Why Dont You Blog?

More on the theme of how we trivialise children (sorry) but one of the news items doing the rounds today is how a “Father loses career after slapping unruly daughter” (many headlines are a variation of this, so I will stick with the Telegraph). Basically, the story goes:

A father’s career as a community worker has been brought to a halt after he was given a police caution for slapping his unruly teenage daughter.
Jim McCullough, 44, spent 15 years building up a reputation as a football coach in Benchill, Manchester, and had dreams of branching into sports development.
But his hopes foundered the day he struck his 13-year-old daughter, Jess, for “terrorizing” one of their neighbours.
Jess reported the incident to police and despite later retracting the complaint her father was arrested. He later accepted a caution, not realising how it would blight his career.

Now it does have an element of comedy about it (not least of which is how is voluntary work considered a career?), but there are some issues that strike me as valid. As you can imagine, there are elements of the media that have used this to highlight how crazy our laws are now - I mean if you cant beat your own kids, what can you do? I am sure there are lots of people who think slapping your 13 year old in the face when they do something you don’t approve of is acceptable - but I dont.

Basically, this “pillar of the community” lost control of his own child to the point at which he had to hit her to try and control her. Is this someone suitable to look after the children of others? I wouldn’t let him coach my daughters…

Greg Davis, from the United Estates of Wythenshawe centre, where Mr McCullough did his voluntary work, said: “We have lost an experienced youth worker and men like him are worth their weight in gold. There is clearly a need for better legislation”.

This is odd. What changes to the law is Mr Davis calling for? Should adults be allowed to beat teenagers? Or only one the ones who do voluntary work for the council? Why dont we make legislation allowing people in positions of authority the power to anything they want to children - oh yeah, that’s called the Catholic Church isn’t it…?

Interestingly, despite the doom and gloom of the headlines it is not all that bad:

But his police caution would require him to have an enhanced CRB check, and it would then be left to a potential employer to decide whether he should be taken on.

It hasn’t taken away his career, whatever career he had. It just means if he wants to have access to vulnerable people he needs to undergo a more thorough check.

How is that a bad thing?

Popularity: 14% [?]

Popularity: 14% [?]

Previously I have commented on how the “youth” of today are pretty much down trodden by adults and today there has been another screaming example of it.

Today is the day school children learn their “A” level results (final school exams) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The A level exam is the culmination of 13 years schooling and decides what (if any) university education the person can begin. The exams are taken in around 3 subjects and follow two years of dedicated study. In a nutshell, they are very important for the children who sit them.

Set against this, is the news headline “A level pass and A grades up” in which the BBC leads with:

There has been another increase in the A-level pass rate and the proportion of entries awarded the top A grade.

This has set the talking heads on various news outlets raging. There is, weirdly, outrage that a higher percentage of people who have sat A levels have passed this year than last year, and this pattern has (apparently) been the case for the last two decades. If you listened to some of the radio news programmes today you would think this was the end of the world, but for context we can go back to the BBC:

Figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications show 97.2% of entries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland passed, up from 96.9%.

Yes, the increase is actually only 0.3% - not exactly head line news… Interestingly, these figures are broken down as follows: (source BBC)

• UK: 97.2%
• Northern Ireland: 98.2%
• England: 97.2%
• Wales: 97.6%

(Call me old fashioned but that appears to be an average of 97.67% but obviously Wales and Northern Ireland dont count as much. )

In a normal world, you would think that there was much to celebrate in this numbers - our children are studying harder, our teachers are working harder, our schools are better, access to things like the internet are improving education and so on.

Oh no. In this world all this means is our exams are “too easy.” The notoriously literate tabloid press is calling for an “overhaul” of the exam system because obviously it is not testing enough if after two solid years of study, backed up by a further 11 years of general education, nearly every one passes. Ironically, I have been on a seven day professional course which had an exam (and awarded a qualification deemed to be at a higher level than an A level) and it was assumed that after SEVEN days study EVERYONE would pass the exam. Does that make the qualification “worthless?”

For some reason we live in a world where no matter what children do it is never enough. If they play outdoors they are accused of being “hoodies,” if they play indoors they are anti-social fatties, if they fail at school they are unemployable retards and if they do well then, obviously, exams are too easy.

Is it any wonder they seem to be unwilling to get involved in our society? Shame on us all.

For any one reading this who got their results today and passed - well done, the exams are hard and you have done well to pass.

(and my heart goes out doubly to the poor teachers - they work harder now than when I was at school yet any sign they are producing better standards of education and obviously it just means the exams are too easy…”)

Popularity: 12% [?]

Popularity: 12% [?]

It is certainly true that if you don’t have a vote, you don’t count in a democratic society.

One of the (many) demonised groups in the UK now seems to be the “youth” - of which the middle aged, middle classes seem to be inordinately frightened. Coincidentally, this is also an age group in which most are unable to vote, and most of those who do, don’t seem to bother. As a result, it seems, they have become fair game for any crackpot ideas. Oddly, they are also a group politicians seem to constantly appeal to (obviously knowing they wont be arsed to vote…). Isn’t the world strange.

Two recent mad ideas spring to mind. First from the Guardian:

Road safety: Impose total alcohol ban for teenage drivers, says chief medical officer
A zero drink-driving limit should be imposed on all drivers under 20, the chief medical officer recommended yesterday, saying that such a ban would save lives.

This hits two of our current “fears.” First it panders to the idea that the UK is in the grip of a “Booze Culture” and secondly it cries that some new restriction will “save lives.” Nicely it wraps all this up by targeting a silent group of society, so the fall out would be minimal (and it was).

For me, despite being neither “yoof” or a novice driver so immune to any resultant laws, this is insane. I completely, 100% fail to see any logic. I am reasonably sure that any young driver mature and grown up enough to go out and stick to the 1 pint limit is also likely to be mature and capable enough to drive sensibly. The problem, and it isn’t just young drivers, is being over the limit.

Some figures are bandied about:

Justifying his call for zero alcohol for 17 to 20-year-olds, Donaldson said they were six times more likely to have a car crash if they had been drinking. A young person who had been drinking was 2.5 times more likely to have a crash than an older person who had been drinking. “I’m aware it is a controversial recommendation, but I believe it would save lives,” he said.

Now, so far I have been unable to clarify this, but I am reasonably certain that the problem is young people are more likely to be over the legal drink driving limit - I seem to recall the alcohol level is not recorded by the police if the person is under the legal limit.

Basically, this is saying young people over the limit have more accidents than old people over the limit, so lets lower the limit for young people.

Madness. But it is the madness that comes from some one with a fantastic knowledge of one subject area (medicine) being given implied authority in another area (crime reduction, driver safety etc).

The next bit really annoyed me. From the Times a few days ago:

Curfew tames feral yobs of Cornwall
An experiment to bring peace to a yob-plagued town by imposing nocturnal curfews on its teenagers had a promising start this weekend when the streets of Redruth in Cornwall were free of the usual intimidating gaggles of youths.
Under the experimental curfew, named Operation Goodnight, parents in the most troubled part of the town have agreed with police that they will keep children under 16 indoors after 9pm, and that under10s will not be allowed out after 8pm.

What a wonderful culture we live in. When you read things like this it really makes you despair for what the adults of 2020 will be like.

I have two big issues with this. First off - why are we sending kids so many mixed signals? We (as a society) say they should be more involved in the community, say they should spend less time on their playstations and more time outdoors, say they should spend more time interacting with others. Simultaneously we say they cant go out, cant hang round together and everything they do means a paedophile will get them.

Secondly, the sheer unadulterated nonsense behind this.

1. It is a voluntary scheme. So if you are a NAUGHTYKID™©® all you need to do is ignore it. All the good, well behaved kids will stay at home. Hang on, isn’t that the wrong way round?
2. It is being done with the approval of the parents and targets the children in the most troubled part of the town. What? It actually says “a Sunday Times poll showed that nine out of 10 parents backed restrictions on their own children going out after dark.”

Right, let me get this straight. The parents of these “feral” children want restrictions on when the children go out. They have enough control over the children to stop them going out but wont do this simply because their children are little s***s, they demand that the police tell them to do this.

Nope, still cant get my head around it.

Why in the name of Zeus dont the bloody parents control their children? Why do they have to agree with police to follow this “trial” curfew (which will, no doubt, report a positive outcome and then spread to other areas - just like the criminal nonsense that is congestion charging)?

Our children are fine. They are the same mix of evil little turds and fantastic kind angels they were 30 years ago, 60 years ago, 90 years ago and even 900 years ago.

The bloody feral parents are the problem…. but then, they can vote…

Popularity: 27% [?]

Popularity: 27% [?]

What is it with this desire to store the bodily fluids of the entire UK population. Some of us have seen enough sci-fi and Hammer horror films to know when there’s something shady going on. It’s got to be an evil insect overlord or an attempt to create a patchwork new life-form. I am going with the latter. I am almost sure I spotted an Igor outside Scotland Yard.

The “new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers” clearly thinks the parameters of his job are a bit on the narrow side. Having a huge swathe of the adult UK population’s DNA (almost ten per cent) isn’t enough to satisfy this chap’s crazed thirst for human genetic material.

Gather the pitchforks and burning torches, fellow peasant villagers. Now, they’re baying for the blood of innocents.

Last week it emerged that the number of 10 to 18-year-olds placed on the DNA database after being arrested will have reached around 1.5 million this time next year. Since 2004 police have had the power to take DNA samples from anyone over the age of 10 who is arrested, regardless of whether they are later charged, convicted, or found to be innocent.”

Not enough for the Baron, sadly. Under-ten year-olds are escaping. What, how dare they?

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.

Hmm, profiling? So, kids below the age at which they can actually be held criminally responsible are criminalised. Not being formally accused - they’re junior school kids, remember -they are without access to the normal set of checks and balances that exist to protect adults from unfair accusation - access to a solicitor, and so on.

I agree that there are some truly damaged feral-style kids. Would this do anything to help them or the people they might victimise? No. Would it classify a whole collection of kids as potential criminals? Obviously, yes. And this is a good thing, because?

Obviously Baron Frankenpugh isn’t going to get his wish granted immediately. No, this report is just going to add to a general culture of Stasification. One more insane bit of background noise contributing to what passes for “thought processes” in the mass of fools who say “It’s inevitable” “If you haven’t got anything to hide, you have nothing to fear” and so on.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Popularity: 26% [?]

I was reading an interesting article on No More Hornets about a city councillor in Exeter who refused to stand for a Christian prayer. Now, this never made big news in the UK, and you pretty much need to ferret into the regional sections which cover the south west of England. For those who don’t know, Exeter is one of the few “Cities” in the county of Devon - which is a strange place at the best of times. If you ever visit there, it is like going back in time to the 1940s. You expect to hear German bombers over head at any moment.

Anyway, as I was reading through the comments on the post (mainly about the US Pledge of Allegiance), I remembered a discussion in the UK last year (ish, I didn’t remember it that well) which got a fair bit of press coverage, about bringing in a “pledge” in UK schools — all in an effort to combat Islamist terrorism.  Fortunately this died a death and there are, currently, no signs of such a thing on the horizon.

This all got me thinking. What real value is there is making children take an oath of allegiance to anything? I am not saying this to offend any nations who have an oath, but out of genuine curiosity.

It strikes me, there is an implicit assumption that brainwashing Children is acceptable and that convincing generation after generation that they can be forced into a binding oath, without any options, is a reasonable behaviour. The real cynic in me, suspects the hand of the church in all this — as this is largely one of the practices by which people are indoctrinated into a particular belief system.

Religious issues aside, for an oath of allegiance to have any real value it has to be entered into willingly. If, as an adult, you choose to join the British Army, for example, you are required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Queen and the Royal Family. You take this oath because you have willingly joined the army. You are not forced to take this oath because you were randomly born into a particular nation. Children have no say over who their parents are…

An oath of allegiance carries with it certain obligations — obedience for example. How can some one who has no option but to take the oath be expected to be bound by it? A nine year old child cant say “well, actually, I disagree with [insert issue here] so strongly, I no longer feel able to keep my obligations under this oath and I would now like to leave.” Without the option for consent, what real value does the oath have?

I find it amusing that people can expect children too young to drink, too young to vote, too young for anything other being treated (effectively) as their parents chattels, to be bound by an oath. At least as an adult you can vote to influence the way the country is run. You are old enough to leave if you don’t like it (etc).

If, as I currently feel, there is no real value in making kids take an oath, why make them do it?

[tags]Society, Children, Culture, Oath, Honour, Philosophy, Allegiance, Exeter, Council, Terrorism, Islam, Nationality[/tags]

Popularity: 27% [?]

Popularity: 27% [?]

A 16 June New Scientist piece about children and ADHD talks perfect sense, well, that’s in my opinion - but bear in mind I am never wrong.

The opinion piece is by Dorothy Rowe, entitled Children are not mad or bad, they are just scared .

She makes the point that scared children can easily be diagnosed as having mental illnesseses, because adults don’t see that the kids are just exhibiting fear.

ADHD is not a diagnosis most mature adults face. Children, on the other hand, are being diagnosed with it in their millions. In the US nearly 4 million people, mostly children and young adults, are being prescribed amphetaminelike drugs for ADHD (New Scientist, 1 April 2006, p 8). The number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has also risen astronomically, according to child psychiatrist Gabrielle Carlson and colleague Joseph Blader at Stony Brook University, New York. They say that while in 1996 just 13 out of every 100,000 children in the US were diagnosed with bipolar disorder, by 2004 the figure had leapt more than fivefold to 73 in 100,000. They also showed that of children diagnosed with a psychiatric condition in 1996, 1 in 10 were bipolar, compared with 4 out of 10 in 2004 (New Scientist, 19 May, p 6).

These are pretty monstrous figures. Children bi-polar, for Freya’s sake? Doesn’t that mean excited at times and miserable at times. As kids are?

I really like this article because the author actually has the face to say a truth that is becoming increasingly rare to hear.

In saying this I have broken a powerful rule: namely, that parents and those in loco parentis must not be criticised. If a child behaves badly, the child is at fault. If she or he can’t be regarded as naughty and be punished, she or he must be mad, and the madness treated with drugs, the effects of which on thedeveloping brain are still largely unknown. ….
Diagnosing children with ADHD or bipolar disorder requires collusion. Parents and doctors must agree the fault is in the child. So parents fail to mention their own economic, social or personal problems, or underplay them, while doctors don’t ask because they lack the skills and resources to help the parents. Thus parents can go on believing they are good parents faced with an inherently flawed child, and doctors that they are good doctors. The child continues to be afraid.

Parents are so scared of being seen as “bad parents” that they become incapable of admitting any failures at all. It takes courage to examine one’s own actions and identify where we might be making mistakes. It is much easier to assume the child is somehow “wrong”. And being “sick” seems so much more modern and tolerant than seeing an angry kid as intrinsically wicked (the Victorian view) - although it has the same effect of invalidating the kid’s experience.

In the mid-twentieth century, it became customary to blame parents for every psychological ill experieneced by their offspring. The (bi-polar style :-D) pendulum has now swung the other way and we seem intent, as a society, on denying all the needs of children and forcing them to fit uncomplaining into the adult-dominated world, as soon as they take their first breath.

It is good to hear someone actually saying that adults are indeed scary to kids. The adult world is scary. The way we ALL behave to our kids is going to frighten them sometimes.

However, some people are truly terrifying. If their kids are confused as a result of realising that, maybe we could start paying a bit of attention.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Popularity: 25% [?]

Poland is worried about the potentially gay content of the Teletubbies.

I kid you not. Well, I might be kidding you, because this has the ring of spuriousness. but I am nevertheless reporting it with a straight face. (In fact, even the BBC seems to withdraw from its attention-grabbing first few paragraphs. But, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. In any case, this is apparently part of a drive against “promotion of homosexuality” to children - that old wierd target - and probably comes with the full blessing of the Polish Catholic Church. Which may have amongst its ranks enough priests who’ve done their bit on that score, if the rest of the world is anything to go on…)

According to the BBC, the spokeswoman for children’s rights in Poland, Ewa Sowinska, doubts Tinky Winky’s heterosexuality.

“I noticed he was carrying a woman’s handbag,” she told a magazine. “At first, I didn’t realise he was a boy.”

Who even realised the Tellytubbies were gendered?

I am particularly taken with the idea that carrying a given luggage item is an indicator of anyone’s sexual orientation, whether they are made of meat or cloth.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Popularity: 28% [?]

It seems this is the week for nonsense “science” being thrown about by people who really should know better. This latest instalment may not be bad science, there are lots of fallacies which may well apply, but I will leave that up to you to judge.

Here in the sunny green and pleasant land of the UK, the TV and Radio were carrying a news bulletin, which has been picked up in the print press today, which explained that a Charity (Alcohol Concern) was calling for the Government to ban children under the age of 15 drinking alcohol at home. Seriously. Alcohol Concern are concerned [puns always intended] that a Government report shows the number of 11 - 13 year olds who “binge drink” has increased dramatically (I do not know what the figures for this are, sorry).

Depending on which news / radio station you caught this on, the feedback was mixed. In some of the “older listener” channels, there was applause at such good suggestions and heartfelt condemnation of “today’s youth” who are all alcoholic rebels, unlike any other time in the past… On the “younger listener” stations this was met with outrage and shock anyone would be daft enough to suggest it.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Popularity: 39% [?]

Hmm. After having expressed blogged horror about the women who goaded toddlers to fight, I am a bit disturbed by the way this case is getting reported now.

The women are now getting demonised as representative sub-class trash across all the media. Photographs of them leaving court have all the visual cues that identify them as “scum” to middle England and to the respectable working class - the clothes, the smoking, the visible navel adornments, their facial expressions, the unconscious visual references to the gangs of binge-drinking raucous women that are supposed to be menacing our cities.

I now know much more about their relationships and intelligence and mental health and even suicide attempts than I know about the people who live in my street. Possibly more than I know about myself.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Popularity: 20% [?]

I’ve found a page on teacher net where the faith schools have got together to issue a statement about how necessary they are, including a proud claim that they promote community cohesion.

This is my main objection to faith schools. I don’t really care that much - except because of an obscure moral objection to lying to kids - that they teach nonsense. If school students actually paid attention to anything they were told in school it would be a novelty. I assume most of the tosh gets ignored, when it’s not required for a test, and regurgitated verbatim, without passing through the brain, when it is.

I do object to kids getting separated out into religious camps, so they grow up to see other kids as the enemy. Kids are really good at fitting into a peer group and defining non-peers as the enemy. Generally, a lot better than they are at listening to what the teachers say.

(In fact, if anything, faith schools, particularly Catholic schools, seem really good at turning out atheists. Ask any non-believer who’s been taught by priests and nuns about their schools. You will usually feel you’ve been floored as collateral damage, as a result of the tsunami of anger that splashes out.)

What do the temporarily-unified faith schools present as arguments then?

Popularity: 28% [?]

Popularity: 28% [?]