[Vautrin]

It is a complicated issue.

From a political perspective, whatever youth do outdoors, is "troublesome" - unless it is a paid / sponsored activity. Football (or whatever sport in a sport club) is okay, but just hanging around is "threatening".

A football game is a once-weekly affair, and often outside of that, they will not have access to any field they can play "just for fun". So unless you are a nerd you are basically a troubled child.

In the Netherlands hundreds of millions of Euros are spent on meetings on what to do for these children - yet participation of these children / youth is practically non-existent. Simply because it is a lot of talk, and practically no concrete results. A large portion of "youth" budget is wasted in this way, without tangible results.

Thank you politicians.

Another issue is probably the changing role patterns and economic patterns. 40 years ago it was affordable to live on just 1 income, but you need 2 incomes these days. That means a lot less time for the children.

Which leads to:
1) More divorces as women are economically less dependent on men. I am not opposed to divorces, but you will often see that children end up neglected as "Mom" and "Dad" (and I use the term loosely) fight an all out-war in order to get the best deal out of the divorce. Also divorces are rampant because we promote consumerist attitudes to the extreme (why be married to an obsolete model if you can have a young chick?). Note: I am not blaming divorces I am blaming the idiots who cannot divorce properly.
2) guilt-gifting.
3) inconsistent affection / punishment routines. Noone is going to convince me that when mom and dad are worn out by their 10-12 hour day that they will never be inconsistent / unreasonable when punishing.
4) a changing perception of the parent by the child itself. Consumerist attitudes again.
5) possibly lack of bonding (care center hopping, nannies, and what not) with the parents.

Just a few ...