Isn't it time for parents to stop raising idiots?

[Trell]

Very true I'm afraid I have long stated that the break-up of the family union is one of our biggest problems. To your point and mine one need to look no further than the two most recent tragedies

In Sweden about 20% of children younger than 18 live with a single parent, usually the mother. Typically such families are relatively poor. [edit: 27% of those families are poor]. However, there are not regular mass shootings either.

 

[highfigh]

What exactly? Drugs influence on mental health has been known for a long time, but of course different drugs have different impact and severity.

OK, where would YOU start in getting people to stop using drugs? How would you determine the reasons they use for starting?

How would you tell kids who are abused that drugs won't take away their pain, anger and fear? These kids are in all levels of society- they're not only poor, with one parent who may not be there and they're not only minorities. How would you tell people that there's a reason to live, even when they see none? How would you tell people to stop when they can't because they're totally addicted? How would you tell people at a bar or party that "I'll just try it" can kill, the first time? How would you tell ten year olds that drugs are bad and that becoming involved in the drug trade is a path to the destruction of their lives, when they see kids who aren't much older wearing gold, flashing money and guns, driving expensive cars and doing all kinds of things that might make them 'grown up'.

Most people who spend a lot of time being wasted don't see the problem.

 

[highfigh]

Some actual stats and more updated info on cannabis....which has largely been ignored by the medical community so their "knowledge" is limited.

They can't prescribe something that's Federally banned and illegal. AFAIK, they can't even use it for research without risking licenses and liability.

 

[Trell]

OK, where would YOU start in getting people to stop using drugs? How would you determine the reasons they use for starting?

How would you tell kids who are abused that drugs won't take away their pain, anger and fear? These kids are in all levels of society- they're not only poor, with one parent who may not be there and they're not only minorities. How would you tell people that there's a reason to live, even when they see none? How would you tell people to stop when they can't because they're totally addicted? How would you tell people at a bar or party that "I'll just try it" can kill, the first time? How would you tell ten year olds that drugs are bad and that becoming involved in the drug trade is a path to the destruction of their lives, when they see kids who aren't much older wearing gold, flashing money and guns, driving expensive cars and doing all kinds of things that might make them 'grown up'.

Most people who spend a lot of time being wasted don't see the problem.

I wrote that drugs influence mental health, not that I have a solution.

Very often mental health issues are at the same time as substance abuse (drugs, alcohol), and substance abuse makes mental health worse.

 

[highfigh]

In Sweden about 20% of children younger than 18 live with a single parent, usually the mother. Typically such families are relatively poor. However, there are not regular mass shootings either

I think that one of the differences between European people and the US is that a revolt occurred against a ruler who wasn't here and the colonies weren't represented in Parliament. The US was founded on the ideas that people should be more free that what the Crown granted, through the Declaration of Independence and Constitution whereas, European governments didn't allow the freedoms ours does. Unfortunately, people have taken 'freedom' as a green light to do whatever their broken kinds dictate, while people in European countries are a bit more docile. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if European people had been given the same freedoms at the same time.

BY 'docile', I mean 'generally peaceful'. It's usually the fringes and leaders who cause the problems.

 

[highfigh]

I wrote that drugs influence mental health, not that I have a solution.

Very often mental health issues are at the same time as substance abuse (drugs, alcohol), and substance abuse makes mental health worse.

I was asking for your ideas, not general thoughts that could come from anyone.

Right- people who hate their lives often resort to drugs & alcohol. Some get through, some don't and some last a long time while others head straight for the drain. Some start using drugs socially, then end up as addicts and involved in all kinds of bad things. Many end up just as dead as the ones who hated their lives or got involved in gangs.

 

[lovinthehd]

They can't prescribe something that's Federally banned and illegal. AFAIK, they can't even use it for research without risking licenses and liability.

Yep. The feds didn't learn much on their own, either. Except how to make a mountain out of a molehill....

 

[highfigh]

Yep. The feds didn't learn much on their own, either. Except how to make a mountain out of a molehill....

But, but, but, GATEWAY DRUG! Can't possibly have other redeeming qualities when we banned it so long ago in order to stop Mexicans and Blacks from using it and telling people they shouldn't do something works so freaking well, right?

Maybe if it had been in a commercially available product before the ban, research would have been possible.......Oh, wait- hemp was a huge cash crop but du Pont and Hearst wanted it more difficult for their competitors to do business.

 

[panteragstk]

I think this is a much bigger deal than drugs. Kids today raise themselves with the aid of useless mind numbing electronics because their parents are too Fukkin lazy and detached and self absorbed to pay attention to their kids. Some people are worthless, dumping more worthless people into the world. Having kids is totally preventable.
Sad thing is, too many people that would be great parents can’t even have their own.

Nothing has changed though. The thing that occupies the child has changed, but absentee parenting has always been there.

My parents had NO idea what I was doing at any given moment if I wasn't at home. I'm shocked I didn't get arrested with all the things we did as dumb teens.

The rule was "be home before the sun goes down" with zero question as to where I was or what I was doing. My parents are very hands on and always have been, but that's just how it was when I was a kid. We had plenty of games to occupy us if we weren't out causing trouble. I lived in a boring place, that's just how it is.

 

[panteragstk]

Just replying to the title of the thread with:

Of course parent's aren't going to stop raising idiots, they're idiots. Someone would have to find a way to de-idiot them in order for them to raise non-idiots.]

The state of education in this country is one of the saddest things I've ever seen. That's really the issue. Lack of education.

 

[highfigh]

Nothing has changed though. The thing that occupies the child has changed, but absentee parenting has always been there.

My parents had NO idea what I was doing at any given moment if I wasn't at home. I'm shocked I didn't get arrested with all the things we did as dumb teens.

The rule was "be home before the sun goes down" with zero question as to where I was or what I was doing. My parents are very hands on and always have been, but that's just how it was when I was a kid. We had plenty of games to occupy us if we weren't out causing trouble. I lived in a boring place, that's just how it is.

Bored kids have always existed, some becoming more bored than others but the extent of what they think of and what they have been exposed to in the news, entertainment, etc are far more extreme now. Long ago, the worst a kid might do is poke a dead critter with a stick, then it became 'kill the critter', wear it as a hat or worse. Now, it's get some guns, shoot people, carjack armed robbery, rape and whatever they can think of.

This is what the kids in Milwaukee are doing for fun- they better hope people don't go vigilante.

 

[cpp]

Bored kids have always existed, some becoming more bored than others but the extent of what they think of and what they have been exposed to in the news, entertainment, etc are far more extreme now. Long ago, the worst a kid might do is poke a dead critter with a stick, then it became 'kill the critter', wear it as a hat or worse. Now, it's get some guns, shoot people, carjack armed robbery, rape and whatever they can think of.

This is what the kids in Milwaukee are doing for fun- they better hope people don't go vigilante.

Spot on. There is no more spanking at home or at school, no discipline so kids run wild, or go to their room and watch and play single shooter games. The times have changed since a lot of us were kids back in the 50's -70's. NO cells phones, no violent video games, you got spankings if you were bad at school or at home., You went to Sunday school, you all sat down for meals at home. That is missing a lot in homes today as kids bury their noses in their smart phones and video games and some parents just become a bed and breakfast provider. Sad in a lot of ways.

 

[highfigh]

Spot on. There is no more spanking at home or at school, no discipline so kids run wild, or go to their room and watch and play single shooter games. The times have changed since a lot of us were kids back in the 50's -70's. NO cells phones, no violent video games, you got spankings if you were bad at school or at home., You went to Sunday school, you all sat down for meals at home. That is missing a lot in homes today as kids bury their noses in their smart phones and video games and some parents just become a bed and breakfast provider. Sad in a lot of ways.

If you were a kid in the '50s and early-'60s, you should remember the reason we were always outside- we had three TV stations and they were in black & white! Now, parents have decided that they aren't the ones who should motivate their kids, it's apparently the job of the schools.

 

[highfigh]

Just replying to the title of the thread with:

Of course parent's aren't going to stop raising idiots, they're idiots. Someone would have to find a way to de-idiot them in order for them to raise non-idiots.]

The state of education in this country is one of the saddest things I've ever seen. That's really the issue. Lack of education.

If the parents are idiots, does that make their kids 'idiot²'?

 

[SithZedi]

Think another element running though these issues is what some sociologists call the "War on Men and Boys".
All masculine traits began to be deemed toxic 50 years ago. The educational system and our "culture" has just followed along with the program including drugging the young boys for behaving like boys.

We grew up with hero's in the 60s to aspire to or, to use today's language, "identify with", despite human flaws. Be it the WW2 generation, astronauts, test pilots, firemen, MLK, JFK, even some Hollywood actors, on and on. Historical figures were held up as examples in the classrooms and judged within the context of their times. The flaws were things we corrected as we went through life. Who does the culture hold up as today's heros?

TV and movies were littered with Westerns and family shows that had real lessons of self sacrifice, responsibility, right and wrong, good and evil, again despite human flaws. What was Star Trek if not "Wagontrain to the Stars". The parents in majority of these shows acted like responsible adults and the kids were not treated like friends or adults. Then in the 70s the kids in these shows became smarter than their parents, especially the fathers, as well as snarky too.

My dad used to say, "Welcome back Kotter" pretty much summed up the future. He also did not believe in "time outs", he and my mom would use "knock outs" instead. Ah well, reflections on a Sunday morning.

 

[Trell]

There is no more spanking at home or at school, no discipline so kids run wild, or go to their room and watch and play single shooter games

Yup, children needs to be slapped and beaten hard early and often. The wife too so that she does not forget her place.

 

[lovinthehd]

Spot on. There is no more spanking at home or at school, no discipline so kids run wild, or go to their room and watch and play single shooter games. The times have changed since a lot of us were kids back in the 50's -70's. NO cells phones, no violent video games, you got spankings if you were bad at school or at home., You went to Sunday school, you all sat down for meals at home. That is missing a lot in homes today as kids bury their noses in their smart phones and video games and some parents just become a bed and breakfast provider. Sad in a lot of ways.

Sounds horrible, I feel sorry for you. Especially Sunday school....that was what caused me to refuse to go to church again. Sad you need to beat the kids and force sick and twisted fairy tales on them....

 

[Hobbit]

In Sweden about 20% of children younger than 18 live with a single parent, usually the mother. Typically such families are relatively poor. [edit: 27% of those families are poor]. However, there are not regular mass shootings either.

I'm fairly worldly. I've been to 20+ countries and some many many times. Granted, that when you travel you find that every country hears more about another country's dirty laundry than any good news. The same is true on what we hear in the US about other countries (I'm surprised how many people are literally scared to leave the US). One question that's always haunted me in my travels, and this goes back 25 years now, is why do kids go to school in the US and shoot each other?

Honestly, I've never known how to answer that. Is it the news (copy cat), movies, parenting, teaching...? I don't know. I also hate how the politicians are trying to appeal to people by overly simplifying the problem to enact a meaningless law to say they did something.

Going back my youth, in the 70's there was a ton of violence on TV. From the Vietnam War on the news to movies and TV shows. Then in the late 70's there was a change to a lot of sex on TV as people called out all this violence and wanted change. There was a time I thought this problem was from what I called the Telly Savalas effect. When I was kid it seemed all the shows like this, Starsky and Hutch, Police Women, Barreta, etc, the bad guy was shot dead at the end. Ergo, I surely didn't want to be a bad guy! But this is too simple.

Oddly based on GF's and friend's kids, I'm amazed how mature they are for their ages, how little trouble they cause, and how well they do in school. Surely they're better kids than I was! I often think they need to get out and get into some kid shenanigans. Is there a division going on that I don't see? There are fewer bad kids but they do worse things than I could ever imagine? Or is when they pop, they really pop? I'm still waiting for a good answer, and it's probably a combination of many things.

 

[Push]

I wasn't going to get involved in this thread, but what the hell...

First: If you don't have children, or haven't raised children, your opinion on how to raise children and what the problem with children is, isn't worth SPIT. Not worth the breath you used to carry the vibrations forth. So do the world a favour and shut your yap, at least when it comes to raising kids. Ditto if you haven't raised your children in the last 30 years. Its a different world.

Second: Its not quite as easy as picking out one cause, because there isn't one single cause unless you say this: SOCIETY. Period. End of story. Children look around and see nothing but unhappiness, drugs, financial concerns, violence. It screams at them from devices and from TV and the radio, from people in bus stops, and from billboards. Ad nauseum, ad infinitum. Both parents have to work now in order to provide a home in a decent neighborhood. Single parents have to work two jobs or get inventive on living arrangements. Do you blame these people for being tired after getting home and making supper and cleaning up? I sure as hell don't. But then you have some dummy flapping their gums about absent parents, the kid hears this and then resentment builds. Sometimes. Some of the nicest kids I know come from single parent homes, where the primary caregiver has to work two jobs.

Discipline is gone from schools. It was eradicated in the 90s and 2000s by liberal nonsense. The idea that sticking a kid into "timeout" was plenty sufficent punishment for the worst of crimes. That teachers are no longer allowed to give detention. That every child deserves a 1st place trophy, even if they finish dead last. Some truly excellent teachers that I know can't wait for retirement because of the current batch of rules and idiocy they have to follow on a daily basis. Its too bad, because some of my favourite memories of growing up were of EDUCATORS who were allowed to do their jobs.

Drugs are now mainstream. Society and potheads teach us that its ok for 14 year olds to smoke weed and get high as kites. Forget the studies that show (I won't say prove, because there are still some whose opinions differ) that cannabis and other drugs, including some prescription drugs, and alcohol, are shown to trigger latent mental health issues in those whose brains are still developing.

I could on and on, and I'm sure piss off just about everyone on the site. So I'll stop now. But if you want to fix whats wrong with kids these days, fix SOCIETY. Its not JUST video games. Its not JUST bad parenting. There is no tab A that fits into slot B answer.

 

[Trell]

First: If you don't have children, or haven't raised children, your opinion on how to raise children and what the problem with children is, isn't worth SPIT. Not worth the breath you used to carry the vibrations forth. So do the world a favour and shut your yap, at least when it comes to raising kids. Ditto if you haven't raised your children in the last 30 years. Its a different world.

Really?