teach / September 29, 2009 8:54 AM

they are stuck in schools for long days, with ever increasing importance being placed on test scores, and few opportunities to be outside running around.

annie / September 29, 2009 9:09 AM

Parents!!

Parents today either pay no attention or too much attention both resulting in some seriously F'd up kids. (Another reason I won't have a child. I actually am aware that it's possible I won't do a good job, why bother?)

Kanga / September 29, 2009 9:50 AM

Video games. Period.
Take them away. All of them. And parents quit playing them too. If there was ever a more wasteful, stupid, asinine idiotic way to pass the time ever invented in human history I don't know what it is.

Dennis Fritz / September 29, 2009 9:59 AM

Nothing that hasn't been wrong with them for thousands of years.

Pete / September 29, 2009 10:08 AM

I haven't the slightest idea, just like my parents didn't thirty years ago when I was a kid. But my generation turned out all right, and I suspect this latest one will too.

Mark / September 29, 2009 10:22 AM

Nothing wrong with kids as a whole but I do often see problems with the options they are given by their parents. I have no problem with TV or video games as long as they (along with everything else) are in moderation. I too often see TV and video games as replacements for physical activity and creative activity. Kids need to be placed in situations that provide more opportunity to use their minds, grow their creativity, and widen their experience. THIS IS THE TIME for that and it's our job as parents to provide that for them.

roderick / September 29, 2009 10:45 AM

Agree with annie: parents.

Especially after I saw some ridiculous thing on the Today show this morning (don't judge me) about how a mom who was looking after her kid and her kid's friends in the morning before school was somehow running an "illegal" daycare. Yes, someone actually ratted her out. Apparently in Michigan if you're doing that for more than 4 days you're officially a daycare provider.

Lisa / September 29, 2009 11:04 AM

Nothing.

Mucky Fingers / September 29, 2009 11:14 AM

For the most part, nothing. However, kids - and just about everybody else - have too many choices now, and most of them are meaningless ones.

flange / September 29, 2009 11:23 AM

kanga:

jacks.

period.

Guy Smiley / September 29, 2009 12:28 PM

The rap, the video games, the "baby, let's do it" dance music, etc. It's creating a disconnect from real life. It's as if they think they can do and say anything, then just hit the reset button and everything will be fine.

By the way, I'm old.

A. Lewellen / September 29, 2009 2:30 PM

The same thing that's the matter with everyone.

vit / September 29, 2009 2:43 PM

They won't get off my lawn.

Chris / September 29, 2009 2:48 PM

Kids are taking to much acid. I seen 'em these days with their acid and their pot and their rock 'n' rolley polley. Hip hoppely woppely too. and then more acid and sex and pot or blunt and chronic and gin and juicey. it's a whole lotta hooey these kids and their acid.

Lori / September 29, 2009 3:41 PM

runny nose > available tissues

Djana / September 29, 2009 5:29 PM

There's not a damn thing wrong with kids today that wasn't wrong with kids yesterday.
Kids with issues share common, age old problems:
A lack of nurturing in the home and/or at school.
A lack of good nutrition.
The inability to see a future for themselves outside of their immediate surroundings.
Hormones gone kaflooey.

If you think the kids in your area need help, reach out to them. Something as inocuous as helping you in the garden or being taken to a show they might never have imagined ,much less seen, can change a child's whole perspective on life.

holden / September 29, 2009 5:36 PM

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table,cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."
- Plato

snuh / September 29, 2009 6:32 PM

lawyers.

MrBrownThumb @ Chicago Garden / September 29, 2009 8:02 PM

Comic books & the WWE.

Like someone said above, there's nothing wrong with kids today that wasn't wrong with them before.

mike-ts / September 29, 2009 11:00 PM

Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?

Andrew / September 30, 2009 12:41 AM

Mike-ts wins!

jj / September 30, 2009 4:02 PM

Helicopter parenting that makes them all thing they are such special snowflakes.

conor / September 30, 2009 9:09 PM

Minority kids that aren't gang affiliated can't really go out and play some dudes always in their shit - forces them to stay inside, get fat, and push ps3 controller buttons. That's the main difference I see. I have male students living near me in Logan Square but I never see them.

J / October 1, 2009 9:45 AM

If the topic us attempting to refer to the continuation of the insane killing of high school age kids in chicago if there were JOBS for their parents as well as for them perhaps that would tone down a lot of the problem.

Otherwise, it is a Djana stated.

bean / October 1, 2009 2:22 PM

they got no respect, I tell ya,...

PMan / October 1, 2009 8:58 PM

They're overprotected. They don't walk to school and even in good neighborhoods parents don't let kids out on there own.