"IT’S the kids that I feel sorry for.” We’ve all heard those words, usually in a discussion of someone else’s family problems.

But all our kids are in the news and all of us should be sorry about what we’re letting happen to them.

It seems just five minutes ago I was writing about a Unicef report saying our young people were among the unhappiest in the developed world. Well, this week, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) produced research that ranked the UK 24th of 29 EU countries for child wellbeing. Needless to say, the Government disputed the findings.

About the same time that the report came out, Sir Alan Steer, the Government’s expert on classroom behaviour, told a teaching union conference that behaviour was improving, prompting the response: “What planet are you on?” Plus a string of colourful anecdotes about classroom anarchy.

It sums up the way young people’s issues are treated. On one hand, the Government trots out statistics telling us things are getting better. On the other, influential lobby groups say they’re worse. They’re just like a couple of warring parents. Piggy-in-the-middle, pulled every which way, are the kids.

I know that the statistics tell us that many children have been dragged out of material poverty by government measures. But I do not think they have begun tackling the even bigger issue – the poverty of ambition and aspiration that blights too many young lives.

I don’t think it is the children that teachers are getting at either. What really bugs them is the endless testing, form filling and the insidious influence of political correctness that has devalued them as professionals.

We can add to that the skewed values of a society that makes idols of talentless wasters and ignores dedicated public service.

Most institutions fail children at some time. Local councils do, I admit that. Councils are responsible for the welfare of young people in care. We are their “corporate parent”.

How those young people grow up is the acid test of our effectiveness. But in a host of areas, from exam passes to helping them find work and ensuring their emotional wellbeing, the results show we don’t do enough for them. This has got to change.

There, now I have said that, perhaps it will be easier for other organisations to accept they are failing young people, too. Tackling the issues raised by Unicef and CPAG is a job for government, councils, schools and parents.

It involves lots of things, but I’ll focus on two as “starters”.

The first is giving young people a sense of stability and a sense of where they fit in.

These are far more important than an i-Pod or a pair of designer trainers.

We expect young people to grow up in five minutes flat, but do little to prepare them for the adult world we hurry them into. Young people have to know where they stand, what society expects of them, but they also need a greater say in how that society works. My experience is they have a lot to offer.

The second is role models. We all had them when we were younger. I know I did. We might not have thought of them as such, but in the street, on the sports field, at home, school or work, they were there, shaping our behaviour, teaching us about life. I still know some outstanding ones, but there aren’t enough. So perhaps we can all try to be one.

If not, then in 40 or 50 years, today’s children will look back and tell their own kids what lousy parents we were – as they blithely inflict the same mistakes on another generation.

Surely we can stop that happening.