I’ve drafted three replies to this thread. However, there are so many issues wrapped up in this they became essays (or diatribes depending on your view point).

I think I need to clarify a couple of points about myself first. I'm a father of three fantastic little boys aged 7, 5, and 3, all very different. I don't consider myself as old, I'm south of forty. As for technology, I was programming computers at the age of 10 and have a degree in IT. I stopped working in IT 7 years ago.

We don’t have WII’s / PS3’s etc. My eldest has got round this by finding games on the internet. To which he exhibits mild manic compulsive behavior. This usually means forcing the issue of walking / being outdoors. Today he said to me, “Why do I always have to go for a walk at the weekend, my friends don’t.” My reply, which came straight from Calvin and Hobbs was, “Because it’s character building”. I believe that, in time, they will be grateful for the time we spent doing these things together. I hope that it gives them a love of the outdoors and fond memories of their childhoods. I guess what I’m saying is that if _you_ want _your_ children to enjoy the outdoors then _you_ need to force the issue and get out there and enjoy it together. The technology, facebooking (is there such a verb), whatever the latest technological fad is just a red hearing.

Disclosure Scotland is a disproportionate response to a real risk. Organisations which interact with young children place more emphasis on this than skills and competence. To illustrate; I used to go white water canoeing at a relatively young age (around 14/15) with a club associated to the school, but in which a lot of the members were very experienced adults. There ability to manage our safety and instruct was far more important than any disclosure requirements. I'm sure my parents were far more fearful of me drowning than being molested. I was never a great canoeist but it was a really good club and I'm glad for the experience that it afforded me. It's only looking back that I realise the selfless commitment the leaders put into that club, at a time when most school clubs were practically disbanded due to teacher boycotts on extra curriculum activities.
I think that we are over protective today of our children (myself included) and that a large number of parents see clubs as a free child care. Parents feel that by taking their children to a club they have fulfilled their obligations to give their children an experience. Sometimes, it’s more important that we have the experience with them than the actual experience itself.

There is so much more I could / want to say on the topics raised in this thread, but feel that I’ll leave here for now.

Mark

Ian, you're right that obsessive or addictive behaviour isn't good and should be discouraged, particularly in children. My point about smoking and driving (and one could add Chris Townsends self confessed teenage love of pop music :-) ) is that it's human nature to behave in a less than ideal way, and if we don't perform as efficiently as we could, we do seem to muddle along somehow.

"Future generations can't deal with a changed world in the same way as we have" .... John

Not sure I get this. Do you mean: Older generations can't deal with a changed world in the same way as younger? .... Ian

I mean that in twenty years time the world will be a very different place and it'll require a different set of skills, attitudes and values to run it than we have. My grandfather had a very different view of the world to me, for instance he had a very strong work ethic, starting work in a 50 hour a week job at the age of 14, and working right into his 70's. He also attended chapel every Sunday throughout his life. You could say he was as obsessive about work and religion as today's teenagers are about social networking.

Are we the only generation who got it right? I don't think so. It's certainly much easier to criticise other cultures than our own, but I would say our own generation has an unhealthy addiction to oil and alcohol, places to much emphasis on personal gain, places to much emphasis on quantity over quality, has an absurd love affair with travel (I know of people who commute 3 hours a day - about 700 hours a year, etc etc etc.

I simply don't feel in a position to criticise the Facebook generation until they've proven that they messed up worse than us.

"Sometimes, it’s more important that we have the experience with them than the actual experience itself." .... Mark

I'll agree with that.


"I guess what I’m saying is that if _you_ want _your_ children to enjoy the outdoors then _you_ need to force the issue and get out there and enjoy it together."

I don't think I'd agree with that though. I don't think you could force a child to enjoy a walk any more than you could force me to enjoy watching Eastenders. I do think it's possible to encourage people to do things though.

JH - I take your last point on "forcing" the issue. Perhaps I was thinking more along the lines of, if given the choice my children would stay at home and play on the computer. We had a scene yesterday with my eldest who didn't want to come on a family walk. However, by the end of the day he was filthy, tired and had a great day. We had to force the issue with him because 4 out of 5 of the family wanted to walk and we had no child care provision to leave him behind. I left him behind last weekend when I went walking with the youngust, when he saw the pictures of our tarp and lunch stop he wished he had come.

Encouragement is definetly the right route and the prefered course of action. Sometimes trying to encourage, motivate and rationalise with a young child is just not going to work. It's definatley a fine line.

Ian, you're right that obsessive or addictive behaviour isn't good and should be discouraged

I must learn to stop ticking lists of hills!

Disclosure Scotland is a disproportionate response to a real risk.

I've been giving this some more thought, perhaps prompted by recent news events. Anyone who had been a victim of abuse or who has had a child abused would strongly, and rightly, disagree with my comment. Perhaps it is a relatively small inconvenience for the reduction in risk. I don't think it eliminates risk to a child, but it must reduce it to some degree.

To go back to the original post, we would either have to accept the situation as is or lower the age limit to which the disclosure act applies. IE under sixteens. However, the age done seem somewhat arbitrary.

Mark

"Encouragement is definetly the right route and the prefered course of action. Sometimes trying to encourage, motivate and rationalise with a young child is just not going to work. It's definatley a fine line" ...Mark

I think I get that Mark. It's not that you're forcing them against their will. You're acting as a catalyst to get them out. Once out there they have a great time. I know kids like that.



I really hope that JH's optimism turns out to be correct. I'm only speaking from the experiences I'm presented with. I have teens in the house through whom I know other teens, but it's not a representative sample. Mind you almost everyone I speak to tends to voice the same complaints. Are they all wrong and simply criticising a generation that do things differently? Perhaps time will tell.

But what if things develop along a more pessimistic line?

Perhaps JH is optimistic about the future because we are better informed now than ever. (This is one of the benefits of social networking seen in its glory on this very Forum). I'm thinking about environmental issues in particular. I wonder what the environmental impact of always being online is, and having the mobile plugged into the grid to charge it every day, because of its constant use. And all for mostly mundane snatches of conversation.

I'm deeply critical of my generation too, and agree with JH's attack on it. (I think I mentioned earlier that we've done a bad enough job). My fear is that despite all the knowledge we have at our fingertips, we are removing ourselves further and further away from what really matters, and it's happening with increasing rapidity.

I was speaking with a 15 year old about our dependence on oil, and that her lifestyle would be destroyed once the oil level dipped to a certain level. She asked if it was likely to happen during her teens. When I said no (though probably in your lifetime) her words were "that's OK then".

This is a popular view with all generations: "as long as it's not imminent that's OK". But our teens should be well versed in the problems with the environment. It's taught in schools. They've grown up with the knowledge. I used to think younger generations would look back at mine and say that we squandered what we had, but I don't think that generation is here yet. Consumerism is greater among our younger generations at present. We're simply too good at making desirable services and stuff.

JH seems happy to see how things develop. Parents have to do the best by their kids though, and if they feel something is having a detrimental effect they need to take action if possible - not wait until the damage is done.

"JH seems happy to see how things develop." .... Ian

I'm not sure I'd use the word "happy", I've moaned enough on this forum about our energy use, but I do think the future is more complicated than a binary, better or worse outcome. Yes it does take some energy to charge my mobile phone every week, but only a fraction of the energy I would use if I had to make even the smallest car journey instead. Sure, most mobile phone calls are trivia, but I'd say the energy saving far outweighs the energy use. There's a give and take - hopefully the "give" is greater than the "take", or is it the other way round?

I remember going to the Southampton Boat Show in 1988 and becoming so interested in a chap on the Catalac stand who was demonstrating Computer Aided Design that I missed the bus home. A year later I'd spent £2000 - a lot of money for me in those days - on a PC and software, with no real use for it other than an all consuming interest, which meant I spent all my spare time messing about with it (Facebook?). Everybody thought I was mad, I didn't know anybody else who had a PC. Nobody thought I'd get my money back, although I did think it was really cool (Facebook?) and there might be a practical application for it. In fact it changed my life.

On the strength of that I did much the same with a related thing (Computer Aided Machining) in 2004. Bingo!

I know these things are more likely to be successful than putting all your life details on Facebook is likely to be :-( but all I'm saying is that just because I don't understand how a thing is going to work doesn't mean it isn't going to work. In fact I don't think telling all the world that you're about to go on holiday to Greece for a fortnight is a good idea, but I do think it's all part of a culture which we don't understand. If we don't understand it how can we criticise it?

Have you read "Fooled by Randomness"? One of my favourite books. I can't remember if it was in this book or the sequel, "The Black Swan", but having outlined our inability to deal with an ever complex world, particularly randomness and probability, the author advises the reader goes to parties. His reasoning is that nothing's going to happen if you hide away in a hovel on Exmoor (me!), there's a lot of chance in the way our lives unfold, and other people play a large part in that. Parties give the opportunity to meet people who might improve your life, whether it be a beautiful woman or a millionaire who wants to pay you to bag Munros with him.

Not being a party animal I was a bit disappointed with that advice, although it made perfect sense to me, but it occurs to me that the author (Taleb) is a 20thC person. Both parties and Facebook are social networking. (I can see I'm persauding myself to open an account....)

John

"If we don't understand it how can we criticise it?"...JH

I think I do understand texting and computer games, though I'll admit that Facebook etc is new and still developing. I have made efforts to explore it though, and have asked folks about it who use it regularly (and although the focus of this thread has been on teenagers there are plenty of adults who have the same addiction, with the same detrimental effect - as I see it - like the parents who neglect their kids because they're caught up in some trivia with their mates).

The books sound interesting. I must admit I do tend to hide under my rock rather a lot. Perhaps when I'm out poking my nose into other folks business I should stick around longer :O

Hi folks, just discovered your thread and I hope you don't mind me backtracking slightly, but from my viewpoint as a teacher my comments may be of interest to you.

I currently work as a supply teacher in England, going from school to school to cover staff absences. The system in Derbyshire is this: before I can work at a school, I have to go through a criminal record check (CRB check) to prove I'm not a criminal, paedophile etc. Fair enough. But then, if I want to work at another school, I have to apply for a duplicate CRB check for that particular school. In fact I must have an individual CRB check for each and every school I work at, costing around £40 each (rising to £175 in April). The schools must pay for these, thus limiting the number of supply teachers they are willing to work with.

An alternative for me is to join a supply agency, in which case I must pay for my own CRB check. Think about this for a moment: I must pay a government agency £40 to prove my innocence, otherwise I am treated as a paedophile and barred from working.

These checks are likely to be extended to anyone who works in, or visits, a school. You may think that this is justifiable, but I have noticed that parents are becoming less willing to help out with after-school activities (and head teachers are unable to afford to pay for too many of these certificates, thus limiting the number of people who can be involved, even with the best intentions).

On a different note, when I worked full-time at a school in the Peak District I ran a walking club. We would meet after school once a week in summer and I would lead a walk on the local moors for a couple of hours. The first time we went it took us fifteen minutes to walk from the school to the moor. The children were excited; many of them HAD NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE (these were 9 to 11 year olds). Their parents were not walkers and would not let the children go there by themselves.

As a teacher I'm all for protecting children from dodgy adults, but we have completely lost our sense of proportion. We are in grave danger of destroying this generation of children through over-protectiveness.

Rant over, folks...