Here’s another thought: I wonder if the fact that families are smaller nowadays is a factor. Most parents are pretty anxious with their first child – once they’ve had a few and get more experienced they get more confident and even blasé. If you have lots of kids it’s hard to be too indulgent with all of them, and a pretty basic kind of discipline becomes a survival necessity. So the smaller the average sibship the higher the anxiety/indulgence factor. In China, where they have a government enforced one child policy for population reasons, they’re starting to talk about the “Little Emperor/ess Syndrome”.

For those who are interested in the satanic ritual abuse phenomenon I can recommend a great book: “Satan’s Silence: The Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt” by Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker. It’s a fascinating piece of recent social history, scholarly but very readable, and includes a great introduction to how moral panics have developed historically. It helped me understand how anxiety and social change can translate into some pretty bizarre belief systems, and I found it really helpful when I was entering my own professional life in the early 1990s.

Cheers to all, and thanks ROb and Scout for your kind words on other threads - you've made my day.

"I found it really helpful when I was entering my own professional life in the early 1990s."

Snout: As a satanic childcare worker? ;P

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

The 80s must have been a very strange time to live, if only for that reason. Fortunately, I was just a kid, and not in childcare!

I don't know if kids are 'worse' today than they used to be- i'm only 24 myself, so I'm barely not a kiddie! But I work with a group of girls aged 5-10yrs each week, and they are perfectly respectful, listen to adults (most of the time, when not running around like crazy things), and do not go to pieces when told off.

And their parents are quite happy for myself and my co-worker to speak sharply to their children. I would certainly never smack any of the children, or yell at them (execept when outdoors for volume, or if there was imminent danger), but a sharp "EXCUSE me? WHAT do you think you're doing?" is generally enough to stop unacceptable behaviour.

I do think that some of the kids are a bit over-activity'd though - they do three different out-of-school sports, plus this group, plus school, plus family/friends stuff... they must be exhausted.

Anyway. I'm just not convince that "The Children Of Today" are really so horrid.

There are two very different issues here - a decrease of respect and a change in attitude/approach to parenting.

As for the first, I very much believe that the media and television have a huge impact on the way our children interact and behave. I do not allow my three year old to watch commercial television and will probably keep this up until he is in his teenage years. I do not want him growing up with The Simpsons and other trash like it.

The decrease of respect is not only with our children, I think it is with our society in general. I think it has largely to do with the mistaken belief that "free speech" means all speech is equal ... that just because you think you have a right to say something, you don't have to worry about how you say it.

As for the second issue, I believe that the increasing age of parents has a lot to do with the over-protectionism (not sure though if I agree with the term "pander" - it is a very emotionally laden term). I think back to when I was in my early 20's, I was bullet proof - and I did not worry about the future. I had a very day to day existence and a certain joie d'vivre. Look at me now - 15 or so years later, and my approach to life is far more conservative. I am much more concerned about threats (real and perceived, immediate and in the future) to my wellbeing and my family's wellbeing. I read way too much when it comes to the rights and wrongs about parenting.

Laurie, good points. When I spend time at my sons school most of the kids are great.

I suspect that what we are really talking about is either a widening of the curve or a flattening of the curve of "acceptable" behaviour.

I have some great interactions with kids at times that are more open than would normally have been allowed when I was a kid but I also see more kids treating others in a way that was rarely allowed when I was a kid.

Or maybe it's just a sign of getting older.

R0bert

I think kids are noisier and under more adult supervision now than they were 50 years ago when families were larger, the average class size for infant classes was 45 kids and kids walked themselves to school more frequently than they do now.

I see that kids have far more activities than we did and parents are more actively involved in transporting kids to activities than in former times. Parents now show that they are actively involved in parenting rather than directing kids from the sidelines.

Todays kids are not as independent as kids in former times. We used to hit the lolly shop unsupervised from 6 years old. My first memory of inflation was when icy poles rose from twopence to three pence before I started school.