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In the U.S. you mean. Not in all countries are kids and teenagers disrespectful to the old and adults.
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Originally Posted by cbmsu01
Do any of you actually know any teenagers?
No, not all of them treat me with respect. But not all adults treat me with respect either. Teenagers are just a bit more immature and their disrespect is a bit more blunt and overt.
But I think most teenagers are decent people who sometimes have bad days, just like the rest of us.
every generation says the same thing...but nowadays people are a people who won't wait for anything, instant gratification is the norm and parents work so hours to get so much too fast, instead of having time at home raising their kids, they're working and stuffing as much as possible into as little time as possible. There are kids raising kids, kids raising themselves, ..something's gotta give
I don't think they are disrespectful just towards elders but anyone older than them. Many teens seem very self absorbed and stuck-up. They are very spoiled
I saw a bunch of kids calling an old lady in lynx all sorts of name..
Old lady complained to one of the girls that they were making a lot of noise.. That started a non stop 20 minutes of abuse of this old lady from 5 teens...
I am appalled by by the disrespect.. No common sense?
The problem is that nobody stands up to them and corrects them anymore. I am no elder, only 29, But when I see this stuff, I stand up. Even if all I do is redirect their attention onto me, it saves someone from being harassed. I can handle it.
Sure parenting plays a part. But when we do nothing to stop it, we are simply reinforcing it.
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?
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Originally Posted by nyanna
I don't think they are disrespectful just towards elders but anyone older than them. Many teens seem very self absorbed and stuck-up. They are very spoiled
I don't know how well I'm going to be able to explain this, since I'm typing on my lap and doing 2 other things at once, but here goes...
In my country there is/was no "generation gap." In fact, in many countries there is/was no generation gap. Generation gap is very much a U.S.-invented thing (though no one really set out to invent it, it was a tragedy that happened as a result of certain factors). This is my theory. I may not be correct as to how it developed, but here goes: suburbia and the car causing a fracturing of communities and tightly-knit neighborhoods.
I think suburbia and the car, the ripping apart of towns and cities to create sprawl that spread like cancer throughout all previously non-developed areas, created a warped situation in America. It pretty much began the destruction of the extended family, isolated people, and soon it was no longer a possibility to keep the extended family and neighbors having fun together all the time, feeling as one, helping one another. Everything was too far away and too separate to have it continue. So that began to end. And a new habit was born: separation & isolation became the norm, the nuclear family (I'll have to find when the term was coined, as that will give me an idea of when this crap happened to the extended family here) became the norm, and SOON even the nuclear family could not remain cohesive. Soon, even having dinner together was a chore. It was an isolated mom-and-dad-with-kid thing - no longer a fun, extended family thing. Almost embarrassingly lonely and sad, no one else present. Just lots of silent homes with nuclear families, maybe having dinner together, maybe not. And besides, who cared? There was no community anyway! Only these separate nuclear families floating in the universe, no community, no extended family, constant alone time.
When this happened I think the family took a turn downhill, emotionally and psychologically, as the more isolation one introduces into a country, the less healthy it is. Sure, we get through it, we muddle through it, we manage. But it's not healthy. It was healthier the other way.
And of course, if it's okay to split away from grandma, aunt, uncle, cousin Harry, community, and go live in a suburb where people only know one another from a smile or (if lucky) a wave, then nothing is important, not even mom and dad The example was set by mom and dad that family didn't matter, so why should kids give a damn, really. They grew up watching mom and dad "connect" with family barely at all. Anyway, at that point friends became more important than family.
Just my theory. However, to my original premise: generational gaps are not and have not been found everywhere. For example, in my country, dance and alcohol parties included everyone, grandma, dad, mom, boyfriends and girlfriends, neighbors, friends, etc. Here, I think at a certain point the generations were split, and each began to do "its own thing."
That is how I think this mess of generational separations began. We have no options of having big, warm, caring families and neighborhoods anymore. That's been taken away from Americans. It's no longer a possibility of living life that way here.
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Originally Posted by MaggieZ
every generation says the same thing...but nowadays people are a people who won't wait for anything, instant gratification is the norm and parents work so hours to get so much too fast, instead of having time at home raising their kids, they're working and stuffing as much as possible into as little time as possible. There are kids raising kids, kids raising themselves, ..something's gotta give
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?
Some parents do behave like trash, and that is where some trash-mouth kids get it. That is why Jerry Springer is a millionaire. Some parents also teach their children that competition and winning are everything, and do it in such a way that we need signs on little league fields reminding parents to watch their mouths. (And why some idiot woman and her husband are suing an prepubescent kid for a lousy throw.)
But by and large, I think the problem comes from parents not being there to teach their kids. That is why so many of them are so surprised when they get a call from the principal about their darling little angels.
I noticed you haven't answered my question from a few posts ago. What does it cost you to err on the side of being polite?
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.
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Originally Posted by Lilac110
Some parents do behave like trash, and that is where some trash-mouth kids get it. That is why Jerry Springer is a millionaire. Some parents also teach their children that competition and winning are everything, and do it in such a way that we need signs on little league fields reminding parents to watch their mouths. (And why some idiot woman and her husband are suing an prepubescent kid for a lousy throw.)
But by and large, I think the problem comes from parents not being there to teach their kids. That is why so many of them are so surprised when they get a call from the principal about their darling little angels.
I noticed you haven't answered my question from a few posts ago. What does it cost you to err on the side of being polite?
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