Should Children Organise To Demand Better Wellbeing And Human Rights?

Question

The United Kingdom and The USA has come last in the Unicef 'child wellbeing table'. The true measure of a nation's standing is - how well it attends to it's children - their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued and included in the families and societies into which they are born. More info: 'Lost Children in The Wilderness' at: http://uk.yahoo.com/greagues2
Should Children and young people not organise to demand to demand 'their civil and human rights' in a kind of children's revolt.
Children need rights of their own, and adults should support them in their quest for such rights. Children are the dymamic of our future.

The URL is:
http://uk.360.yahoo.com/greagues2

Answer 1

Maybe they should..but their kids......Its up to the parents to provide for their needs, it's the parents who need educating!

Answer 2

That study was skewed toward making today's happiness equivalent to wellbeing. I don't think being spoiled and having a sense of entitlement is really being better off. Parents being married doesn't mean a whole lot if they have someone else on the side and don't live together (something much more common in some of the European countries that ranked well than in the US...where we get divorced if we are going to separate our lives).
No doubt the US needs to do something about the educational system (and teach to the top, instead of just focusing on keeping the bottom attending school -- and give them alternatives to academic schooling). But that is also another topic.
Also the study is based mostly on what students would admit to. I know plenty of 8th graders that lied on the survey we took about drug use (and even coordinated it -- "angel dust" was what we were told by the kids from last year to check...I still don't know what that is...).

Answer 3

I don't mean to be rude, but that is a silly suggestion. It ignores the crucial point that children are children, and as such lack the experience, common sense and maturity to even KNOW what they need. They basically only know what they WANT, and are incapable of seeing any reason why they cannot immediately have what thy want. Unfortunately for many children, the same can be said for many adults. Some people are simply incapable, for a multitude of reasons, of bringing up children. The trouble is nobody really knows what kind of parents people will make, until they actually have them. I thought my daughter was too lazy and self-indulgent to successfully raise children, but she has turned out to one of the best, most unselfish, and caring mothers I know!
THAT's what children need! Responsible parents, not their own Bill Of Rights!

Answer 4

When abortion was first legalized we did not have the science available to the average person that could really inform and show the life cycle of an embryo. But now with microscopic cameras filming each embryo life cycle from within the mothers womb and access to the information at our fingertips through the internet with live images how can anyone continue to say that this is not a human life? There is truly no excuse. You would have to be blind not to see that this is a human life. Call abortion what it really is, a convenient method for women to not have to live with their mistakes. The following is a statistical quote from the Guttmacher Institute. On average, women give four reasons for choosing abortion. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.[12]

Answer 5

When you are a child you are under the supervision of your parents. Yes some parents doesn't know how to treat a child but most of them does. Respect is earn and not forced. But children knowing only as little as they know about life needs to respect their parents decisions as to what they are allowed to do and not. The reason being that their parents knows more about life than they do and thus can you really give them the right to decide for themselves. Teenage pregnancies and drug abuse is proof of a society that is too lenient on children's rights and no respect for parents decision making. Yes Children have rights not to be abused either verbal, fisical or sexual. But to allow them free roam will be abusing their right to better education and a fulfilled life. Life is about the choices you make and the choices you make will be your future. People make choices because of past experiences and what knowledge they have gained in the past if you are young and have not experienced allot in life and haven't learned as much will you be able to make the right choice in life.

Answer 6

You dont mention what rights you think children are being denied. Without such a statement I would NEVER approve blanket "childrens rights", ESPECIALLY since the UNs idea of childrens rights is to remove ALL rights from the parents and put decisions in the hands of children and the government.

Seriously though, what "civil and human rights" are children being denied?

Answer 7

I prefer to see these things in terms of responsibility. Children are growing and learning, they are primarily the responsibility of their parents, and it is that model that should continue to be promoted, with support and assistance where necessary.

Children, by definition, are not old enough, mature and wise enough, to know what is in their best interests. Of course, they require all the things that you state, but parents should want to give them that. The answer for failing parents, isn't to seperate them further from their children by giving the children pseudo rights in a way that makes them primarily charges of the state, a process that increases the states rights over their upbringing and further marginalises them from their parents, who they should love and trust.

We are responsible for our children out of duty. There shouldn't be an unholy alliance between them and the state to demand something that should be freely given. Support the parents that are failing, but don't use it as an excuse to drive a wedge between parent and child. Marriage is already under serious attack from feminists and lefties, single parents, and increasing state control over the upbringing of children, particularly through the school system.

What business is it of busybody organisations like UNICEF to be making generalised pronouncements regarding the well being of children in the developed world. It is none of their business, and it is highly insulting to the majority of parents who are doing a good job. They come across as very totalitarian in their attitude. Good old anti family doctrines, placing the state in place of the parents, and enabling them to continue brainwashing our children, and using them to control the parents towards the fulfillment of their agenda.

I am 100% opposed to your proposal, although I don't know whether you have good, but misguided intentions, or you are a supporter of the state control of children.

It is because of our destruction of the traditional family that we have so many problems in our society, but it would be typical of the 'left' to capitalise on the mess that they have helped create, by proposing even more state control, which was always their ultimate intention.

Children have always had adequate protection under the law to protect them from mistreatment by adults. Children are still learning how to behave and along side this they have to learn what their resposibilities are, not what they can demand from society in terms of rights. Children cannot be trusted with this. Moreover, there is no such thing as child poverty, children don't have an economic status, it is their parents alone that can be described in this way. Here again, we see an attempt to seperate the child from the parent by giving them a seperate economic status.

Answer 8

Adults feel children are not old enough or responsible enough to have that right.Even I went through this as a child.We all did.
Yes I do believe they should have some rights but only rights that are allowed by adults as long as they are sensible.

It says your URL is incorrect on your site.
This is a prime example that adults are going to slam you with when you show that you're incapable of properly giving valuable information needed for your own stability in real life situations done on your own.

Answer 9

No. They already have too many rights which have led to lack of discipline in schools, for example. Children are covered by the law of the land, so they are protected just as they should be. But it is the responsibility of the parents to look after children, not the State in the areas you have pinpointed..

Answer 10

Children don't really have individual rights, except for the right to be safe and taken care of, which is already protected by the law.

Answer 11

Thats all we need, a generation of little revolutionaries.

Its all the "rights" that have caused the problems in the first place. Too much "you can't do this, can't do that" instead of just letting children play and enjoy themselves while they can.