Italian kids are Europe's most feared tourists, according to an international study based on the opinions of holiday companies.
Italy's 'ragazzi' are well known for creating disturbances on aeroplanes, causing damage in hotel rooms when on school trips and running around squawking in restaurants, the Italian-led study found.
An incident often seen as emblematic took place last July, when a class of Roman school children was obliged to disembark from a Lufthansa flight to Manchester because the 40 young students were being too rowdy.
The German pilot said the youngsters' behaviour was so out of control that they were putting the safety of the flight and the plane at risk.
An international team headed by Massimo Cicogna, head of the Ipsa social and psychological study foundation, carried out the informal survey by talking to 2,500 tour operators in countries including France, Britain, Greece, Spain and Italy.
The results prompted a surprised reaction from MOIGE, the biggest association of Italian parents. "This negative appraisal of the behaviour of Italian children is astounding. We parents believe the opposite is true," it said.
The association went on to say that in general Italian youngsters were very happy when they went abroad because there were better facilities for young people than in Italy.
The work by Cicogna's team focused exclusively on the behaviour of children and teenagers when away from home and in large groups.
Another study published over the weekend found that, when at home and taken individually, Italian youngsters compared reasonably well with their European peers.
LESS LIKELY TO FIGHT.
The report by the Institute for Public Policy Research in the UK, focusing on drink, drugs, violence and sexual promiscuity, found that British teenagers won the title of Europe's worst behaved.
British 15-year-olds, for example, are more likely to get drunk, start fights and smoke cannabis than their Italian counterparts.
The IPPR report made much of the statistic that 93% of Italian children eat regularly with their families, while in the UK only 64% do. This was seen as being a key indicator of how strongly a parental presence was felt.
But in Italy there are still common fears that Italian kids are lacking when it comes to acceptable standards of social behaviour and complaints about an inability to say thankyou or eat in an orderly way are common.
A new book, 'Il Galateo dei Bambini' by Nessia Laniado, has just been published which aims to explain to children what acceptable behaviour is and why.
But it is also aimed at parents, advising them on how to impose restrictions and promote dialogue with teenage offspring. Questions such as "How did it go at school today?" should be avoided, the author says, because they always make children feel they are under interrogation.
