[lXvtm0ox]

Dear All,

Please see

http://www.unicef-icdc.org/presscent...d7/rc7_eng.pdf

This shows that children in the USA and UK are the most unhappy in the developed world. Why?

Andreas.

[chuviskkk]

This shows that children in the USA and UK are the most unhappy in the developed world. Why?

Andreas, thank you for sharing this very disturbing report. It is so very important that we read this and share it with others.

Though I am not a child psychologist or counselor, nor do I have any expertise in the area except for having raise two children of my own to adulthood, I would suggest the reason that our children are the most unhappy because they lack the fundamental need of every person....basic love.

Speaking about children in the US, (since I do not live in the UK), they are given everything they want. Toys, electronic games, name-brand clothes, freedom to do/say/think whatever they want, and the list goes on. But are they given love?

The love of which I speak is that which comes from parental availability, discipline, teaching basic respect, expectations and follow through on helping to keep the family and home running (meaning having household responsibilities - like make the bed every morning, pick up the room every night, etc.).

Children are not taught that doing something good, or working hard for a good grade is reward unto itself. Instead they are taught that there must always be a reward for whatever they do. (Get an "A" on a test, earn a $1 for example.)

Children are not taught respect for their elders, nor respect for their ministers/priests/etc. They are not taught respect for one another or for themselves.

They turn to actions which make them feel good because life itself doesn't feel good though they have everything they could dream of. Everything except parents. Yes, I know this will spark a debate and I am treading on toes, so please forgive me.

How important is the family dinner table in the majority of US homes? How many eat dinner altogether every single night to discuss the days events, the current news, what they learned in Sunday school, learn about a Saint, celebrate their 'name day?'

It is my opinion that adults are not available to the children to be the stable force in their lives in a world that is spinning far out of balance.

Just my thoughts worth less than 2 cents. YMMV.

Athanasia

[Seiblybiozy]

I have to agree with Anthanasia. I work for a nonprofit youth organization. In the US at least, I can name one reason why kids are unhappy or uncared for or undesired. Parents!

The kids in this report and the kids I work with are the kids of my generation. Personally, I don't have kids. I like kids I can give back to momma. I understand my shortcomings in childrearing and would never subject a child to me.

Kids nowadays, IF they have 2 in home parents are turn-key kids. Both parents more than likely work or if a single family the parent has to have 2 fulltime jobs to make ends meet. In order to appease their sence of failing their child, they buy them off. Give little Johnny anything he wants to make myself feel better for leaving him all alone for 8 hours after school.

There are no morals being practised today. Dad IF he is still around (we just hit 51% of families are now single parent families) is off to work before Johnny gets up to beat traffic and does not get home until after 7pm and then just wants to unwind and NOT mess with his son.

Another thing to consider is the poverty level of this country. But for those that do go to church are being hit up to send money and resources to third world countries (who need it) but in the mean time keeping much of this country at poverty level.

What happened to the post WWII parents who taught Family values to their kids? Why did those kids not pass it on. I heard one veteran say what this country needs is a good ol fashion war on her own soil to wake people up to the extravagence she lives under and make people appreciate the freedom she has.

Is this post on topic? Is your post about Chalcedonian Orthodoxy through patristic and monastic study? Off-topic may be deleted without notice. Click here for guidelines. Nope this post is not. I wouldn't know how to tie the two together either. Sorry. We need fewer babies to unwed mothers, fewer fathers making babies just for the sake of a conquest, and more time devoted to those babies that are born by parents who will take the time to...

IMHP
Paul

[Stengapsept]

Dear Andrea, Dear Athanasia,

I suspect most of us will think that Athanasia's words are worth a great deal more than 2 cents; indeed, they deserve a great deal of thought, and if put on a plaque in every government office that deals with children, they might help a little.

It is rather concerning that in the UK at least, the government and some of the media are attacking the UNICEF report as 'out of date' and 'biased against the economically successful'. I know just enough about the UN to be aware that there may well be some biases in the report, but one only has to read a newspaper or walk the streets to get a real sense that, in essentials, the report is on to something.

Nor is it just children who suffer; all of us do.

What has happened in the west is in danger of happening everywhere through globalisation, and the current model of 'development' is designed to ensure that it does. Everywhere, as a capitalist economic system has grown, and has brought considerable economic benefits and well as political freedoms with it (so please no one read this as some sort of anti-capitalist diatribe), secularisation has come in its wake.

For some time, during the process, the emerging secular society is able to rely on the moral norms laid down by the religion which it is busy superseding; indeed, there are even pockets of 'revivalism' which help reinforce those old norms. But, as time passes, secularists try to dismantle more and more of those norms by resort of moral relativism, arguing that there is not absolute truth and everything is relative.

This is no doubt good fun in the university common room, but out there on the streets it filters down in a vulgarised form as the notion that 'I've got my rights' and no one should interfere with my desire to do what I want. This is reinforced by the general message from society that life is about earning lots of money and getting lots of 'things'. If you happen to live somewhere where your education won't let you, the temptation to get these 'things' by other means can be overwhelming.

And where are the Churches in all of this?

Well, in the UK, my old Church, the Anglicans, like the Roman Catholics and some of the other Churches, do their best to help, but mainly as arms of the secular state. Church Schools no longer have a Christian ethos (indeed it is banned as 'non inclusive'), or stress those values Athanasia mentions; and so another generation grow up with no real exposure to them.

In the UK the media is entirely secular, and any attempt to get a toe hold for any religion is met with howls of anguish and clips from US T.V. showing Jimmy Swaggart or whoever, overacting to a degree that makes most UK Christians think that if that is what religious T.V. is about, better not go there then.

As a society we offer few incentives for men or women to stay at home with their children, and in the UK, house prices are so high that a young family will need both parents in the work place just to put a roof over their head. As a society we no longer seem to place a public value on motherhood - or, indeed, fatherhood.

Christianity offers, as it always has, the place where we can all find a model for good living, as well as salvation. How do we connect that to this society in which we live?

In Christ,

John

[lXvtm0ox]

Everything you have all said is dead right, of course, and I wouldn't put a price on what Athanasia said. Have a look at 'Dimension 4' of the report - it's about 'Relationships'. Clearly, the Italians are doing something right here. But just look at the US and UK! Lydia has only been here in England four years, but her comment was, 'I didn't need a UNESCO Report to tell me this. England is a rotten country for children - it's so obvious'. Athanasia is right - what is needed is love: Christian love. I'm no sociologist, but I know that when people are unhappy and unloved they react and kick out. That's why our young kids despise authority, get drunk and treat sex as a normal recreational acitivity.

[lXvtm0ox]

PS - Paul, I know what you mean about parents, but the social and economic pressures on parents must be enormous, and quite frankly I don't know how well I would have done as a parent.

[Seiblybiozy]

Andreas:
If blame has to be put some where in society rather than on parents directly, put it on me (in the plural form). I am sure most parents want the best for their kids. I do work with many of these types of people. I also see the inner city kids that momma just needs another fix and dad is long gone, so jr. has to fend for himself. food, gangs, drugs, etc...

What have I done to rectify this? This is the beam in my own eye. I pray with Great Lent faster approaching, I will look to my neighbor with alms and prayers rather than to keeping my own standard of living too high.

I know where these kids are. I know where the homeless mothers are. I know more than I would like to about the poverty condition of my own city. The average age of a homeless person in Houston is 9 years old. the question I have to ask myself is what WILL I do about the needs of my neighbor today? tomorrow? and the rest of my life as I am able?

God help me and pray for me the sinner and uncompassionate.

Paul

[lXvtm0ox]

Dear Paul,

I have never seen any lack of compassion in your posts - quite the opposite!

Andreas.