To think children are kinder now than in the 80s/90s

Agree. We see all the negatives but kids with additional needs much less likely to get laughed at in public. Boys less likely to be mocked for wearing pink.

Only because online didn't exist. I don't believe for one minute my tormentors would have passed up the opportunity to put the boot in online as well.

They weren’t online!

Hmm I expect a lot of it is performative

Do you ever get to read social media posts and the vile messages posted on them?

I think things like this can be cyclical. We’ve kinda peaked 5/10 years ago, and certain attitudes are coming back. Just look at the adults!

The other issue is that perspective can be massively skewed by personal experience and a bit of confirmation bias, so it’s hard to judge.

My memory is getting worse and worse! I think I’ve conflated both series and probably a swathe of Secret Seven and Famous Five too.

This.

I’ve seen a massive difference between my child’s (11) peer group and mine. My junior school was full of bullying and name calling. When I went on holiday to groups and stuff you had to navigate all the same. Not particularly to me I might add!

My daughter’s peers are inclusive and would be horrified at name calling or picking on someone’s worst attributes

The sexist stuff — I went to school in the 60/70s. Boys looking up skirts etc - no -they’d have been called a perv.
the be kind stuff is rife and being more accepting of difference is good
but people dress in ways that would have got them ostracised in those days

I hear kids calling others gay all the time. Not because they are gay but because gay means crap.

Lol you reckon? It’s actually rife, as it’s always been. I work at a university and we have had to discipline students engaging in deeply unpleasant racist and misogynistic bullying. Jokes about certain races having lower IQ and the like.

Are you asleep? I find your post deeply concerning.Misogyny, sexual harassment , racism, homophobia and ableism are rife. And as for being “gay is no longer worthy of comment” as the mother of a gay son driven suicidal that’s beyond ridiculous. Open your eyes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjpx7rnredo

Misogyny and sexual harassment in schools have reached alarming levels, deeply normalized among peer groups and exacerbated by online influencers.
The Scale of the Issue
Normalization: Reviews by Ofsted reveal that peer-on-peer sexual harassment is so commonplace that many students see no point in reporting it.
Sexist Language: Up to 90% of girls report being subjected to frequent sexist name-calling or derogatory language, and nearly as many report being sent unsolicited explicit images.
Impact on Staff: The issue extends to teachers; reports indicate a significant spike in female educators facing misogynistic and abusive behavior from pupils.

I don't know I think kids are and have always been able to be pretty ruthless with a huge capacity for being horrible to each other and that will continue for as long as they are little humans. The same child who is horrible can also be kind and empathetic, such is human nature.

Was teaching in the 90s and still working in primary education now. It is worse.You clearly haven’t experienced the horrors of online bullying that is very much happening in primary schools
now.

I remember racism and homophobia being quite open at school back in the 80s and 90s. It wouldn't be tolerated now.

I found secondary school kinder than primary for my dds. At Primary school there was a pecking order in the class. At secondary with 8 forms per year, the mean kids were probably still mean, but dds were able to find a big bunch of kind kids and the mean ones didn't bother them as they were too busy having dramas with each other.

I agree with this. It happened to my daughter. They might be “kind” on other things, but definitely not on this.

I would hope not, we want her to be a functioning member of society, but she has had two mental breakdowns already and she’s only 21. She is AuDHD. I cannot overemphasise how broken she is from the relentless bullying all the way through school, she is destroyed. We have tried so hard to get her the help she needs, but she is fundamentally broken. The damage is very deep.

I think we also have to factor in things like cancel culture. It’s all well and good saying kids are kind and inclusive but it’s not kind to socially ostracise someone because they don’t hold the right views. There’s a lot of that about. There’s also a lot of disgusting misogyny from teen boys and pressure on teen girls to perform extreme sex acts that wasn’t as prevalent as when I was young. There’s also quite a lot of bullying in schools. My nephew was nearly strangled by a fellow pupil who also threatened to kill him. He’s 9. I think many of the people going on about how kind kids are live in a middle class bubble.

Yes I think so and I think perhaps because children are parented more gently. It’s always coming under scrutiny that gentle parenting means we are either raising thugs or snowflakes but having been doing so before it had a name, my oldest and his generation (18) are so much nicer to each other than my generation were. I see it in my youngest too.
Sure there’s bullying and meanness sometimes but on the whole there’s more acceptance and kindness than tended to be the norm when I was younger in the 80s and 90s