To think most parents don't really give a crap about this...

[reaching0ut]

....as long as their kid isn't the one being bullied or ostracised? I think at some point when everything is rosy many parents profess to feel this way, but actually they're totally oblivious or thanking their lucky stars that it's not their child coming home in tears, not sleeping, eating and feeling generally worthless and hopeless.

I think the statement is flawed. The academically gifted ones I know tend to be the ones on their own in the cafeteria... I don’t know anyone who wants their child to be academically gifted, it is seen as more of a special need amongst my friends requiring adjustment/extra worry for the parents.

I suspect many the posters claiming that their child is academically gifted but also amazingly kind are deluding themselves.

Last year my quiet and socially awkward DD8 missed a whole maths lesson because no one wanted her to be in their group. She spent the whole lesson going from one group to another - everywhere she went, some little shit told her to go somewhere else.

She did tell the teacher who gave the culprits a massive bollocking.

I know for a fact the parents of those kids would consider their children kind. Well, it's not true! But how will the parent ever know? The kids aren't going to tell them they got a telling off from the teacher for their crappy behaviour are they? I wish this was the kind of incident that was reported at parents' evening...but of course it never is.

Yes I agree.

There's a Facebook post that sometimes does the rounds about including children with additional needs and not letting me the one that doesn't get invited to birthday parties etc.

I've seen many people like or post this whilst never inviting my special needs kid to their parties.

It's all lovely and flowery but it simply isn't true and that's not what they actually do despite trying to claim differently.

Bit of a weird message.

First of all, it is madness how much angst is invested in academic achievement. No one actually gives a tinker's cuss except the parents, really they don't.

And secondly, it's only decent to care about others and in no way connected to being academic. Although gifted children tend to have a strong sense of justice so probably least likely to be perpetrators in bullying contexts. Disclaimer. Yes it's a generalisation. PS. Netball and swimming parents are the WORST for competitive parenting.

A lot of teachers force well behaved girls to be responsible for a badly behaved children or to ‘take care of’ shy kids

^ This in spades.

Also, at school I would always have preferred to sit alone than suffer fools, or be subject to some kind of 'pity sit'.

yes, tech skills will get you into middle management but that's all. then again tech skills are not hard to get. however, people with tech skills but without social skills wont get into senior management where the real money is made.

I still don't agree - doesn't mesh with my experience. I'm not saying I think it's right, by the way, just that this is what seems to happen.

I suppose it depends what you count as "real money" anyway. Some people on MN seem to think £100k is an average salary.

This is a bit of an odd one for me as I volunteered a lot at my DS's school and witnessed it. He was a in a tiny Steiner school and part of a small class. One kid was quite nervous and anxious and didn't always feel secure joining in with their games. DS always left the group and joined that child, spent time talking to them and helping them feel secure and ready to join the game. By the time the other child was ready to play the other kids had moved on or their play time was over.

Over time that was their daily pattern. The kids would decide to play a game, the other child would be too anxious, DS would leave the group to help the other child and miss out completely himself. He was clearly very kind and caring but as someone who wasted so, so much of my life caring for my XH, putting his needs first, constantly wanting to help him with his pain and putting him so far, far ahead of me. Putting up with very real abuse of every kind because my first thought was always of him and his pain. Only leaving him when DS was born as I couldn't stand the thought of my DS having to grow up with him, not to save myself. I'm more than a bit worried about DS growing up like me and putting someone else above himself all the time.

Obviously, it would be far, far worse if he grew up like his father. But I want him to be better able to strike a balance between caring for others and caring for himself. To be fair, things for DS and the other child were exacerbated by the school and it's honestly fucked up philosophy. The teacher wanted the less confident child gone because that child's lack of confidence stopped her from thinking she was great and she had no ability to manage even a tiny class when everything wasn't going to her version of perfect. The teacher was the main bully of the child and a lot of the reason why the rest of the class wasn't making an effort. My DS ended up dealing with a lot of bullying and isolation from the teacher for being the one kid who wouldn't exclude that child. Thankfully I witnessed it, talked to the other parents and a number of us moved on to mainstream education. (Which obviously isn't perfect but at least there is some sort of oversight and teachers are hopefully less likely to be leading the exclusion.)

My child is ASD and he has been through school with an ADHD child, My son has learned to regulate himself but the other child has not. I encourage DS to remain friends and remind him how it felt when the shoe was on the other foot. His friend play hits him and barges into him without meaning to hurt him as he is seeking his attention (I beleive). I have said he will grow out of it the same way you did and we need to be more understanding of each other.

CocoPrivileges
Your poor DD.
On a side note, this is exactly why it's not considered to be best practice to allow students to create their own groups. Unless someone knows the class very well (and by this I'm usually referring to someone who is part way through a GCSE course,has a very good knowledge of the year group dynamics and have already embedded a strong classroom culture) then getting students to choose their groups is poor form. Firstly, there is the risk of social exclusion with some children feeling rejected by their peers. Secondly, there's no guarantee that the group dynamics in self-chosen groups are good for learning.

Absolutely I was conflicted when my “nice” girl got taken advantage of to provide support but to her own detriment. It’s difficult.

I do cringe at poster after poster misty eyed about their own child’s kindness. As parents we don’t know what goes on in the playground- come on.

And agree anecdotally it isn’t the academic kids that are the bullies anyway.

She spent the whole lesson going from one group to another - everywhere she went, some little shit told her to go somewhere else.

it's easy to call them little shit, but maybe you should have tried to find out what the problem was?

I am not forcing my children to spend any time with a disruptive or mean child.

And frankly, where exactly was the teacher who saw a child trying to join different groups without find one for an entire lesson? Or are you just deluded yourself about your little darling?

Thank you @LolaSmiles - I think you're absolutely right.

I did have a meeting with the teacher after it happened and the first thing she said was that pupils wouldn't be choosing their own groups any more.

Learning to stand up for yourself should come before all the kindness nonsense. Don't be a dick is more than enough, but don't be afraid to be and assert yourself is even more important.

If you are happy an confident, secure in your environment, then you can be kind.

Agree. And it's the ones that make a big deal about how they teach their kids to be kind that have the meanest kids!

This is MN so obviously all posters will say they teach their child to be kind, caring and include everyone because obviously it’s the ‘right’ thing to say and makes them feel good.
Having worked in schools for over 20 years I can tell you it’s a complete load of bollocks and 99% of the population don’t give a dam about the lonely kid as long as it’s not their child.
I assume it’s an evolutionary thing which probably makes sense, so not being critical.

I've always encouraged my boys to be friendly to everyone and avoid excluding others wherever possible. However, if someone is mean to them, then I won't force them to be nice to that someone. And I won't make them do something that is against their own best interest either.

DS1 has always been a kind and inclusive kid who wanted to make friends with anyone he met - this sometimes resulted in him being sad because other kids didn't feel the same way, so he learnt resilience. He had a nice group of friends by the end of primary, and has a nice group of new friends at secondary. He's still a kind kid - he's also very clever.

DS2 is the kid more likely to be sitting on his own - he's not very sociable and has only a couple of good friends - if they're not at school then he is likely to stay on his own rather than try to join in with anyone else. He's also resistant to being included if he doesn't want to be and is just as likely to tell people to bog off (in kid language) if they try to sit with him when he's being on his own. He doesn't make friends easily - but he also won't put himself out for others. He's stubborn as anything and mostly refuses to do anything that he doesn't want to. Also not as academic as his brother, so we'll see how he goes.

As PP have said, the 2 are not mutually exclusive by any stretch (and my 2 kind of prove that) so the meme is, for me, a bit nonsensical.

I don't think they have to be best friends with someone but it is easy enough to include someone in your social group- hey we are playing x do you want to join as opposed to sitting with them alone at lunch.
My kids did this and often what happened is once the kid got a bit of confidence they made friends in different groups with people they had things more in common with.
It wasn't about being a savior but even a young child knows its not easy or nice to be wandering around the yard alone.
Same with my DD when she had a party at 14, this girl who was deeply unpopular invited herself along. She was raging but I was like she will be one of 15 , what difference does it make and she obviously wants to go. She was annoying but not mean. I will never forget her mother collecting her, I had never met her but she hugged me so tightly
Girl is fine now, has her own friendship group, she just needed a boost and a bit of social credit.

Actually I would rather mine were emotionally intelligent, helpful, kind and friendly than academic. Sadly I'm not sure that they are any different emotionally from the average child and will not always think to reach out or feel comfortable with it.

yes, tech skills will get you into middle management but that's all. then again tech skills are not hard to get. however, people with tech skills but without social skills wont get into senior management where the real money is made.
Absolutely not true. Many of the top tech earners and managers are severely lacking in social skills, as in hugely! Dh in tech and constantly at tech conferences, bro in tech and most of his friends high up in tech too, then look at the heads of some of the giants of the world

There are not many high level roles where social skills remotely matter.

@IbrahimaRedTwo

We live in a world that values academic skills over every other skill

Ha! I wish. We live in a world where idiots who can't spell coffee get voted in as President of the USA and where no-one trusts experts and instead relies on FB groups for their info. We live in a world where academic achievement is not rewarded and value is placed on celebrity and followers.

If academic skill was prized above all others then professors would be paid more than footballers. Instead our society lauds the uneducated and uninformed and pays milions to pop singers and instagram influencers.

Laughable to suggest academics are what matter to people.

Hard to disagree with any of this!

OP, it’s a false dichotomy in a funny font on social media. I wouldn’t get exercised about it.

You can focus on both. It’s not just ‘making my child miserable by sitting with the loner’ it’s teaching them to notice that others are different or may not be enjoying themselves the same way, that you can be friends with different people, not to stand aside when you see bullying and unkindness.

As an adult it’s by making sure I know if anyone in my team doesn’t drink alcohol so I can ensure social events cater for all. Its about recognising that policies that benefit marginalised people are important. It’s about remembering to check how people are, and not to judge on first impressions or because people aren’t like me, when people not like me bring a lot of value to the world.

My child is popular and probably quite smart, I care a lot about academics. Compassionate and caring is essential to being a decent human being, and if my child isn’t a decent human being I’ve failed.

Personally, I'd like my child to try hard at her studies and be a nice person...I don't necessarily care about amazing qualifications (I'm not academically gifted but I've still done pretty well for myself and I'm not stupid) but there is no excuse for being mean to someone. I'll encourage her to be nice to others and show empathy for those who are alone or struggling, exactly the way I did at school. You can be both but it's up to the parent to teach it.

workshy44
The issue is that whilst the party situation was a one off, what some girls are learning is that they routinely have to put their own needs aside for someone else, that they should have their own boundaries ignored in the name of being kind. There's a drip, drip drip, of 'your feelings don't matter, you have to include these other people, who cares if you're upset or feel uncomfortable because you need to put them first'. This happens everywhere from adults expecting girls to take responsibility for other people's feelings through to seating plans that expect quiet, compliant girls to put up and shut up with 'low level' disruption as they'll be 'a calming influence on the boys'.

It's no wonder some many women end up unable to assert boundaries as adults.

I think it's twee and manipulative too.

And a typical sign of the anitpathy people have towards children who are academically able. There is always a resentment towards them in a way that isn't seen towards children who are good at others things, and it's so prevalent in society today. Whenever a child is good at something academic, or much worse, if a parent happens to mention it, no matter how innocuous the context, people will try to tear down the achievement and say how unimportant it is compared to other things, or how early achivement always levels out, or how it's not because the child has worked hard if comes naturally, or whatever else.

Nobody says 'Don't worry so much about how tall your child is, worry whether they are kind to the lonely child' or 'It doesn't matter how good your child is at singing, it matters whether they are kind', or whatever. They are totally unrelated things, and there's no reason that people can't worry about them both.

Why not just say 'Parents should worry if their children aren't kind' or "parents should worry if their child contributes to the kind of bullying culture that results in lonely children', and leave it at that. No need to relate it to academics at all, other than to try to undermine children who are academic (or their parents), sometimes to make someone else feel better about not being as academically able. That is a totally separate issue. Teach your child to be nice whatever state their academics are in, and worry about academic skills separately.

But that doesn't come across as well on a twee meme.