The intellectual depletion of our youth today, product of Environment or Lack of Parenting?

Lack of competitive parenting relative to the environment. Parenting is like one form of entertainment and bad influences another...parents need to ';market'; their art better.





Kids don't naturally get into things like sex, drugs, bullying, excessive addiction to video games (when they could be playing sports), materialism, unhealthy/highly-advertised junky foods, and such...they do so because their parents fail to provide them with (or convince them of) a superior alternative. You also have to remember people in bad health, naturally, have less actualized intellectual ability. Also kids may turn to the bad habits regardless of how much ';natural talent'; they have, especially when corporations heavily advertise the bad habits.





All to often parents say ';don't do that'; and enforce rules by threats. And kids learn threats are the way to power and, for example, often become bullies. Adults also forbid kids from things like sex while kids get ridiculed for not having it...which leads to the attitude of ';well I'll show them...'; along with increased curiousity. Same goes, sometimes, with drugs.


Many times parents don't spend time doing productive things with their kids like sports and health (sometimes they don't even stay in good enough shape to help with this) and providing space and support for good peer relationships, but rather become lazy and ';box in'; their kids. This becomes even worse when parents are so obsessed with money and work they don't/';can't'; spend time with their kids and the kids, learning from their parents, become materialistic and not socially adept.





This boxing in forces the kids to make assumptions about the outside world (often bad ones) instead of learning it for themselves and often box themselves in with things like video games figuring ';that's all I can do / am ever allowed to do in this world';. No wonder so many kids are addicted to advertising schemes like Neopets.





Also, socially, when parents try to force education their kids (and often don't take time to do the work with their kids or try to make it fun)


A) the kids begin to relate education to negative/punishment rather than fulfillment


B) The kids eventually avoid education unless absolutely forced to


C) Too much work makes Johnny a dumb boy...GOOD GRADES ALONE OFTEN DO NOT MAKE GOOD JOBS OR OVERALL INTELLECTUAL INTELLIGENCE BUT.


Kids who's life becomes school work develop high IQ but not EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EI) and often find themselves unable to get good jobs regardless of their GPAs and bullied by people with higher EI on their jobs...not to mention they have miserable relationships and/or marriages. Many people in my family fall into this category...I personally have graduated from grad school with a 3.8+ GPA but can't find a non-freelance job better than retail. ALSO, THE FACT SCHOOLS STRESS STANDARDIZED TESTS UNDER INDEPENDENT MOTIVATION, AND NOT TEAM-ORIENTED, CREATIVE, FUN PROJECTS (WHERE STUDENTS TEACH THEMSELVES TO LEARN HOW TO LEARN RATHER THAN SIMPLY MEMORIZE) OBVIOUSLY HURTS.





Parents need to realize they don't have a monopoly over their children (and, to an extent, neither do schools)...and step up and do good, competitive parenting (becoming more attractive than other temptations their kids may have, NOT competing against the kids themselves).The intellectual depletion of our youth today, product of Environment or Lack of Parenting?
I don't think there's a definite answer - it's very situational. In my experience I have found that today's youth is much more educated about some areas at a younger age than I ever was.





As for parenting, there will always be good and bad ones.





However, the environment most children are being raised in has influenced and increased their exposure and acceptance of certain things much more than it did previous generations. The biggest problem I see is that many kids are good test takers (they can memorize things), but they do not know how to learn.





The Internet has made it too easy to cut and paste and plagiarize, without retaining information. There is way too much imitation and not enough imagination being used. Part of this is also our schools system, which is concentrating more on test scores than on teaching.





Those are my thoughts. I wish I knew the answers.The intellectual depletion of our youth today, product of Environment or Lack of Parenting?
I think today's youth are incredibly smart. As with anything, there are some that make the rest look bad. Kids today are going to college more than ever before. That is a basic requirement just to get an above minimum wage job. Competition for jobs is pushing youth to do more academically.