http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/news/archive/2009/september/22/08.htm
Britains child protection laws have created a spoilt generation with no respect for adults or authority, according to a prominent psychologist.
Dr Aric Sigman claims young people are growing up unprepared for the realities of adult life as parents, teachers and police have lost the power to discipline them.
His new book cites as proof a leaflet left in courts asking visitors politely not to carry knives.
Dr Sigman who believes under-threes should be banned from watching television and fears that social networking websites such as Facebook may damage the health says the sense of entitlement now enjoyed by children is contributing to increased crime, obesity, underage pregnancy and binge-drinking on the countrys streets.
Ahead of the party conference season, he wants politicians to draw up laws that would curtail young peoples rights and reassert the authority of adults, as well as encouraging mothers to care for their babies at home and introducing compulsory civic service.
Dr Sigman, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, said: Authority is a basic health requirement in children's lives. But, while children have become increasingly 'empowered' in terms of legislation and rights, far from being protected, they are actually suffering in ways that could never have been foreseen.
Children of the spoilt generation are used to having their demands met by their parents and others in authority, and that in turn makes them unprepared for the realities of adult life - this has consequences in every area of society, from the classroom to the workplace, the streets to the criminal courts and rehabilitation clinics.
There is now an urgent moral and legal imperative incumbent upon legislators to help restore authority to children's lives. Adults must be legally empowered to deal with both their own and other people's children without the fear that they may be confronted or prosecuted for doing so.
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