Well the population has doubled-ish since you old people were kids. Therefore, double the amount of kids likely to tick you off.

There is no difference in the kids. The difference is in their parents.

 

Bingo.

Kids are pretty savvy with technology, however with all of their exposure to technology, it would appear that they have not become any brighter.

 

It, along with various other factors seem to have had the opposite effect making them more ignorant in general.

 

It's would be a disservice to lay a blanket statement over this entire generation of youth claiming that they're all lacking, as every once in a while you will see examples of brilliance.

 

In many respects it all seems to boil down to their upbringing, and who they might have had exposure to from past generations.

 

If their only influence from their elders are folks who have little perspective, from say anything before the 1980's, and that's their major influence, and those people attempting to guide them are by and large those who came from those earlier stages of a lost generation, then strong elements of being lost are being past to present day recipients of the lost factor to reinforce even deeper lostness than before. A perpetual progression of ignorance if you will.

 

Today's kids haven't written the book on ignorance, however they are magnifying the storm of it that's been brewing for some time now.

 

To suggest that everyone "back in the day" had their heads screwed on tight would also be a bit of an inaccurate assessment as well as there have always been varying degrees of "having it together" versus "not having it together" depending on what your definition of "having it together" is, which I think we all can agree is subjective, however for the sake of discussion, I believe that we in general have a similar notion of what that is within our microcosm here, and others of our age range from the general public who have had exposure to a past that prompts us to have the perspective to see the difference, versus kids today who have no awareness of the past to have much of a perspective.

 

Some kids raised in the 70's had older parents and grandparents around in stable family arrangements making a difference in their lives, while others perhaps either had younger parents, or where products of broken homes etc..., and depending on which, the descendants of those different dynamics carried on, passing down either desirable or undesirable undisciplined traits to the next and the next and the next generations.

 

Of course not only upbringing plays the primary role in behavior, as peer groups too obviously play a very large significant role in that as well.

 

Obviously it's all a little bit too complex to be able to give one concrete answer to the present day phenomenon of mass youth ignorance as there are so many various factors involved with each kid having so many various family histories establishing whatever values that were established before them.

 

Many of us understand the word "discipline" and have been exposed to its benefits related to navigating through life and being responsible. As generations have gone by there's been a diminishing of solid discipline, and again as that lack of discipline gets past along to more recent generations, so does the semblance of sound responsibility to the point that the present day generation is largely unaware of how discipline could benefit them.

 

Again you can't lay a blanket statement over things, but I've at times witnessed school teachers in today's world who would have never qualified as school teachers many years ago. Of course I have no way of knowing how widespread unqualified teachers are in today's world, but I think we can all agree that in our youth teachers were extremely influential to us. If many of today's kids have a significant lack of guidance from some of today's teachers, that too can play a large role in any effectiveness of leading a child towards a responsible sensible existence.

 

Many of today's kids are being raised by parents that were deeply rooted in what I'd like to call the "Jerry Springer" generation, and it's sad to think that he had that much of an effect, and not giving him all the credit for a deteriorating society, but boy did he sure help to up the ante.

 

I realize that I've pretty much been all over the place with this dissection related to the topic and that my scattered thoughts will never be considered for an article in any psychology publications analyzing today's youth, but without even going into more depth than I already have, those are just the general thoughts on the matter that have started to swim around my mind since discovering that a thread had been started related to such topic.

^I knew it would be long, but you've outdone yourself.

I need Cliffs notes for all of b-ball-fan's posts. :isurrender:

^I knew it would be long, but you've outdone yourself.

 

Thanks.

I need Cliffs notes for all of b-ball-fan's posts. :isurrender:

 

Hold tight. The shortened version has been sent off to the proofreaders and should be available in print, or a digital download sometime in the near future.

Believe it or not, while I ultimately always somehow managed to fulfill my English teacher's requests for them after having put them off until the last possible moment, I absolutely despised being given the task of writing assignments in high school.

 

Ugh. :arghh:

In the 80s teenage girls wore long preppy skirts, tights, turtlenecks, and big sweaters. In the summertime shorts came down to the knees and the T-shirts were not skin tight. Nowadays teenage girls can make an entire outfit out of 3 postage stamps and a gum wrapper.

Growing up everyone I knew mowed yards, raked leaves and shoveled snow to earn money. I've lived in my house 29 years and can't remember more than 3-4 times someone stopped by asking to perform one of those chores and I know twice they were adults.

One of the biggest issues I have seen is when the parents are divorced and are not united in how to raise and discipline the children.

 

Divorced parents in many (not all) cases use the kids as pawns in their petty games against one another and the children quickly learn to play them against each other.

I need Cliffs notes for all of b-ball-fan's posts. :isurrender:

 

Yeah, I refuse to read that. :lol2:

Many good points have been made here and I like some think that kids really are no different. They live in a world much different than the one most of us did. There is no doubt kids today are smarter than they ever were. By that I mean they know how to access information they need in an extremely short amount of time. Now how accurate what they access can be debated. But that really isn't different from what I believed was true growing up from inaccurate textbooks, encyclopedias and such.

 

The family has evolved so much through the latest generation that parents are doing what they have to make ends meet, therefore, causing quality time spent with their kids to diminish dramatically. Kids seem different and in many ways are different through the generations. They are adaptable beings and always will be. I can still remember my dad saying to my grandad 50 years ago "Dad, kids just aren't the same any more." It is generational that's all.

 

One last note, when I spend time with my grandkids, they love to play checkers or go to the park, go to a movie and eat popcorn and drink the coke they are not allowed to have. They also, and I kid you not, at 2 to 3 years old, not just the 7 & 8 year olds, can do more things on my iPhone than I can. What's wrong with that? Nothing in my mind

I need Cliffs notes for all of b-ball-fan's posts. :isurrender:

 

Bullet Points are your Friend, BBF

What is crazy how calls come in to 911 with someone saying that they have an out of control (you pick an age between 6-16) year old and need the police. An "Out of Control 6 Year Old" are you frickin kidding me? But it happens on a pretty regular basis.