Bullying

[Pix]

I don't know how it is in Australia, but I hear similar rants in America about how you can't even yell at the kids and they're all soft and here that's simply false. It's a bit complicated (more like SNAFU/"messed up" so that real abuse is often given a pass and even facilitated by the system while something stupid can get the door kicked down) and even ironic (for example, America is about the only western nation where you can pay self-proclaimed professionals to commit felony abuse on kids, especially with "religious exemptions" like a Christian home to turn gay kids straight, which not only includes beatings but bindings, electroshock, and death marches, and by that I mean kids have literally died on them and in the RARE case that the government investigates then typically the worse that happens to such people is they lose their license to "treat" anymore kids in which case they typically move to another country and American parents keep sending their kids, in one case a boy escaped by boat back to America and an American judge sent him back to the teen gulag that had been shut down in America but now operating in the Caribbean). It's certainly not PC as racial & religious minorities seem to suffer the most scrutiny (though another irony is that those teen gulags I mentioned are for mostly whites, save a few state run ones, as they're for profit and white parents are the most likely to have the money to spare). And if a child is whiny, bullying, undisciplined, violent, and the like then I'll place money that the parents are as well, as my observation is teens imitate their parents for better and for worse (even when they hold their parents in contempt they still imitate), though there are exceptions (rotten kids of good parents, good kids of rotten parents, probably because of outside inspiration).

In general kids are generally better behaved and more literate today, and tend to be a bit nicer overall, but at the same time they're more insulated from the real world than ever, our schools are like prisons in many places (my old school back in the 90s had metal detectors, dogs sniffing our lockers & vehicles in between classes, and more, and today they actually track students with RFID, and in many ways convicts in maximum security prisons have more rights). The internet is a double-edge sword that helps in both good & bad ways. And then where parents used to use TV as a babysitter & drug, now parents (and schools and even courts, sometimes even against parental objections and sometimes with the doctors, schools & judges getting a bounty by the pharmaceutical company to mandate them) are encouraged for the most trivial reasons to use drugs in the name of convenience in which long term effects are unknown and admittedly alter brain chemistry (and in a kid the brain is rapidly undergoing changes anyway) which lead to a whole new set of problems.

But I think what's worse for kids these days is the pressure. Here in the US you can even fail kindergarten now if a child can't read. When I was in kindergarten it was impossible to fail it, and I was considered remarkable for having learned to read by the time it was over. That said, our schools are much more geared toward testing than learning today because of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is harder in some ways, easier in others, and a very bad idea overall as it leaves very little foundation as it promotes rote memorization without actual learning or understanding so that it's forgotten when no longer needed and as a result many with a diploma have to take "bone head" courses, that is remedial high school, before they can start college. Another interesting bit is that our first graders are usually better than most first graders in Europe but by high school our kids are shockingly ignorant compared to their European peers. And that also adds pressure by teachers because to advance they have to produce kids that can pass the tests because it affects funding.

And it's not just teachers, it's parents who have fallen for the testing. See test scores are recorded and thus can impact a kid's future, especially if they enter college (but given that the jobs are limited these days college just makes all too many "overqualified" for the jobs that are available with a huge student loan to pay off), so there's HUGE pressure to excel, and this puts them in competition with their friends as well (and the parents who like to brag do all they can to make their kids beat the kids of other parents which can lead parents turning even best friends into bitter rivals) and also load them with AP courses, extra-curriculars, internships, test prep courses, and the like to get into those hard-to-get spots in top colleges.

Of course many do the same with athletics as well, some parents even force their kids to be in sports (despite that it costs a lot), and, of course, to WIN...and gods helps the kids who don't actually want to. And if you think jocks are bad for often being given a free pass at bullying (and sometimes even felonious crimes, the recent trying to get jocks a "get out of jail" card for gang rape recently isn't an isolated incident), the parents can be even worse where they've actually gotten violent with coaches & referees during the game (sometimes leading to being kicked out, other times resulting in arrests). Interesting enough, in elementary school the kids sometimes show more maturity and sportsmanship than their parents (I think that must've been common for awhile as an early Simpsons ep explored that theme, the one where Bart & Lisa "fight for their parents love" on the hockey field that end with the parents tearing the hockey stadium apart when Bart & Lisa refuse to compete against each other any longer).

And that intense pressure, btw, is the reason for why kids (at least girls) LOVE The Hunger Games, a story of corrupt and sadistic adults who force kids to fight to death, even kids who love each other. The crushing despair and upset over it speaks to their souls, and they can't help but cheer as kids find ways to fight back.

And not only is that pressure and alienation intense, but to make good test takers socialization and other factors of school are sacrificed so they're even worse than when I went to school, and then kids keep getting boomer drivel on how easy they have it and life is only going to get worse (glad the "It Gets Better Project" came out, but all kids need to hear that, not just the gay ones) would only make their despair worse if they already feel like failures. Those who don't get the top grades may very well feel that their lives are over, with possibly very unfortunate results on society as well as themselves.

All in all I'm glad I'm not a kid today. Though if I could've I'd have skipped the process entirely myself as well. :tongue:

[Pix]

And I figure I'd post these as more since some of what I say will no doubt surprise some readers:

First, on teens getting better and contrasting what they face from boomers:

http://reason.com/archives/2002/02/01/teen-demon-tracts

Kids these days. We all know the basic jeremiad: They're media-addled, affectless, nihilist, subliterate, a Clockwork Orange-style army of "superpredators," teen gunmen, and garden-variety sociopaths waiting to happen. Advertising has hypnotized them. Video games have conditioned them to kill without feeling. And pop culture has hammered every conceivable kind of coarseness -- from anonymous sex to Satanism, from glorified violence to Internet passivity -- into their poignantly echoing little craniums. Is it any wonder that most of them are but a bully's slight or a chatroom flame away from raining hot-lead vengeance on schoolrooms or playgrounds?

Well, yes, actually. It is, indeed, a considerable wonder that any part of this hysterical caricature should command serious discussion in the first place. As almost no media outlet is going to tell you, kids these days are astonishingly well-adjusted, nonviolent, educated, and polite. Nearly all the leading indicators of social ills among American adolescents -- drug use, violent assault, teen pregnancy, drop-out rates, you name it -- have been declining for at least 10 years now. More teens are graduating high school and attending college than ever before. A record number of American teens volunteer their time to charitable causes -- twice as many as their counterparts of 20 years past. Math SATs are at a 30-year high. Hell, even teen literacy is increasing: A recent survey conducted by the National Education Association found that 41 percent of teen respondents said they read 15 books or more a year. How many adults can claim a comparable intake?

Meanwhile, social scientist Mike Males of the Justice Policy Institute -- one of the only honest inquirers into the condition of American adolescents -- has cataloged the remarkable degree and scope of the recent turnaround in teen conduct. (His most recent research is available online at alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10904.)

In 1999 the number of homicides committed by teens was down 62 percent from what it had been in 1990. Over the same period, rapes in which adolescents were charged declined 27 percent, teen-perpetrated violent crime generally was down 22 percent, the incidence of sexually transmitted disease decreased 50 percent, births were down 17 percent, abortions were down 15 percent, and drunken driving offenses plummeted 35 percent.

The only behaviors registering upticks over the same period -- smoking (up 13 percent based on average monthly intake) and drug fatalities (up 11 percent) -- have been the targets of the most aggressive adult-sponsored "zero-tolerance" interventions, a development that Males soundly suggests is no coincidence.

Yet you desperately wish, across the many alarmist pages of Parents Under Siege, The Maturity Myth, and their many literary cousins, that there was a different sort of "mindfulness" at work on behalf of younger Americans. Teens and young adults do have legitimate troubles, after all, but most of them have more to do with the behavior of the adults in their world. In addition to child poverty, two of the most salient "risk factors" that can determine teen maladjustment -- child abuse and divorce -- show no signs of a long-term downturn.

For all the hysteria over schoolyard shootings and the death-dealing culture of Goth rock and video games, 16 school-age victims were killed in violent crime incidents (including suicides, and one victim of something called "Fragile X Syndrome") on or near schools over the 2000-2001 academic year; 19 violent deaths, including suicides, occurred on or near school grounds the year before. Meanwhile, abusive adults still kill children at the remarkably high rate of five fatalities a day -- and even so, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found in 1999 that deaths stemming from child abuse were being underreported by an estimated rate of 60 percent. A curious time, all in all, for Garbarino and Bedard to insist that the "socially toxic environment" of North America mandates that kids be subject to "more rather than less adult supervision, more rather than less intensive parenting, to reduce susceptibility to negative peer influences, to negative mass media influences, to the low self-esteem generated at school." To quote a non-Buddhist homily, charity begins at home

And more on teens getting better while schools are getting worse:




I don't mean to say that only kids have it hard. It sucks for teachers, too. Here's a brilliant open resignation by one teacher:




(I should mention that most kids have breakfast at home, kids who have breakfast at school are likely on a program, which made it a great shame when I was in school to eat the school breakfast even if you paid full price for it, and so it's only common in poorer areas, though maybe in a few states like his breakfast in school are more the norm no matter your economic background.)

[bluefox4000]

I did not read all the replies so forgive me if I'm repeating. Tragedies are not increasing....circulation is.

Mick

[dfiant]

PIX, I don't think Australian society would be terribly far removed from American society.

[Roxy]

I did not read all the replies so forgive me if I'm repeating. Tragedies are not increasing....circulation is.

Mick

It's interesting how exposure works, there are other situations that I've known about way before they went viral, and people think it's new when it's not. I see I made that mistake with this topic. It's an easy conclusion to jump to.