britain worst place for children

**peat moss** · 02-18-2007, 04:32 PM

I'm not surprised the Euro counties place so high but Canada only 12 ? You'd think with free Medical and the school system we have it would be higher .

Hey always room for improvement I guess .

**ilw** · 02-18-2007, 04:43 PM

lynx, i broadly agree with your sentiment on the poverty measurement thing, although i think they use a percentage of median income rather than just the mean so in your example none of them would be considered poor, but if there were a few families earning 500K then they would be...

Originally Posted by lynx

The report places most emphasis on the areas which are most difficult to measure, not even a remotely sensible position on which to base a judgement.

This, says Unicef, "is as difficult to measure as it is critical to wellbeing".
To attempt to score countries, the experts have focused on children's own reports of ... the percentages of 11, 13 and 15-year-olds who find their peers "kind and helpful".

It may be difficult to measure, but the difference between kids in this country and those in others is pretty startling. My general experience is that they're little shits in this country, whereas when i stayed in Switzerland (Zurich) for a while the kids there were freakishly polite & helpful.

**j2k4** · 02-18-2007, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by lynx

Part of the problem with this report is that it is almost entirely statistics based, with little regard for common sense.

For example, if you had a country with 5 families, one earning 10 million (pounds, dollars, euros, it doesn't matter) per year and the other 4 earning only 1 million per year then UNICEF statistics would tell you that 80 percent of the population was living in property. While it would be pretty easy to spot in a country of only 5 families, it isn't quite so obvious when you look at real countries.

In addition, many of the so called "failings" are in areas of the child's own "perceived" wellbeing, but that doesn't tell you whether their wellbeing is felt to be lower because they have higher expectations. I saw some extracts of the way some of the kids were interviewed, and many of the observations the kids came up with had little or no basis on fact.

The report places most emphasis on the areas which are most difficult to measure, not even a remotely sensible position on which to base a judgement.

All quite true.

What we actually need is an 'international" institution which can parse such studies and reports on the basis of their practical worth.

It's either that or we resort to our own sensibilities, and we can't have that, now, can we?

**lynx** · 02-18-2007, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by ilw

It may be difficult to measure, but the difference between kids in this country and those in others is pretty startling. My general experience is that they're little shits in this country, whereas when i stayed in Switzerland (Zurich) for a while the kids there were freakishly polite & helpful.

But you've got a poor starting point. If they excluded Liverpool we'd probably have been top across the board.

**ilw** · 02-18-2007, 05:16 PM

Originally Posted by lynx

Originally Posted by ilw

It may be difficult to measure, but the difference between kids in this country and those in others is pretty startling. My general experience is that they're little shits in this country, whereas when i stayed in Switzerland (Zurich) for a while the kids there were freakishly polite & helpful.

But you've got a poor starting point. If they excluded Liverpool we'd probably have been top across the board.

Not sure i understand, are you suggesting i'm a scouser? I don't think i've ever been to liverpool

**vidcc** · 02-18-2007, 05:22 PM

Just glancing at the article and not actually reading the report with all aspects broken down it occurs that it's not just a critique of political policy but rather a look at the failings of parents.

"well being" is such an encompassing term. Add the fact that this is limited to "wealthy nations". Child well being tends to be worse in poorer countries, the problems tend to be more basic like starvation and disease, so I think that the overall conclusion is that as wealthy nations the failings are in ourselves.

Poverty comes with it's own problems but not everything can be blamed on it. Obscene wealth can be just as dangerous to the personal well being of children as poverty can. What I will say is that with obscene wealth the dangers are easier to avoid as there is more control over the situation.

In short what I get from this article is that we have advantages over the less well off nations, but we are failing to utilise those advantages and are instead allowing them to create our own problems.