h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Many of the violence and bullying problems that kids bring to school are just extensions or reactions to their home life. There's something wrong in the home.

And to a certain degree it is caused by overcrowding...not overcrowding in the schools, but overcrowding on the whole planet. We are having too many babies! And just anyone can have a baby, you know. As much as I hate to paraphrase Keanu Reeves, he had a good line in the movie Parenthood. You have to have a license to get a car, but any old can be a dad.

Any of you adults out there remember the big bullies from school? You know, the ones who repeated a few grades, stole your lunch money, and eventually dropped out of school. Chances are that THOSE guys have more children than you do, and they will be in school with YOUR children. And what are they going to teach their kids?

Anyone up for a basic competency test to become a parent? Difficult to enforce, I know, especially with the Catholic church around.

Current attitudes in the workplace towards parenthood hardly help this issue. The only place I know of that has paternity leave that even approaches adequate is Holland. In England it's pathetic, which is a huge disinsentive to anyone who wants a family but is in a job worth holding on to (ie., anyone intelligent who has worked hard).

Large families can work, but like any family it helps if the parents are 'good' parents, but if they're good at parenting they're probably good at a whole host of other stuff and hence don't want a large family that will take up all their time. Sadly, many large families end up being so due to irresponsibility, whereas arguably one of the key ingredients to being a good parent is responsibility! Like many arguments to the issue of how to bring up children well, the large family problem is partly coincidence.

It is true that children hold the prejudices of the parents. This has been known to add to bullies needing to be so agressive and "Stand up for themselves"

How many times have you known parents to say to their victim children - Just punch him back - or similar? Violence causes more violence.

all good points. in november, the 15-year-old son of an ex-girlfriend moved in with me and i am beginning to understand the Latin term 'in loco parentis' because i must be crazy for putting up and dealing with this crap daily.
but, dangit, i BELIEVE in this kid like i never believed in his mother and i'm gonna do my level best to help this half-formed human, twisted as he may be from growing up with an abusive (and eventually suicide) father and his ex-mother, the way it's coming down.
help them learn how to learn is about the best way i can put it.

Perhaps the trend for mother's putting children into creches at 2 years old and getting back to work to pay for the continental holiday, or the second car may have contributed to this ?

Maybe the break-up of marriages leading to serial parenting ?

Perhaps every woman's "right" to have a child regardless of whether she is married, in a relationship, or even hetro-sexual ?

Parenting does involve sacrifices, I'm lucky enough to have a well paid job in the computer industry (though I'm still under-paid you understand) which meant my wife could remain at home to look after our children. It also meant we took them out of education for 9 or 10 years - now they are back at school, because of the difficulty in arranging external examinations nowadays.

methinks it's more than just creches and daycares and rather the kids' lack of trust in their parental units, which have become way more flexible and interchangeable in the past 30 years. who can a kid rely on? they don't know who they can trust.

Are all children from non traditional families violent? I don't think so.. We can't change a childs parents, but we can help a child believe that there is something out there better than what their parents had.

at this point i should add, that my parents choose to sign on so that they could home educate all four of us, despite dire predictions from our relatives that we would all end up on the scrap heap, we've all managed to do better academically, when we choose to go back into edcatation than any of our privatly edcated cousins! In fact a few weeks ago, in an interview at Manchester University my brother was told 'I used to think that schools were valuable institutions, until I met you,'

But i have to say if I was left in the situation my Dad was in (effectively alone with 4 children) I don't think I would give up worth and sign on, but that would be a purely selfish descion, because I don't think I could go back to being that poor.

that's exactly what my grandparents wanted, i understand, and surely what my parents wanted. it is entirely possible that my great-grandparents sponsored their kids'escape from Poland in the late 1890's or early 1900's. now, with the internet and cable teevee, kids are exposed to SO much more and there's really nothing i/we can do to stop it. all i can be is a firm base.

A problem with this discussion is that it is too easy to make generalizations. And, as the saying goes, anyone who makes generalizations is a fool. I know that what a lot of people want is something they can point their finger at and say "There it is! That's the problem! Let's get rid of that and everything will be fine!" Is it loud music? Is it violent video games? Is it stupid TV? Is it the violence on the evening news?

There is always an exception. I know a family who has 12 children (my first impression: SHEESH!). ALL of them were home-schooled. I met them all at a big Christmas party one year, and they are the most well-rounded and intelligent people I have ever met. Which really says a lot about the mother, I suppose. She knew what she was doing. All of the children play at least one musical instrument. All of children (except, perhaps, the youngest of them) speak more than one language (keep in mind, this is in America!), and most of the older ones are now on scholarships to Ivy league colleges.

So on one hand you want to say "What are you THINKING bringing 12 more people into this world?" and on the other hand you want to say, "I wish there were MORE people like you.

Why did´nt you stay home with the kids?
Parenting involves sacrifices for both sexes as far as I am concerned. Why shouldn´t a woman be able to have a good job and children at the same time? Men has always had that opportunity. We are not in the dark-ages are we?! It is a shared resposibility. More fathers should be at home on parental leave. For their own sake, for their kids sake and for equality!

My previous reply was a reply to Mckay -the Disorganised, sorry I didn´t make that clear

To Andyman
I think bullying and violence in schools are not only a problem for/caused of bad parenting. To work with children in a school requiers a lot more than to teach them how to read and write. You have got to "be there" for them emotionally. For young children and teenagers this is very important. It is a teachers/pedagogs responsibility to make sure the kids are all right, to prevent bullying and violence. To work in a school, or an "after-school leisure club" for kids these are things you are obligated to be aware of. -At least where I come from.

As much as you can say that the bullies should have been brought up
better, that is only part of the solution. In my experience most
children are capable of bullying, if those being bullied accept it.

A parental problem?

well only partly, its a parental problem in that most middle class kids who go to their parents for advice on bullying will be given the wrong
advice. It will go something like this.

"Just ignore them, they are only jealous because you are smarter than them etc."

This is a misunderstanding of why people get bullied, people get bullied because the bullies enjoy having power over other people, and they will pick on whoever gives least resistance. Bullies are not people who believe in "do as you would be done by", they are people who believe in "do what you can get away with". People who offer sufficiently little resistance will end up getting bullied even by "normal kids".

The most practical advice parents can give their children on this is:

"Don't take no Sh** from anyone."

it is poor grammar but good advice. Practically that means, if you are too small to fight then shout some abuse and run away, never let the bully get the last word in, never let them feel fully in control. Resist in every way you can.

So that's my advice, make sure you aren't the easiest target, fighting is their game, so resistance has to be by other means, abusive language, practical jokes anything which makes them look bad in front of their mates is perfect, because the whole reason they bully is so that they can feel like they are running the show, respected, even if everyone in fact hates them.

Even if the above doesn't get them off your back, it'll make you the school hero.

To Nosbod:

I was in the running for totally agreeing with you. Bullying, like rape, is about having power over someone.

And then you lost me. "Don't take no $#!% from anyone"? Telling a child that is what MAKES bullies, it doesn't PREVENT them. One problem that bullies have is that they don't know exactly what "proper" behavior is. Suddenly, anything that they don't like becomes that "$#!%" that they aren't supposed to take.

When you teach a child not to take any, let's call it GUFF, you are actually telling them this: REFUSE TO COMPROMISE! Objectivists aside, this is unhealthy behavior. That's what gang wars are all about. That is what religious intolerance is all about.

You can't be that general with children.

I used to be bullied in school, and here's something I realized too late: Hurt someone's body, that pain will go away quickly. Hurt someone's pride, and that pain will last.

If you're going to fight back against a bully, you can't fight fire with fire, because inevitably the bully has more firepower.

To Izzybelle.

You're asking too much of teachers. Teachers are not parents. Teachers are not psychologists. Teachers are not referees.

I'm not saying that teachers need to completely distance themselves from their students. But they simply aren't trained to do these things. And as little as they get paid, they don't need to take on the home problems of thirty-some kids or more.

My mother has been a high school teacher for nearly 30 years. Her biggest complaint about her most problem students is lack of parental involvement. I'm not just talking a general "this parent isn't involved," but she actually calls the parents of her problem kids, tries to talk to them, tries to set up parental meetings, puts in plain English (she's an English teacher...) what that child needs to do to pass the class, much less to become a "good citizen,"...and what usually happens?
Nothing.

(This isn't always the case, of course. I don't wqant to generalize.)

I was bullied when I choose to go to school, and looking back it was entirly my own fault. It's natural for children to pick on difference, and natural for people to take the mickey out of people that are diffent, this is normal for human beings. There are always going to be some children who are always picked on, usually because they have poor social skills.

The current response from teachers and parents is "Bullies are bad, you are an innocent victim, let's tell the bully to stop" but taking the bullies away won't solve the problem because the child with poor social skills will just get picked on my someone else.

There are children who come from different families, and have different interests who don't get bullied, and there are children from perfectly normal families who do.

Izzybelle - My wife didn't have a job at the time, and she didn't have the opportunity to eran the money that I was earning. At no point did I make her stay at home, she chose to, and it was her decision to take the children out of school.

My sacrifices were in not having a decent car, doing all the overtime I could - regularly working weeks in excess of 60 hours, and I also help teach the children - maths mainly.

Z - Yes I was generalising, and no not every child from a broken home turns out bad - but figures do show that children from single parent families perform less successfully on average. Obviously there are very caring loving single parents, there are also feckless uncaring married couples, but if we could structure society so children felt supported in the community - be it school community, or neighbourhood, or family, then in my opinion we would have a healthier happier society. You obviously felt loved, in the long run material things matter very little.

Now my children have started school I was concerned they would be bullied. I can only say I under-estimated them. Incidently they are not a posh prep-school - In Coventry their school is rated at no 21 out of 22 local comprehensives. (25% achieving 5+ A-C grades - and yes - my child was in the 25%)

Apparently we have very different perspectives on this issue. And different traditions. In Sweden, where I live, we´ve had a granted paternal leave(or what you call it) for all parents since some 30 years back. This makes it possible for all families to have one parent at home with your small children for at least a year and a half. All parents should also be able to get a place in a daycare-centre. Children start school at the age of 6/7. Then all families are offered a place in a "leisure-time club"(I guess you could translate it to...)In leisure-time clubs pedagogues with university education in, for example, psycology work. They work a lot with training children in social-skills.These people work closely with the school teachers. We have bullies in our schools too, but it is a problem we are aware of and work very hard with. You don´t need to be a parent to be fond of a child. Children of course need loving responsible parents, but if you don´t have that, other grown-ups that care can make a difference. I was at first reading your messages from my horizon.