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

I don’t think they are, no.

Teen suicides peaked in the 80s

I was a tween and teenager in the 80s.

My experience was there was none of today’s faux overly sweet and unnecessary “kindness”, that confuses children. Teasing was normal, negative feedback wasn’t completely avoided, praise from peers was not excessive giving children unrealistic expectations of real life, and every unpleasant interaction was not blown up as “harmful”.

Much that went on in the 80s would be considered “bullying” by today’s standards, but most children were raised to be more resilient and able to deal with and/or ignore it.

I can completely understand needing some sort of time to recover but is not working for the next 70 years of life due to bullying an option?

Well of course it’s got better and better through the decades. I mean it was worse in Victorian times 😂 but that doesn’t mean the 80s wasn’t violent compared to today

I’m sorry you experienced that. I experienced bullying by ostracisation too at primary school in the 70s. We had a pair of toxic twin girls in the class who split the class into rival gangs and neither of them wanted me. There was one girl who kept me company sometimes but she would just as often go off to her gang. Then at secondary school I actually made friends with some girls, but was subjected to continuous verbal abuse from two of the boys in my class. So much for school days being the happiest days of your life!

Interesting post, 80's child here, my parents could be quite rude and judgmental about people including other kids and were quite open with us about it, I would say they were racist although they would be horrified to be called that. I was definitely brought up to believe all the sterotypical boys should like blue and girls pink etc and almost we were better than certain people. These actions obviously rubbed onto us as kids, I don't think it was intentional but just seemed more normal then. I as a parent am very conscious about not influencing my children in this way and teaching them to be kind and that everyone should be included and we're not all the same but we're all equal. This is just speaking for myself but I do think this has been the general shift in parenting which has made children more kind and less discriminatory.

I was born in 71.

If you think the 80’s were violent you didn’t experience the 1970’s. No comparison whatsoever.

I am not so sure. I see kids being less openly unpleasant. But i see quite a lot of sneaky/manipulative behaviour, hidden unpleasantness, that can be done in ways harder for adults to spot & correct. I try really hard to watch out for this in my kids and call them out on it.

I'm not a parent and I don't know my friends kids, but I've heard many parents say this. It's really heartening.

It was Alicia, not Janet - She was at St Clare’s - and I don’t think we were meant to like her, at least not until she gets a come uppance of sorts in the Upper Fourth. There’s a bit in the second book about how the teachers, although they privately enjoyed Alicia’s jokes and tricks, hate her sharp tongue and her hardheartedness, and say that in later life she’ll get a lot of admiration from others but no real love or affection.

Dd has gone through a Comp and now at uni and never had meaness about having red hair. I remember people being quite nasty about it in the 80s. Doesn't seem to be a bullying target among young people any more

Yes that's true. My mum hit me a lot and I remember me and my sister having physical fights. I've never hit mine and they haven't fought like that

Not what data, education specialists and those with kids in minority groups are saying let alone those on the end of misogynistic abuse and sexual harassment.

😆re buddy benches, they are like wallpaper.

I think that primary school kids are brow-beaten into appearing kind but once they get to secondary school, all the old nastiness is there. Plus additional weapons. DS's secondary school is a zoo. It's survival of the fittest. Also on the streets, park etc in the evening and on social media.

You were Thatcher’s children. Literally. You were raised in an environment that was very much winners and losers mentality. Where people became very consumer focused and conspicuously so. For some. People aspiring to be to be a have and not a have not. And this was not just the South. Money talked. There was a perception that you had to be rude or walk over other people to be successful.
Some parts of the country I realise were not doing this !
But in terms of parenting you had children very much encouraged to decide what they wanted to eat, dress in, do. And thought they could, no, should call the shots about everything.
A huge change from the way the parents had been raised themselves. And behaviours sometimes became spiky as a result.
I recall my parents coming back from a meal out with their DGC and appalled at their behaviour. But even more appalled that their parents had said nothing.

There is an emphasis on being kind now, there are buddy benches in a lot of playgrounds at schools, bullying used to be the norm, but now in good schools it's dealt with, people are a lot more tolerant, racism, homophobia, etc are called out and not acceptable. But yes, I think a lot of kids are nicer.

I have two ND children and I think the bullying is as bad, if not worse. It’s brutal and it’s relentless due to SM. At least you could shut your door in the 80s and not have to face it until the next day. The utter nastiness in some of the kids is breathtaking.
My daughter is broken from years of bullying. She is so damaged she will never recover and may even not be able to work as her nervous system is shot to bits. She is a wreck and has cPTSD. All because of bullying. The schools were useless.
And it was always accompanied by clueless parents whining “not my child” 😡

I think some teachers used to encourage/ join in with bullying in the classroom in the 80s. Probably thought it was just a bit of a laugh and a right of passage.

Absolutely!

I was in school in the 90s and not only were the kids awful, the teachers were quite happy to use the unpopular kids as a way of getting laughs. It was a complete shitshow.

I have a 16 year old and an almost 14 year old and they're lovely, their friends are lovely and the little weirdnesses that everyone has are accepted without question. Both have openly gay friends and it's not really a thing.

One of my DS16's friends flirted with the manosphere for a while, but he was pulled back to reality by kids who care about him. He is gently ribbed for it occasionally but in a supportive way. But they are allowed to be who they are, and I'm grateful for that.

Everything is about 'me' today. The others aren't important.

I don't think children are kinder today. At all.

I was at secondary in the 2000s and it was absolutely brutal. Everything was ‘gay’, people were accused of being gay or lesbian, open disgust was showed toward being gay. People teased for not going far enough with boys, or going too far and being ‘slags’. The word ‘sp*stic’ was regularly used and disabilities made fun of. I can’t think of anything that was off limits.

I had a hen do recently with a girl I went to school with who didn’t come out as gay until she was in her mid 20s, such was the stigma and pressure from school.

It seems bizarre now because 20 years ago isn’t that long in the scheme of things but something changed post 2010, not sure what but the enlightenment was fairly quick after that. I think it was a mix of social media raising awareness of things, Me Too and similar movements, and finally schools clamping down on this stuff. When I was at school the teachers joined in!

In my very middle class primary school there were physical fights in the playground at least once a week. The dinner ladies had to fight through the crowd of onlookers to break up the scrap. My private secondary was brutal for bullying if you stood out in any way.
I was nervous about my DS starting secondary school because he is pretty nerdy, but he has a huge bunch of friends, from a very diverse group - he hangs out with sporty kids, and kids that party all weekend, and kids that need additional help at school. They are all great kids who genuinely care about each other.

They absolutely are not as the data and concerns from education specialists show.