When I was in Vienna recently, my cousin who's a teacher there told me that all primary school children walk to school on their own from the age of six. You're thought of as pretty weird if you turn up at the school gate with your child once he or she is settled in (they start proper school at 6). I told her this is pretty much unheard of in Britain now, and that very few primary-aged children go to school unaccompanied before the age of 9 or 10. Most children are taken to school right up to secondary age and sometimes even beyond. She was absolutely amazed and said: 'but how can they become independent?'

It's true, I noticed loads of children alone on trams, buses and underground trains making their way home from school, some of them very young. So it's not just that a lot of them live very near their school because many don't, and need to take public transport to go to and fro.

I asked her whether children ever get snatched and she couldn't remember ever hearing about a case, except obviously Natascha Kampusch. Neither do they get run over on a regular basis, but then you're not allowed to jaywalk and there are crossings everywhere.

Now here comes my Rantenburg - why oh why have we ended up with this ridiculous situation where millions of parents take their children to school by car every day (or walk with them if school is close), causing the 'school run' traffic rush that causes most of the very dangers British parents are so worried about?

And are there really so many more rabid paedophiles per head in the UK than in Austria? If so, can anybody think why that would be? And anyway I thought Austria had to do all this soul-searching because of the darkness that lurks in its soul? Ie the two well-publicised cellar cases? If we really are so overrun with dangerous paedophiles that we can't consider abandoning the school run and letting our children learn some real independence by walking to school on their own, then don't we have some serious soul-searching of our own to do?

Or have we just capitulated in front of something that's largely a myth? And that our children would be as safe here as they seem to be in Austria?

I used to walk to and from school on my own/ with friends from about 7...

But that's in Japan and the term starts in April, so by the time I setteled in, I was nealy 7, but most would have been 6.





I think the safety would be the same if children knew what to do and had loud alarms like in Japan to scare attackers off.

But these Viennese children don't have loud alarms to scare anyone off!

Yes

But how much easier we are to control when we are poorly educated and in constant fear. (Paedophiles, terrorists, ...)

Yeah, kids walk home from school alone in Japan. And they get dragged off in cars by weirdos, tied up with tape and stuffed into cardboard boxes, dragged into forests and stabbed...we run to quite a nice variety, you know.

Finally something clicked, and nowadays there are walking buses. And also community volunteers standing on various corners (with PTA patrol badges that can be bought in any stationery store, just to make sure that the weirdos are in with a fair fighting chance).

Some years back, a girl was almost dragged into a car just meters from my front door. Luckily she yelled blue murder and the guy drove away. But we've had kids attacked with knives as they played unsupervised in the local playground, unsupervised kids dragged into toilets at local shops, kids walking home alone dragged into cars and driven round for hours (luckily no worse) - independence is a rose with plenty of thorns.

Blimey, that sounds a bit scary, to put it mildly. I wonder if there's a correlation between a rigid education system and a high incidence of violence towards children, or violence generally? There must be some reason why children (and people generally) are so much safer on the streets in Vienna, which is a major city after all.

One "correlation" is definitely the under-provision of mental health services (the mentally ill were not eligible for disability benefits until quite recently, and it's still a very underfunded and underserved area).

Kids still do travel an hour or more on public transport alone to private schools from the age of 6. Viohazard's school has teachers on the platforms of the nearest stations before and after school, and keeps a sharp eye on traffic information, dispatching staff to all train junctions where kids are likely to be held up. And older students such as Viohazard are rostered to look after the little ones on trains or at bus-stops.

The alarms I always thought were a bit of a crock - the whole problem is that 99% of the time kids get in trouble because they DON'T think that they are in danger.

The very day that kid nearly got abducted near our house, I told Viohazard (then very small) AGAIN about checking with Mum or Dad before playing with anybody he didn't know (he and his brother had a bad habit of hanging out the windows calling to passersby to come and play!!!). Not an hour later, he had disappeared from our garden, and was discovered at a nearby house playing ball with the young man who had just moved in. "Stranger? Him? Impossible - he said he was a neighbour, so I knew he wasn't a stranger, even though I'd never met him!"

Private schools and cram schools here often have an IC tag attached to schoolbags - as soon as kids go through the school gate or past the cram school reception desk, an e-mail is sent to the parent "XXX arrived at/left school at XX hours xx minutes." Very handy to know that the child is on the way home, so you know when to panic - before that, teachers would keep kids in after school literally for hours with no notice at all. I used to go and haul 8-year-old Viohazard out from under his teacher's nose at 5:30pm, after he had failed to come home by 3:30pm, but no amount of ranting or raving would convince her that she should at least let him phone home before being kept in to copy out his work over and over again. I've stood outside the middle school gates past 8pm, hoping that my son was actually in there doing student council work, and not in somebody's car heading for a distant province. It literally took not one, but several murders before schools began to listen to parents who said they wanted to know, at least within an hour, when they should expect their children home...



Whew, was that a rant or what!

I don't think it's a terrible plot however, just the madness of crowds (and of certain papers that make their living from inspiring fear (The M**l, The Ex***ss)). Result: scared adults, fat kids, road accidents, Co2.

Kids are less safe if they are always ferried to school - less safe because of the extra traffic, because there are fewer people (kids and adults) actually on the street looking out for them, because they don't develop independence and the ability to care for themselves.

Put it down to increasing individualism, and an undervaluing of community. The more we withdraw from public space, the worse that space will become: hurrah for Reclaim The Streets, Reclaim The Night, and any other reclaims out there! The fear of parents is understandable but almost certainly misguided - child harm is terrible but thankfully rare, and trying to protect kids in this way seems counterproductive.

nick

EDIT: just read All Ears posts - I'm certainly not indifferent to what s/he says, but I don't know that this changes my view.

Oh yes, we all act as we do for reasons that seem good to us - I did and I do let my kids go alone to school, but every year, there are more incidents than I could even begin to list, even within walking distance. Several girls in the region where Viohazard goes to school have been slashed by passing cyclists on their way home from school. A kid just disappeared into thin air a fortnight ago from the area where Airman goes to school. One problem here is that we rarely have footpaths - kids are more vulnerable to both accidents and malice.

I think one very real problem is that our desire to avoid thinking about scary things by blocking them out completely, perversely allows fear to pervade everything.

I know that a certain number of scary things happen where I live. But if I think calmly about it, I also know that they peak at certain times of the year, and so I used to be extra vigilant about knowing where my young kids were for the first two months of the school year.

After several attacks at school, police actually told us not to let one of our sons go anywhere alone, so I probably am more of a nervous nellie than I might have been - but now that my kids are older, I think the single biggest thing I can do is to encourage them to discuss plans with friends and family rather than the "Don't, don't, don't" approach which fosters risky secrets.

Sorry if this is a twice-told tale, but it still scares me, because you can just see how it happens: Son tells me he's thinking of going on a train trip with an online friend for several days. We've known about this friend for some years, yes, all seems OK to me as long as we get to meet up with the friend and swap contact details before the trip. Then it becomes obvious that the friend has sold this to his parents as a trip alone, because he was too scared of their wrath to admit that he had online friends.

Yep. He seriously thought that it would be a better idea to go away for several days with a total stranger, whose identity he had no way of knowing until they were already on their way, without telling anybody, than to tell his parents and face a telling-off. To me, that is a perfect example of the horrifying cost of being too restrictive with kids' independence.

Could it be partly because of today's 'blame' culture - if a child had an accident or, God forbid, was abducted on the way to or from school, the parents fear they might be blamed for being negligent and their children taken into care.

Yes that's true as well. In which case Vienna now seems to me like an oasis of (relative) almost old-fashioned calm and sanity in a world rapidly becoming madder and madder.

Are we doing anything here to make things genuinely safer for our children? A properly funded public transport system with buses and trams in cities running like clockwork? Nope. Proper speed limits in residential areas? Nope. Genuine cycle paths? Nope. We're doing nothing to improve the situation as far as I can see, so things can only keep getting worse and worse here while sensible European countries keep improving.

My son went to Paris with two cousins recently and they cycled right round the city on bikes they hired for a few euros at Gare du Nord - wonderful. Yes of course Paris has terrible problems but you can still go out for a drink in Paris or any town or city anywhere else in Europe for that matter without having to encounter gangs of half-naked teenagers spewing into gutters and punching each other's lights out. Unless you're unlucky enough to encounter a British stag party, of course.

Apparently the Viennese were delighted when England were knocked out of Euro 2008 - it meant they wouldn't have to suffer gangs of drunken Brits smashing up their city.

There's so much that's good here - you can be yourself and the culture is vibrant, but on so many levels there's a lot to be worried about when you look at the general decline in so many other aspects of British life. We're very similar to America in that respect.

I frequently go out in London, and I can't say that I've ever encountered what you describe. I'm not sure that the UK is actually as bad as you're painting it.

My kids normally walk.

We've used the car a bit more than usual recently, partially because of Alex's Lyme Disease (he's making an excellent recovery) and partially due to my FMS. However with the Headmaster's Safer Cycling policy, he's trying to minimise the number of parents using cars.

The problem is not kidnappings, it is a fear of road accidents. My slant on this is that my kids need to learn road safety, and the only way to do this is to practise. So as soon as hubby and I are happy that Matthew can cycle to school safely, Matthew will cycle to school if he wants.

He has the freedom to go the the Coop and the freedom to visit the library. What are we doing wrapping our children in cotton wool? In two years time he'll have to get the school bus on his own, he might as well get the practise in now.

The more we align ourselves with America, the more we decline. I advocate considerably closer ties with Northern Europe and Scandinavia, our "natural neighbours" and a stout wall built around America to keep them away from the rest of us.

Speaking of drunks, I was in Germany last summer and every evening throughout the week and at the weekend, every bar had loads of folks at the tables outside in the streets, eating and drinking and having a generally nice time. Drunks? Not sure I saw one all week. There was even a stall outside one of the main churches selling schnapps at 1 euro (then 67p) a shot - in the street! Any problems? None that I saw.

There are complaints that German teenagers are becoming more like British ones i.e. drinking to get drunk, not to enjoy the nice German beer, but on the whole I haven't seen that much drunken behaviour here (apart from at the Oktoberfest...). Most children here are allowed to try wine or beer at a relatively young age, so it's seen as something that you enjoy with food.

As to walking or cycling to school alone - seems to be quite common here. It's also normal to see groups of young teenagers on their own at the swimming pool, on the ski slopes etc.

If we're talking about a population being easily controlled I think Austria probably gets Bronze or Silver. Has everyone forgotten they welcomed the Nazis? They were controlled incredibly easily despite all these 'advantages' Violinia keeps going on about.



You can also find a nice red light district, maybe you'd like us to follow the Belgian model on that one? In Austria the age of consent is 14 so that probably reduces child abductions on its own, paedophiles just need to go out and get a 14/15 year old 'girlfriend' and they can do what they like. And here's another brilliant Austrian policy:

(5) In accordance with paragraph 1, subparagraph 1, and paragraph 3, anyone who:

1. produces, or is in possession of, a pornographic depiction of a minor over 14 years of age with the latter's consent or for the latter's own private use, or
2. produces, or is in possession of, a pornographic depiction of a minor over 14 years of age, within the meaning of paragraph 4, subparagraph 4, for his own private use, provided no risk of dissemination of the depiction is associated with the act, shall not be punished.

If you seriously think the Parisians don't go out and get drunk once in a while you're deluding yourself, or maybe your adoration of all thinks European blinds you to that.

With the exception of the comment about Paris (which may or may not be true - I just don't know) these seem to be non sequiturs ... because some of us think that Britain has some way to go in reconciling child safety with a society that is not afraid to go outside its front door, why does this mean we approve of Belgian red light districts, or the Austrian pornography laws? I'm puzzled ...

Does feeling that we've withdrawn too much from the public sphere mean that we approve of these things? Surely not ...

nick

nick

I think half the problem is the fact that young people and older people no longer communicate.

Our communites are becoming fractured. This partially is due to the hype around paedophilia which is discouraging good men from working with young people. As soon as you get involved in a youth organisation nowdays you are forced to have a CRB check, and what does that mean?

All it means is you have not been caught doing anything wrong yet.

My piece of paper, given it has been done by Cambridgeshire police I count as almost useless, given that they were supposed to have checked Ian Huntley, Brian Davey and Keith Lavarack. If they were passed by Cambridgeshire Constabulary, what does it say about the rest of us?

This fracture of society is going to cause problems and is. Its why teenagers and adults don't drink in the same pubs any more, where the regulars used to be able to keep an eye on things and suggest they'd had enough.

When you hear the stats about children having alchoholc drinks under the age of 12, how many of those were a port glass of champagne to toast mummy of daddys' 40th birthday?

My children aged 7 and 9 have touched Alcohol. We drink at meal times and when the request comes, mummy can I have a sip, the answer is yes. Sometimes the elder one is allowed a very small glass, (liqueur sized) sometimes he's allowed a watered down glass. What is more in my own home, this is perfectly legal.

I'm the type of mum who wants her children to live life to the full, so this fracture of society does disturb me. However our children are lucky in that they have always socialised with a wide age range, as have we.

Nick - don't get sucked in - look who made the post to which you have just replied - of course it consists of nothing but a stack of non sequiturs - that is exactly what we have come to expect.

My comment was a succinct view to promote discussion. This is something else. Don't let this thread be hi-jacked as so many others have been.

Cheers
Tom

Whilst I'm keen to avoid putting words into other posters' mouths, what I thing snhs was trying to say is that the grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side.

I think you have 1 policy there, not 2. If the age of consent is 14, then the law on pornographic images that follows seems logical to me. I'm pretty sure if you look at UK law you find something similar, the only difference being the age. I hasten to add, before being branded a child pornographer that 14 seems a ridiculously low age to me. I only fancy adults.



I'm sure they do, but I've never seen scenes anywhere on the continent which match the sort of behaviour on the streets of Manchester - and that's without visiting Scottish football fans.

You always seem to be able to bring up these historical events to support your arguments for the present day. Dude, this was 60odd years ago! To portray the entire Austrian population as Nazi sypathisers is severely delusional.



Yawn yawn yawn. Give some real life examples, will you?! And as for Parisians getting drunk: Violinia didn't say that at all and I vouch for what she says. Personally, I have travelled and lived in various European cities. If you had done the same, which for the moment I'm going to assume that you haven't, you would most likely agree with her.

I've seen drunkenness at the Oktoberfest (let's face it, it's impossible not to!), but what I've witnessed has been good-humoured, i.e. it hasn't descended into fisticuffs. One of Husband's business contacts volunteers for the Red Cross and so is on duty during Oktoberfest, and most of the injuries he ends up dealing with are people having cut themselves on glass when they've fallen over.

Hear, hear!

Jod's got it right here IMHO. Small amounts of alcohol at a young age is the better way to introduce children to drinking responsibly. I also agree that the generations don't communicate. In a village I used to live in, I was part of a youth Parish council - we were able to liase between our age group and the people with the "real" power (but I scoff at that because, really, Parish councils are a bit of a lughing stock, at least around where I used to live). This was a great scheme and enabled the older people of the village to meet the youngsters on common ground. It's depressing to see that we have to prove ourselves to not be yobs: why aren't we innocent until proven guilty? Gah. But I'm moving off topic.

Well there you are you see. You eat your meals together, at the same time. I bet you sit around a table too and the telly is off.

I wouldn't let my son walk to school on his own at that age. We live in Italy and the driving is terrible (think motorbikes weaving between children that are on the zebra crossing!). It is the traffic that I worry about more than anything.

Erm yes, that is unless there is a pressing need for one of the children to be at an activity that means their dinner is not at "dinner time", even then, they are made to sit at the dining table away from the television and talk to me.

I have had my inlaws comment on how important the dining table is. Occasionally we have the radio on, but meal times are for eating and conversation.

Violinia is going on about how children are so much safer in Austria, the point I am making is that part of the reason for that may be that paedophiles can get enough of what they want legally so there are fewer of them taking it to the extreme of abducting children to get what they want. Austria is a completely different society, a completely different legal system and a completely different culture to look at one small aspect in isolation is ludicrous.

Look at part of her initial post for example "And are there really so many more rabid paedophiles per head in the UK than in Austria? If so, can anybody think why that would be?
....
Or have we just capitulated in front of something that's largely a myth? And that our children would be as safe here as they seem to be in Austria?"

Lets assume there are the same number per capita, but there's a two year difference in age of consent. Now what proportion of that group are interested/likely to be interested in the 14-15 age group which they could legally date etc in Austria but would be illegal in Britain? Chances are a significant proportion.

Or lets pose a new question, are 14/15 year olds really 'safer' in Austria given that they can legally be seduced by someone 3, 4, 5 times their age? Her question seems to be flawed, at least in Britain children have legal protection against such things.

It is hardly a myth when we know it has happened in the past and can happen in the future, does that mean driving children to school is the perfect solution? No, but I hardly think ranting about it is the way forward given that they are protecting their children which is just what parents should be doing. Nor for that matter is improving the transport system going to do anything, to suggest otherwise is naive in the extreme.

Earlier someone made the comment about how we should get closer to Europe and block America, how about we just let Britain be Britain and continue to evolve as such rather than trying to emulate European systems which often have significant flaws we dealt with in Britain decades ago.

Why try answer this with stats?

Look around you - see what is going on.

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You seem to have forgotten that.

In case you haven't realised many of those who were in the 20s or below and waving flags as the Nazis paraded through are still alive today, not to mention the fact that their older contemporaries have formed the nucleus of modern Austria as their children will now be parents. Did I do that? Maybe you should start reading what I write before you try responding.

Those are real life examples. How often do we hear on Panorama etc about 35/40 year old men sitting at a computer screen grooming young girls? How many of those girls who are often gullible enough to fall for it would slip through the net under Austrian law? Do you really think 14 year olds are able to make those choices without having advantage taken of them?

What Violinia said was "you can still go out for a drink in Paris or any town or city anywhere else in Europe for that matter without having to encounter gangs of half-naked teenagers spewing into gutters and punching each other's lights out." Is that true or not? I'm guessing that given that she probably hasn't been to every watering hole in Europe she can't vouch for that. I don't know quite what information Parisian police make public but I'm guessing there are at least a few cases of drunk and disorderly involving locals.

[quote name='snhs' date='Jun 16 2008, 02:40 PM' post='710002']
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You seem to have forgotten that.
[/quote]

Irrelevant.

[quote name='snhs' date='Jun 16 2008, 02:40 PM' post='710002']
In case you haven't realised many of those who were in the 20s or below and waving flags as the Nazis paraded through are still alive today, not to mention the fact that their older contemporaries have formed the nucleus of modern Austria as their children will now be parents. Did I do that? Maybe you should start reading what I write before you try responding.
[/quote]

I do read what you're saying, but this doesn't make sense. Sorry. I don't understand what you're trying to say.

[quote name='snhs' date='Jun 16 2008, 02:40 PM' post='710002']
Those are real life examples. How often do we hear on Panorama etc about 35/40 year old men sitting at a computer screen grooming young girls? How many of those girls who are often gullible enough to fall for it would slip through the net under Austrian law? Do you really think 14 year olds are able to make those choices without having advantage taken of them?
[/quote]

I don't know, how often do we hear about it?

[quote name='snhs' date='Jun 16 2008, 02:40 PM' post='710002'
What Violinia said was "you can still go out for a drink in Paris or any town or city anywhere else in Europe for that matter without having to encounter gangs of half-naked teenagers spewing into gutters and punching each other's lights out." Is that true or not? I'm guessing that given that she probably hasn't been to every watering hole in Europe she can't vouch for that. I don't know quite what information Parisian police make public but I'm guessing there are at least a few cases of drunk and disorderly involving locals.
[/quote]

Yes that's true. I know full well that I can go out until 4am and not encounter gangs of half-naked teenagers spewing into gutters in Paris. Of the other European cities I've visited, I'd say that was the case too. I'm sorry I've got no stats to prove it. Only life experience.

Another previously sensible thread bites the dust c/o snhs.

Why oh why can't you all just ignore him - until he learns to apply some logic - and to debate in a sensible, considered, and mature manner?

Sorry Tom, you're right, I was in a clashing mood today I usually do better.

Of course he's right.

We do need to learn from history, but if you can't quote examples and just use random statistics to try to build a pseudo case then what is the point!

I just wondered why it was so obvious to pushpull that we eat together at a dining table with the TV turned off. Infact there is no TV in our Dining room. There is TV in the living room and one in the master bedroom. There are numerous radio/CD players elsewhere... oh and Books.

V. had a good point. I thought I gave a coherent answer based on personal experience. Indeed in Paris, they have now got a bicycle rental scheme that makes it easy to cycle around the capital, and park them up and lock them too.

Oh it was simply your comment about adults and children not communicating followed by "We drink at meal times.......etc." So you obviously have meal times and I extrapolated from there. TV dinners have a lot to answer for. The British family seems to have become sadly fragmented in a way which doesn't seem to have occurred on the continent and I believe the widespread disuse of the dining table has a lot to do with it. That and the question "what would you like to eat?"

I agree also with a comment made earlier about how adults in pubs would in some way moderate the behaviour of the young 'uns. But now there is such a separation, it just doesn't happen. Personally I believe it's time adults took back control.

Oh I like a good rant.

Yeah, the case of "The Royle Family" (Sue Johnston, Ricky Whatsisname) has become steadily more apparent.

Oh I still ask them what they would like to eat... once a week when I go shopping, or when I'm in the butchers shop. The thing was I decided a long time ago that I was not going to have picky kids and they were going to eat the same food we did.

I agree the fact many children never sit around a kitchen nor dining table is an early 21st century disease that is destroying our society. More and more children do not know how to use cutlery either!

We walked to school alone from about 8/9. I think in most cases of teenagers being driven to school, around here anyway, it's just laziness rather than any concern for their safety.

I think I'd actually be happier to let a child out alone here in Northern Ireland than in England - but then again maybe I've just been watching the news too much as well

I walk to school. If its raining I get wet. I eat what my Mum gives me or go hungry, and I eat it at the table with them! That sounds harsh to some of my friends who get lifts/eat whatever, whenever, but its taught me discipline, table manners, and how to put up with things that are less than ideal. Kids don't always know what's best - we rely on our parents to tell us what is and isn't acceptable, and if they don't.. Well...

Hear hear

what a lovely post, Rosemary. Practical, sensible, down-to-earth.

I did wonder when anyone would mention or imply that any degree of breakdown in society is the responsibility of many parents.
They set the example to be followed.

Well. I take the bus the seven miles to school, and I eat whatever I want, and am willing to cook for myself. Despite this I don't actually think I'm a thug, a drain on society or anything else, and I wouldn't particularly consider myself entirely lazy. Sure, strong family values are important, but this doesn't mean that every family has to have the same values.

I rather resent the implication that every family that is 'decent' must all follow the same rules and attitudes. I talk to my parents and brother and sister a lot, just because we don't sit down together for every meal, doesn't make us dysfunctional, and neither do my parents coddle us. I don't binge drink, I never really have, and though I occasionally do go out and drink (in moderation, usually with a meal) with friends, I've never seen half naked youths throwing up in the gutters either.

justifiably indignant Lucky
because it is very easy to generalise again .... on most of these topics. There probably are some trends that one can find, but also there are always many exceptions.
Probably (again in general) there has been some decline in perceived standards etc, but also as ever there are many lovely people (Teens and older, and even adults ! ) who stand out from the 'rule' .

I am glad there are Teens like you who can restore faith

Ah, I think you're falling into the sort of reverse logic adopted by "someone else" on this thread - viz. There have been high profile paedophilia cases in Austria, therefore Austrians are paedophiles. Or they invited Hitler in so they must all be Nazis - even now. That's not exactly what I was saying, but I accept my vast over-simplification of the issue and also that there are many well-balanced young people.



Agreed and suitably chastised.



I'm pleased (as a Tyke), Yorkshire is upholding its high standards of behaviour. Sadly, not so in many major cities.

Barry(not Clarri) and I had dinner at a restaurant in Birmingham last Saturday night. A lovely meal to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We walked through Brindleyplace and past the canals to get to Broad Street to find a taxi to get home. The drunks were out in force. Lewd behaviour was in every direction. Young girls 16-25 at Hen nights wearing undies bought from shops like Ann Summers, walking up the main street People throwing up in the gutter, and it was only 11pm. Yuk.
Back to the country pub meals for me.
Bev.

Mind you , Headingley can get pretty bad late at night with student revelling, but its probably not Tykes who are doing it !

When I was at college, I used to go out with a group of up to 20 friends. Normally we'd get together at each others houses, because we lived up to 2 hours drive from each other, and it meant we could just dig out our sleeping bags and crash on the living room floor. We had parties with and without alchohol (some people had parents who were opposed, it was never an issue) I had a rule that anyone who drank to much would be put in the garden and ignored. I never had to carry out the threat. We never trashed anyones house, and usually all helped with the clearing up the following morning.

If we did go into town, we usually booked a restaurant. It used to make me so cross to walk in and see the faces of the various dining adults and staff fall. Like they expected us to drink too much, and be noisy and unpleasant before we'd even sat down. Not always though, some restaurants were always very friendly (I think they got to know us eventually) and, of course, this meant they got repeat custom.

There are plenty of normal, responsible, pleasant teenagers; equally there are large numbers of irresponsible, heavy drinking teenagers, and twenty-somethings, and thirty-somethings.

Living here in Bath, I'm always amazed at how a city with two universities can be so anti-student. The local councils and residents group seem to be oblivious to the role students play in the community, from volunteering, to boosting the economy. Apparently we're not actually part of the community at all, if you believed everything you read. As someone who'll have lived here 5 years by the time I graduate, I slightly object to this implication. My neighbour seems to be constantly disappointed that I have polite conversations with her across the garde fence. I think she'd rather we drank lots, and were noisy, so she'd have something to gossip and complain about.

Now I've gone off on a rant of my own, but I get sick to death of the constant low or negative expectations of people. Instead of expecting young people to behave like any other responsible adult, we're faced with the patronising attitude that any minute we'll be causing havoc. That seems like the biggest problem to me.

Well said!!

Very true

You'd probably find that many teenagers are just as intimidated by large drunken crowds hanging about as any other age group! Just because the crowd is their own age doesn't mean they have to like it