The Kids are Not Alright

Adults need to provide the avenues for children to thrive

Friday I was supposed to ‘appear’ on BBC Radio Scotland morning program discussing the increasing violence in the classrooms. I do (as it happens) have a lot of thoughts on this phenomena. Unfortunately they decided to prioritise phone in callers and I never got my chance. Sitting in the ‘waiting room’ of the program I did get to listen to the entirety however which proved interesting.

Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting my work. You can ‘buy me a coffee’ here. Or become a paid subscriber for as little as £4.00 per month, £30 for the year, or £250 for a founding membership. Every penny makes a difference and allows me to keep speaking out about the failure in safeguarding for our children in schools and cultural institutions. We need to recognise, preserve and celebrate childhood. No one else is doing this in the arts in Scotland, I really do need it and so very much appreciate it.

A parent named Katy spoke about her daughter being violently assaulted in school and the administration seeming impotent to do anything about it. Chris, a former teacher, relayed how he had left the profession due to an increasing inability to teach because of lack of respect from children in the classroom demonstrated in talking back, lack of interest in learning, and inability to concentrate. Robert, a parent, spoke of how on the return from lockdowns his daughters homeschooling had placed her years in front of her peers. Karen, a parent and teacher, spoke of the lack of boundaries in classrooms and how this created chaos.

Anyone who has been paying attention can agree, the kids are not alright.

As expected (and unsurprisingly) there was a lot of chat about removing phones and the impact of technology. Jonathan Haidt’s latest book “The Anxious Generation” was cited as a reference. In this volume Haidt makes the case that tech is rewiring our children’s brains and the outcome is not good. It’s making kids anxious. I don’t disagree. But we need to move beyond that premise alone.

There is a lot of focus on the kids who are failing, on schools that are failing and using that as a basis for change. But I think that is the wrong way around. There are kids who (despite our changing culture) are thriving. And I want to know, what do they have that is lacking in the other environments?

Recently scrolling through twitter I saw a beautiful clip of a young boy playing basketball.

Watching this kid I think to myself, this is everything we want for our children. This boy is thriving. It is clear he has talent and passion for basketball and he has been provided the resources and space to channel that. And as a result, when you watch this clip you can not help but feel that he is going to be ok. Better then ok, he is going to excel in whatever he does because he has been given the space to do ‘his thing’.

Contrast to Scotland. Football is by far our most popular national past time- one would expect to see football clubs in every neighbourhood, that kids can walk to on their own. You would expect football pitches to be installed in every community. Nope. It’s hard to find opportunities for kids to do football.

At Easter break I signed my son up for the Toryglen Football Centre camp and on the first day bookings were open there was a waiting list. This is a council provided opportunity. And it’s good. But it’s also 2 miles away from where we live, across a busy thoroughfare. Kids pull in for that camp from across Glasgow. And there is nothing else in that area. You can see the after effects of that lack demonstrated in the gangs of boys ‘hanging about’ in the Asda grocery store lot across the street who were throwing water balloons at randoms after my son’s camp one day. (Interestingly whilst searching for an image came across this story of children being banned from another Glasgow Asda for their verbal and physical assaults in store).

Returning to Pollokshields I am reminded that when I first moved to the area in the early 2000s there was an empty field next to Glendale Primary School which the kids could play on. When they built the new school with a fancy new football pitch they locked it up. Now one has to pay £70 per hour for the privilege. In the meantime the former community centre on Forth Street was sold and now a mosque is on site. Half has been an empty hole with plans for a parking garage for at least 15 years. Kids see this. They see the choices we make. So we can talk about ‘The UNCRC - Rights of the Child’ or ‘GIRFEC - Getting It Right for Every Child’ but somewhere - intuitively - they know it rings hollow.

This used to be open. Now it is surrounded by a (20 foot?) high fence. Outside of school hours it is empty and unused. Paid for by our tax monies.

Returning to the boy playing basketball, one has to wonder what his life would be like if he was denied that physical space to play. And in that thought we have an answer to Scotland’s “violence problem”. Children in Scotland are (on the main) not going to develop competency, let alone excellence in sport, drama, dance or most subjects because we do not value them. If we valued them we would not cage up a single football field in an area deficient of any play spaces for kids. We would find a way around it. We would not have waiting lists for football camps within hours of spaces being made available.

And when we do not have these spaces kids are inactive. When they are inactive they need to direct their energy somewhere and what do we have is… addictive devices.

This culture of screens is not limited to kid’s own phone use however. Schools also need to take responsibility for the increase in screen time. Whilst one can recognise the plus side to technological innovation the use contributes to an increasing inactivity in the body. When I complained about the use of technology in my son’s former primary school I was told by the QIO (Quality Improvement Officer) that kids were given a whole TWO HOURS of PE (Physical Education) a week. (WOW! Not.)

My son’s former school had an outdoor space the size of a postage stamp, the ‘football mugga’ (1/20th the size of an actual football pitch) was on rotation amongst student groups, so that often when you’d walk by at break time (older kids in particular) would be seen standing about. I personally think this trapped energy contributed to my son’s assault by older boys when he was in P4. I am fairly certain if they had been tired out from physical activity they would not have targeted him.

Working in dance these past 30 years I can say categorically that kids are less ‘in their bodies’. This extremes of this dissociation were spoken about in a recent Genspect podcast with Sascha Bailey in regards to the concept of ‘Transmaxxing’. Bailey refers to gamers who have become so invested in the virtual world their bodies are seen as mere ‘skin suits’ for them to trade out of. This extreme view leads to an almost utilitarian sensibility leading them to trans identities.

We can see this transactional approach to our bodies and life not just in the trans movement wherein body parts are seen like lego to be traded in and out of, but also in the surrogacy and assisted suicide movements. The more dissociated we become from our physical experiences the more these ‘life issues’ can be framed as pragmatic.

But we know life is not merely a transaction but a complex weave of threads. One strand pulled effects another. A seamless blanket of sorts. It is quite ironic that we have an environmental movement that interrogates our ‘carbon footprint’ in regards to eating butter, but is flippant when it comes to invasive unnecessary medical procedures in the name of identity which bring pain and suffering for life.

One cannot escape the body. Tragic outcomes to live with for life.

We don’t need to think too far or hard to know what would have happened to these women if they had been left alone. That was the world just a couple of decades ago.

Which brings us back to the BBC Radio program. The teacher/parent Karen spoke about the problems inherent in ‘letting children decide’. We see a huge movement in education with our ‘rights based’ approaches that puts the impetus on children to guide their lives. But this is a bit unfair to children. Whilst we adults can give them choices, they have not the capacity to understand responsibilities or consequences by and large developmentally.

Most of these UNCRC (United Nations Rights of the Child) bullet points are quite academic. It always seemed to me a massive waste of time (at best) as children do not *learn* about things by *talking* about them but by *doing*. And because we have not put any boundaries or guides in place (because it’s all up to them) they are flailing. Is it any wonder some start acting out?

Wouldn’t it be better for teachers to be using their training time for skills children can actually use? To be using resources to expand their views of the world rather then constantly ask them their opinions on the limited sphere they have inhabited? To develop craft, skills and knowledge?

I recently came across a post (which unfortunately I cannot locate) of a marble sculpture done by an 11 year old boy in the 16th century. Whilst I can acknowledge most 16th century children would not have access to the tools to ‘do sculpture’ it does offer an interesting comparison to today’s youth. Who often under the mantle of ‘art’ are given printer paper and some crayons to make political posters rather then the opportunity to develop something excellent.

Michelangelo ‘Madonna of the Stairs’ made when he was 15.

It’s all so lowest common denominator, so incredibly lacking in aspiration or enthusiasm for the subject at hand. Watching plants grow we can see how they reach for the sun, they soak up the water and they grow. What are we doing to children?

It’s time for us to recalibrate and provide opportunities for kids to thrive. They need us adults to advocate for them. They need us adults to provide them the spaces ‘to be free’. Not the Asda parking lot. Not the gaming suite. They have so much more to offer if we can give them the spaces and resources to do so.

It’s not easy I have to admit. So much of our physical legacy has been sold and undermined by our governments these past two decades or more. I would be quite happy to run a summer program for kids in drama or dance, but the actual cost to do so is prohibitive. Where are the spaces we can access to be empowered to do such things?

How is is we can address this deficiency? Because we must. The kids are not alright. And we adults need to step up and do something about it.

Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting my work. You can ‘buy me a coffee’ here. Or become a paid subscriber for as little as £4.00 per month, £30 for the year, or £250 for a founding membership. Every penny makes a difference and allows me to keep speaking out about the failure in safeguarding for our children in schools and cultural institutions. We need to recognise, preserve and celebrate childhood. No one else is doing this in the arts in Scotland, I really do need it and so very much appreciate it.