How bad is the life of US middle and highschool children ?

In My Humble Opinion
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Unfortunately Snoopyfan… some parents teach their kids that bullying is acceptable.

Then when those kids get in trouble at school the parents either refuse to see that little billy could possibly have done X or they themselves get belligerent with the administration about the situation.

All I can do is teach my kids as best I can not to be mean to others and to come to me if someone is mean to them.

While we may not know exactly how Scumpup’s district functions. I do know that even in places with policies on bullying/conduct there are no perfect systems. That was all I wanted to get across. I’m happy his system works but so many do not. I do find it vaguely ironic that he chose to argue that our experiences with bullies do not make us experts or it a widespread phenomena while his single experience with a school system without bullying makes him an expert on how this is a rare event.

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I have three kids in middle school right now. They have not experienced any harrassment, violence, etc. The closest it has come to teasing is the “most likely to read 1000 books in a week” kind of label. I’m sure it helps that they are very good looking (that is not just fatherly pride - one was in a commercial), but they are physicially small and live in the “brainiac” crowd.

I was physically small (I am not now, I grew late), nerd and brainiac. Like my kids, I went to a suburban middle school and high school, although unlike them, I went to a rural elementary school. There were a few kids that pestered me, and a few times it got physical, but no one knocked the shit out me. It might have helped that I was capable of winning some fights. Sitting near the bottom of the social rung, I knew no guys that were horribly tormented and regularly beat up. The girls who were not attractive got teased, and that’s the good word for it, but that was elementary school, not middle school.

63

I read this earlier today and I just couldn’t leave it:

No, no, NO you didn’t deserve it. No one ‘deserves’ that type of misstreatment merely because of who they are. Never lose sight of the fact that your tormentors were WRONG!

My own experiences are probably irrelevant to the discussion because I graduated high school over twenty years ago, but I was harrassed intermittently in middle school and into ninth grade for being a nerd (meaning I read books and did well in school). Being small for my age, almost a year younger than everyone else in my grade, hopelessly unathletic and shy didn’t help. The harrasment was usually verbal but occasionally reached the level of shoving or punching. It was always guys who were in the same year as me, upperclassmen were never a problem.

My experiences obviously were not at the level many people have already recounted, and unlike tanookie I thankfully had a good home enviroment. In any case it doesn’t really affect me anymore…I reflect on the near certainty that most of my tormentors are undoubtedly either a) dead b) in jail or c) trapped in low level dead end jobs with no future and probably also no loving relationships with other human beings.

I have a great job in an exciting field, live in a nice area, and am having a blast getting to know the beautiful, funny, intelligent person my son is. I have vowed to myself to do everything I can to make sure he can talk to me about anything (my relationship with my own father wasn’t that great). I also am going to make sure he learns some martial arts, just in case.

64

Speaking from the position of one who had a difficult time at school socially, I think I understand–at least a little bit–why two nearly polarized views are prevalent on this thread.

First of all, the bullying that is really obvious (physical torment, etc.) doesn’t happen as often as the bullying that is less obvious, the stuff that is, as **Fretful Porpentine[/p] put, “damaging to the mind and spirit, but not illegal. And mostly invisible to adults.” That’s the thing; it is mostly invisible to adults unless they experienced it themselves as children/teens. IMO, that could be one reason why SnoopyFan and Scumpup perceive the problem so differently. No teacher ever intervened on my behalf, and I understand why; from their points of view, kids were just being kids. (Disclaimer: Some of you obviously experienced worse stuff than I did, which any adult should have known to stop.) Going through that experience has made me more empathetic, I think. I am not a teacher, but I think I can tell just by watching kids walk out of a school at the end of the day which ones are having a hard time.

Second, children (yes, and teenagers) have so little power over their lives and such little life experience that even if help is available, they may not realize it. Thus the situation seems overwhelming. Throw those puberty/teen hormones into the mix, and a situation that looks transitory and fairly harmless to an adult can seem permanent and deeply hurtful to a young person. Compared to tanookie, for instance, my childhood and adolescence was, though not good, certainly tolerable. Yet there were many moments when I, too, thought about suicide.

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Sorry for the random bolding. I will preview my posts, I will preview my posts. :smack:

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No, no, NO you didn’t deserve it. No one ‘deserves’ that type of misstreatment merely because of who they are. Never lose sight of the fact that your tormentors were WRONG!

Oh hon, I know that. I said that because that was his reasoning, not mine. Although at the time I suppose I really did think I had brought on the teasing myself, at least a little. Now I realize he was/is simply a sick SOB and he’s still stuck in the same podunk town living a meaningless little life.

Living well is the best revenge, right? :smiley:

67

Bullying is a big concern in Australia right now and is in the news a lot.

SnoopyFan asked what can be done to help. Looking over this thread, I can see a several things parents can do.

I had some troubles of my own growing up, just like most. I was teased, excluded from cliques, felt like a loser sometimes. Eventually I made some bad choices because I was wanted to fit in. I picked up smoking and conspicuous drug use, for example. It was a deliberate decision to conform to a clique I knew was within my reach.

At the time, the whole thing was pretty mystifying. I figured I was picked on was because I read too much and wasn’t very good at sports (actually, I was a pretty good fullback in soccer, but I was a miserable baseball player, swimmer, and fighter). Looking over old photographs, I now figure it was mostly because I was a creep. I had bad posture, uncombed greasy hair, acne, and probably bad breath.

It’s a no-brainer, really. Teach and model good hygiene. See to it that your kids are physically active from an early age and model an active lifestyle. Don’t expect them to pick up on hand-eye coordination by letting them play video games. See to it they do not become obese. You don’t have to spend a fortune on fancy clothes, but dress them decently and pay attention to how your kid’s peers dress (garage sales and eBay are good places to pick up used kid’s clothing… shoes should be bought new, though). Make sure they socialise with other kids from an early age (day care is actually good for kids from what I hear, so don’t feel guilty if you and your partner work outside the home). Don’t be over-protective and don’t be too easy on them or you might make them unconfident. Keep a tidy and hygienic home and make sure they get good food and enough sleep. Sick kids are unattractive.

I’m sure some readers will think this is superficial advice, but looking back I think I would’ve enjoyed school more and made some better choices if my parents had followed it. Er, my mom would kill me if she knew I was posting this. Our house was clean, but mainly because we paid somebody to clean it for us. She spent plenty on clothes, but didn’t always get rid of gear that was worn out or looked like crap. I was well fed, but allowed to be a picky and idiosyncratic eater. Mom, if you’re reading this, you’re still grand and all.

68

This is something I’ve been trying to figure out for over a decade (though admittedly for a good part of that decade I was more thinking “Why the hell won’t they stop” than “How do I show them this is unacceptable”;)).

As far as I can figure it, a candid (but professional) approach at the beginning of every school year, along with clearly-delineated punishments (and detention, from what I gather, is not that much of a punishment, necessarily) for infractions, will take care of some of it. I’m planning to have (when I start teaching) meetings with as many parents from the grade I’m teaching as possible, and telling them the same thing.

But what do you do with the kid who just doesn’t care? Usually people have tried to take stuff away from said kid. That doesn’t necessarily work if the kid doesn’t care about losing stuff. But having to do extra stuff … that can get just annoying enough.

I won’t be able to catch everything. I know that the instant I turn my head, something’s going to happen. What would be ideal is to have two teachers in one room, so that one can turn their head to write on the board, for example, and the other can keep looking at the class.

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it really does depend on the individual’s experience. i just graduated high school this past june and i can honestly say that i loved the 13 (or just 5 if we’re starting in middle school) years that i spent going to grade school. can you tell i’m not enjoying college too much?

i wasn’t popular in terms of Cliques and Parties, but i had a lot of wonderful friends. It really just helped to be friendly because then people couldn’t find a reason to hate you. And my friendships spanned various groups, i had punk, goth, skater, hippie, band geek (i was a colorguard girl myself, so the band geeks just came with the territory), gay/straight alliance, student government, AP and “gifted” friends (being one myself), the nerds, the jocks… i was friends with almost every type of person and i think that helped because … well, i dont know why. i can just tell you that i had a wonderful time in grade school.

while i wasn’t harrassed, i do know of kids that were and i did my best to stick up for them, because sometimes they really didn’t deserve what people were dishing to them.

i think what may determine how you cope with school is how you were raised as a child. my parents instilled this huge amount of self-confidence in me and they were always telling me how proud they were that i was true to myself and blah blah blah…just a lot of reinforcement and reassurance.

and wasn’t junior year supposed to be the hardest? this is the rumor i always heard from upperclassmen, that junior year in high school is the hardest out of them all. i never experienced this, my junior year was wonderful. it was my senior year that academically almost killed me.

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I think I had a fairly typical high school experience. I was neither part of the tormented nor a tormentor. In my school it seemed like there was a group of 10-20% that were the ‘elite’ or popular group, but not all in that group were mean or bullies. There was another 10-20% that were picked on, but only a few that were specific targets. The other 60-80% of us continued on, occasionally getting mocked or teased but I would guess with about a normal amount of teenage angst. Fot the most part the groups left each other alone. I don’t look back on high school and think ‘that was the greatest time of my life! I wish I was back in high school!’, but I do have fond memories of that time. Overall it was a positive experience.

I was in a lot of extracurriculars though, so that gave me the chance to make friends and aquaintances with many different groups. That probably helped my experience some. I would say Jr. high was worse, but I think that’s a particularly tough age group in general. No one remembers Jr. High too fondly that I know of.