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@Roz...

A bit presumptious of you to assume I have children, which I don't. Nor will I ever, as I don't sit on "that side" of the church.

Don't try to justify age old crimes as being related to "normal" human desires, just because television and movies weren't around. What about the Knight Templars? When they were eye gouging, garroting, etc. Do you think they saw all that one Saturday at their local cinema and thought "you know what, we might get more confessions!".

- Jock, London

Nick, London: I will let you know that I am a very good mother. My son is 12 years old and plays out often with his friends. He was born prematurely and lost his dad at the age of 3 years old. Due to these circumstances I COULD wrap him up in cotton wool and monitor his every move, but I don't. I give him the responsibility and trust to go out and play safely and he returns that trust by behaving well and coming in on time, not getting in trouble and generally being good. One day he will have to venture out into the big wide world and can do so with a good set of social skills and a 'streetwise' head about him.

That's the kind of mother I am.

Ross: Very well said. I commend the common sense expressed in your sentence and applaud you.


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- Donna, London, UK

"...so maybe we'd have to send the parents to boot camp instead."

Small problem with that idea. Parents are not allowed to discipline their children any more, remember? (I'm not absolutely certain, but isn't it even thought that telling a child they're 'bad boys/girls' is traumatic for them and might be a cause of them doing 'bad things'?)

There's no question that some parents have, and still do for that matter, go well beyond the acceptable when they discipline their children, but the baby has been thrown out with the bath water as far as taking responsibility away from the parents (the end effect of over protection of children). If the child perceives no ill-consequence to their behaviour choices then they are going to do what children have done throughout history - they are going to continue to search for their limits. That is how they learn social skills in the real world. 'Reason' is an ADULT activity. Children react to stimuli far more than they do to reason.

- Rogan, Irving

I disciplined my children including smacking... good and hard, when I felt it necessary, but it was balanced by love, encouragement and a lot of effort. The result is that my children are balanced, decent citizens and their children in turn are growing up like their parents. Bringing up children is hard work and are the greatest responsibility you can have. Ordinary people like me and countless others have succeeded in the task so why do we have so much of this type of behaviour today? Is it because discipline has been abandoned in favour of discussion. The do-gooders have seen off any and all forms of physical punishment to the detriment of us all and idle parents have abdicated all responsibility for their offspring.

Those of limited intelligence and experience, who lacked any firm guidance in their own childhood, have grown up with nature's strongest emotion, the desire to procreate, uppermost in their mind simply because they lack the ability to place other 'learned' responses and emotions higher than that of procreation. These are the people who breed the sort of kids this article refers to. One of the first things politicians, council officers and social services need do is to STOP denying the patently obvious and get this kids and their parents back in line. Get corporal punishment back into schools and give teachers, police and others charged with looking after kids the unchallengeable power to belt them round the ear.... good and proper.

- Burton J Helling, LE HOMMET D'ARTHENAY, FRANCE

A parent in ENGLAND will get arrested, reported to social services and done for GBH for smacking a naughty child - no bloody wonder this is happening - LACK OF DISCIPLINE and a GANG CULTURE.

Keep you kids OUT OF GANGS and away from violent films, games etc and restrict access to websites that show violence, pornography, drugs and murder / assault etc.

- Bubbles The Chimp, London

Barbara in Australia:

This is like asking why someone owns a car, after is has been stolen by a thief; as if they are asking for it.

The default should be for kids to be able to left unsupervised in a park without fear of something happening to them. Up until the early 1990s, it was absolutely normal for kids as young as seven, to leave their home at nine in the morning, play with their friends, unsupervised, and come back at five in the evening (assuming it wasn't a school day, of course!). My mother would insist I popped home at lunchtime, to check in, but apart from this, kids were expected to play out and were the better for it. It is tragic that this wouldn't happen today and that people look at you as if you are criminaly neglectful if you let your kids out without a "responsible adult" satelliting them.

- Ross, London, UK

Don't forget the government took the power of out the hands of schools and parents, gave it to the kids, now we are paying for it.. Children think they can get away with murder, try them as adults in court..

- Adrian, london

Jock in London: there was violence in the days before TV, Film and Computer games - but with punishments like Hanging and Burning at the Stake and deportation to an unknown land, most of those crimes were driven by age-old motivators like jealousy or hunger. They were almost never committed as mindless acts of boredom or just to prove they were bigger and stronger than a 7yr old kid - any criminal like that would have been lynched by the local community, who would almost certainly have known them. I repeat that watching violence over and over again makes it seem normal - that is why, as I recently mentioned in another post - the Taliban sits its 3yr olds down to watch constant footage of decapitations and suicide bombers - but presumably you'd do that with your own children yourself . . . ?!

- Roz, France

Surely they must be prosecuted for failing to carry out a 'Health and Safety' assesment!

The tree, as all other trees, must now be removed or fenced off because thay carry a real risk of health hazzarde to small children ! If teh trees are not rempover the tree owners, ie the local authority, must be prosecuted for having knowledge of such a risk and failing to act.

- Jenny, London, England

Reading this made me feel sick. But why is everyone stereotyping kids. I'm 14 myself, and you can't say that all children are the same.

What britain needs are more clubs for children to go to, because Summer Holidays are getting boring.

- Alexandra, Preston, England

Barbara....... you're absolutely right !!! which crazy parents leave a group of 7 year olds on their own !!!... Donna .... in this day and age, i wouldn't leave 12 year olds unsupervised !!!...... what kind of mother are you ??? !!!!....... sad thing is, if parents cared more about what their kids WERE up to then we wouldn't be reading about this kind of nonsense everyday !!

- Nick, London

I'd love to see National Service reinstated but times have changed and the multi-cultural, spoon fed society who know all thier rights wouldn't allow it.
Anyway, why burden the all ready over-stretched services with a bunch of wasters.
Far better to have disciplined boot camps run by retired NCO's, although once again I doubt if today's youngsters would, or could, accept the square bashing regime that many of us went through.
It made boys into men and for years after Mational Service finished it was always easy to distinguish between those who had been in the services and those who hadn't.
Another major problem is that many of today's trouble makers are no more than children, so maybe we'd have to send the parents to boot camp instead.
Come to think of it, that's not such a bad idea!!

- Scotty, Cambridge UK

Jock

As you say there has been violent crime etc prior to tv, films and computer games, but the graphic violence diplayed in some films and computer games don't exactly help the situation do they.

- David, London

Yes Donna, put them all (good and bad) into national service. Has it occurred to you that they would then have a captive pool of victims to torment, or that the current victim could even find himself in the same barrack block. The Army is not always the best place for vulnerable people either as the multiple deaths at Deepcut camp have shown. Your relatives may have gained from National Service, but it completely failed to change individuals like the Krays. A better solution would be to remove the gang members and their parents to a detention centre abroad until they can no longer be considered to be a threat. Somewhere like Afghanistan would be ideal and they could be set to work claering mines while they are there.

- Rob, Rochester

I presume whoever stopped it is being prosecuted for assault on the little brats?

- Tonyjohnson, Hythe Kent

Thanks, Roz. I was wondering what the catalyst was...But hang on, wasn't there violent crime, murder, etc. going on for centuries before TV, film, and computer games? Of course there was.

When will people stop blaming multimedia, and look to the real roots of the problem? Parenting, and lack of discipline, first and foremost.

- Jock, London

Bring back corporal punishment,bring back decent parents,bring back capital punishment,and bring back national service,but none of those things will happen under a labour or tory government,that only leaves UKIP or someone else.

- Aufdeutsch, Canterbury Kent England

Absolutely disgusting behaviour. I agree with Frank completely - bring back the cane or send all the little darlings into National Service. It never did my uncles or grandparents any harm, only instilled respect, manners and routine into them.

*Barbara, children aged 7 do play in parks unsupervised. I used to all the time as a child. And who's to say Mum wasn't off buying an ice-cream at the time or had nipped to the shop while he played? Its not wise to cast aspersions when the story (as it is above) is very minimal and the details are sparse..

- Donna, London UK

Bring back corporal punishment in schools.

- Frank, Home Counties, England.

Welcome to modern Britain, you can't punish children any more, even a simple slap will put you in the dock.

- Bob, Cheam

At the risk of sounding like Mary Whitehouse - heck, why shouldn't I? - they didn't get that idea from watching Blue Peter, did they?!

Constant violence on TV, Film and Computer makes violence normal and gives people access to new ideas which aren't necessarily healthy to explore . . .

- Roz, France

What is a boy as young as 7 doing in a park unsupervised?

- Barbara, Sydney, Australia

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