Tuesday 15 September 2009

Right Answer, Dr Sigman, Wrong Solution, Mr Loughton…

A growing lack of adult authority has bred a 'spoilt generation' of children who believe grown-ups must earn their respect, a leading psychologist has warned.

The rise of the 'little emperor' spans the class divide and is fuelling ills from childhood obesity to teenage pregnancy, Aric Sigman's research shows.
About time, Dr Sigman…
Attempts to 'empower' children and a lack of discipline in the classroom have also fostered rising levels of violence, at home, at school and in the street.
This is encouraging stuff.
Dr Sigman said: 'Authority is a basic health requirement in children's lives.

'Children of the spoilt generation are used to having their demands met by their parents and others in authority, and that in turn makes them unprepared for the realities of adult life.

'This has consequences in every area of society, from the classroom to the workplace, the streets to the criminal courts and rehabilitation clinics. Being spoilt is now classless - from aristocracy to underclass, children are now spoilt in ways that go far beyond materialism.
And it can be shown that this has nothing to do with ‘child poverty’ as a result, thus spiking the guns of the usual suspects…
Dr Sigman says youngsters' inflated sense of their own importance is fuelling the obesity epidemic, because children feel they have the right to demand foods which would once have been given as occasional treats.
And he attacks one of the sacred cows of the left too – the ‘it’s not their fault, they’re ill!’ approach:
Some children thought to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder might simply have never learned how to behave, he suggests.
Indeed…
Calling for 'commonsense policies' to put children in their place, Dr Sigman said: 'There should be an absolute presumption both in law and in policy that adults "know better'' and are in the right unless there are exceptional reasons.
Teachers' authority has been vastly weakened legally, professionally and culturally.

There should be a presumption that teachers "know better" and are in the right, unless it is shown otherwise.'
That might be a problem now, however. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle when so many teachers have, in the past, been shown to be little better than selfish, greedy children themselves…

But at least he’s on the right track, which is more than can be said of the Conservative mouthpiece:
Tim Loughton, Tory children's spokesman, said: 'We believe that parents should be taking a greater responsibility for their children and that teachers and other figures in authority should be able to exercise their powers when the parameters are broken.'

He said the Conservatives were devising a National Citizens' Service for all 16-year- olds, giving them the chance to go on a summer challenge involving outward bound, team building and community engagement work.
Eh…?

Just how is expecting all children to become unpaid servants of the state at age 16 going to encourage them to respect the authority of their parents? Who could possibly come up with such a useless, illiberal scheme…?

Oh. I see where you got it from.

Take a look at his poll numbers. Want to trot down that road after him, Tories? Be my guest, but don’t say you weren’t warned….

10 comments:

Von Spreuth said...

Oh, I see where you got it from.

Sorry Julia, you are wrong this time,

HERE is where BOTH got it from;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneer_organization_of_the_Soviet_Union

And;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_German_Youth

David Gillies said...

There is scarcely a mouthy kid in the land that would not profit, in the words of the immortal Frank Muir, from being given "such a cracker off the ring-finger hand that they ricochet off three walls."

Marvellously, the CAPTCHA word is 'dolor', which is Spanish for 'pain'.

Letters From A Tory said...

Most of this comes down to the breakdown of family life. Parents more likely to live apart, working single parents don't see their children, parents not having the time and energy to actually control their children so they just give in to their demands.

The problem doesn't get solved by Citizen Service at age 16, it gets solved by strenghtening families and parenting skills.

Oldrightie said...

So any idea designed to change things for the better. if Conservative, are to be immediately dismissed. I'd rather the little bastards learn how to behave and get some work done than slouch around schools brutalising staff and bullying other kids.
Whatever, the Labour legacy of the sixties is the root cause. As ever, social engineering by Lords of the Flies. hang em or flog em, works.

Eckersalld said...

The Citizen Service does look highly dodgy - although I agree with getting them out of their environment, would help a lot of kids out, but it needs to be part of the education from an early age.

At 16 a lot of the damage is done, having them play boy scout then is no use, you want them on some kind of summer camp every year from 11.

Anonymous said...

Thing is, these camps will never happen. Our local Air Cadet Corps are on car park duty at a local county show this weekend. The lads and lasses wanted to stay over at the show, camping out and having a weekend away together. Unfortunately, the kibosh has come down on the camping trip from on high...as there is no member of the ATC Training Staff with a BELA (Basic Expedition Leader) qualification.

It's not like we're sending them up Ben Nevis or Mount Snowden. They are camping. In a Field. In Derbyshire...what fucking qualification do you need to tell a bunch of teenagers that it is now 2am, now stop giggling and go to sleep?

Pavlov's Cat said...

The trouble started when children were told they could have 'opinions' and those opinions 'mattered to adults' and would be listened to.

JuliaM said...

"HERE is where BOTH got it from.."

Heh! Nothing new under the sun, is there...?

"Most of this comes down to the breakdown of family life."

Hard to argue with that...

"So any idea designed to change things for the better. if Conservative, are to be immediately dismissed."

No. Just the illiberal, pointless ones.

JuliaM said...

"...although I agree with getting them out of their environment, would help a lot of kids out, but it needs to be part of the education from an early age."

It needs to be voluntary, or imposed for a transgression of the law. And it needs to be far, far sooner than 16...

"It's not like we're sending them up Ben Nevis or Mount Snowden. They are camping. In a Field. In Derbyshire...what fucking qualification do you need to tell a bunch of teenagers that it is now 2am, now stop giggling and go to sleep?"

Unnecessary regulation is stifling everything that people do for themselves.

All the better to have the State provide for you, instead...

Tomrat said...

This relates back to my proselytising over libertarianism some months ago to you; this is pure communitarianism which is the true underlying cause of many of the worlds ills today; the inability to accept that the individual is right when there are so many saying otherwise.

Have a read of this for a good explanation of communitarianism; also trying to find this link I found this excellent exploration of it's destructive power.