Are kids more cruel today than ever before?

I'll be appearing on Fox 25 News tonight (Friday, Feb. 4) at 10 p.m. to discuss whether kids are more mean now than they were in the past. (Check back here for the clip, once it's up.) (Edited to add: Click here for the clip!) In the meantime, you can find my take on the subject over at Yahoo! Shine. Here's the top of the story:

Have Kids Become More Cruel?
By Lylah M. Alphonse, Shine Staff

A New Hampshire Family Life and Family Policy specialist who is an expert on bullying says that kids today are meaner than ever before—and inattentive parents coupled with a lack of certain values may be to blame.

"This generation that's coming up, the generation in school right now ... they are the meanest generation of kids that we've ever had, and they have more ways to be mean to each other than any other generation," Malcolm Smith, a member of the New Hampshire Legislative Task Force on Work and Family and an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, told a crowd at Portsmouth High School recently.

Kids who bully repeatedly are missing certain basic values, The Portsmouth Herald quotes him as saying. Things like manners, civility, and kindness. And the problem has been fostered, Smith said, by a lack of parental supervision.

"It's about supervising and being around. As a parent, that's really important," he said, telling parents that they can help fight bullying by teaching values like respect, compassion, and generosity, and encouraging kids to have realistic expectations of other people.

But is it really that simple? I don't think so....

Read the rest at Shine.