So, we hate our children then? Well, that’s what Sir Al Aynsley Green says anyway. In an interview with The Independent, he said.

One of the greatest challenges we have had is public attitudes to children.

This country is one of the most child unfriendly countries in the world. Just in terms of how we value children one of the most powerful examples is the Mosquito device – an ultrasonic weapon designed to stop kids gathering.

When I have been to Norway, Canada and Australia people say to me “What’s wrong with your country why do you hate children so much? You are employing an ultrasonic weapon against them. And why has your government been so spineless in not trying to stop it.

This is a very powerful symbol of what I see as a deep malaise in our society and our views towards children and especially young people. We care about kids in our own families but do we care about the kids of other people – especially those who might be disadvantaged or who might be causing trouble?

Well spotted that man, give him a prize, give him two prizes! Why do we hate other’s children but not our own though, what are the reasons for that?

The one major reason I can think of is fear.

We are afraid of being branded a paedophile if we take an interest in a child’s welfare. Not only that but we are afraid of the children themselves. What will they say? Will they hurt us? It’s not malaise that stops us caring, it’s fear.

At what point did this happen, when did we become afraid of the youth?

To answer my own question, I believe it was at the point that we started to be told that we couldn’t tell a child it was wrong. It’s all pervasive and nowhere is it stronger than in schools. The absurd lengths that teachers have to go to in order to prevent the precious cherubs from becoming unmotivated or feeling got at is astonishing!

Teachers are discouraged from marking in red for fear of upsetting the sensibilities of a twelve year old! Save their feelings from being hurt when they see a page swathed in red pen. Not that this is likely to happen of course, as teachers are also discouraged from correcting more than three or four spelling errors anyway!

This is counter productive surely? What possible good can it do a child to imagine it is performing better than it actually is? If this were to be the case in professions where would we be?

If a trainee doctor were to be told he was doing a Great Job!™ regardless of the errors he’d made in prescriptions to patients?

If a train driver who’d passed three red signals only had one pointed out to him and be told hey Great Job!™ but let’s watch those signals!

Where would we be?

If a teacher is threatened by a child, hit by a child, spat at by a child or even raped by a child, what could they have done to stop it before it happened? Nothing. If they did do anything, if they acted before any of those things actually happened they’d be running the risk of a prison sentence and a life on a register.

Given that they are so protected and that all they seem to ever get is praise it’s little wonder children grow up feeling that they are invulnerable. As I was told recently by a child on a bus.

Fuck you, you can’t tell me what to do.

How right he was, I couldn’t. Even as he sat there with sexually explicit rap pumping out of his phone’s speakers, at full volume, there was nothing I could do. I’d asked him to turn it down but his response was right on the money.

He could of course tell me what to do; I had to listen to his music. That was his right! Naturally I pointed this out to him, hoping to appeal to his sense of balance. His response?

Fuck you, you can’t tell me what to do.

Followed with.

If you don’t like it move somewhere else.

I’m not quite certain where I was supposed to move to – we were after all on a bus – but his point was clear; I’m playing this music and there’s not a single thing you can do about it.

What was more interesting than this youth’s lack of any social grace though, was the reaction of all the other passengers on the bus, of which there were quite a few. They all stood up, started walking towards the youth and one after an other they berated him for his rudeness towards me.

They all took it in turns to harangue him for his dress sense (ill fitting sweatpants and a grey hoodie), his disgusting choice in music (sweary, misogynistic rap) and his morbid obesity (he was a chunky young fellow).

After this he turned off his phone, apologised to me and then sat quietly – thoroughly humiliated – for the remainder of the journey. Amazing isn’t it?

Well, it would have been, had it actually happened.

Naturally nothing like that happened. Instead the entire bus full of people all stopped talking and sat in silence, no one looking at anyone else, no one even turning around to see what was going on at the back of the bus.

The lesson that young man took away from our conversation was that he could do what he liked, when he liked. How depressing.

The worship that has put children on such a pedestal as to be untouchable, has lead us to the a nation of indolent, insolent and aggressive youths that that young man exemplifies.

The root of all this is unclear but I suspect it has something to do with the notion that became popular a few decades ago, that children must be free to express themselves. We are told this still and yes, it’s all very well but we too must be free to express ourselves with them.

Children may be born perfect but without careful steering they become imperfect and the longer they are without direction the further they veer off course. Parenting – in certain circles – has become the art of reproduction. To some, the very thought that they should be responsible for their own children is astonishing. That’s not my job, it’s the school’s surely?

Even given the state of our youth and the decline in behaviour across the nation, there still exists reluctance to tell children that they are doing wrong. There is nothing damaging in telling a child they are doing something wrong.

That’s what education is. If you’ve done something that isn’t correct, you work on it together to get it right. You are educated.

Which brings me around to another disappearing form of education; smacking.

Smacking is not abuse. There is a vast, vast difference between a parent who puts cigarettes out on a child’s arms and a parent that smacks a child on the back of the legs for running away. These are not the two ends of the same spectrum as some would have you believe.

The parent that abuses a child does so in order to try – however misguidedly – to regain control of their lives. Control that was undoubtedly stripped from them when they themselves were a child.

The parent that slaps the back of a child’s legs for running away is doing it because they love their child. One day their child could run away into traffic.

Some of you will disagree with that statement, so I’ll clarify for the hard of understanding.

Smacking should not be a punishment – if a child accidentally knocks over a glass of orange juice smacking them is a disproportionate response and utterly wrong – it is a way of demonstrating cause and effect and should be used to steer a child.

Imagine you’re at a friend’s house with your two year old child; your friends have a coal fire. You don’t have a coal fire, your child’s never seen one before, they’re curious, so they stretch out their hand towards it. What do you do? As I see it you have two options, stop them or let them carry on.

If you let them carry on they will burn their hand. This will no doubt be painful and would most likely discourage that child from putting their hand in a fire again. I’m not particularly for that though, it would be immensely painful and could permanently damage my child’s hand. I don’t want my children getting hurt.

The alternative is to smack their wrists sharply and firmly. Enough to shock them but not damage them. Thereby demonstrating cause and effect, if you put your hands out towards a fire it hurts and mummy and daddy won’t be happy with you.

Of course there is – as my liberal friends will, I’m sure point out – a third way. Reason with the child, explain the danger of fires and point out that they’d had a lucky escape. That, of course, is bollocks. You cannot reason with a two year old. You have no common point of experience! How can they assess what you’re telling them? Do they even care?

What’s worse – and I’ve seen this a number of times – is that in the process of reasoning with the child, they’re getting attention. This is almost positive reinforcement. Put your hand in the fire and mummy and daddy will pay you lots of attention and talk to you.

However much people might think they can, you cannot remove every danger – or everything that is perceived as being a danger – from the path of a child. At some point they’ll be flying solo and you’re not going to be there to protect them.

No, the job of a parent isn’t just to protect your child – although naturally, that is important – it’s to equip them with the tools to be able to assess situations and judge for themselves the risks.

So in conclusion, what are we left with?

A nation of children who have been raised never knowing right from wrong, never being exposed to the consequences of their actions and who have only every been praised. This to me does not sound like a recipe for a decent society.

To me it would seem to be a recipe for disaster and would generate a society where badly behaved children would appear so intimidating to adults as not to be challenged, regardless of how badly behaved they were.

A society where educational standards have declined to such a point that major employers have had to pick up the slack.

This isn’t what I want. What about you?

Filed under: Ideas, Idiots, People, Politics, Ranting, Hoodies, Kids, Sir Al Aynsley Green, Smacking, Thugs