Mollycoddled 'Snowflake children' warns head teacher

[Moonhawk]

Rovinghawk said:

I think there's a few things schools should teach:

Finance (interest, mortgages, credit cards, bankruptcy, BACS transfers, etc)
Home maintenance (basic how to wire a plug/change a fuse, drill/rawlplug/screw, polyfilla a hole, use a paintbrush/roller, etc)
How to use a main train or bus station sans internet
House purchase procedure and how renting works
The fact that it's a competitive world & there aren't prizes for all

The highway code.......

[Vaud]

Jimboka said:

Bring back National Service
Hold on - the oldies were saying the same thing 40 years ago!

Last thing our army/navy wants...

[Red 4]

Rovinghawk said:

I do think that the poor little lambs should be given sufficient training & incentive to stand on their own two feet by early adulthood. As per the OP, much of the blame can be laid at the door of overprotective/overindulgent parents.

Bloody hell - I find myself agreeing with you again.

That's twice in a few days and it has to stop.

It's simple - if your child is a spoilt little st/ snowflake it's your fault.

Not society's, not the school's, not the police's, not the government's fault, etc etc.

Yours. The parents.

[ukbabz]

I've not got kids yet, but the kids in our area do seem to have a lot of mollycoddling. 8-12y/o's playing in sight of their home (we live in a semi rural area where you can go in one direction for about 8 miles before hitting the next set of houses) around parked cars rather than in the open fields a few hundred metres away.

The thing I don't get is what folk are so afraid of. Teach your kid to cross roads. There's a number of internet enabled devices such as watches that you can use to keep tabs if that's your game.

It does feel like a number of parents try and keep kids in a baby state, which seeps into the sad sack adults that folk are complaining about being snowflakes. It's been said before, but when you're criticising the current generation with their participation medals then you need to look at who taught them to be that way and who the hell gave them the medals in the first place.

[captain_cynic]

Rovinghawk said:

I think there's a few things schools should teach:

Finance (interest, mortgages, credit cards, bankruptcy, BACS transfers, etc)
Home maintenance (basic how to wire a plug/change a fuse, drill/rawlplug/screw, polyfilla a hole, use a paintbrush/roller, etc)
How to use a main train or bus station sans internet
House purchase procedure and how renting works
The fact that it's a competitive world & there aren't prizes for all

Erm... these are things parents should teach.

School needs to be about teaching you how to use your brain... not rote memorisation of basic tasks.

If anything, saying "I didn't learn how to do $basic_Thing at school" is only increasing the call for a coddling in society.

Thanks to my teachers showing me how to figure things out for myself, I'm able to figure out how to do things for myself.

[Wobbegong]

Ari said:

Just found this:

Record decline in teenagers learning to drive, figures show

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/10/record-...

100,000 less taking their test in one decade.

Apparently its the fault of tuition fees, which is odd because I thought most university students borrowed the money and didn't start paying it back until they were in full time employment and earning beyond a certain threshold.

I’d say the cause is the expense of lessons, expense of insurance, expense of fuel, expense of VED, costs of maintaining the vehicle etc. For many, it’ll work out cheaper to just use the bus/train/taxi.

[captain_cynic]

ukbabz said:

I've not got kids yet, but the kids in our area do seem to have a lot of mollycoddling. 8-12y/o's playing in sight of their home (we live in a semi rural area where you can go in one direction for about 8 miles before hitting the next set of houses) around parked cars rather than in the open fields a few hundred metres away.

The thing I don't get is what folk are so afraid of.

I blame the news media for this. They've spent years peddling fear uncertainty and doubt that people see murders, rapists and paedo's around every single corner (and one or two between corners) when these actual crimes are very rare.

Add this to the "its never my fault" society that has been created.

And this isn't new, it started with the baby boomers, if not earlier.

[Funkycoldribena]

Byker28i said:

Funkycoldribena said:

andy_s said:

Funkycoldribena said:

Randy Winkman said:

Exactly - but it's the Daily Telegraph, whose modus operandi is to tell us how things were better in the old days.

They were.

Well, apart from the rickets...

I'm talking about the 1980s not the 1880s!

The late 80's were horrendous, mortgage rates through the roofs, payments almost doubling, people losing their houses, repossessions , negative equity.

Leg warmers, the music (New kids on the Block, Milli Vanilli, Chris de Burgh, Russ Abbott in the charts!), video cassette tapes of either VHS or betamax, bland food...

Xr3s,Cosworths,Golf Gtis that young'uns could afford insurance on,kids dressed different to each other,FGTH,Adam and the antz,no stupid speed limits, being offended was barely registering, smoking in pubs,good times..

[DomesticM]

I have a friend who is 25 and still has his mum do food shopping, cook dinners and even changes his bed sheets for him.

[Vaud]

Funkycoldribena said:

Xr3s,Cosworths,Golf Gtis that young'uns could afford insurance on

Really? I remember a few rich kids that had their XR3i or Opel Manta GTE insured on their mums name, etc... wasn't the Ford Escort Cosworth the most stealable car with the highest premiums?

[Randy Winkman]

Mr. White said:

Funkycoldribena said:

They were.

To an extent.

The 90's/early 00's was IMO the best balanced society. Before that was too chaotic/capitalist/corrupt, after that too authoritarian.

Doesn't everyone have an equivalent time when they think things were best? In the future, some people will say that now is best, because for them it will have been.

[Vaud]

Randy Winkman said:

Doesn't everyone have an equivalent time when they think things were best? In the future, some people will say that now is best, because for them it will have been.

All depends on "best". What we have now is amazing in terms of what is possible for healthcare, technology, relative costs and freedom to travel, etc - way better than the early 90s.

On the other hand we didn't have social media, mobile phones (generally) and we only had the IRA and a Gulf War to worry about. At least the Cold War was over.

[Moonhawk]

Vaud said:

Really? I remember a few rich kids that had their XR3i or Opel Manta GTE insured on their mums name, etc... wasn't the Ford Escort Cosworth the most stealable car with the highest premiums?

Yep this. Also - is insurance really more expensive in real terms? I payed more for car insurance in 1995 than I would at the same age today, on an equivalent car.

[Countdown]

Ari said:

Interesting item in the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/20/snowfla...

From what I've seen, hard to argue with. This isn't a dig at the kids but the parents. My nephew is 16 yet still gets driven everywhere - I was riding a bike from A to B at 13, so at what point does he begin making his own way from place to place?

I look at friend's kids, some out of uni, who seem to have immediately returned to the womb that is their bedroom in the parental home, seemingly never to be seen again. No interest in relationships, careers (beyond a job that keeps them in the latest phone and computer game) or even really going out of the house.

It's not all kids certainly, and mollycoddled kids have always been amongst us. But it is beginning to feel like an epidemic...

Headteacher of a Private school so maybe his experiences are only of a certain section of society?

[Funkycoldribena]

Vaud said:

Funkycoldribena said:

Xr3s,Cosworths,Golf Gtis that young'uns could afford insurance on

Really? I remember a few rich kids that had their XR3i or Opel Manta GTE insured on their mums name, etc... wasn't the Ford Escort Cosworth the most stealable car with the highest premiums?

OK,maybe not Cosworths but my Xr3i was about 4-500quid at 19-20.

[Moonhawk]

Funkycoldribena said:

OK,maybe not Cosworths but my Xr3i was about 4-500quid at 19-20.

You’re lucky then - I payed around double that for a 1.1L Fiesta

[nealeh1875]

Moonhawk said:

Vaud said:

Really? I remember a few rich kids that had their XR3i or Opel Manta GTE insured on their mums name, etc... wasn't the Ford Escort Cosworth the most stealable car with the highest premiums?

Yep this. Also - is insurance really more expensive in real terms? I payed more for car insurance in 1995 than I would at the same age today, on an equivalent car.

it was for me.. when i passed my test at 19 the insurance for a Toyota Aygo 1ltr was between £4k - £6k. ridiculous.

I then didn't get a car until i just turned 21 and VW had a 'free insurance' on new Polo's. was cheaper to get on finance for the car, get the 1 years insurance and sort insurance in 12 months. insurance was about £1k after the 12 months, still quite a bit i thought for a 3 cylidner 1.2 ltr polo ffs.

26 now, renewal on new car is due april and hoping for once it will be below £500.

insurance is a joke for young drivers, i dont blame them if this is their issue for not driving because when i am a parent i will refuse to pay the ridiculous premiums.

[Rovinghawk]

captain_cynic said:

Rovinghawk said:

I think there's a few things schools should teach:

Finance (interest, mortgages, credit cards, bankruptcy, BACS transfers, etc)
Home maintenance (basic how to wire a plug/change a fuse, drill/rawlplug/screw, polyfilla a hole, use a paintbrush/roller, etc)
How to use a main train or bus station sans internet
House purchase procedure and how renting works
The fact that it's a competitive world & there aren't prizes for all

Erm... these are things parents should teach.

The finance part could be a good item for the maths teachers to cover.
Woodwork teachers could cover diy.
The others could be covered in that hour on Friday morning where we seemed to be taught whatever weird & wonderful subject was flavour of the month. Basic cooking skills could/should also be added to the list.

The problem with parents teaching them these things is that a lot of the parents don't know.

[Rovinghawk]

nealeh1875 said:

when i am a parent i will refuse to pay the ridiculous premiums.

When I was a kid I worked to pay my own premium- now they seem to expect it to be done for them.

I also had a fixer-upper as my first vehicle- kids seem to expect a brand new gift-wrapped car on the drive either when they pass the test or on their birthday.

[Ari]

nealeh1875 said:

it was for me.. when i passed my test at 19 the insurance for a Toyota Aygo 1ltr was between £4k - £6k. ridiculous.

I then didn't get a car until i just turned 21 and VW had a 'free insurance' on new Polo's. was cheaper to get on finance for the car, get the 1 years insurance and sort insurance in 12 months. insurance was about £1k after the 12 months, still quite a bit i thought for a 3 cylidner 1.2 ltr polo ffs.

26 now, renewal on new car is due april and hoping for once it will be below £500.

insurance is a joke for young drivers, i dont blame them if this is their issue for not driving because when i am a parent i will refuse to pay the ridiculous premiums.

But as you've said yourself, insurance was dear for you too. It didn't stop you passing your driving test at 19 though.