Once again teenagers are in the news for their bad behaviour, tarnishing every young person with the same brush. The latest IPPR report reveals that British teenagers top the league when it comes to drink, drugs and promiscuity, and a government study published today shows some young people consider Asbos a covetable badge of honour. What's extraordinary is that we are still so surprised by this. In my view we get the youth we deserve.
If growing numbers of young people are turning to drink, drugs, eating disorders, self-harm, crime or running away - 100,000 under sixteens run away from home each year according to research from the Children's Society - it is adult society that is to blame, not the kids. As adults we have a duty to provide for the needs of children of all ages and the statistics scream that we are failing to give teenagers the support they need through the arduous, emotional challenges of growing up.
Teenagers have specific needs, which are different to the needs of younger children. Their brain chemistry is developing at a rapid rate to equip them with adult survival skills. They learn through doing and taking risks within controlled environments. They learn how to be adult from adults and need as many role models around as possible; yet we warehouse them in large schools with a few overstretched, stressed teachers who need to inculcate the national curriculum in hundreds, even thousands of other kids.
The current school curriculum is founded on nineteenth century notions of what constitutes an education, alienating all those who do not want to pursue an academic career. Politicians tinker at the edges of policy but that doesn't work. What is needed is radical change. We need to start from a different premise. What do young people need to thrive economically and productively in the 21st century? We need to throw open the prison walls of schools so that they are far more integrated with the community that surrounds in truly imaginative ways.
And that's just schools. I could go on and on... What's happened to our youth service? Where are young people to go with their friends when they haven't the money? Why isn't the advertising industry regulated in its gross exploitation of the teenage market when few can afford the goods they now feel are essential? Why are our mental health services for teenagers lamentable? Why are teenagers so reviled and mistrusted? What public rite of passage is there for a young person struggling to feel more grown up? That first smoke? That first shag?
Teenagers are emotionally volatile, sensitive and self obsessed for very good reasons. Yet we are scandalously ignorant of normal, as opposed to abnormal, adolescent development. New parents study child development books in great detail when their children are tiny, but how many know what to expect of a child struggling with early adolescence at 13? That's why I wrote The Terrible Teens. Read it. Above all the greatest crime we commit against our young people is a profound lack of respect for them as individuals. Teenagers have to live with more negative stereotypes than any other cohort of society. The vast majority of young people are considerate, altruistic and vibrant. They still make it to adulthood, with a few emotional wounds maybe, but in a well-behaved, responsible manner.