How can we as parents and community leaders remedy the violence in todays generation amongst our youth?

Question

Our youth (not all of them) today rebel against authority and have no respect for their elders, not to mention the severe lack of consideration for others. Is this simply peer pressure or does this behavior stem from not being properly taught and disciplined at home?

Answer 1

I would have to say it all comes from the home.  Parents are all so worried about who is thinking what or their being called on for so much as touching their child.  A good spanking or at least a time out with nothing to play with in reach is what a lot of children need.

I've noticed in my own experience that a person can't win either way.  I have a two year old who loves to throw tantrums is the middle of stores.  If I ignore her I get looks from people, if I try to talk to her I get looks, if I give her a good firm tap on the butt I get looks...

Then, I figured it out.  I just quit caring about the other people.  I'll discipline my kids how I see fit.  Sure she has tantrums, but what two year old doesn't?  At least she doesn't act like most other kids that I have seen recently.  They do whatever they want, no repercussions, no boundaries.  That's just asking for trouble.  If people think that the teens have problems now, wait until this generation grows up.

So yes, to cut off a long story (sorry)... I would say, Yes, it all starts in the home.

So yeah, I'd say we need to quit worrying about other people and give our kids what they need:

Attention

Boundaries

Repercussions

Answer 2

It starts at home.  Parents have been told so much to think about them selves and concentrate less on their children, who still need them as they move into their twenties.  Thats not including the parents who just don't care, or single parents who probably don't have time to care for their children like they would if they had help.

Answer 3

Parents and community leaders need to start setting real boundaries for behavior and enforce them rather than pushing this "anything goes" mentality that pardons any variety of behavior or value system as being OK, but different.  There has to be clear-cut boundaries for kids to follow and clear consequenses for not following them.  For example, Barack Obama the other day talked about how he didn't want to have his kids "punished with a baby" as a reason for keeping abortion legal.  The point is that he wants to remove all consequences from human behavior in an effort to protect them from the negatives that come from it.  When we teach kids that nothing is their fault, everybody is OK, and never give them any consequenses for behavior, there is no clear guide for them to follow.

Answer 4

Parents are and always will be the problem.

Answer 5

Take the kids that are so bent on ganging up on one kid, the ones that shoot up schools, the ones that plan bomb threats and place them in the military. Start a draft.

Let them use their violent behavior on the front lines rather than here on the streets.

People will blame everything but the child/teen. When they are old enough to know right from wrong then it is the teen. I grew up watching many Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson movies and I had a temper. My father was incredibly vicious towards us boys but not once did we grab his guns and shoot up a school or gang up on a single person. We knew what the consequences would be. We feared our father more than any judge or cop.

There are lazy parents out there and parents that are too stupid to explain the real facts of life to their kids. They baby their kids. We tell our kids the facts about breaking the law and what happens to you in prison. The fear breaking the law more than anything.

People will always blame video games, television, and movies. None of those are causing people to be violent at all because of that were true then explain to me why the Romans, the Vandals, and the Mongols were so violent?

Our boys play violent video games, the watch violent movies, and at their ages of 11 and 14, trust me when I say they are terrified of going to prison.

We took the time to explain it to our kids. Not to turn them loose and let them figure things out on their own like so many parents do today. Many parents today fear that if they tell their children these things it will have a negative effect on their mind. Tell that to the judge when their kid is facing life in prison.

Answer 6

I think we need stricter and harsher punishment for kids that fight or use weapons. We need more youth groups that can meet the needs of these children. We need programs in schools to teach self esteem and emotional management. We need more enrichment courses and less Star testing pressures. This no child left behind is a bunch of garbage...just ask the children who are falling through the cracks because they cannot keep up and must forgo a huge amount of their own free time to attemt to keep up with  the curriculim and when they can't do it they withdrawl and quit. (isn't that being left behind?) I wonder how many kids that commit violence are also struggling in school with learning troubles or bad grades or difficult home lives? I wonder how many kids are going home to an empty house because both parents are working to keep up with the jones' or because there is only one parent in the home? How many kids struggle with being a poor minority (not middle or upper class) and find their own self worth through hatred and intimidation? I think that there are so many reasons why our youth has become so violent but I think the only way to make it better is for every parent to ban together and start talking to each other about what the kids have been doing, we need to become friends, and become neighborhood watch parents to help decrease the chances of these kids turning down the wrong path.