School kids in Town

[OP8S]

I thought the editing sound and film was quite good . The content was not to my taste but no different to some of the crap on the TV , as for harassing people it was quite mild compared to the daily sales phone calls we all get. These boys looked harmless to me , i dare say they have spent a bit of time constructing their films without council loans or grants.

No doubt copying programmes that they have seen on the TV such as Jackass & similar such rubbish. Impressionable young minds copying what was deemed to be entertainment by some adults, not exactly suitable role models. Not in my opinion anyway.

Kids will be kids though & whatever their parents say or do will want to show the world that they are not the same as the generation that are their parents, proving that they are individuals in their own rights. I'm pretty sure that a lot of us did the same at their age ( not stunts or filming ) but chose to wear flared tousers, have mohicans, listened to music that our parents hated & found offensive. Even made a prank phone call or two!! " Is Mr.Wall there ? , no , Mrs. Wall ?, no , any of the walls there?, no...well you better get out of there before the roof falls down ! " . Not even funny but to a teenager was a quite amusing use of 10p.

These kids who are on youtube whether you like it or not are going to grow up enevitably, put their past life of teenage pranks behind them become parents themselves & in 15-20 years time probably be on shetlink complaining about the "youth of today ". Just as is being done now. As long as their actions aren't carried out with any repetative malice to anybody in society, the only harm that they are doing is to themselves when one of their stunts goes wrong.

Lets not go down the road of denying them the freedom of the street at lunchtime. As somebody said a couple of plods taking a stroll along commercial street over the dinner hour would stop any trouble that may arise. Surely 1 hour out of their day is within their budget.

[scoots]

Yes, indeed. If all of us were held to task for our conduct as children and teenagers...

 

And remember, at least one recent Home Secretary was arrested as a teenager following a clash with Police at violent protests, where he was a card-carrying Communist, intent on bringing on revolution! (he got "To-neeeee" instead, with his day-glo tan and teeth, windswept hair. And. His. Bloody. Irritating. Habit. Of talking. In. Very short. Sentences! and he and his DiddyMen caused more damage than an army of Bolsheviks or Mensheviks!)

 

There's hope for them yet. Lay off the broad generalisation, I'd say. Theres a lot more bairns in Shetland, or Lerwick even, than you see on the Street on the busiest Saturday.

[DizzyKipper]

The majority of kids are just kids, getting up to stuff because they can.

 

In one of those videos a lad is taken to taks by his mother is apparently later grounded.

 

Nothing wrong with filming whacking themselves around the head, etc., no problem with that.

 

Going into shops with loud speakers, following people ringing a bell shouting for sex? That isn't on. Kids harrassing people in the street is wrong. To make it worse, you never know if they are filming it on their phones for their amusement to be shown around their friends later. It's sick.

 

Also portrays Shetland in a very poor light... this is on YouTube for the world to see, as well as on the webcams at the time.

[Siccar]

Hmmm. I used to live in Paisley and the kids used to pull knives on you for a laugh. Wisna very funny.

What I see on da street here really isna far removed from what I saw/did when I was a teenager 20 year ago. We just didna hae mobiles ta film it (yup we acted lik TEENAGERS! Heevens). And what I really dinna understand is if you have a problem with any childs behaviour why no just challenge it?

No I forgot, it's always somebody elses responsibility. And whats da best way to sort the problem? Blame everyone but take no responsibility yourself .

[tlady]

Blame everyone but take no responsibility yourself .

 

No ... youngest child (first year) has been warned within an inch of his life that if I ever hear of him behaving like this (and I will find out) his life won't be worth living!

[Ghostrider]

No change around the toon in the last 35 years then I see, if those vids are anything to go by.

[Siccar]

tlady and Ghostrider nail it again . Will that cease da pleeps? Unlikly but more power tae your elbows. tlady sounds lik my folk 20 year ago. Still feart o dem...tae a point!

[tlady]

^^

oh yes there is gr .. we as parents are far more tolerant as our parents would have been.

[mrspeeebeee]

Have read these posts and am hardly surprised as it happens where we currently are in Berkshire (though I can say without a doubt my kids are not involved). Kids today have no respect for society nor authority. That said, when we move up to Shetland next year I can assure folks that if ever my kids contemplate joining in with any shenanigans like this they will not be able to sit down for a week when the flat of my hand has done with their rear ends!

[stromtrow]

The best bit of advice I was given about bein a parent was to never have a short memory !

I think most of the people complaining about the bairns being bad should think back to what they used go get up to when they were young then decide if the bairns are actually being bad or just being bairns?

Everything is far more publicised nowadays with the likes of facebook, mobile phones and u tube so more people can see and hear what you have been up to where as years ago it was easier hidden.

I have 5 bairns and I actually find alot of Oaps to be less courteous and more aggressive than the majority of the bairns of today!

Let's not forget the Toonie / Scalloway divide that used to end up in fights and destruction.

At least todays bairns manage to mix and get on well with others throughout Shetland and beyond.

Yes there maybe a few bad eggs among them but has that not always been thecase throughout the years?? I hardly think that gives folk the right to tar all bairns with the same brush!

[scoots]

I have to agree with you about some OAPs conduct. Age grants you a measure of respect in my book. It doesn't give you licence to push a 6 year old, queuing for an ice cream in Islesburgh, out of your way, or not even looking, never mind saying "thank you", when you hold a door open for them or allow them through first. This sort of thing happens regularly, that I see.

 

Some older folk up here, and South, are just downright rude. What were THEY taught by their parents as children? They've obviously forgotten...

 

Dont be too quick to point the finger at all kids, as I said before. This is a few nyaffs acting up. They should be called on it by others, if it's witnessed, IMO.

[frunco1]

I noticed my fair share of bad behaviour on the Street in my time in Shetland. That said, from my perspective as a former youth worker in Lerwick, it seemed to me that the ill-naturedness did not simply go one way.

 

Quite a few of the kids felt victimised for being young. They were, for example, consistently told off for loitering by members of the public. Knowing these kids personally and having seen them on the Street, it really was a situation of everyone being tarred with the same brush. Some adults visibly feared these kids on the basis of their age and fashion sense alone.

 

There's no reason, in my mind, why youths should be disparaged for behaviour that would be deemed acceptable among adults. We all know about the "bad apples" among adults too -- It's just so much more difficult to do anything about them, and it's patently impossible to take a one-size-fits-all approach of keeping adults off the Street.

 

We shouldn't underestimate the power differential at work here. Powerless though the adults in these situations may feel, the youths know full well that they're not the ones in charge. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of this rebellious behaviour -- even some of the more strongly antisocial behaviour -- were at least a reaction against the realisation that, no matter what else has changed in society, it's still deemed acceptable to boss around youths for very little reason.

 

There are some members of the public -- many of them elderly -- who fear groups of youths by default, regardless of what the kids are doing. These fears shouldn't be dismissed because they do have a real impact on people's lives. But by the same token, the response surely shouldn't be to take action against youths in general.

 

In the other locations I've done youth work, there were similar dynamics in play. Often in cases where the actual fault lies with certain adults (for example, known individuals who sell alcohol to kids), the response is to crack down on the kids -- simply because, in practice they have fewer means of protest at their disposal and are easier to crack down on.

 

None of this, of course, is to excuse of truly antisocial behaviour, such as that which got this thread started. But maybe, just maybe, the solution to such behaviour doesn't lie in finding means of punishing and infringing the freedom of an entire age group.

[Adon]

Kids today have no respect for society nor authority. That said, when we move up to Shetland next year I can assure folks that if ever my kids contemplate joining in with any shenanigans like this they will not be able to sit down for a week when the flat of my hand has done with their rear ends!

Wow what an overgeneralisation about kids today, what is this statement based on? I have worked with teenagers for over 20yrs and this stereotype of the current generation is false. Young folk will respect you if they r treated with respect. Look at adult behaviour first before slating an entire generation. As for your comment regarding your own kids says more about you than you probably realise

[CrunchieSquirrel]

The school has already told them off.

 

The problem is dealt with.

[mucklejo]

I don't agree with the kids who teased people and harassed them and if I found out any of mine had done that I would certainly deal with it. I do think though that teenagers do get a bad press. Teenagers are noisy and sometimes a pain in the butt, but that doesn't mean that they're horrible people. I can understand older folk being intimidated sometimes as they are noisy and can run around being silly but I haven't come across many being nasty or deliberately trying to upset folk. I have however met a few parents who would never believe that their perfect child would do anything wrong.