Teaching children to rely on authority teaches helplessness

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Thanks for moving the thread over here! I feel much better about it (and see, we worked it all out without invoking a Mod!)

Here’s what I think: I think we need to do a better job at teaching kids how to resolve conflicts themselves - and by “teaching”, I mean, “getting the hell out of the way so they figure it out themselves”. If you wait until middle school to “teach” conflict resolution, then it’s really really hard to learn and not natural to implement. If you let them figure it out themselves as toddlers, it comes naturally, just like learning a second language. I have huge issues with parents who constantly and instantly jump in to resolve every dispute when toddlers play together. Yes, occasionally they need some modeling, but 4 times out of 5, they’ll sort it out if you just leave them the heck alone. What you teach when you jump in is that they are helpless and weak and need to turn to someone else to “make” the other person do something, instead of working together to find a solution that works for both of them.

Zero tolerance fighting policies which require no self-defense and equal punishment do exactly the same thing - they teach the kids that no one cares “what happened”, no one will listen to them or believe them or let them resolve their own problems or teach them how to resolve their own problems, because they are wrong and bad and deserve punishment no matter what. The grown ups aren’t really interested in helping them, they’re just interesting in shutting them up. It’s incredibly unempowering.

I teach my kids a very specific set of rules for when it’s okay to hit someone. And it does include asking for adult intervention somewhere in there at step three, I believe it is. But it’s all part of an empowering plan requiring the kids to try to work things out themselves first - first verbally, then by removing themselves, (then seeking adult intervention), then warning of a hit to come if the behavior continues and only with a punch in the nose as a last resort.

And yes, I do think it’s spread to the community at large. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re lawsuit-phobic or what, but I hardly see anyone try to work anything out anymore. Neighbor’s music is too loud? Call the cops. Boss wants you to work extra hours? Call human resources. Wrong price scanned? Call the manager. Trip on someone’s steps? Call a lawyer.

It just makes me think of that scene in Bowling For Columbine, when Michael Moore is pointing out that the Columbine school shootings took place over 2 hours, and adults and parents were standing outside the whole time listening to gun shots. Yet no one went in. No one said, “Fuck this, those are our *children *in there and I don’t care if I get shot, at least I’m going to rush the gunman and try to take him out.” No, they stood there like sheep because the police told them to stand there like sheep.

When did pain and death become such horrible things that we’d rather let them happen to our kids? When did we become so convinced of our own worthlessness that we can’t act without someone with a nametag to tell us to?
Now get off my lawn.
[/QUOTE]

You write good. Say things I want to say, but make sense when say them.

(Seriously, I wish I could just replace all the stupid stuff I wrote in the other thread with your post above, and call it a day)

82

Rubystreak I think that what are talking about is a great way to train girls. I am going out on a limb here and assuming you are a girl. For a girl to resort to appealing to authority is one thing. For a boy to do it, it doesn’t benefit society much. When I was a kid, I once tattled on a bully. Not only did he not get into trouble he showed up at my house with his friends and beat me up, which he also did not get into trouble for. Even if you were my teacher, I doubt you could have helped me in any way. I don’t know where you live, but where I grew up there were a lot of gangs, and now it’s even worse. I don’t disagree with you totally, particularly when we are talking about 5 year olds. Yes, 5 year olds should be taught to go to the teacher rather than react. Perhaps singling you out has confused the issue, but I remain of the opinion that we have become weak and dissipated as a result of too much authoritative protection.

I think the accusations that the authorities do not care are unfair. I think it is simply a matter of logistics. Teachers and administrators only have so much power of attention, and it is divided amongst their many tasks. You can’t expect them to give as much attention to a child’s drama as that child requires. I see it as more of a matter of simple numbers rather than callousness.

The part about the FDA was an example of regulation designed around our inability to make our own decisions without appealing to an authority structure. It is evidence of my point that so many people expressed that they did not understand the relevance.

I also recognize the validity of your nuance argument.

treis When I was 7 years old, I had a lot of traumatic experiences with health issues in my family. Some family members had died and others were close to death and I was kind of left on the sidelines with no one really to turn to with my emotional issues. So I behaved as any reasonable 7 year old would, I acted out violently. I threw a desk across the classroom. I got suspended and thereby got the attention of the people around me. Now, my emotional trauma at the time isn’t the point of this little tale. The point of this little tale is that a 7 year old had the strength to hurl a desk across the classroom. I am now 29 years old, I outweigh my 7 year old counterpart by probably 150 lbs. I have had spotty martial arts training, but I’ve had a little, I’ve played some baseball, run a bit, danced etc… All the sorts of things that one does in 22 years of life. A few things that have improved in my extra 22 years on this Earth. One is my ability to calculate ballistic trajectory subconsciuosly. Another is my sheer strength. Another is a rigorous emotional discipline that allows me to focus an adrenaline rush born of rage rather than just acting out and throwing a tantrum. The reason I am drawing this illustration for you, is so you can imagine me throwing a 20 lb desk across a classroom at a gunman who is trying to shoot my daughter.

One of the most useful practical applications of martial arts I ever learned was actually when I was helping teach a kids class. The teacher taught us that within 20 feet of an assailant a knife is more dangerous than a gun. She demonstrated this with squirtguns and magic markers.

Any man, regardless of training, that will let little boys and girls get shot, while he is capable of even attempting to do something about it, should be brought up on murder charges along with the assailant, as long as we are appealing to authority. At the very least, he should be gelded, at worst, executed to keep such pitiful breeding from being passed along to the next generation.

enigm4tic I think we are living in the generation that has already been at that level. The Baby Boomer generation has created a system where being manly is frowned upon. It’s nice that we’re all more in touch with our feelings these days, but the truth is that faceless bureaucracies cannot help us with many things.

83

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
I wonder how much this nonsense will contribute to the cynicism of the next generation of adults.
[/QUOTE]
Or if it does not make them cynical, and instead they get used to this sort of injustice, I wonder if it might lead to a greater acceptance of absolute liability and strict liability/reverse onus offences as compared to the good old innocent until proven guilty offences?

84

[QUOTE=mswas]
Rubystreak I think that what are talking about is a great way to train girls. I am going out on a limb here and assuming you are a girl. For a girl to resort to appealing to authority is one thing. For a boy to do it, it doesn’t benefit society much.
[/QUOTE]

So, it’s fine if girls are “helpless,” but it’s a terrible terrible thing if boys are?

And people wonder why I don’t think much of the Good Old Days.

85

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
So, it’s fine if girls are “helpless,” but it’s a terrible terrible thing if boys are?
[/quote]

No, but I do think that authority has a greater ability to protect girls than to protect boys. Girls prey on each other emotionally more often. That is harder to police, but it also results in physical damage less often. Girls are also more likely to fight to truly hurt one another if they get into a fight at all. Due to the emotional nature of their conflicts, they generally establish pecking orders on an emotional plane rather than the physical one. This means that if a fight has occurred that the social roles cannot be agreed upon.

A pansyboy who cannot protect himself makes a prime target for a bully, who will seek him out as an easy way to prove his superior masculinity by creating peasants for him to lord over. For the boy, the physical altercations are about establishing pecking order. In the wild, males use pseudocopulation as a form of establishing their dominance. Bullying is a form of sexual behavior designed to create have power over people’s roles in the socio-sexual order.

Girls are more than welcome to learn to be tough too, by all means. However, that does not change the fact that there are actual practical social norms still in place today, that are modified by gender roles.

It’s probably reverse discrimination. Some people have a romantic idea of a utopian past that never really happened. You probably hold a candle for a wicked past that never really happened either.

If a man were shooting at you, would you prefer the man who would attempt to subdue the assailant, or would you prefer men who would passively wait in the hall for the authorities while the man inside executed you and the rest of your classmates?

You are of course free to pick up and throw a desk at a gunman, I will applaud your choice to act.

I wonder if a school shooting of this nature has ever occurred in Israel, where no one tried to subdue the gunman. I would be surprised if there had.

86

[QUOTE=mswas]
In the wild, males use pseudocopulation as a form of establishing their dominance.
[/QUOTE]
Dude, no offence, but I’m never going on a canoe trip with you.

87

[QUOTE=Muffin]
Or if it does not make them cynical, and instead they get used to this sort of injustice, I wonder if it might lead to a greater acceptance of absolute liability and strict liability/reverse onus offences as compared to the good old innocent until proven guilty offences?
[/QUOTE]

It’s still innocent until proven guilty. You keep ignoring the premise that both kids are injured. One would presume, then, that they hit each other, so then it becomes a matter of determining if one hit the other out of self-defense. You think it’s obvious and only dense, clueless teachers wouldn’t be able to tell. I tell you, sometimes you know what happened, and sometimes, you don’t. Each kid has parents who will swear on a stack that their kid is the victim. I highly doubt any of you who think you know exactly how to handle it would enjoy dealing with this easy-to-resolve, crystal clear situation.

I watched a boy grab a girl’s ass with both hands. I SAW HIM DO IT. I wrote a referral. I called the kid’s father. The man just would not believe me, and then resorted to the “my precious son was only joking around” argument. It couldn’t be more clear-cut, but this parent (who later ran for the school board) would not believe his son was the offender. Could you all, in your infinite wisdom and finesse, convince him? Only the fact that I saw it with my own eyes got that kid the suspension he so richly deserved.

As for the idea that girl conflicts are more easily resolved by an appeal to authority… I don’t know. Girls are more subtle, generally, and rely more on social forms of bullying. Much harder to observe, quantify, and intervene in, unless they start hitting each other, which is more rare but can involve bloody acts such as hair pulling, face scratching, and ripping the other girl’s clothes off. Anyway, this is the kind of bullying that requires some really hands-on, long-term intervention and careful observation by teachers who know what’s going on. This is the kind of thing that might get a “grow a thicker skin” from a lazy teacher or administrator. Obviously I don’t agree with that approach.

88

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
It’s still innocent until proven guilty.
[/QUOTE]
No. What you have described is quite different than that, for you do not recognize the validity of hitting back in self defence – you have repeatedly stated that a child doing so would face consequences.

89

[QUOTE=Muffin]
No. What you have described is quite different than that, for you do not recognize the validity of hitting back in self defence – you have repeatedly stated that a child doing so would face consequences.
[/QUOTE]

I have always said, do you what you have to do. If you hurt someone, you’d better be able to prove that it was in self-defense and that you were in danger when you did it. You know, just like in real life. The best way to do that is to have documented a problem with that person. Best way to do that… confide in an adult. Otherwise, take your chances. Might be worth it.

Schools are acting in loco parentis for all the kids. How do you legally propose they deal with that when a kid injures another kid and offers and unproven claim of self-defense?

90

Due diligence does not mean that you must punish victims simply because they defend themselves.

The more you punish victims, the less they will trust and confide in you.

Ask yourself how many innocent victims you are willing to punish so as to ensure that no bully disguised as a victim goes unpunished.

I’d rather that some bullies skate, rather than innocent victims be punished for defending themseves.

91

[QUOTE=furt]
That isn’t the question. The question is which response we want to hold out as the preferred, normative response (and thereby encourage).
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This is a bit of an off-shoot regarding whether or not parents charging in on Columbine would have helped. Something which is semi-relevant because the Bureaucracy stopped them.

[QUOTE=furt]

And you are profoundly ignorant of the dynamics of firearms in actual use. Handguns are only accurate to a couple dozen yards, even in the hands of trained police/military. That distance can be crossed in a few seconds. Even if a gunman was lucky enough to hit and stop (let alone kill) the first charging attacker, he would be almost unable to turn, locate and hit another attacker charging from a different direction.
[/quote]

See this is the movie bullshit I am talking about. Another attacker from a different direction? Please, explain how you are going to get people, unnoticed, into position for an ambush, and how the lead person is going to know that all is ready. Anyone who has played a pick up sport, or other pick up activity like paintball knows that it’s impossible to execute anything but the simplest of plans. This is why sports teams practice, why the army has basic training, and why the SWAT team trains constantly.

I recall a show on, I believe, the discovery channel. They gave a bunch of average Joes some SWAT training and let them loose inside a house with bad guys. It took all of about 10 seconds for them to forget what they have been told, and eventually all of them were shot and killed (with chalk rounds, of course) by holed up bad guys. Now SWAT tactics aren’t exactly rocket science. All they really had to do was enter the rooms as a group covering their assigned areas. Instead they almost instantly broke up into individuals and they didn’t enter the rooms properly.

The scenes in the movie where our hero points to everyone and says “you do this” and then everything works out is just fantasy. Something will happen. The shooters might see you coming, someone could chicken out, another could trip, and everyone could give up once the first guy is shot. I don’t think that the shooters in Columbine would have started picking people off with headshots. I think that they would have heard the crowd coming, and been ready for the attack. Once a few bullets are flying the group rushing the shooter would lose heart and take cover.

92

[QUOTE=Muffin]
You demand that the child prove self-defence – that is strict liability – guilty until proven innocent. I demand that the school prove guilt – innocent until proven guilty.
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You demand that, if both kids are injured and one claims self-defense, and neither can prove they didn’t, then both get off. Huh. Sounds unworkable to me and like it’s going to reward bullies more than comfort victims. You forget that we’re dealing with KIDS here.

I think you’ve been rather melodramatic. Bullying encompasses a wide spectrum of behavior, as does that kind of harm is done. I know it goes on every single day and there’s no way to prevent that. It goes on in adult life too, with varying degrees of seriousness. If it’s serious, you damn well ought to tell someone. Overall, I’d say civilized society frowns on vigilante justice, wouldn’t you? There is no one right answer to how to deal with it. It’s not a black and white situation most of the time.

I think I’m often better equipped to deal with the bully than some scared, hapless 12 year old. If you think he should take a swing, your advice is just as likely to get him hurt as anything you think my intervention would do. If you tell him to “defend himself,” and he knows he’s not up to the challenge, he might bring a gun or a knife. Most kids are not monsters and would rather have it just stop. School officials can and are willing to make that happen.

Kids who react aggressively to bullying are more likely to become aggressive towards other kids in general, get in trouble for violence, carry weapons, etc. Simply telling them to defend themselves is not going to resolve the problem. Some of them are not able to do it effectively. Kids don’t have a sense of proportion and do not always retaliate in kind but escalate, and then who’s the victim and who’s the bully? Not so clear anymore. Schools HAVE to actively discourage violent behaviors and reactions in school. They have to be vigilant about it because we are dealing with a population of people who are not generally rational or mature. Using your adult standards here is not necessarily helpful. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

Schools cannot tell kids to go ahead and defend themselves. That’s just not a policy that is feasible or sensible to promulgate to minors. They are impressionable and irrational and need to be taught that there are other ways of dealing with it. Then school officials have an obligation to get to the heart of the matter beyond the specific incident.

You keep saying this, but you still haven’t told me how you figure out who the victim is in each and every case, esp. cases of mutual harm. Also, I’d love to have you sit in the AP’s office and deal with parents sometime. I’d pop some corn and enjoy the hell out of that. As many times as I’ve been accused of being out of touch on this issue, your naivete and oversimplification of the issue, as well as a lack of understanding of child (and parent) psychology, is astounding.

93

[QUOTE=treis]
See this is the movie bullshit I am talking about. Another attacker from a different direction? Please, explain how you are going to get people, unnoticed, into position for an ambush, and how the lead person is going to know that all is ready. Anyone who has played a pick up sport, or other pick up activity like paintball knows that it’s impossible to execute anything but the simplest of plans.
[/QUOTE]
If you find “when I yell go, everybody rush the guy” an exceedingly complex manuever, I’m afraid I have no response.

Which is exactly the response the OP is writing about. It has not always been the case that everyone broke and ran at the first sign of mortal peril; mostly because they were not expected to. Rather, the societal expectation was that you would at least make some effort to stand and fight. There would be a shame associated with turning tail and running when danger arose. “The average person is not brave, so therefore not being brave is OK,” sentiment common in this thread is a rationalization of cowardice.

94

[QUOTE=furt]
If you find “when I yell go, everybody rush the guy” an exceedingly complex manuever, I’m afraid I have no response.
[/quote]

How are you going to get people unnoticed in a position to charge? How are you going to go about locating the shooter? Just going into a situation with no plan, and no tactical information is a good way to die.

You’d also be surprised how difficult it is to just coordinate a simple charge. Often you have the leader say go after he is already gone, or everyone doesn’t react at the same instant and you get a staggered start.

[QUOTE=furt]

Which is exactly the response the OP is writing about. It has not always been the case that everyone broke and ran at the first sign of mortal peril; mostly because they were not expected to. Rather, the societal expectation was that you would at least make some effort to stand and fight. There would be a shame associated with turning tail and running when danger arose. “The average person is not brave, so therefore not being brave is OK,” sentiment common in this thread is a rationalization of cowardice.
[/QUOTE]

When abouts did this change take place?

95

rubystreak I meant appeals to authority protect girls more effectively as they do not constitute an act of submission in the same way it does for a boy. Tattling targets a boy for further torment. Girls are using more subtle emotional methods, but are less likely to punch each other. A girl is probably more likely to approach authority as a method of assault on an enemy.