USA is the second worst place to raise kids

Reba said:
Of course, there is really no way to stop an 18-year-old from buying cigarettes at a store, then re-selling them to his friends (for a profit). It's illegal but very hard to catch and enforce.
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Unfortunlately I has to give you right about this.

Also, some parents don't mind buy tobacco for their children. I think it's insane (and I know it's illegal) but how can you control that? If the parents are that stupid, what can the law do? They can't send cigarette cops to every house to look for smoking teenagers. They can't send doctors to implant brains into the parents' heads.

:dunno:
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Well, it's safe to have children to smoke with their parents than smoke with peers in wrong way. I have seen many German parents let their teenagers to smoke with them... Its about open communicate... The law can't do anything to stop them because it's parent's decision, not law. We alway make sure that our boys aware about cigarettes, etc. why we don't smoke etc.. why their Dad give up his smoking habit etc.
 
Reba said:
Police do ticket the shop owners, when then catch them selling to minors. The problem is, they have to be caught in the act. That's hard to do. Sometimes they do "sting" operations to catch them (more often for underage alcohol sales). My daughter used to work in retail, and she told me that if a manager catches a clerk selling alcohol or tobacco to underage people, the clerk will be immediately fired. Most managers and owners don't want to risk breaking the law.

Of course, most underage teens can easily get tobacco products from people 18 years and older who buy the stuff for them. So you can't blame the stores for that.
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Yes I understood and agree with you on this. It's pretty logical that teenagers can get tobacco illegal from 18 years old... Oh Well...
 
I really don't understand why any 18 yrs old can get certain guns, buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, and go into porn sites or read nude magazines but they can't get alcohol until their 21. I remember when I was in teen, drinking age used to be 18 now is 21. Eighteen is a legal adult age. It just don't make sense at all.
 
mecooncat said:
I really don't understand why any 18 yrs old can get certain guns, buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, and go into porn sites or read nude magazines but they can't get alcohol until their 21. I remember when I was in teen, drinking age used to be 18 now is 21. Eighteen is a legal adult age. It just don't make sense at all.
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Me either!!!

We have hot debated at other thread last year...

http://www.alldeaf.com/topic-debates/23447-should-legal-drinking-age-change.html
 
Making Children Happy the Dutch Way

A recent report on the well-being of children and young people in the world's advanced economies says the Netherlands offers the best environment for children. So what are Dutch youngsters getting that others are not?

The research, which focused on material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's own subjective sense of well-being, to assess child happiness, proved beyond all doubt that the key to a happy child is a happy family. And that is where the Netherlands comes in.

Carolien Gelauff of the Netherlands Youth Institute said a lot of emphasis is put on the family.

"The family is important," she said. "A lot of time is spent raising children, making sure they have a nice time growing up. The notion of having happy childhood is common sense."

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Eating together is a part of family life
Yet, apparently not everywhere. While more than 70 percent of 15 year-olds in the Netherlands report that their parents spend time just talking to them several times per week, the figure in Germany is just above 40 percent.

Similarly 90 percent of Dutch children in the same age group said they eat the main meal of the day with their parents several times per week, whereas that number dips down to around the 65 percent mark in countries like Britain and the US, where there is a greater likelihood of both parents being out at work all day.

Protected freedom

Rob van der Beek, a father of two, said it is common in the Netherlands for women to put their careers on hold while they invest in their families.

"It is important to give children a warm and protective environment to grow up in," he said. "But within that, they should have the freedom to go and discover the world. That is our way of thinking."

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Learning by doingRuut Veenhoven, a professor of social conditions for human happiness at Rotterdam's Erasmus University, agreed that such thinking is typical of the Netherlands.

"You could say the dominant philosophy is to allow children to be free to explore and become independent," he said.

Subjective sense of well-being

Particularly interesting is the way in which young people in the Netherlands perceive their own well-being. In the study, children aged 11, 13 and 15 were asked: Here is a ladder. The top of the ladder, 10, is the best possible life for you and the bottom, 0, is the worst possible life for you. In general, where on the ladder do you feel you stand at the moment?

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Off to school
More than 90 percent of Dutch children rated themselves above the middle of the life satisfaction scale. They don't drink, smoke or have sex more than average, and the vast majority even claim to like school "a lot."

Gelauff said schools are very child-friendly places.

"Achieving is important, but there is no sense in overdoing it," she said. "The world is a hard enough place when children grow up, so parents should be there for their children."

Women at work

Unlike mothers in some other European countries, women in the Netherlands tend to take long periods of leave after having a baby, and then when they do eventually go back, they often work shorter hours.

"We are world champions at working part-time," Gelauff said. "Especially the women."

Veenhoven believes this working trend is quite significant.

"Although it cannot explain the differences to other countries entirely, there is some indication that the number of part-time working mothers contributes to child happiness," he said.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Part of the paternal program?The same options of shorter working hours are open to men too, although Gelauff said it is less common.

"Men say it is not so easy for them because it is harder to build a career if you work part-time, but some men only work four days a week," she said, adding that the paternal role has changed a lot in the past years. "Fathers are much more involved than in the old days. They play with children, look after them, do sport with them, take them swimming and so on."

All of this contributes to what she describes as an overall necessity to "take children seriously and pay attention to their needs."
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Making Children Happy the Dutch Way | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 20.02.2007
 
When it comes to raising children, people like Piaget and Vygotsky have already show that child centered is the best way to go. It doesn't surprize me at all that the good ole USA is so low on the list. Look at some of the posts around here for evidence. No one wants to take the child's point of view into consideration--its as if they shouldn't even be allowed to have thoughts or feelings.
 
jillio said:
When it comes to raising children, people like Piaget and Vygotsky have already show that child centered is the best way to go. It doesn't surprize me at all that the good ole USA is so low on the list. Look at some of the posts around here for evidence. No one wants to take the child's point of view into consideration--its as if they shouldn't even be allowed to have thoughts or feelings.
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I know a lot of people who believe "the good old days" were right that "Children should be seen and not heard."
 
jillio said:
When it comes to raising children, people like Piaget and Vygotsky have already show that child centered is the best way to go. It doesn't surprize me at all that the good ole USA is so low on the list. Look at some of the posts around here for evidence. No one wants to take the child's point of view into consideration--its as if they shouldn't even be allowed to have thoughts or feelings.
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Can you care to explain what Piaget and Vygotsky are? I have no clue who they are...and why you use Piaget and Vygotsky as an example?
 
My son never got arrested for smoking, only got ticket. sorry for misunderstood. Reb is right about one thing, most of his buddies were over 18 and he was almost 18 so it was easier for his friends to buy cig for him. He lied to cops to protect his friends so they won't be arrest for selling him cig.


Angel, here in Ca it costs about over 400 bucks now for any minor to smoke cigs. Before it was only costed about 50 bucks for first time.. Not only this expensive ticket, my friend just got ticket for ran thru red light to make right turn and it costed her about 371 bucks to pay fine. Something is wrong with our state now that anyone who got tickets pay way more money than ever. Feel bad for parents nowdays if their kids got ticket for anything alike my other son got ticket for having marker pen in his backpack and I did not know about the law then. It costed me 250 bucks just for that marker pens. I bought it for my son whom he loves art and draw with it on his notebook. Now it is forbid for any under 18 to carry marker pens in their purse or backpack.

Laws just getting werider and more strict and more bucks here in CA. dunno about other states.
 
Liebling:-))) said:
It's sad, that you know from seen it. I also know from see it in England where I grew up... :(

I have seen that American children around here (I work for US Government) have different menatily as European children. British and American's mentality are different but I has to agree that British is the mainly worst.

Should we blame government for that?
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I would love to explain it more deeply about people who live in poverty here. But I am more ingornat on that part why they are living in poverty if I tell u about it. I remember I grew up poor, yes hand out clothes and not many toys compare to my brat cousin who got everything and spoiled. She was only child and because my parents had too many kids and could not afford to buy stuffs for us all. Many people I met on my routes are not able to work because of their disablitiy, not deafness but more alike health problems alike diabetes which cripple them and seen them trying to raise kids because their grandkids' parents are in jail or social workers took them away from their parents because of neglect. Those kids are suffering, unfortunely. Blame on government? I am not sure but our society has to do with it by separate three different classes, , lower class, middle class and upper class. Each class has its own problem with different background life, some live in old beat up house with not many furnitures while others live in high society with swimming pool and fancy furnitures with zillion toys to play with. Middle class is between two of them, most of them live a regular life with regular house and regular cars. Where I live, I love desert and it was quiet and low population when we first moved here 24 years ago. but now it is booming and overpopulation. They bring problems over here from the city. Not enough houses for newcomers, overcrowd schools, overcrowd everywhere. More people are moving to CA for some reason. It never stop growing esp with too many illegal aliens come here and take over here and jobs. U have not seen them take bath in river? Because they do not have water, some of them live in the desert without shelter over their head. They are not suppose to be here but they are. Once saw them ate rats out of the desert, ready to throw up when I think of it. Also we have many transists live here too. I have no idea about in Europe, do they have transisits? Have u check Native people's life on reservation? I was surprised to learn they are still living in poverty. Blame on Govt on them, yes they were one who put native people there in first place and keep them in poverty. My brother had to go hide from bill collector for 10 years because his health insurance from his old job were collapsed and handed him hospital bill with 1 million dollar. Who can pay hospital bill for one million dollars. My sister in law was in the hospital for three month to keep feed her and her unborn child back then. I consider them to be in poverty if they were debt over one million dollars. There is too many wrong with our country, don't know about federal government but it is part of business, they need to make bucks to profit and pay workers and so on and on. Still consider USA is worst place to raise kids even farther away from city.

As for mentality different between Europe and USA, yeah tell me about it. I met this foregin exchange kid from France what a big difference between him and our kids here. Now about different between u and me, are we different on mentality? :)
 
jazzy said:
I would love to explain it more deeply about people who live in poverty here. But I am more ingornat on that part why they are living in poverty if I tell u about it. I remember I grew up poor, yes hand out clothes and not many toys compare to my brat cousin who got everything and spoiled. She was only child and because my parents had too many kids and could not afford to buy stuffs for us all.
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Yes I understand your point and how you feeling. I would like to share my view with you but I hope you don't mind if I say too open and directly. I know your description because I'm same boat as you as well. I live in poor poverty and have family who living at social assistance (thanks social insurances, that we are not become homeless) and witness my parents struggle with money issues. I have to go work to earn my pocket money when I was 11 years old. I would say that my mom should think twice before make more children when she know that she struggle with her life to support family with money issues.

I myself am mother of 2 boys. I would love to have more children then I'm able to acheive to fulfill their wishes but I decide 2 is enough for me due budget issue. I think it's not fair for the children to suffer like this because their parents struggle with money to fulfill their wishes and support family life. I see no excuse for parent's action to claim that they love children. It's not fair for the children to suffer like this. That's why we wait for 7 years to start a family because we want to give our love and attention to children and fulfill their wishes. We want to make sure that our children's childhood should be happy one.

I can understand how you feel when you withnessed your cousin who have everything what you and your siblings don't have. I know it because I had through myself... I withnessed my cousins the same... I envied them because they have everything what we don't have... I know that my cousins are not spoil brats because their parents know their limit for want to have children then they able to acheive to fulfill their children's wishes. My boys' British cousins are jealous of my boys because my boys have everything and travel to everywhere where cousins don't have. It doesn't mean that my boys are spoil brat because I know my limit to fulfill their wishes like Easter, birthday, Xmas etc. Yes my sister REGRET to have children an earlier to follow our mother's role when she know she struggle with money.





Many people I met on my routes are not able to work because of their disablitiy, not deafness but more alike health problems alike diabetes which cripple them and seen them trying to raise kids because their grandkids' parents are in jail or social workers took them away from their parents because of neglect. Those kids are suffering, unfortunely. Blame on government?
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Yes I aware but I see no excuse to blame government for this. The people who want to become parents should think twice before start family. It's parent's responsible for want to have babies in first place. Look at kids suffering...

I am not sure but our society has to do with it by separate three different classes, , lower class, middle class and upper class. Each class has its own problem with different background life, some live in old beat up house with not many furnitures while others live in high society with swimming pool and fancy furnitures with zillion toys to play with. Middle class is between two of them, most of them live a regular life with regular house and regular cars. Where I live, I love desert and it was quiet and low population when we first moved here 24 years ago. but now it is booming and overpopulation. They bring problems over here from the city. Not enough houses for newcomers, overcrowd schools, overcrowd everywhere. More people are moving to CA for some reason. It never stop growing esp with too many illegal aliens come here and take over here and jobs. U have not seen them take bath in river? Because they do not have water, some of them live in the desert without shelter over their head. They are not suppose to be here but they are. Once saw them ate rats out of the desert, ready to throw up when I think of it. Also we have many transists live here too. I have no idea about in Europe, do they have transisits? Have u check Native people's life on reservation? I was surprised to learn they are still living in poverty. Blame on Govt on them, yes they were one who put native people there in first place and keep them in poverty. My brother had to go hide from bill collector for 10 years because his health insurance from his old job were collapsed and handed him hospital bill with 1 million dollar. Who can pay hospital bill for one million dollars. My sister in law was in the hospital for three month to keep feed her and her unborn child back then. I consider them to be in poverty if they were debt over one million dollars. There is too many wrong with our country, don't know about federal government but it is part of business, they need to make bucks to profit and pay workers and so on and on. Still consider USA is worst place to raise kids even farther away from city.
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*nodding sadly* I respectfully disagree with US polities on this. Government should take care of their people and healthy issues and more helps instead of punish them ....

As for mentality different between Europe and USA, yeah tell me about it. I met this foregin exchange kid from France what a big difference between him and our kids here. Now about different between u and me, are we different on mentality? :)
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Yeah I aware that we have different mentality (including behavior as well). I'm thinking about create a new thread about our mentality then we are able to learn where we come from.
 
in Oklahoma, the retailer will be jailed for selling alcohol/ ciggy to the minors. Here in this country, i know other country be the same. In this country, they are searching for fame and fortunes. When low class win big lottery, that person won't be the same. Here many kids attacking other kid, bec the kids beat up other kid, bec the clothes they wear. Many fortunate kids timidating the unfortunate one, which lead unfortunate kids attack them. There are numerous of ways this society gone thru. Even good parents suffered, bec their kids overpowered and threatening them (parents). There are variety of problems. the way i see, bec so much commercialize when unfortunate getting out of control. But, it is unfair, if we think about it for a moment, you and me are not that person to identify what a person been going thru by saying he or she has no excuse for what he or she has done. It is so easy for us to say that, bec, we are not that person. Sometimes we say, I'm so glad I don't have to go thru that. Poor him/her or look how inexcusable that person did or etc. Yes, it is very wrong for anything that is very harmful or fatal. But getting the attitude will not solve it. Even some kids says, I did it, bec I need attention. Most kids, as a growing process, are not only parents themselves, most kids want attention from outside of the family. many parents I have seen were broken. Let put it this way, like many people saw a child is sooo out of control and blaming the parents not control them, which is not always so. Bec many kids have some disease when they found out later. It is very confusing to know if its a home or something else now in days.
 
Europe diary: Children speak out

BBC Europe editor Mark Mardell asks what can be learnt from a Unicef report comparing and contrasting children's well-being across Europe and why Britain ends up bottom of the class.

PARENTAL ANXIETY

All but oblivious to the Belgians around us tucking into their steak au poivre we held hands across the cafe table and talked. I didn't need the prompting of a Unicef report to gossip with my eight-year-old daughter, but its unspoken disapproval of parents who never make it home to share an evening meal had perhaps hit home.

Why is it so many British children dislike school?

Anyway, my daughter asked me what I had been up to in the past week and I told her about my day trip to the Netherlands to cover the story of their happy children and Britain's unhappy ones. She observed that when children arrived from Britain to join her school they often seemed defensive and unsure of the other children at first. A natural consequence of a big move and a new place perhaps, but is there something rotten in the state of childhood in Britain?

DUTCH LAUGHTER

The Dutch teenagers I meet at a school just outside Utrecht certainly seem keen to live up to the reputation given to them by the report, as the happiest kids in Europe. True, drama lessons do tend to be at the lighter end of school life. But the hooting laughter that greets one girl's rather skilful attempts to do a rapid-fire murder mystery charade speak volumes. They're falling over themselves laughing as she hoots and flaps her arms, grabs hold of classmates to simulate raucous carousing and mimes putting on make-up.

According to the survey, Dutch children rather like school. I find a few boys who say, no they hate it and it's boring, but most agree it's a good place to be.. And whenever I ask "why?" the answer is the same: "It's somewhere you can be with your friends". By the way, the answer to the murder mystery: Tweetie Pie was the killer, at a carnival, and the murder weapon was mascara.

Dutch royals on holiday appear to embody the nation's family values
One of the many surprising things about the report is that in liberal Holland, drunkenness, smoking, teenage pregnancy and even cannabis consumption were all lower than in Britain, where whatever the behaviour on the streets there is no shortage of moralising from on-high.

Drawn into the Utrecht school's rehearsal hall by the strains of a rather good Nirvana cover thumping out, I talk to the band Appleslapp. The lead guitarist tells me people don't feel the need to take drugs or get drunk to break a taboo. He rather spoils the effect by adding: "here people smoke weed because they like it". He says there are classes in school covering all these perils. The lead singer, a girl, blushes as she says "in biology they even tell us how to use a condom".

SURPRISING FINDINGS

What is startling about this report into the well-being of children in Europe is that the countries at the top and bottom of the poll don't seem to me so different. The Netherlands and Britain are both rather overcrowded, rich northern European countries with a strong work ethic and pockets of poverty. There's a great deal of concern in Britain about relentless hours and little spare time, so some made an automatic assumption that parents' quality time with children was the key difference. It's certainly true, or at least it's certainly a result of this survey, that Dutch families have more meals together and put aside more time to talk to their children than the Brits. Although Italy comes out tops in the "family meal" stakes, it's not those countries with a Mediterranean attitude to the importance of the family or the relative unimportance of work that win out. Indeed, Germany, famed for having short working hours for social reasons, is worst when it comes to putting time aside for a chat.

The Portuguese are best at eating fruit every day, the Finns worst. The Germans are the most determined underage smokers, the Poles have the most virginal 15-year-olds. The Finns dislike school the most, but have the highest educational achievements. Belgium's 15-year-olds are way out ahead in feeling awkward and out of place, while the Swedes are least likely to feel this. The "negative feeling" question throws up one remarkable non-European comparison: while 5-20% of European children report feeling lonely, a staggering 30% of Japanese kids feel this way. The Hungarians are most likely to have been in a fight, the Finns the least - no doubt aggression sapped by the lack of fruit and all that studying. The Norwegians, who like school the most, are the least likely to be unemployed at 19.

OPTIMISTS V CYNICS

The real key though may have nothing directly to do with "well-being" and everything to do with national character, if such a thing exists. The report interprets some facts: for instance it assumes that living in a single-parent family gives a negative score to a "child's well-being". Some would say that's common sense, others would find it contentious. What is odder is that it mixes purely factual statistics, such as infant mortality rate, with reported opinion on facts ("I live in a low-income house" or " I have been bullied") and with the purely subjective. And it's the latter that is so fascinating.

I haven't gone as far as pulling apart the statistics and re-averaging them, but I am pretty convinced what puts Dutch kids out on top and British ones at the bottom is their own opinion of their lives. Really striking is what they think of children their own age. Are they kind and helpful? More than 70% of Dutch children say "yes" and the figure is higher still in Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Norway. In Britain under half the children reckon their peers are helpful, the lowest of any of the 31 countries on the graph. When asked how satisfied they are with their life, the Dutch come out on top, the British down at the bottom with the Poles and Portuguese.

I wonder what is behind this? The Dutch have always seemed to me a contented bunch. I am trying to find the right phrase: most of those I want to use, like "self-satisfied" or "pleased with themselves", have a negative connotation of smugness, and that is not what I mean. But perhaps the very fact that it is difficult to find a positive phrase for this feeling in English speaks volumes. Britain is a cynical place, and I wonder whether British children just think it's uncool to admit to liking their classmates or their life. Not to mention a greater willingness to own up to underage sex and drinking than, say, the Poles. I think life probably is rather nicer, more friendly, more relaxed in the Netherlands (and Belgium) than the UK, but is it really so very different?

Read further in this link... BBC NEWS | Europe | Europe diary: Children speak out
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Interesting... :eek3:
 
what if parents raise kids in wrong way and turn out that kids accident become famous? Look at many listing that people live here are most famous. eh eh?
 
After reading all this i notice Australia not mention are we good or bad ? pmsl:giggle:
 
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