I think that the last 24hrs should have reminded us that we do need to be aware of what's happening in the realm of social media influences and check what our children are viewing.
But yeah, we shouldn't criticise children for doing things that adults do *all the time*. We buy expensive tat, we use comfort food to soothe our emotions, we watch rubbish on the telly. Yet often we seem to want to hold our children up to higher standards. Let them have the thing.
For sure, at least it's a fairly low budget lesson for them in how the actual 'things' themselves rarely live up to the hype, or give lasting satisfaction .
That it's the excitement that is so exciting in itself - it's the 'feeling' of being part of something of the moment, however asinine the 'thing' is
.
Whether that's Warhammer, football strips, the latest trainers or gaming craze, Pokémon,or any other 'gang' or subculture that they want to be recognised as being a part of - by having invested time or money in it.
Parenting outcomes are a massive lottery in so many ways, environment and example set can help a lot.
But there's plenty of kids from ostensibly 'good' starts that end up in bad places.
And vice versa..
Of course 'adults' still do these things , it's just some of the groups and identifiers they ally with could broadly be judged helpful or unhelpful, and have longer reaching consequences
Juries still out on whether being a member of NACA is useful or not.
But I'd say in general I've learnt quite a lot about human nature, and politics from hanging out with a bunch of politically interested* cyclists.
*plus those one or two who nobly persist here despite being baffled as to why anyone wants to talk about politics in the first place.
Anyway back to the subject of the thread.
And talking of tribes..
