Come sono comportati gli adolescenti nel resto dell’Europa?

In France in certain cities they’ve had to put teenagers on curfew. Some of Germany and Italy considering the same. Very strange that this issue is suddenly happening.  

If you think it’s hard dealing with teenagers today, try being one.

Seriously, like most other goddamn problems that are on this sub, it’s multifaceted and will require several different approaches to deal with it.

And for a start getting the actual data is key. As opposed to the narratives generated by social media and the interwebz.

I’m just back from a short trip around Europe (Holland, Belgium and Germany). I travelled through at least 6 pretty large cities and aside from one incident that I witnessed, there was absolutely no anti-social nonsense from teenagers.

There were plenty of them around, but they were hanging out and not causing any issues for anybody. It was a breath of fresh air compared to Dublin.

Obviously, I’m not saying that anti-social behaviour doesn’t exist, but it was kept well away from the main streets and tourist areas, with a strong police visibility.

The day I returned home, I let a roar at three teenagers who were jumping on the bonnet of a car. Within seconds, I had the mother of one of them running over and losing her mind. When I pointed out that her little bastard was jumping on a car (despite the fact that she was standing there watching them) she tried to deny it. Miraculously, the young lad admitted it and apologised, but the mother absolutely refused to take responsibility for it and instead, threatened me with her husband.

I’m still waiting for him to drop around, but I’m sure he’s busy in work…

Been to Lithuania many times and never seen or even heard of any issues with teenagers. Some older 18/19 year olds got a bit mouthy with us when we asked them to take their rubbish with them, which they eventually did.

I’m 6ft 2 and around 18st and can look after myself pretty well, but even at 41 i still get wary walking past teenagers on the street. Especially those on those scooters and electric bikes. I saw what definitely looked like a drug deal (it was definitely shady anyway) literally the road opposite my house, I was walking back from the shop with my 5 yo daughter and all of a sudden a black car with youngsters in it pulled up and then these other teens (no more than 14-15 years old) on bikes, dropped their bikes went over to the car, and one of the lads passed something through a window in the back passenger seat to someone. Now it could’ve been innocent and not criminal in nature in any way, but it looked dodgy and it gives a negative vibe to areas. I certainly don’t want my kids seeing that. 

It’s also broken window theory, if there’s dereliction or vacancy in an area it sort of invites anti social behaviour. It’s all well and good blaming the parents, but they can’t keep an eye on them 24/7 especially if both parents work (that’s if both parents are still around). I was asked to take part in a community leadership course in my area from next month and I’m looking forward to workshopping some ideas but I suspect it won’t be straightforward. I think any long term solution will involve a multi disciplinary approach from a number of stakeholders. But my initial thoughts is that young people especially young men feel lost and adrift. They feel left out and unimportant, they may not be thinking about it now, but I’m sure they are aware of the acute housing crisis we are experiencing, the lack of funding for community amenities, the lack of positive male role models to look up to etc. its easy to blame youngsters for all this, but we also need to tackle the root causes too. What they are is being explored in the comments and it’s what I hope to find out myself during my course.