Why are teens disrespectful towards elders now a days? (influenced, neighbors, websites)

[nyanna]

Originally Posted by furrypro

And where do these teens learn to be disrespectful, spoiled, and stuck-up? Are you there watching 24/7 how the parents (elders) relate or teach morals to their teens? Parents for several generations have taught their children that competition and winning are everything: feelings and care for others are merely an afterthought: it's an American value. Could that be the case?

Possibly. The few teens that are normal and humble are a rarity.

[Lilac110]

Originally Posted by Saritaschihuahua

I agree that kids get a lot their trash behavior from their parents, but people don't live locked up in caves with their parents only, and no TV, no movies, no magazines, no Internet, no magazines, no music, no billboards, no nothing. Kids are exposed to the media non-stop, 24/7, and the media is exemplying pretty horrific examples of family life and human beings, from the worship of youth (youth culture), to the abandoning of the elderly, etc., etc. Then these media ideas get spread around from person to person.

And by the way, adults are ALSO brainwashed by the media, whether we adults to believe it or not. We adults are not immune to these messages. And we adults then pass on these messages to our kids by the way we behave, what we do with our lives, families, extended families, or what we don't do, what we watch on TV, what we say, etc.

Good points. But that is why parents need to be present in their kids' lives so that such media is not the kids' primary form of life education. TV, movies, magazines, music, and billboards have been around for generations, and not all of it has been good. Trash media is not some new phenomenon that has only come about in the last 10 years. It has been around at least since I was a teenager 30 years ago. The Morton Downey, Jr. show aired in the 1980s. You need to go back 21 years to see the first episode of Jerry Springer.

And yet somehow, my parents, both of whom worked (I was a latch-key kid from the time I was 9, like many Gen-Xers), managed to get their points across more strongly than trash TV, books like Flowers in the Attic, and my sisters' Cosmopolitan magazines.

[furrypro]

I think I am correct. Do you know how many elders live above their means? How many elders are in debt because they couldn't control their spending? How many elders are morbidly obese because they cannot control their food intake? How many elders are divorced or have an arrest on their record? How many elders abuse alcohol? How many elders sexually abuse kids? Everything the elders want to pin on teens or kids can easily be pinned on the elders. Only the elders are supposed to be responsible and lead dignified lives.

Originally Posted by nyanna

Possibly. The few teens that are normal and humble are a rarity.

[cushla]

Children today are indulged and adored, parents are afraid to say the magic word NO! i see everywhere supermarkets, and family restaurants, thEse kids are allowed to go and poke around in the food run around and the parents sit there watching and say nothing , or they go into a long conversation about the rights and wrongs after the fIrst couple of seconds the kid is not listening the word folks is NO! from a very early age onward. Set some rules, simple.

[Shadow Dude]

It depends upon the teenager. You can say what you want about the teens and the parents themselves but they are all general statements. Being 20 myself, I know many people who would fall under the disrespectful banner. I also know many more who are very polite, nice, and upstanding individuals. Those I met in college and those I went to high school with. So making the statement that teens are disrespectful towards elders is disrespectful towards teens. The teens in question in the OP situation were down right wrong to do that, but when I see so called 'elders' blaming and stereotyping teens for being no good individuals and treating them like lesser people, it doesn't surprise me that teens act like this. Sometimes the elders are just as disrespectful as the teens.

[Thursday007]

My nephew was the most empathic and loving boy I had ever known. Where he learned it from I'll never know but he would never dream of getting off the telephone with anyone without first saying, "I love you." He and I were the only ones who were real sensitive to things like that and I lost him at the age of 20. No one else in the family was like that at all even the adults.

On the flip side I was in Miami once and was going to go into this drugstore that had two doors one for in and one for out and I noticed this woman pushing a man in a wheel chair and she was leaning over him trying to open the door at the same time to push him out so I instictively grabbed the door and said, "Oh, here let me get that for you." What happened next just floored me. This old woman just lit into me like lighting a bonfire. "WHAT?!!!! YOU THINK I CAN'T OPEN A DOOR BECAUSE I'M OLD. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE. I CAN OPEN A DOOR......" Oh, she just kept going on and on reaming the hell out of me. I would have done the same if it was anybody. Sometimes it works both ways.

[raison_d'etre]

Originally Posted by LexWest

...Because Wikipedia is such a reliable source.

It is a reliable source as an article can't be published without sources. I have seen many articles taken down for having unreliable sources. Sure they aren't 100% accurate, but they are usually unbias by pointing out any conflicts and controversy.

[Randomdude]

Originally Posted by Lilac110

I understand the part about consequences. My point is that consequences do not have to involve pain and should not involve injury. My nephew, then 7, used to complain about bedtime. So my sister said, "Fine, you can stay up as late as you want, but when that alarm goes off tomorrow for school, you are getting up."

Sure enough, he was miserable the next morning after staying up nearly three hours past his bedtime. He didn't complain again after that. He learned three things: His mother is smarter than he is, he still has to deal with his responsibilities regardless of his preference for fun, and sleep is important.

He actually learned a 4th thing here as well. Nothing is going to happen to me outside of me being "tired", so if I figure out a way to deal with being "tired" I can do whatever I want.

So, what happens to Johnny, when he does something that has no "natural repercussions" such as being tired? Johnny knows he isnt going to have to deal with any "real" punishment.

Originally Posted by Lilac110

Her overall pattern of discipline with her kids was not to spank because spanking is an "in the moment" thing. I forget if it was Huck Finn or another character who said something like, "Don't worry. The lickin' will be over in a minute, and it's worth it." Instead, she aimed to get her kids to think about how their choices today affect their lives tomorrow. Best part is, the physical repercussions were something he brought on himself. She didn't have to touch him.

In your example, Huck Finn had to actually consider the repercussions of doing something, and weigh the value.

Originally Posted by Lilac110

What my coworker did was kind of the same thing. She didn't have to lay a hand on her daughter. She just had to wake her up, put her in the kitchen, and make her prepare stinky food (omelets with onions and mushrooms, lox, etc.) that would make her gag, instead of letting her sleep it off. Her daughter's physical misery was all self-inflicted, and it happened the next day. Yes, her daughter "decided" not to drink again. That's why! She learned for herself what hangovers are.

Depending on your 14 year old kid to make decisions as to whether things are right or wrong is nuts.

Originally Posted by Lilac110

As for Gameboys, I did not mean that literally. My point is to look at what your kid already has and dearly values and control your kid's privileges with it. In my case, it was records. My cousin took away her kid's Pokemon cards. These days, kids happen to value their electronics.

I know you didnt mean that "literally". What Im saying is, "priviledges" require giving your kid something above and beyond. So, I either have to buy him something, or give him some special rights, so that I have something to "punish" him with?

When I was a kid, my parents would smash my toys in front of me for "punishment". As screwed up as that was, I would take that any day of the week over getting belted. Why you ask? Because if you broke my toy, I was no worse off than before I got the toy. I existed without it, and I could do it again. Growing up broke, I was already pretty good as using my imagination to turn sticks, mud and grass in to toys any how.

Being belted though, there was no zero sum to that, I was outright losing something there.

Originally Posted by Lilac110

It boils down to knowing your kid. I am convinced that parents who use hitting, spanking, and beating as a first line of discipline are lazy: It's easier to just smack a kid in reaction than put thought into how to get the kid to understand why it was a bad idea to do whatever they did, so that they use their heads to think productively and avoid negative consequences for themselves, and not just refrain from doing something because they might get hit by an adult with an anger management problem.

What happens when a "hangover" isnt enough to dissuade little Sally from tipping the bottle? What happens when little Timmy could care less about losing sleep, and starts doing irrepairable damage to his GPA as a result?

[Lilac110]

Originally Posted by Randomdude

He actually learned a 4th thing here as well. Nothing is going to happen to me outside of me being "tired", so if I figure out a way to deal with being "tired" I can do whatever I want.

So, what happens to Johnny, when he does something that has no "natural repercussions" such as being tired? Johnny knows he isnt going to have to deal with any "real" punishment.

"Johnny" now works through any fatigue he may feel by making roughly $200K a year before he hit 30. Guess the lesson about having to handle responsibilities despite the preference for fun stuck, eh?

Originally Posted by Randomdude

Depending on your 14 year old kid to make decisions as to whether things are right or wrong is nuts.

Yet she never caught her daughter engaged in underage drinking again. I assume the kid probably partied a bit when she got to college, however.

Originally Posted by Randomdude

When I was a kid, my parents would smash my toys in front of me for "punishment". As screwed up as that was, I would take that any day of the week over getting belted. Why you ask? Because if you broke my toy, I was no worse off than before I got the toy. I existed without it, and I could do it again. Growing up broke, I was already pretty good as using my imagination to turn sticks, mud and grass in to toys any how.

Being belted though, there was no zero sum to that, I was outright losing something there.

So, your parents were abusive barbarians. What can I say? If you are not an abusive barbarian yourself, my guess is that you turned out that way in spite of it.

My point, which you continue to ignore, is that it is necessary to KNOW your children. My sister and my friend knew their children well enough to know what would work with them. If your parents HAD to be barbarians to get through to you, either they couldn't figure out ways to appeal to your higher reasoning--and despite what you say, children and adolescents do have some, as they are not lower life forms--or there was some kind of issue with you. Whether that was because they raised you improperly from the time you were in the cradle and therefore created a monster, or there was something inherently dysfunctional with you is anyone's guess.

You are entitled to your opinion. Mine is that if an adult's first inclination toward discipline is violence, and if an adult's use of violence goes beyond the occasional spanking for something truly horrible (lighting the cat on fire), or the adult uses belts or anything else to strike a child, that adult is a crappy, abusive parent. Emotionally and mentally healthy children do not, have never, and will never, NEED such measures to understand a point, especially a simple one like the one this thread is about: "watch your mouth." It is called "abuse" for a reason, and from what you've described here, it sounds like you were abused as a child. I only hope you do not treat any children you may have the same reprehensible way.

[germaine2626]

My late parents believed in natural consequences. My brother is now 68 about 50 or 52 years ago he broke curfew. In fact, he drove in the yard at 5:30 or so in the morning just when my father was going out to milk the cows. My father pretended that he didn't realize that DS had just gotten home and said "Thank you for getting up so early to help me". Our father kept him busy the entire day. My brother said that he could barely keep his eyes open and my father would find another task for them to do together. It was about 11 PM after evening milking and my brother thought that he would finally be able to get to sleep. But no, our dad had one more job. They rotated the tires on a hay wagon. My brother said that our father had never rotated the tires on a hay wagon before that night and never rotated them ever again but that night they spent another few hours working together doing that job. So my brother ended up being awake 40 or so hours and never broke his curfew again. Our dad was pretty smart.

BTW Our dad never once mentioned to DS that he know that he had been out all night but my brother said that Dad would occassionally chuckle to himself during that long, long day of work.