Mollycoddled 'Snowflake children' warns head teacher

[Bradgate]

There has been massive social change to the lives of teenagers since I was one.

Back in the mid-80s university was for the brightest (or most privileged) 20%, and the vast majority of 16-21 year olds had left school and were working for a living. Some had jobs, some were doing trade apprenticeships, some were on training schemes, some were combining work with college. They were not yet fully financially independent of their parents, but they were effectively young adults.

In 2018, it’s completely different. Today’s 16-21 year olds are younger for far longer. They are still in full time education, they are completely financially dependent on their parents. They are effectively still children, so we shouldn’t be surprised when they behave as such.

[rxe]

Countdown said:

By “parents” are you by any chance referring to all those PHers who have managed to find someone who has (consciously or unconsciously) agreed to procreate with them....?

It would be interesting to know if PHers think their own kids are snowflakes or if they’re somehow immune to this syndrome,

I'm seeing an interesting aspect of my son. Aged 15, he's having to do a project at school. The whole point is that it is "self guided" - he makes his objectives, and works independently towards them. At the end of the project, he is graded against everyone else, he could have chosen some really weak objectives, and succeeded, only to find that everyone else has done a lot more.

To start with, he had no idea. He thought about making a hovercraft, realised quickly that would come into the "stretch target" category. I chucked some ideas at him, and he's now building a voice assistant - think Amazon Alexa, but with no Amazon. Instead a load of code off github, a Raspberry Pi and an AI voice recognition engine called Snips (which incidentally is deeply cool). He started off really well, reading the instructions and cracking on. Where he's struggling is interesting - he has to code some python (scripting language) to do some of the work, and he's finding it absolutely impossible. It's like he's got some mental block, its all hard, despite having code examples in front of him, unless he finds something that does exactly what he wants, he's stuck. I take for granted that I will be able to look at an example of code (in a language I don't understand) and tweak it so that it does what I want, usually through a process of trial and error with much swearing. He can't do it. Yet.

Now he's very lucky - this is one hell of an experience for him and he'll learn a lot. Most of his peers have never done anything like this. But, I'm definitely seeing the "spoon feed me" tendencies. I'll get knocked out of him, but I understand how it happens.

On "being offended" - he's fine. He knows damn well that many people belong in the "cee u next tuesday" category, and is pretty robust

[Randy Winkman]

Countdown said:

By “parents” are you by any chance referring to all those PHers who have managed to find someone who has (consciously or unconsciously) agreed to procreate with them....?

It would be interesting to know if PHers think their own kids are snowflakes or if they’re somehow immune to this syndrome,

Of course not. The point of the PH forums is for us to tell the rest of the world where they are going wrong. And I am unanimous in that.

[Countdown]

Funkycoldribena said:

Countdown said:

By “parents” are you by any chance referring to all those PHers who have managed to find someone who has (consciously or unconsciously) agreed to procreate with them....?

It would be interesting to know if PHers think their own kids are snowflakes or if they’re somehow immune to this syndrome,

I'm not immune,told my teen numerous times to go out robbing old ladies and smash some windows but ps4 rules his life.
Doesn't want to know.

My son is similar. OTOH my daughter (teenager) does pretty much everything for herself (cooking/cleaning/ironing) tidies the whole house, and does her homework. She takes after her mum, he takes after me.

Some kids/some adults are very self reliant. Others can be if and when pushed, And others are just wastes of space. T’was ever thus.

[Countdown]

Rovinghawk said:

nammynake said:

Or parents could take some responsibility and not expect schools to teach them 'life' skills ?

Both could teach it.

Were “life skills” taught to you by school or by parents/family friends?

We were taught woodwork/metalwork/domestic science but that was it in terms of “life skills”I know PSHE is a subject now but I think schools have only taken that on board simply because parents don’t know how to “parent”. What i consider life skills were taught to be my by my parents and older brother. Things like basic electrics, DIY, cooking etc.

[Tankrizzo]

My wife teaches in a secondary comp in a reasonably deprived area and she agrees with the sentiment. She is teaching a whole bunch of kids at present who have no idea what they're going to do, no work ethic to speak of, think they can skip homework and walk out of classes but are still aggrieved when they get put in for a foundation paper instead of a higher, despite having a snowflake's chance in hell of passing it.

[Halb]

Moonhawk said:

The odd thing is though - it’s not a parental generational thing. My brother is 8 years younger than me - but my mum was always far more protective of him and wouldnt let him roam with anything like the freedom I did. He wasnt allowed as far from home and was walked to school every day until attending secondary school.

They'd improved on the prototype and wanted to go with mark 2?

Byker28i said:

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...

best films

[Funkycoldribena]

And adverts were better.
Jumping Cavaliers,O-60 times,3i n 1 Carling ads that had humour.

[Red 4]

Funkycoldribena said:

And adverts were better.
Jumping Cavaliers,O-60 times,3i n 1 Carling ads that had humour.

I''ll see your Carling ads and raise you a John West Salmon advert (with bear).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvIamfRRKK0

[Funkycoldribena]

Red 4 said:

I''ll see your Carling ads and raise you a John West Salmon advert (with bear).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvIamfRRKK0

That's a proper advert.

[Tony Starks]

My take on it is, it started with the Baby Boomers. They were able to give their kids things they never had and tried to avoid the way they were raised (no cane/belt etc). Then each subsequent generation has thought they same. That they had a tough childhood and didnt want to raise their kids that way.

Fast forward to today and you have parents who want their kids to do things in their own time and make their own choices. Unfortunately, this doesnt work. But everyones gotten to the point where they don't want to upset anyone.

We have friends who raise their kids like this and they're just loud and rude 5 year olds.

[CubanPete]

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?

Not mine but a family friends. £4000 to insure a 130bhp xr3i in the early 90s. Alarmed, in a very decent area. Middle aged married man, with steel wheels retro fitted at insistence of the insurance company.

Insurance didn't start dropping till the mid 90s when immobilisers became compulsory as standard.

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

WinstonWolf said:

This lot wouldn't last five minutes playing on a building site after dark...

You say that...but go and look at a Youtuber Ally Law!!
Madness.
You never did the stuff he and his mates do.

[bongtom]

I used to walk the 2 miles to school and back and sometimes we would get the bus, but it took too long and went the wrong way.
We had an uncle who worked on our route and he used to detour and go the way all the kids wanted. Use to piss the OAPs!

[Crackie]

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.

This /\ 100%.

[Crackie]

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

I don't think it a teachers function to carry out a the activities above. Teachers have a responsibility to teach an academic curriculum, not show children how to read a bus timetable / use a paint brush / ties their shoes laces / wipe their arses.

Schools do teach many of the 'life' skills mentioned above but in my experience many children have relatively little interest in these 'practical' skills.

[Rovinghawk]

Crackie said:

I don't think it a teachers function to carry out a the activities above. Teachers have a responsibility to teach an academic curriculum

Do you not think that finance as I described could be part of a mathematics curriculum, possibly more useful to many than calculus or algebra?
Do you not think that drills & rawlplugs might be more useful in woodwork class than making a bookend

Crackie said:

Schools do teach many of the 'life' skills mentioned above but in my experience many children have relatively little interest in these 'practical' skills.

Many have little interest in RE but it still gets taught, despite its lack of value.

[Vizsla]

Wobbegong said:

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. tell mum/dad where they 'have to' take them, and the time at which they 'have to' collect them.

FTFY

[andy_s]

I blame the parents...

[croyde]

It was 1976, I was 14 and wanted my own telly.

12 inches, Black and White and about £70.

I bought it on HP. You had to go into shop every week and hand over £1.75 and get a stamp in a little folder until it was paid off.

This came out of my £2 for a paper round per week.

My parents split soon after and my mum couldn't afford a colour TV licence so the rental telly had to go and my little portable became the main telly.

It was still working in the late 90s and I lent it to a girl I fancied at work.

She pissed off with it to Germany. Never saw it again.

I'm off to Germany this week. I wonder if it's still going.

Sorry. This was supposed to be about making your own way and money when young but being old I wandered.

Back to topic.