Teenagers rebelling is normal — but what does trying to destroy Van Gogh's art achieve?

We need our youth to believe they can bring change to the world they live in. But we have to teach them that how they bring that change matters

Two protesters who threw tinned soup at Vincent Van Gogh's famous 1888 work Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. Picture: PA 

The world of the adolescent has changed dramatically in the last number of years. I have been working with teenagers for over 20 years now and I have noticed the change in them. It reminds me of the 60s, when the teenagers were born at the end of a World War. They had seen, first-hand, the aftermath of chaos and destruction created by the adult world.

Those teenagers were irrevocably different than their parents, who were expected to be seen and not heard growing up in the 1920s. The teenagers of the 60s were most certainly going to be seen and heard. When they arrived into adolescence at the start of the 60s, they had new ideas about the world. President Johnston’s escalation of Vietnam and later Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal, illustrated that politicians were not to be trusted. And so they took to the streets.