mickijo, that is a massive shift.

When I was a kid I knew that adults did not have to cop crap from me. If I was rude to an adult someone - either the adult concerned or my parents would ensure that I learnt the errors of my ways pretty quickly.

There were clearly abuses in that but I'm left wondering if the harm done to kids by the current system where no-body dares touch them until they are old enough to go to jail is not a lot worse.

Is there a middle ground somewhere?

R0bert

I truly believe that today's kids are less respectful. I so rarely hear pleases and thankyous coming from the mouths of children and when in the mall etc the way children speak to their parents is absolutely atrocious.

As to being less sensitive, i think they're over sensitive. I was listening to a talk back program the other night and schools are now not using red pens to mark childrens tests etc as it is 'pshycologically damaging' for a child to see red on their papers.

Teachers and child carers can't use the words 'no' and 'don't'. What happens to this child when it gets older and is faced with 'no' and 'don't'in everyday life??

I believe we do over protect our children. The reality is that the world out there is pretty scary but kids need to be taught the life skills to deal with it, not the protection most parents offer. I realise that the most natural instinct of a parent is to protect their child but in some instances they are doing an injustice to that child...

I have a wonderful nephew, age 9. My mother, his gran, wanted to bring him with her by train to the CBD to meet with me and go to lunch. His mother (my sister) decided against this as she was worried my nephew would somehow run away (he is so well behaved and wouldn't dream of running off) and wind up being molested or kidnapped or whatever.

Yes, we do overprotect our children and by doing so are saying we don't trust them and then wind up surprised when they reach their teens and don't respect us.

I am very upset with my sister and am astounded that she has let herself become a victim of the epidemic of fear that punctuates our media and politics.

As for the why of this fear campaign it is much easier to control a population by fear. And that is what we have allowed to happen. Time to take back control over our own lives.

Scout well said. I've held the view for some time that the misrepresentation of child sexual abuse is hurting kids a lot. From what I've seen most of it is committed by people known to the kids and that random abductions are rare. In our efforts to show how wrong any child sexual abuse is I suspect we've come to misunderstand the incidence of the most severe cases. Some of it seems to be driven by people trying to deal with abuse of their own children who see the world in terms of what happened to their child.

charliechuckles, some good points there. It's worth remembering that it's not just parents. The prospect of inteference by outside agencies who are not faced with the day to day responsibilities of raising a particular child is a factor which limits parents ability to address some behavioural issues. Teenagers are paid to move out of home if they don't like the discipline, well meaning social workers bring their own philosophy on child rearing to bear.

Somehow we need to protect kids from legitimate abuse but still allow parents the scope to deal with disciplining their kids as well.

R0bert

How I long for the good ol' days when we used to roll our hoops down down disused stormwater canals licking ha'penny ice-creams made out of sawdust and old straw and copped a swift hiding around the ears if we complained, too, my word yes, never did me any harm.

Oh, how wonderful to warm our frozen little mitts in mum's boiling hot laundry tub of lime and caustic soda, and after dinner of coal tar and hot ash, for dessert, what a treat it was to lick warm treacle off the road.

And we knew our place too, never you mind. None of this self-esteem nonsense. We were all perfect little angels and butter wouldn't melt in our mouths and we never gave our parents any grief whatsoever and all the grown-ups praised our generation as the finest, most well-disciplined, well-spoken, polite little lads and lasses history has ever known.

Sheesh.

I will only consider us to have failed our children if they grow up to whinge in online forums about how disrespectful the young people of today are.

.Mercurius...I was so enjoying your post until I realised you were having 'a go' at me..bought back so many lovely memories for me..
My headline nor my introductory post actually says that I believed that kids are more disrespectful, I simply asked do people believe so, because the perception is that some pple believe this to be the case. So for the record I do believe that this is the case..I believe that my children are better behaved than some but I am very vigilant about respect, but the respect must go both ways,. We must earn it..

Scout is completely right and Robert makes some very good points.

I long for the days when we kids could go out all day till dark (we lived on a station) and mum and dad never had to fear that we would come to harm.
Mum washing our clothes in a boiler,using rendered fat from previuos roasts for cooking..billy tea..wooden wash pegs..A huge bag of lollies for threepence and on it goes...
I believe that the world as my children know it is a far cry to the one they know today.
I am soon relocating to the bush...