So lack of parental involvement might stem from the fact that they just can't be there...
Don't think it's just a lack of parental involvement. Plenty of families where both parents work have fine kids. It's how you spend your time with your kids and what you teach them. I think one of the big differences is the lack of community and community involvement. When I was a kid, if someone of the neighbourhood saw you do something 'naughty', either your parents knew before you got home or you were taken back home by the scruff of your neck by said neighbour to face the wrath of the parents. Nowadays, everyone turns a blind eye.
Hit the nail on the head there I think. Respect isn't taught anymore. So many parents think their only job is to feed them and but clothes on their backs, nothing more.
A lot of the troubled youth I've worked with in supportive accommodation projects / hostels etc, often with aggressive / bullying / criminal behaviour themselves had received really bad parenting; but it was typically not of a 'too soft' kind, but way too tough; abusive, violent, neglectful. I could have rolled about 30 young men's stories into something like this: 'Stepfather marries his mother, dislikes having him around, wants to spend time shacking up with his mum, tells him to piss off out of the house every evening, gives him a few pounds for cigarettes if he does, gives him a kicking at the weekend when stepdad is drunk - for getting 'under his feet' - throws him out of the house when he reaches the age of 16 / 17 - mother not strong enough to stick up for the lad, and in a difficult situation herself... kid arrives with us with nowhere else to go, and sets about getting into all sorts of trouble and making life miserable for the less tough residents.' Classic cycle of abuse I guess....
I agree there are many factors at work - poverty, collapse of 'social cohesion', increase of brutalised and brutalising values, absent fathers, sex, drugs, grown men who can't take any responsibility for managing their own issues and emotions....
Cancel my subscription to the Ressurection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Comments
A lot of the troubled youth I've worked with in supportive accommodation projects / hostels etc, often with aggressive / bullying / criminal behaviour themselves had received really bad parenting; but it was typically not of a 'too soft' kind, but way too tough; abusive, violent, neglectful. I could have rolled about 30 young men's stories into something like this: 'Stepfather marries his mother, dislikes having him around, wants to spend time shacking up with his mum, tells him to piss off out of the house every evening, gives him a few pounds for cigarettes if he does, gives him a kicking at the weekend when stepdad is drunk - for getting 'under his feet' - throws him out of the house when he reaches the age of 16 / 17 - mother not strong enough to stick up for the lad, and in a difficult situation herself... kid arrives with us with nowhere else to go, and sets about getting into all sorts of trouble and making life miserable for the less tough residents.' Classic cycle of abuse I guess....
I agree there are many factors at work - poverty, collapse of 'social cohesion', increase of brutalised and brutalising values, absent fathers, sex, drugs, grown men who can't take any responsibility for managing their own issues and emotions....
Send my credentials to the house of detention