with today's generation and this is true all over America including in my home state of North Carolina.
When I was a kid, if I got into a fight at all, especially if it was at school or some sort of adult-organized event there would be severe repercussions when I got home to face my parents. Is that simply not happening today?
Two stories recently got out in North Carolina news that I wish I could say was shocking to me but honestly it isn't. I don't interact with kids all that often but I don't need to in order to know simply from being in Wal Mart that it doesn't take a great deal for things to kick off. Of course when it does kick off someone is recording it so this could be indicative of the sort of pressure that as I kid I would sometimes face in the hallways if enough people were watching. I got into a scrap or two in middle and high school that were brought on moreso by the crowd and defending my pride than the actual situation and these days with phone cameras, there is always the potential for a crowd, so to speak.
One report showed that in Charlotte there have been 3,000 juvenile arrests made last year as opposed to years past where it was nearly 40% lower. This could be an anomaly but the worse statistic that came out of all of this was the fact that of these arrests, 70% of them were repeat offenders. In this tiny part of the state they have a "catch and release" program in place that almost immediately hands over the offenders to the parent or parents and there are no other punishments. So if the parents aren't actually willing or capable to reprimand the child on their own the kid doesn't really feel any pressure to stop this sort of behavior now do they? I don't know how you were raised but I was FAR more afraid of my parents than I was of any sort of law-enforcement. Perhaps kids are not going through that today.
Another story talked about how the staff at various camps, which was a big part of my childhood, are saying that they do not have the resources to keep the kids safe at these things. Between sexual assault such as the one that happened to a 14-year old girl at a camp in NC recently, as well as the unsolved and mysterious death of a 12 year old are just indicative of a larger problem. Ex staff of these camps have come forward to say that violence is rampart at these camps and the kids who are attending tend to form some sort of "Lord of the Flies" gangs that prey on all the others. Since the counselors are extremely limited in the punishments they can dole out, their hands are tied.
Again, I think this all boils down to there not being any sort of fear of punishment once these kids get home. I know that if I was to ever have been get sent home from a camp because of some sort of violent encounter, I would be in extreme trouble that I would not soon forget. I don't think that is the case for a lot of the youth today.
One of the camps called Trails Carolina was shut down a few years ago because of a death at the camp, only to be reopened shortly thereafter. Trails Carolina was advertised as an outdoor camp for troubled teens who would go fishing, rock-climbing, canoeing, and other such team building exercises for kids who have shown signs of mental health issues.
That sounds wonderful and like every other camp that I ever attended but according to ex-staffers who wouldn't even give their full name out of fear or reprisal from the government or the camp itself have come forward to say that none of these activities were allowed to happen because there was too much violence that would ensue. They stated that the children would use almost anything as a weapon to harm other kids and the kids had to be monitored constantly. In one extreme example a counselor had a child tell her that a "gang" of students "couldn't wait to hurt or kill any new student."
What has happened to kids these days? I know that this will come across as a "back in my day" sort of statement but seriously, back in my day if a kid or group of kids ever seriously said that they intended to kill any new kid these kids would be removed and perhaps sent to what we called Juvie Hall until they could be repaired. In one particular situation that I recall from middle school there was a fellow student that was so problematic and such a vicious bully that he was expelled and sort of forced to attend a local military school. I ran into this kid many years later, in the local library, in full uniform, dutifully studying and later on I found out that he went on to be quite successful and got married and had a family. As far as I know his trouble-making days were nipped in the bud and he was "fixed" because of this.
These days it seems the answer to almost anything is to do nothing and the kids just keep getting increasingly violent as a result. Ultimately, I think this all boils down to poor parenting, which wasn't really something I witnessed a great deal as a kid. These days, it seems to be growing in prevalence.
I don't have the answer to this problem but continuing to do what we have been doing is definitely not the answer. It makes me happy that I don't have any kids and I can understand why more and more families are removing their children from US public programs including public school. We MUST do better than this.