Kate Hawkesby: Has our kids' behaviour gotten worse?

Of all the times we hear about police not showing up to break-ins or burglaries or ram raids, we do hear about when they did show up.  This weekend they showed up at Halloween parties gone wrong, to move on kids behaving badly. One neighbour at an out-of-control party in Auckland’s Mt Albert over the weekend said about 30 Police showed up.  My first thought was, that’s a lot of police at one party, how nice of them. Be good if more could show up when stores are being broken into or ram raids are taking place.  But the common denominator here is kids behaving badly. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves that teenagers have always been so good and now they’ve suddenly all gone rogue.  Teenagers have been trouble forever, that’s what they do, but the trouble they’re getting into these days seems more intense and the age they’re getting into it is ever younger.  There are more and younger gang recruits, more and younger burglars and ram raiders.  There's an issue in this country with lack of respect, lack of fear of authority, poor behaviour, lack of parenting, there are too many kids out wandering the streets all hours, too many kids skipping school.  There are heaps of theories around it - fractured family home environments, drugs, Covid, truancy, boredom, lack of consequences - and probably all are true to an extent. Stats earlier this month showed, “the number of children and teens seen in crisis in emergency departments rose by more than 410% in a decade, reaching over three thousand last year.” That’s according to recent Ministry of Health stats. So what’s going on with our kids? What extra pressures do they have these days that we didn’t? Internet and online existence is obviously a big one. A pandemic that derailed their social lives, yes, and interrupting their academic pursuits is another big one.  But it’s not like they’re living through a war, like our grandparents did, living through the stress of rationing food, being called up to fight, witnessing the untimely death of young partners, siblings or parents.  So are they just less resilient these days? And actually, by less resilient do we really just mean they’re paying attention more? They’re more in tune with what’s going on around them? Or are they actually just worse behaved? A family run store in Hamilton over the weekend hit three times by ram raiders has forced the owners to shut up shop. They say it's just not worth it anymore.  The owner said, "the Government is just making it too easy for them”. Them, as in the young ram raiders. He said, "There’s just not consequences for the criminals. If they get caught they don’t get any kind of punishment and they are straight out [of court] and doing it all over again.”  So is that the nub of it? No consequences? Teen development experts say that often as adults we have no idea how much pressure teens are under.  But they acknowledge it's no more pressure than our predecessors had, it's just how they cope with pressure that's changed.  So how do we breed them more resilient? And is that the cure all? Like the business owner in Hamilton, I can’t help agreeing with him that maybe some consequences for actions would be a good place to start. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.