Both my Parents were teachers and I used to get Smacked. At Junior School the Head Teacher had permission to dish out a Cane on me (People pay good money for that now!!)
I was have been naughty as a kid but I respected my elders and property.
No way would I or any of my friends verbally abused passing strangers. Was to busy making Dens and Playing Army
:lol:

in germany they have two options

1. 9 months approx in the armed forces on low pay

or

2. 12 months working in old people´s homes and working for the hospitals as porters etc on lower pay


as you rightly say its always a method of pushing the responsability onto someone else, but over here it seems to work. it also produces a team player mentality which from my experience of the UK (iv not been back home for 6-7 years now) is missing

But do they still have Chavs?

I'm sure I'm right in saying that corporal punishment is outlawed in Germany, Scandinavia, and indeed most of Europe, where there's generally less loutishness than in the UK. That's no magic elixir either.

All we can do is try to bring our own kids up properly.

not realy no.
(i dont live in a major city over here´so i can only say what ive seen )
there is always the tearaway mentality in all of us but over here it seems to be well controled, there are two types of police the normal police for trafic and "criminal matters" and social police ( ordnungsamt )

its by no means perfect but it´s a lot nicer place to live.

[Edited on 13-5-2005 by nathanhu]

Problem is, too few parents these days can be bothered to do that. Its all the teacher's/school's/anyone else's resposibility but theirs to discipline the kids. Show me a problem kid, and in most (but not all) cases I'll show you a problem parent.