WTF is wrong with kids these days?
 

LINKY

I don't get it, how do you get the idea that a razor blade will give you a great tattoo? Some people really need some help.

They were third graders. They barely know how to blow their nose, let alone know what a tatoo is.

And I thought I did dumb things as a kid.

Good thing she didn't bring a chainsaw

hmmph.. i thought that they had metal detectors and such at schools now.. oh right .. that's just high school.

Like everything else it must be because they play too much Doom2!!!

When I was in third grade I didn't care about tatoos and I certainly wasn't about to cut myself for anything!
I was busy playing with dolls like most little girls.

poor children. they should know a cig lighter would leave a good permenate marking.

doh

LOL good one.. kids..geesh..gotta wonder sometimes

when i was in third grade, i was too busy learning about my body parts and the growths on my chest. ;-)

Hell in third grade the last thing that was on my mind was self-mutilation. Really has to make you wonder what this kids parents are like though for her to get a stupid idea like this in the first place.

Cow tipping isnt the rage in Texas anymore eh?

When I was in third grade, the dumbest thing anyone did was eat a glue stick. We weren't slicing each other with razors to make tattoos. I agree.......WTF????

any parents at home? teaching these kids what their bodies are all about?

well, well, well said. the kids had to get them some place. a father or mother should never have such items available to kids.

i'd be asking some questions if i were there. they had to get the blades somewhere. and no, i'm not attacking the parents, we all make mistakes. . . . but if you have kids, show some responsibility.

like those fuckin school shootings. why in the holy fuck did they have a gun????

haha kids

at third grade i used razor blades...to help my father cut gaskets and shit like that...i never would have thought to cut myself.

A part - to me, it's a very large part - of what is wrong with kids these days has nothing to do with their parents.

Kids are influenced - for me they are most influenced - by social pressure and societal programming. They look up to older kids - kids always have. Older kids are full of tattoos and piercings and body mod in general. Their media role models are filled with same. Video games are filled with violence and so are film and TV - always more ultraviolent than previous generations experienced. A media generation is perhaps 5 years now. It's not surprising at all they would do this sort of thing.

To me it looks like parental influence is rendered nearly nil. No matter how much they try, parents are losing the ability to influence or control their kids because of external forces and it's hardly their fault. Blaming parents is too easy of an answer. And it doesn't answer or solve anything.

You must see at least a small amount of what I am saying. If so, then think of it as a matter of degree. You may see the things I am referring to as much less significant than parental influence and responsibility. I see it the other way around.

I agree with that, but for a different reason than you. See, I think that parental influence isn't shit on a kids life because parents don't do what they should be doing. My mom was a huge influence on my life and that's because she was always there. She always put her kids needs in front of her own. Do you honestly think that all parents do that? She was always there to teach. She didn't allow TV or any other bullshit media to teach me and be the main influence on my life. Parents should have complete control of what their kids are learning and subjected to. If they don't then as far as I'm concerned they aren't doing their job properly.

I do definatly see your point, Art, but from what I see.... parental influence is low because the parents arn't parents anymore.

that's just my POV..

Isn't around that time in a boys life is where they should be snooping around their dads porno stash instead of doing shit like that?....

When I was in third grade...Jesus I sound like an old guy...when I was in 3rd grade, I was more concerned with reading comic books and not being picked last for kickball. Never thought to cut myself up, that's just bizarre.

Well, most parents aren't parents because they would rather be their kids closest pal.

It's kind of hard to take your mom and dad seriously when he's still sporting an earring and soulpatch from college and she's wearing capris and singing Britney Spears. That's if both them aren't 'bored' with parenthood already and are even around.

I watched a lot of television, played a lot of video games, and had a lot of very bad, older influences, but I turned out okay. Thanks mostly to my Mother along with a handful of 'real' adults.

My parents did the best they could. Kept me from watching much TV, tried to keep me from the computer (that didn't work), did not allow guns of any sort (including water guns), and provided a variety of sports and activities for me to do.

Even so, in third grade I was thinking more about damming up irrigation ditches in cow pastures, and laughing at the cattle standing in inches of water, or placing objects in the middle of the road to watch cars destroy them as they rolled over (yes, I caused some flats).

In fifth grade I did used to go with my friends and their dad's shotgun out to a field and shot gophers (yes during my younger years I grew up in the boonies), and well I now see how easily that situation could have turned into a state or even national tragedy of some sort (well, probably no tragedy since we were just quiet mountain town kids).

Good parenting isn't just trying to hide your kids from the "evils" of the world, but it's teaching your kids to make wise and healthy decisions. No matter what every child will have the opportunity throughout their lifes to make plenty of decisions that could severly hinder or even be fatal to them. Not only teaching your children, but correcting them, and most important of all... being an example. If you teach them one thing and do another you may as well just hide the guns, razorblades, and drugs as best as you can.

Chemical castrations for all!

The parents definately need to be more involved...It is real scary that they are trying that in third grade...

I think that sixate hit it right on the head...too many parents just aren't around anymore. It's a shame, too.

I have to agree Sixate.
I can see both sides but, I have to say that my parents were VERY strict, mostly my dad. Well, I knew not to do stupid things but mostly because I was sooo scared of my dad. My mom was the one that finally went with me so that I could get upper ear piercing before I was old enough to go and do it on my own. My dad tried to control music, tv, computer, hair, friends, clothes and the list goes on and on....I hated it and to a degree some of it still bugs me but, I'm glad that I was brought up the way I was. I even thanked my dad for how I turned out. He almost cried...

3rd grade? My God, kids do things and know things years before my generation ever did.

After reading everyone's posts, I had to shoot back up to the top of the page and read the article again. My question is: where was the 3rd grade teacher?

I know the teacher can't watch all the kids every second, but they must have had a pretty good amount of time alone for 10 kids to have received wounds.

Again, where was the teacher?

kids are fucked up these days

it makes me nervous as to how they are going to be when they grow up

example:

a guy at work the other day said that a 13 year old kid asked him to go into the store to buy smokes. Obviously the guy didn't buy him the smokes, and said no, he shouldn't be smoking. After this was said, the kid got voilent and started threatening the guy. The kid said 'my brother has a gun and he will come down here to shoot you if you don't go get me smokes'. The kids friend said that he had a knife and that he would cut him if he didn't buy them smokes.

Now, i smoked when i was 13, but no one ever bought me smokes, and when i asked, i didn't start threatening the person who said no. I mostly stole them off my parents, and it is totally their fault for having them accessable to me. I take most of the blame for smoking, but they still shouldn't have been available for me to get.

Kids are also very mouthy these days. I skateboard, and more than 90% of the people who blurt out stupid comments are kids under the age of 13. They say things like 'skate or die'. I never go tthat though. Shouldn't i be saying that to them? Aren't they saying that since they don't skate, they should die?

Anyway, kids these days don't give a fuck about anything and know that if anyone does anything to them, they just have to get the law involved. I blame it on the law, and on the law.

As a lover of tattoos...


That's fucking cool.

I actually remember some guys doing something similar when I was in grade 4. A couple of the 'tough kids' told everybody that if you cut words into your arm with a razor blade and then rubbed salt on it, you'd get a permanent scar of whatever you wrote. That was in 1978, in Adelaide (the City of Churches) in Australia. A very conservative city overall. They were the only 2 in the class who did it. They also pierced their ears with safety pins. Maybe a punk thing at the time.

I knew both 'tough kids' had pretty bad home lives and I think they both ended up having trouble with the police as they got older. I'm not trying to make a value judgment here. Just noting that this sort of thing may have happened in isolation for longer than we realise and perhaps the media hype every time this sort of thing happens is partly to blame for our concerns that kids these days are so much worse than before.