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Why are children these days so ungrateful?

(I tried to post the question with the link byt YA wouldn't let me so I had to post the content here.) PARENTS planning day trips during the summer holidays have been sent a message from the kids. Don’t bother. Almost 70 per cent of students say they hated family days out as youngsters and wished their parents had left them to amuse themselves. Top of the hate list were visits to the Natural History Museum (or any museum) closely followed by days out in Blackpool or Bognor Regis and, almost as bad, trips to see distant relatives. Only a quarter of 1,200 students polled in a survey claimed to enjoy family days out. For 42 per cent the journey was the worst part of the trip, but 18 per cent blamed lack of “fun things to do” at their destination. And 12 per cent said they would prefer to be surfing the internet. Many students claimed that boredom had been to blame for any childhood sulkiness. Nigel Whiteoak, manager of online auction site TeleBid.com, which undertook the research, said yesterday: “It quickly became evident that more would prefer to stay at home and do their own thing than enjoy a day out with the family.” He added: “I have to confess I am one of the few who used to enjoy day trips to Blackpool with my family in the summer.’’ Life coach and youth worker Joseph Clough said: “This research shows that, despite attempts to ensure quality time spent with their children, parents are falling short and weakening their bond with them by enforcing time together.” Ten most hated day trips 1 Natural History Museum 2 Blackpool 3 Bognor Regis 4 Visiting relatives 5 Weston-Super-Mare 6 Stonehenge 7 Warwick Castle 8 Model villages 9 Nature parks 10 Garden Centres

Public Comments

1. why are you p*issed at children? the question's just keep on coming.
2. The world today is a different world from the one we grew up in. When I was a kid, I was able to ride my bike outside nearly all day long, and I had the most fantastic adventures with my friends. Now, in our modern world my kids don't have the same opportunity. We only have a small garden and we're near a busy road. It's not safe for them outside in the same way it was for me, especially with there being so much traffic on the roads these days. They are surrounded by adults all the time because the law says it is not acceptable to be left alone until they are at least (I think) 14/15? With that in mind I think it's understandable that our kids like to get a little private alone time without being surrounded by relatives and family. They are, I think, trying to exert their individuality in a world that tries to coddle them far too much. The internet is often their great escape to have a life that their parents aren't controlling for them, though that's often fraught with its own, dangers. They have also lived a life of plenty, in a want it now, get it now society. They haven't been through the famine, struggle and pain of past world wars like our ancestors have, so they are also a little sadly unaware of just how lucky our society is today to have the creature comforts that we do. We have become a very soft society with our convenience goods, machines and utilities. Sadly, I think that until we all realise just how lucky we are, we are as a general society inclined to take these things forgranted and that makes us a selfish society. These are all very wide issues, but I hope what I have said has at least got some people thinking and perhaps one or two eyes opened towards debate. These points are also by no means the only points involved, but I'm not here to write an essay either ;)
3. The study was done on young adults. As they grow up there attitudes change and when they have kids they change even more. Those little family trips become fund memories and story's they tell there children. Parents know most of these trips at the time turn into a hassle. In the long run, years down the road they become important.
4. I can't read all these words
5. Well I guess I would be one of the exceptions. I loved going places with my family when I was a kid. I don't think its that kids are ungrateful these days, they just have so many other things to entertain them now. Nowadays, a kid can be perfectly happy just sitting in his room all day playing video games and watching tv so why should they want to go other places? And, of course most kids would get mad if a parent made them leave their video game or miss their favorite TV show to spend the day together. I think its the parents FORCING the time together that makes the kids unhappy. If the parents involved the kids in the decision-making about family time, then I think that family time would be more bearable for the kids. I think the parents attitude is very important. If the parents are treating the outing like a punishment (like many do) then of course the kids will hate it.
6. I don't know but as I get older I worry about who is going to take care of me, I have one child. They are to busy, material things are much more important to them. I have watched my one and only around her friends, they talk and act differently, while I am there with her and her friends, she treats me different, hard to explain guess you have to be a parent. But boy they want and expect the world from you. Even your home when you pass, isn't this great, when I leave the world my belongings if I have anything will go to save pets. Greed and selfishness, they should but wont think they will be here some day.
7. When I was younger <still young, 18> I wore clothes that where second to fifth handed clothes, whipped, stripped and whipped, taped on arms and legs and thrown me out into the cold, locked up, had plates, knifes, computer screens thrown at me. I was always grateful for what I had and have. Never dared to argue with my mum, if we expressed pain the beating would last for hours on end. So don't you use those inaccurate statistics to over thrown me, I loved every family outing, their wasn't many but it was enough for me. Don't mistaken that I don't love my mother, she gave me two precious things, life and an education!