Kids today ......

Sit down in my chair at the cinema this afternoon, and notice a nice Samsung mobile phone on the floor in front of my seat.  Picked it up and held onto it until  the end of the movie.

 I then ask the teenager in front if he has lost his phone.  I ask him what make it is and what the screen saver was.  This he answers correctly and I hand over the phone.  I turn to walk away and his mate chirps up 'pickpocket'.  I nearly swung for him.

Whatever happened to a kid being grateful and just saying thanks.  Truely hating some of the youth of today.  It can't just be a getting old thing.  If I had lost that at the age of 15, or 44 I would have been very grateful to whom ever returned it to me.

I am a teaching assistant in a primary school and I know there are loads of lovely kids out there, but some just need a really good slap!

Sussex Runner, I think it's pretty clear from what HtF says that she's reacting to a situation which most of us would find pretty galling, not advocating corporal punishment for children. It's a fairly obvious example of a throwaway comment, not a statement of intent.

HtF, I would be cross about that kind of reaction too - the word "Thank you" would have sufficed.

There's no excuse for bad manners, is there?

You'd get a slap right back, Sussex Runner

from what you said hopetofinish it was the friend, not the owner of the phone, who made the comment.  Perhaps the phone's owner was very relieved to get his phone back, his mate just thought he was being funny.  I wouldn't let it get to you.

although i sympathise with the specific situation as that must have been unpleasant, i would say that it *is* a getting old thing.

young people in general are better behaved, higher achieving and harder working than at any time in history, no matter what the daily mail would have you believe.

the dude abides wrote (see)

young people in general are better behaved, higher achieving and harder working than at any time in history, no matter what the daily mail would have you believe.

 

You mean the Daily Mail Lies to us....

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks younger "adults" teenagers are seemingly extremely bad mannered. Getting off a packed train on Sunday was taking a bit of time and clearly the kids getting on (about 14-15 year olds) decided to barge on. My "mum" mode was switched on and I ended up  having a "manners" exclamation in their direction.

Also experienced teenagers yelling abuse when I've been on a run, mainly when I shout excuse me to avoid running into them. Just madness. Growing up, my parents drummed into all 4 of us that manners were possibly the most important thing when in public - any bad behaviour was swiftly dealt with no matter where we were.

I think there is a tendency for young people and kids to have less respect for adults these days.   Obviously it's a generalisation but in that respect I think they are different to my generation.    The flipside is I think they are often more confident too  which is a good thing - depending on what they are being confident about I suppose.

I also agree with The Dude though that they are generally harder working - my eldest daughter goes to the same secondary school I did and the amount of homework she does is 3-4 times the amount we had.   Not sure they are higher achieving though - I suppose more work should mean higher achievement but you can't take exam results as a measure as grade inflation means there really is no comparison between a grade A now and an A 30 years ago.   

mimaduck wrote (see)

 Getting off a packed train on Sunday was taking a bit of time and clearly the kids getting on (about 14-15 year olds) decided to barge on. My "mum" mode was switched on and I ended up  having a "manners" exclamation in their direction.

Also experienced teenagers yelling abuse when I've been on a run, mainly when I shout excuse me to avoid running into them. Just madness.

The number of adults who have done both of those things to me is innumerable.  People in general can be rude, thoughtless or just disinterested, it's not a "kids today"' thing.

Getting on a train recently there was a mother and her son in front of me. He was about 9 and was hanging back to let the people off, until his mother told him to "go on, get on!" at which point he started barging past the adults getting off.  I was quite surpirsed, but guess a lot of kids learn it from their parents.

Mrs Warkie is a Teacher and although she has the "challenging" students (not pupils anymore) she disagrees with younger people are more rude and feels alot of them are often perceived unfairly.How many of us went and thanked our Teacher when we were younger,that they found a lesson really interesting or even asked for extra homework  / lessons.The pressures on the students are alot more than my generation (I am 44 now) I have seen the homework and work that they need to acheive to ensure they can progress in their studies.

Now the Parents of certain offspring thats a different matter...

We all have bad experiences with younger people but in the main most of them are no different than ourselves when we were the same age.. (and i was a right little sod)

Ok the 'kids today are much worse than they ever were really annoys me'.

Probably because it really annoyed me in the late 70's 80s when I was a well-behaved kid who got tarred with the brush of you are a youngster and therefore rude, abhorent etc.

Most today are decent, hard-working and polite. Don't blame them for the exams being dumbed-down, it might be easier to get an A but therefore the pressure to get ALL As and indeed A*s is much higher.

I am an athletics Field official and most of the kids do come up afterwards and thank me. OK so if was a football ref they would probably come up and kick me but that's football for you.

Also when I was a kid people complained about language. Well we lived at a top of a hill on the way up from the shops. The young mums used to put the shopping in the pushchair and make the toddler walk up the hill. OK but of course it lagged behind, them mums generally stopped outside our gate looked back and gave a torrent of effing and blinding at the two year old for lagging behind. Surpirise, surprise the kids grew up using the same language!! Absolutely no doubt whose fault that was.

These days it isn;'t the kids but Gordon effing Ramsey using that language on TV!! Again don't blame the kids. Well not all of them as a group. Of course there are some real oiks out there but then there always have been.