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I'm not going to say that I don't believe you, but I don't think you nor any of your parent friends know what your they got up to when you guys weren't around and didn't tell you about.
I have no doubt of that, but how is that different from teens in the city? I was a kid once, too, believe it or not!
That's just one of many that deal with the topic of teens and delinquent behavior based on research. I was inspired to make that previous post when I went to visit a friend who lives in the burbs. I was there for a couple days and when him and his friends got bored(which happened a lot) they would engage in activities or talks of activities that would land someone a citation. I'm in my early 20s and so is he. Some of his friends are as well, but some of them are still in the teens years. Admittedly I was pretty bored since you have to drive somewhere to do anything fun, but I also live in a city where I have plenty to do and not once since I've lived here have me and my group of friends decided to engage in any delinquent behavior.
(Mine in teal.)
As I said, it's not the US. You can't generalize. It's a different culture, with a lower drinking age. Despite the clap-trap you read about no teen drinking problems in Europe, they actually have a huge teen drinking problem, especially in the UK. Maybe you have some stats from this country?
My kids never got a citation! Nor do I think they did anything worse than speeding, and maybe drinking some alcohol. Maybe it's just the people you hang out with!
As I said, it's not the US. You can't generalize. It's a different culture, with a lower drinking age. Despite the clap-trap you read about no teen drinking problems in Europe, they actually have a huge teen drinking problem, especially in the UK. Maybe you have some stats from this country?
The higher drinking age appeared to have little affect on the drinking habits of my high school. Some European countries have less of a teen drinking problem than the US, but the UK isn't one of them.
I remember seeing a stat showing drinking but not drinking problems is correlated with higher income in the US.
As I said, it's not the US. You can't generalize. It's a different culture, with a lower drinking age. Despite the clap-trap you read about no teen drinking problems in Europe, they actually have a huge teen drinking problem, especially in the UK. Maybe you have some stats from this country?
My kids never got a citation! Nor do I think they did anything worse than speeding, and maybe drinking some alcohol. Maybe it's just the people you hang out with!
Here's a link to research done by Columbia, an American University, on American teenagers:
Quote:
Suburban youth reported significantly higher levels of substance use than did their inner-city counterparts. These differences were consistent across gender and across different types of substances, that is, alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes. Among suburban girls, 46 percent admitted using an illicit drug at least once in the past year, compared with 26 percent of inner-city females. And 59 percent of suburban boys used an illicit drug once, compared to 33 percent of boys in the inner city.
...
Some male suburban peer groups and cliques seemed to give drug use and misbehavior, such as disruptive classroom antics, a high status that endorses the behavior
There aren't a lot of huge disparities in taste when it comes to western culture in general especially in English speaking countries. Given that suburbanization is much more extreme in the states, I would expect the problem to worse here.
Since we were both kids once are you saying that you never went on property you weren't supposed to be on? I know as a kid growing up in a suburb, we would often skate around the neighborhood and make it a thing to find new things to skate on because we had nothing else to do. It was innocent, but oftentimes "no skating" signs would be posted on some things because of the potential for damage. Sometimes when we felt daring we would leave the neighborhood to go to video game store which was dangerous in itself because it was along a main corridor and there was the potential to get hit. Well there was the potential to get hit in the neighborhood as well since 16+ year old males who had just gotten their license to drive would want to speed along 25mph roads.
Overall I'm glad I left. Once some of my friends got to the age where they could find ways to get alcohol, binge drinking started to become the new hangout activity when our parents weren't around. I didn't participate in it and the people participating in it weren't low lifes, they just had nothing better to do with their time besides going to school and work.
The higher drinking age appeared to have little affect on the drinking habits of my high school. Some European countries have less of a teen drinking problem than the US, but the UK isn't one of them.
I remember seeing a stat showing drinking but not drinking problems is correlated with higher income in the US.
Here are some stats about teen drinking in Europe:
http://resources.prev.org/documents/ESPAD.pdf The rate of current drinking among US youth is lower than that for any of the countries in this study with the exception of Iceland.
(Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK, US) The US and Iceland were the lowest by far. The next closest countries, Norway, Sweden and Finland exceeded the US rate by ~30% or more.
European kids generally smoke more, too. I can remember seeing kids smoking at the school bus stops in Germany.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 03-13-2013 at 06:22 PM..
There aren't a lot of huge disparities in taste when it comes to western culture in general especially in English speaking countries. Given that suburbanization is much more extreme in the states, I would expect the problem to worse here.
Since we were both kids once are you saying that you never went on property you weren't supposed to be on? I know as a kid growing up in a suburb, we would often skate around the neighborhood and make it a thing to find new things to skate on because we had nothing else to do. It was innocent, but oftentimes "no skating" signs would be posted on some things because of the potential for damage. Sometimes when we felt daring we would leave the neighborhood to go to video game store which was dangerous in itself because it was along a main corridor and there was the potential to get hit. Well there was the potential to get hit in the neighborhood as well since 16+ year old males who had just gotten their license to drive would want to speed along 25mph roads.
Overall I'm glad I left. Once some of my friends got to the age where they could find ways to get alcohol, binge drinking started to become the new hangout activity when our parents weren't around. I didn't participate in it and the people participating in it weren't low lifes, they just had nothing better to do with their time besides going to school and work.
Interesting study, LOL! It compared affluent suburban teens and poor inner-city teens. What about affluent urban teens?
No, I never trespassed as a kid. DH grew up in "the city" and he and his brothers did stuff like that.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 03-13-2013 at 06:42 PM..
Interesting study, LOL! It compared affluent suburban teens and poor inner-city teens. What about affluent urban teens?
No, I never trespassed as a kid. DH grew up in "the city" and he and his brothers did stuff like that.
I don't know. Depression is often called an illness for the privileged though. Either way, I backed up the statement I made earlier and showed that environment is a factor that should be taken into consideration when where to raise kids. I work with inner city kids and despite their physical environment, they are pretty resilient emotionally compared to kids who come from more affluent backgrounds who are sometimes going to therapy sessions before they even graduate primary school due to signs of depression.
Lots of drinking, lots of pot, some coke in the suburban to rural area I went to high school in. No heroin that I know of. But at the same time, kids of the same age were getting shot regularly dealing the stuff down in the city (D.C. during the Barry years); I only know of one such shooting in my county. Biggest problem was drunk driving; I think we lost three senior quarterbacks in three years.
The assumption that anyone under the legal age who drinks has a "drinking problem", and anyone who uses illegal drugs is similarly an abuser, tends to make these studies a bit hard to swallow. There's a difference between someone who has a beer at a party occasionally, someone who binge drinks every weekend, and someone who is drunk all the time, and that's true whether they are 14 or 41.
I don't know. Depression is often called an illness for the privileged though. Either way, I backed up the statement I made earlier and showed that environment is a factor that should be taken into consideration when where to raise kids. I work with inner city kids and despite their physical environment, they are pretty resilient emotionally compared to kids who come from more affluent backgrounds who are sometimes going to therapy sessions before they even graduate primary school due to signs of depression.
In re: depression-I think the suburban kids' parents can more afford the treatment. Doesn't mean their rate is higher.
Take a look at these high school graduation rates. Now I know that doesn't mean anything to any one student, but as a group, the suburban kids are doing far better.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/ed...pout.html?_r=0
** In Cleveland, for instance, where the gap was largest, only 38 percent of high school freshmen graduated within four years, compared with 80 percent in the Cleveland suburbs, the report said. In Baltimore, which has the nation’s second-largest gap, 41 percent of students graduate from city schools, compared with 81 percent in the suburbs.
New York also had a large gap, with 54 percent of freshmen graduating within four years from schools in the city, compared with 83 percent from suburban high schools.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/..._rates_in.html
**Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday.
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