Are young people with increasingly violent, self-destructive behaviour out of control — or is this the most self-centred, negligent generation of parents yet?
Globally, young people in newly affluent societies are playing up — they stagger drunk from parties, consume an array of drugs, have sex at increasingly young ages and are disturbingly violent.
Last year, Johannesburg’s King Edward School, which previously boasted great names as old boys (Judge Richard Goldstone, business tycoon Tony Bloom and others), saw shame tarnish its reputation. A father laid charges against four boys after his son was so badly beaten at a KES school party that bones in his face were broken.
Later that night at a private party, KES boy Mfundo Ntshangase died after being stabbed seven times, allegedly by youths from Athlone Boys’ and an unnamed school. Five young men aged from 16 to 18 appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court. Ntshangase apparently tried to calm an argument. The friend whose aid he reportedly went to was hospitalised with his injuries.
Research by South Africa’s Medical Research Council shows that young men are more likely to die violently than of any other cause. Research in 2004 showed that 57,8% of trauma presenting at hospitals was because of violence, in two-thirds of cases sharp objects such as knives were used, in 87% of cases the perpetrator was male and in two-thirds of cases alcohol was a factor.
Discussion on Metro FM this week revealed that in many instances parents charge entrance fees to their children’s parties and sell alcohol regardless of the age of children.
During the December vacation or at school or university sporting days, breweries and distillers often sponsor events — deliberately encouraging a culture of young alcohol consumption. Parents and even journalists encourage drunkenness as a rite of passage.
While newspapers, magazines and books focus on good parenting toward babies and toddlers, everyone ignores older children and yet they are at most risk from significant harm. A senior superintendent with a police unit that deals with family violence says: “Children in this society see and experience way too much violence, and for some reason everyone expects them to cope without help. They can’t; we pick them up as addicts, alcoholics or also being violent years later.”
South Africa’s challenges regarding violent children are not unique. Ireland, now the second-wealthiest country in the world after decades of poverty and Northern Ireland conflict, is struggling with increasing drunkenness among youth and associated violence. This week, an inquest into the violent death of Brian Murphy (18), who died after receiving multiple facial injuries that caused swelling of the brain, saw an unlawful-death verdict. Murphy died after five boys kicked him outside a Dublin nightclub. One was charged, but the conviction was overturned. No one will go to jail for his death.
Britain is concerned by a growing number of shootings by young people. In August, an 11-year-old playing soccer in Liverpool was shot dead by a youth on a BMX bike. His was one of 17 similar deaths this past year.
Britain’s Tory leader, David Cameron, had the sort of knee-jerk response that has typified generations of adults when faced with perverse or dangerous youth behaviour. They blame the kids. In late August, he called for convicted delinquents to have their capacity to obtain driver’s licences delayed — a fat lot of good, one would think, in a society where most catch the Tube or buses. He also wanted longer jail time.
Teen violence has seen muted political responses in South Africa. Little wonder; it is the politicians who have scrapped psychological services from South African schools. Children traumatised by the most violent peace-time society on Earth have no one to turn to. Years of psychological research have shown that children who do not get help for psychological distress often act out violently.
Gauteng’s ANC education subcommittee chairperson, Amon Msane, has said the growing number of violent incidents in schools stems from parents being too lenient. He said society needs good role models — precisely the sort of empty response from a committee chief with the power to do something that ensures nothing will get done.
Recent research by Jennifer Hayes in peaceful Ireland — it ranks fourth on the Economist‘s rating of the least violent societies in the world — showed that adolescent offenders often had separation anxiety, major depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress, conduct disorder and substance abuse. Eighty-two percent of the boys aged 14 to 16 that she researched had a major psychological disorder, compared with an average of 16,5% in the general adolescent population.
None of these children received psychological help before they committed crimes — it’s a safe bet that most South African young offenders have received no help either. And with a jail recidivism rate of more than 80% (the highest in the world), it’s unlikely they’ll get it in prison. Their future, unless someone intervenes positively, is likely to see them becoming increasingly violent and eternally alienated from society.
For many young people the only way to get the attention they crave is to behave badly. It is then in societies such as Ireland and South Africa with high rates of newly wealthy people (South Africa is the world’s fourth-largest creator of new dollar millionaires) that self-obsessed parents may pay a little attention. Briefly. And even then their response is likely to be self-involved. As one social worker put it: “They wonder what they did to deserve this with all they gave their child; clothes, money, CDs, video games, everything but time and focused attention.”
Never are parents called to account for the bad behaviour of their children. It’s a severe failing in law.
Germaine Greer, in her new book, The Boy, notes: “A male teenager is more likely to attempt suicide than not, more likely than anyone else to write off a motor vehicle, almost certain to experiment with drugs … and at greater risk of committing and/or suffering an act of violence than any grown man or female.”
Her research was long accurate but in November last year was overturned by a study from Mike Males of the United States-based Centre on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. His says: “Youths are being maligned to disguise the fact that it is middle-aged adults — the parents — whose behaviour has worsened.”
His stats show that Americans ages 35 to 54 are out of control:
Males wrote that while “30 years ago, the riskiest age group for violent death was 15 to 24”, those same risk takers are now parents and have not modified their behaviour. “Today, the age group most at risk for violent death is 40 to 49, including illegal-drug death rates five times higher than for teenagers.”
How can children love themselves when no one has time for them, when video games are not screened for excessive violence by parents or stores, when they are dropped off at malls or placed in front of the television or a computer screen while parents socialise or obsessively work?
Information technology expert Arthur Goldstuck says every Saturday he switches off technology — computers and phones — and devotes the day to his children. “Isn’t that a sacrifice?” a radio interviewer asked him. “There is nothing more important than ensuring the happiness of my children,” Goldstuck responded. If more parents thought and behaved like him, youth violence would rapidly decline.
Preventing violence in young people:
(Source: Centres for Disease Control (US), South African Medical Research Council)
Warning indicators for violence in young people:
(Source: Centres for Disease Control (US), South African Medical Research Council, writings by Alice Munro, South African Police Service)
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