Adults Shape How Kids Behave

Re “Could the Blame on Kids Be Misdirected?) (Oct. 18): Young people have not somehow changed biologically in the last 20 years. It’s the world around them that’s changed.

Last week, I observed a confrontation in the street between a middle-aged man and a teen-aged boy. The boy was skateboarding in the street when his board hit a parked car. The man stopped to tell him skateboarding in the street was dangerous. The man was well-intended, but the boy’s reaction was completely belligerent, and he held his skateboard in a mildly threatening gesture. The boy’s mother came out of their nearby apartment to uphold the boy’s behavior. Instead of upholding her son, the mother should be teaching him respect and discipline.

It’s we adults who set up the way society is. We decide how the schools are run and what’s shown on TV. When the schools spoon-feed information that’s quickly forgotten, when young people are bored and undisciplined, what can be the result except a culture of illiteracy and violence?

NIKKI FREY

Los Angeles