Bad teens 'not fault of parents'



Bad behaviour among teenagers is not the fault of parenting getting worse, say researchers.
A report from the Nuffield Foundation says today's parents are taking a more active role in their children's lives than parents two decades ago.

Parents are spending more time with their teenagers and are more likely to monitor their children's whereabouts than parents in the 1980s.

There was "no evidence of a decline in parenting," said researchers.

Problem behaviour among teenagers might be more likely to be caused by peer pressure or the influence of youth culture, suggested Frances Gardner, from Oxford University's Department of Social Policy and Social Work.

Professor Gardner, who carried out the research for the social policy charity, the Nuffield Foundation, found no evidence to support the idea that more parents were failing to control their children.

Time together

The study found 70% of young people were regularly spending time with their mothers in 2006 compared to 62% in 1986 - and the time spent with fathers had risen from 47% to 52%.

Parents are also more likely to have a tighter control on their children's movements.

In 1986, 79% of parents expected to know where their children were going, which had risen to 85% in 2006.


There was also an increase in parents wanting to know what their teenage children were doing - up from 47% to 66%.

However researchers found young people were increasingly reliant on their parents, living with them for longer, which can make parenting more stressful.

There had been a particular increase in depression among parents in one-parent and low-income families - with a 50% increase in parents of the poorest families with depression between 1986 and 2006.

"It seems that many aspects of parenting may have improved but parents can't do it all on their own," said Professor Gardner.

We now have to consider whether external influences, such as peer pressure or wider cultural influences are playing a part, given the rising number of young people with problem behaviour in the UK today.

THE BBC

Playstation et al are the cause of teenage lethargy.
A whole generation of young people 'lost'- none of that in the 80's.
We were happy with 'two sticks+ a square ball' -some game console you would plug in the tele.

There's many factors, it's beyond the understanding of psycologists. You can blame lack of guardian, lack of activities, poverty, peer pressure, and just being an evil little barstard in the first place.

political correctness has a lot to do with these problems

A lot of it is to do with schools, the glamourisation of ... (no, not Man Utd, I mean celebrities who do drugs and get into trouble etc) and the entire legal system becoming a mockery of the world.

Of course some blame must lie at the parents, but society as a whole has a part to play in the decline, and the government/EU imho, must bear a massive part of the blame.

No harm was done when a bobby could give someone a clip around the ear, but the EU would never allow things like this.

Bringing back National Service, and making it compulsary for 4 weeks of the summer holidays from the age of 13 and then 1 or 2 years at the age of 18 would sort out of lot of these problems.

Also, make children criminals, they always seem to know the law, they want to act like adults from the age of 12 nowadays, they know right from wrong, if they do wrong, send them to a youth-offenders centre, but don't give them playstations and the like, make them read books, do schoolwork, teach them respect.