Issue 26 - November 2007 (PDF, 1.69Mb) - ESRC

2 EDITORIAL ISSUE 26 |
AUTUMN 2007
What kind of future
for our children?
By David Smith
Have we ever been more confused
and uncertain about Britain’s
children? On the one hand, we
worry about feral youth, gun and knife
crime and anti-social behaviour as
symptoms of deep problems in society. On
the other, we cocoon children, ferrying
them to school in air-conditioned comfort
in cars and restricting their opportunities
for play. Partly because of this, today’s
children have significantly greater
problems of obesity than their
predecessors, raising the possibility, say
scientists, that this generation will have
lower life expectancy than its parents.
This edition of The Edge is devoted to
the children of Britain. There is bad news
and good news in here, and plenty of food
for thought. Let’s start with the bad. As
Sarah Womack reports, the National
Society for Social Research has condemned
the ‘long hours’, the undermining of family
life by the fact that parents work excessive,
anti-social hours. The Institute for Public
Policy Research confirmed many
prejudices by concluding that British youth
are among the most badly behaved in
Europe, addicted not just to drugs and
alcohol but also anti-social behaviour.
UNICEF, meanwhile, generated plenty of
headlines with its conclusion that the UK
scored 21st out of 25 countries assessed for
children’s wellbeing. True, the basis of
UNICEF’s conclusion has been challenged
but, even so, it is not a happy picture. How
about obesity? Ed Balls, Secretary of State
for Children, Schools and Families warns
that on present trends half the children in
Britain will be dangerously overweight by
2050. Health ministers have compared the
problem to climate change in its seriousness.
Parents, it seems, have a more difficult
task than ever. How do they cope with
‘pester power’, demands from their
children for junk food, electronic games
and expensive branded clothing? Not
easily. Research by David Piachaud at the
London School of Economics shows that
the average child is exposed to 10,000
TV commercials annually, often without
adult supervision. Today’s children, he
argues, lead more solitary lives than before
and need more protection from
commercial pressures.
What about the good news? If awareness
of the problem is the first step on the road
to tackling it, then there is certainly
awareness of the various problems facing
Britain’s children. Take the cossetting of
children. Bob Reitemeier, Chief Executive
of the Children’s Society, is encouraged by
an initiative from the Children, Schools and
Families department, Staying Safe, which
seeks to steer a course between
dangerously risky behaviour by children
and the desire by some parents to wrap
them up in cotton wool.
The Government’s Te n - Year Yo u t h
S t r a t e g y, launched soon after Gordon Brown
b e c a m e prime minister, aims to kill several
birds with one stone, by providing young
people with facilities in their own
communities – diverting them away from
anti-social behaviour – and encouraging
‘active participation’. Essential to the
approach is the empowerment of young
people, according to Beverley Hughes,
Children’s Minister. The mistake we
make most often, perhaps, is to attach
negative labels to children and to
underestimate them.
Young people are actively engaged in
volunteering programmes. Professor Helen
Haste of the University of Bath notes that
we are wrong to judge young people’s
participation in society purely by their
willingness to vote. Most, perhaps three-
quarters, engage in some kind of civic
action and participation, from protecting
the environment to signing petitions. As 15
year-old Katrina Mather puts it: “What we
forget so often is how much young people
have to offer to society; we have a fresh
opinion on things, we are willing to learn
new things, and young people know and
condemn injustice when they see it as well.”
It is easy to despair of our young people.
That there are problems is not in doubt.
But the overall picture is more positive
than it is usually portrayed