REACTION: Barnardo's fear campaign

WEDNESDAY 19th NOVEMBER 2008

AUTHOR OF SCARED OF THE KIDS DENOUNCES BARNARDO'S FEAR CAMPAIGN

Dr. Stuart Waiton, the director of Generation Youth Issues, denounced the Barnardo’s ‘Hunting’ advertising campaign as ‘scaremongering rubbish’. The advertisement shows three men describing young people as ‘feral’, ‘animals’ and ‘vermin’ before deciding to go hunting the local teenagers, followed by the voice over comment:

"What’s really frightening is that every line of dialogue in this film was a comment made by the public on UK newspaper websites about children. Join our campaign against the demonisation of children."

As Dr Waiton argues,

"At a time when the relationships between adults and young people is so confused this tabloid-esque, and anti-adult rant is particularly unhelpful. There may well be an exaggerated fear of young people today, but to use a few quotes from online comment pages, that are often over the top and purposefully provocative, as evidence of the rabid nature of adults is irresponsible and worse than the anti-youth comments they use in their campaign."

A second edition of Scared of the kids was launched this month. In the book Waiton attempts to explore the often complex reasons why adults fear young people today. Rather than simply fearing young people he notes that most adults also fear for young people and sympathise with a generation they perceive as growing up in difficult times.

Instead of using a couple of online quotes from the apparently narrow-minded and fanatical ‘public’, Waiton suggests we look at what the politicians, police and indeed the voluntary sector have been saying about young people in the last decade, and we may get a clearer picture of who sees teenagers as so threatening.

There may well be something of a generation gap, but as Waiton points out,

"Adults are often insecure about their relationship with the young today. They are no longer sure if they should approach teenagers to tell them off or even if they should help young children when they are in trouble. To simply use shock tactics like this and to incorrectly portray adults in such a negative light can only help to reinforce this insecurity amongst the adult population at a time when we should actually be encouraging them to engage with today’s youth.

Watch the Barnardo's video here.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

STUART WAITON is available for comment or interview and can be contacted directly:

Email: stuart.waiton@generationyouthissues.org.uk