Hi, this is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

Again, we've been sent in a question by someone. So this is Eddie from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the UK. Now Eddie has sent in a very simple question and it's one that tickled me because the origins of this question go back a long time.

So what Eddie wants to know is, what is it with kids today, Why are they lazy? Why do they feel entitled? And he sort of had a lovely little diatribe about the state of the youth. Now, this was something that tickled me because this is a statement that has been issued by generations before us. In fact, the first time I heard mention of this, it was many years ago, and I was a scout leader and I was doing some research on our local area, the history of the buildings and that sort of thing. I was reading the older newspapers that were decades old from my area where I was at the time.

This particular newspaper was dated in the early 1900s. So you're talking around 100 years prior, 90 years prior to what I was reading? The letters in there were, "There's all these young people loitering around at this time of night, up to no good" and all this sort of thing, and they had all these judgments. Then I came across a statement a while later that the ancient Greeks had this same statement they issued, "What is it with kids today?" "You know, "They don't want to learn" and that all of these things.

So this is a common, I won't say a problem, but a common challenge that our older generation like myself, we have as we got older. Now, the main contributors to this statement is we tend to forget because time softens. We tend to forget a lot of the silly things we did as youths, or if we do remember, we don't want our youngsters to know, because then that gives them permission to go and do certain things. It gives them am ammunition to throw back at us as to why they're not listening. So this is a common problem Eddie.

Most kids in any generation. So, I mean, the generation that are around us at the moment that were around when I was young and so on back and further and further is most kids are good as humans. We tend to focus on negatives. It's a very easy thing for us to do to focus on negatives. So what we tend to do is we tend to only notice the unruly ones. It's like when you're at school, it's the naughty kid that gets all the attention because the teacher is trying to get them to behave so that they can teach the rest of the kids. So there's one kid that gets all the attention because they get all the attention all the other children get not ignored but they their presence seems to diminish. So because of these few people that misbehave, they tend to become representative of the whole generation and that's not accurate.

Most kids are respectful, well mannered, they do the right thing. So what you need to do, Eddie is actually... I've just had a story pop into my head perfectly illustrates this. Many years ago, I was working with this man. It was just coming up to ANZAC Day which I know the rest of the world won't understand ANZAC Day, but ANZAC is the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. So it's our chaps that went from Australia and New Zealand to war and we call them ANZAC's. So every year we have a day where we commemorate them now. We have the people that served and continue to serve now.

So not necessarily served then, but also current service men and women. They march and they have various parades and dedications for the fallen comrades plus the people that are serving now. And this chap I was working with, he said "Our young kids today, they think ANZAC Day is just a game". "They think it's just something fun to do" and I had to grab him and correct him. I said you might want to pull your head in and do your research on this. I said I am a scout leader and I have my scouts stand all night doing vigil at what was one of the training grounds of the ANZAC soldiers who came from Western Australia.

They stand there all night watching a flame doing nothing but thinking about those people that served. Okay, so these kids, they have an understanding and a lot of kids do have that understanding. There's only a few that are disrespectful towards it. And it's the same with everything with kids, the majority of them, the vast majority do the right thing. It's just a small number that get our attention because the rest of them are just busy doing what they're doing. They get the attention, they get the focus and they tend to sadly represent that generation.

So what you will find it is if you went and did volunteer work and helped kids, you'd find that most of them are really good kids. So what I would recommend is get involved with kids, learn about kids. I don't know if you've got children of your own or not. You didn't state that in your question, but if you get involved with kids, you'll see that they're really good for the vast majority of them. They're great kids. Now I know this isn't answering a question per se. I'm just getting you to see a bigger picture so you can understand a little better.

So I hope that that's giving you some clarity, some understanding. Maybe a little bit of empathy. Remember some of the things you did as a kid. I certainly remember some of the silly things I did and I'm happy to tell my boys because I don't have shame in it. Also want them to know they don't need to do silly stuff. So that's something I've educated them on.

However, for you, Eddie, I would say get out, get involved with the kids and spend time with them. Kids are actually pretty cool. Anyway, that's it for this episode. We'll catch you on the next one, Look after yourselves and remember, here's to a good life

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