Dear LPG,

I might be making a rather large generalisation here, but when we, the older British public, look at the youngsters of today, most agree that something is missing.   

Suppose I were to ask each person reading what I have written. In that case, I wonder how often they have been part of a conversation with friends of a similar age that focuses on the fact that today's children are so much less prepared for life than the adults they are destined to become.

I think I can speak for most of us over 65-year-olds when I say that when we look back on everything that happened, life has a funny way of passing us by before we know it, childhood perhaps being the part that flashes past most quickly.  

The youngsters have so much these days that the value of things appears to have little significance, and the toys that so many children take for granted now cost so much more, even when inflation is considered. I also notice that they spend so much more of the educational system's spare time in clubs and classes that aim to provide them with additional educational advantages. At the same time, the one set of skills often overlooked is the basic life skills.    

Schools seem to think that the ultimate way for them to learn these values is to work it out for themselves as they go along, and the utmost discipline is to exclude the children they cannot cope with. In contrast, so many of the rules that yesterday's children lived by have been so watered down that they hardly exist. We live in a society where adults live by far too many rules devised by a government that is now much more focused on allowing almost anything, including essential discipline, to avoid what is now seen as the deprivation of their children's human rights.

Another point is that they have relatively uncensored contact with the more negative aspects and vices that the world has to offer much earlier in their lives, as they access the good and the bad and so much more on the internet and television watersheds have become all but non-existent.   

In my opinion, the outcome is so often that so many more of our young people leave school unprepared for the harsh reality of the limitations that adults should be prepared for. 

Perhaps I am painting a bleak picture, but I believe that the one good thing they have is more Grandparents and older people to come into contact with. We are living longer and can tell them of experiences that, once you take the technology away, we have all been through.  

So many cultures accept the experience that the older members of their society offer as one of the critical assets that we have to offer. Although the trend is straying from that rule, it might be time for us to use our influence to revive the practice where we can. 

I can remember when the children of my era were young enough to be thought radicle and outrageous, and I often ask myself if I listened to the older people around me back then. Few were available, and perhaps the ones that got older and frailer more quickly, but I think that most of the older people of today will agree that they could have learned a thing or two from their seniors. 

If we are not careful, it can become the case that older people buy into that culture, implying that our usefulness has expired. When we engage with the young, we allow them to accept that all we are suitable for is a bit of small talk, but we know that no one over 65 can get there without learning a thing or two that needs to be passed down.

TN, Sydenham 

 LPG adds some information on today’s celebration…

(►►►)