Yes, teens can be infuriating, but you can’t just sell them on eBay
Every parent of a difficult teen has wondered at some point whether it’s not too late to put their dear son or daughter up for adoption . . . or failing that, to sell them on eBay.
But that’s an idle fantasy, not the basis for educational policy. It seems Auntie Beeb can’t tell the difference. Living With The Brainy Bunch (BBC2) tried to instil good manners and a strong work ethic in two obstreperous 15- yearolds, by farming them out to other families.
Jack, who had clocked up three exclusions and more than 100 detentions in a year, detested his lessons at Chessington Community College in West London. ‘It’s almost like I’ve got to go to prison every day,’ he complained.
The school’s tough line on discipline seemed to help most pupils. But it didn’t work with foul-mouthed, unshaven Jack, nor with bone-idle Hollie, who would simply walk out of classes that she found boring. ‘School’s a lot of work,’ she sighed. ‘I find it quite stressful if I don’t get my own way, I throw a little strop.’
As far as this documentary was concerned, teachers had done all they could. The fault lay with the parents, who weren’t tough enough at home — and the solution was to send Hollie and Jack to live with classmates in much stricter homes.
The result, however much the cameras tried not to see it, was misery for everyone.
The teens were humiliated and homesick. Their behaviour barely improved — Jack still went out all night partying, Hollie still refused to sit through exams. Their parents were made to feel like failures, and the classmates had their lives turned upside-down for nothing.
I felt for Tharush, a diligent boy who adored his Sri Lankan immigrant mother, Priyanka. She had risked her life to get him a decent education, and he was determined never to disappoint her.
Now he had to share his bedroom with Jack, a cocky brat who treated Priyanka and her rules with open contempt. Much of the time, Tharush looked like he wanted to punch his guest on the nose.
Hollie, who hoped to be a nursery assistant, was sent to live with a highly academic girl and keen ballerina with plans to become a lawyer. That was simply callous.
This was exploitative, heartless television, which offered a completely impractical solution to the problem of disaffected pupils. Its only saving grace was to remind us that even the most obnoxious teens can be likeable when they face the camera alone.
Irresponsible teenage behaviour of a very different kind was the crucial factor in The Investigator: A British Crime Story ( ITV). Hitchhiking is almost never seen today but, only 40 years ago, it was the usual mode of transport for young people who couldn’t afford a bus, never mind a taxi, after a night out.
Two Glasgow women in their 50s shook their heads at the risks they used to take every weekend, as they talked to private detective Mark Williams-Thomas. ‘We were mad,’ murmured one.
One of their girlfriends was raped and killed, almost certainly after getting into a stranger’s van after a Friday night dance. She was one of at least five girls whose bodies were discovered, trussed and dumped, across Scotland in the late Seventies.
Williams-Thomas made a compelling case that the murderer was decorator and World’s end serial killer Angus Sinclair. His painstaking focus on detail could never explain the workings of a truly evil mind, but it did show how easily Sinclair claimed his victims.