The shame of Britain's intolerance of children (or how Barnardos lied to me for money!)

The shame of Britain's intolerance of children

There is an unjustified and disturbing intolerance of children in the UK according to a shocking poll commissioned by Barnardo's.
The poll shows that society casually condemns all children, with more than half the population (54%) thinking that British children are beginning to behave like animals.

Research conducted by YouGov shows that the public holds a negative view of all children, despite the vast majority of children making positive contributions to their communities, attending school, taking part in activities and a significant number volunteering.

The findings show:

just under half (49%) of people agree that children are increasingly a danger to each other and adults
43% agree something has to be done to protect us from children
more than a third (35%) of people agree that nowadays it feels like the streets are infested with children
45% of public agree that people refer to children as feral because they behave this way*
nearly half of people (49%) disagree with the statement that children who get into trouble are often misunderstood and in need of professional help

I saw this on the news this morning. Basically, the guy from Barnado’s says that they have conducted a survey of 2000 people that shows that about half of us think that kids are vermin and feral and dangerous; then went on to say how horrible people were. The guy interviewing him wanted to know if there were any divisive questions in the survey and Barnardo’s guy said ‘No.’

In fact, the survey appears to either have been written by morons, or deliberately worded to elicit ‘negative’ answers, presumably in an effort to create sensational headlines and thereby get more media attention and, presumably more donations from people who feel bad because ‘society’ hates children.

An example – their press release reads:

45% of public agree that people refer to children as feral because they behave this way

In their notes to editors at the bottom, they then state:

45% of people disagreed with the statement 'People refer to children as feral but I don’t think they behave this way.'

That seems pretty divisive to me. No I don’t think that kids are feral. I don’t think they act like that. And most importantly, I’ve never heard anyone refer to kids as ‘feral’. So to answer the question literally and truthfully, I would probably disagree with the statement.

If this is representative of the questions asked in the survey, I’m not only a bit worried about how the respondents interpreted the question but also about how the answers are being interpreted.

I’m worried that Barnardo’s are trying to deceive me and as a result I will not donate to them.