I have heard now more than a few times that there seems to be an issue with respect among kids these days with not only each other, but with teachers as well. Kids that are cursing at adults in the hallway, kids as young as grade 2.
We did it to ourselves in my opinion. You could almost watch it coming like a prairie storm in the distance. The earliest sign I remember was when it was deemed that one could no longer fail a grade. It didn't matter if the individual didn't meet the requirements for grade 3, the student would move on.
Things got worse from there. Teachers were stripped of all leverage in the class room. No longer is a teacher permitted to make an example of a child misbehaving. That would cause undue harm to the child. We need to be inclusive and let the tyrant disrupt the entire class. If we were sent to the principals office in my day, it meant there was hell to pay. It could have been that nothing at all would have happened, but the fear of the principal was real. There is no fear any longer. I am not advocating that people should be ruled with fear; but I do feel that there should be accountability and the fear of knowing that accountability is going to be actioned.
Parents of course are the root cause. The utter disbelief that their little angel could have any part in a condemnable action is a real issue. There are some chameleons that are out there. It's not permitted for a teacher to video any of them to show their parents exactly how those kids are acting. That would give people truth and those kids and parents need to be sheltered from the truth. If they were outed, they may actually have to change and become respectful contributors and we couldn't have that as that would be too easy to learn in that environment.
It's been trending for quite some time. I remember being a kid and laughing at the fact that Bart Simpson was pulled off of TV due to the fact that he would say "Don't have a cow man" to adults thus being blamed for kids mimicking the behaviour. It wasn't far off was it? Todays kids now have nearly full access to the internet. Cursing used to be something that was hidden or taboo among kids...not anymore. The lazy language has become the norm around them now. In fact, so many of the things that used to be shielded from kids is now just out wide in the open. If you think that this doesn't impact how a kid grows up you are dead wrong. It adds an element to their environment. If I started adding just a drop of dye to the water outside everyday, and it was deemed ok and so more people did it, well eventually that water would no longer be clear and it would be polluted. That same thing happens with the accepted norms that we are permitting around our youth.
My hope is that the generation that is incoming is going to realize that this coddling needs to stop. I hope that they will be the ones that will deem it unacceptable to allow someone special treatment just because they aren't feeling it today. It will happen when they need to jump in to salvage any sort of production in our society. When the wheels really start to fall off, they will out of necessity have to step up and step in. My hope is they have tools to do it.