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.

You seem very defensive @wesowereonabreak?

I know my DD very well - she is certainly neither mean nor disruptive. She's a loner, a dreamer with her head in the clouds who doesn't pay much attention to what other people are saying or doing, which means she is alone most of the time in the playground. That's fine because she is perfectly happy on her own, but bullying of that sort in the classroom, which impacts on her learning and her self esteem, is absolutely unacceptable.

You seem to question whether this incident took place - well, since neither the teacher nor any of the kids who were told off disagreed with my DD's account - which I'm sure they would have done if it had been incorrect in any way - I'm happy to accept it was true. So you can rest easy on that score.

I also make no apologies for referring the the culprits as little shits as that is what they were. I suspect only a couple were actively unkind by nature - the rest were probably just average kids with pretty weak natures who go along with a situation as long as they're not the one being targeted and humiliated.

Unfortunately when parents have a poor attitude like yours, it's not at all surprising kids behave meanly. What's more surprising is that with the kids I'm talking about, the parents themselves are lovely!

Are you sure about that? Because I think you'll find an awful lot of rich people aren't dripping in advanced degrees.

Yes, it generally holds true. It doesn't mean to say that everyone who is rich is clever and everyone who is poor isn't. There also isn't a perfect correlation between intrinsic intelligence and academic achievement- lots of factors affect what level of education you can access. However, if you look at the top 1% households by income in the US and Europe, the majority of those households will include someone with a college degree. People with a university degree in the UK earn more on average than those that dont.

I think most kids go though a stage of being left out - both my DC did. It didn't last long for one, but was over a couple of school years for the other. It was just part of the usual playground politics. It's never easy to manage when it's happening.

Those who are heads of tech will be the 0.1% geniuses who were probably the awkward kid in the corner with ASD - sorry. It's not about them - they had no choice but to be gifted or to have social skills. However, most kids are not geniuses - they are average and for kids with average intelligence having good social skills to get ahead is important. If you are in the top 1/3 of your class in the primary you are not gifted but just ok. gifted is rare and you don't see it in every class.

@Insert1x20p - it's called class not intelligence. the biggest predictor of career success is familial wealth. familial wealth buys you access to a degree etc etc etc. you dont need to be all that smart to get a degree nowadays - but you do need a degree for most jobs i.e. it's not intelligence that gets you these jobs but degree acting as a form of passport to get access to them

Yes which is what I said- i.e. intelligence and academic achievement aren't the same thing.

But aren't we talking about academic achievement, not intelligence, as per the OP? Because as you rightly point out, you need a degree to access many better paying jobs. Therefore, it is understandable that parents want their child to do well academically.

The point I was addressing was that a previous poster denied there is a correlation between academic achievement and income, which isn't true.

I really do care, I always step in if it's happening in front of me after school. We walk the route home
My DD is extremely sensitive and righteous she'd see lonely and offer support on one occasion it was to the detriment of her MH but overall her caring nature serves her well.
I fully agree no DC should be left alone. Our school had a buddy bench all the way through primary for any lonely DC to sit on then others offer company.
I'd be spitting feathers if my DC got bullied. DS is huge and well able at 6, DD is 12 she's starting secondary school I'm worried for her as she is very quiet a bit nerdy if you like and gothic starting in a large at times rough secondary school.

CocoPrivileges
Who's being defensive? I am just writing my opinion. I seriously doubt my kids are in your daughter's class!

You, on the other hand...

also make no apologies for referring the the culprits as little shits as that is what they were. I suspect only a couple were actively unkind by nature - the rest were probably just average kids with pretty weak natures who go along with a situation as long as they're not the one being targeted and humiliated.

are clearly triggered and clearly hateful towards children...

Which is rather ironic, for someone who preach the "being kind" , "both sides of the story" and so on. As soon as things don't go your way, the gloves come off
If others were calling your kid a little shit or a weak nature, how much would you rant!

@AOWNNs2

Those who are heads of tech will be the 0.1% geniuses who were probably the awkward kid in the corner with ASD - sorry. It's not about them - they had no choice but to be gifted or to have social skills. However, most kids are not geniuses - they are average and for kids with average intelligence having good social skills to get ahead is important. If you are in the top 1/3 of your class in the primary you are not gifted but just ok. gifted is rare and you don't see it in every class.

The Heads of tech aren’t the 0.1% geniuses with ASD. The heads of techs, the billionnaires, are the charming dropouts who managed to talk everyone into giving them credit for the 0.1% genius’ work. At least that’s what happened at Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Dell, Apple, and almost every fintech I can think of.

Just because a child does well in school doesn't mean they have the fortitude to do what most adults do not do-- that is, see that there's a problem and have the wherewithal to do something about it, even at the risk of making themselves the target of bullying or abuse. It's not usually easy to know what to say or do, and sometimes the kid sitting alone doesn't want company or is sitting alone for a reason.

It's a lot of pressure to put on kids, to fix the problems that have been with us for as long as there have been humans!

Teachers could make classrooms less stressful. Having everyone sit at separate desks facing front would cut down on distractions and opportunities for teasing. Explicitly teaching efficient practices and assigning groups for small group work should help. Too often, the clever child is forced to play tutor. People talk about consolidating skills and such, but it’s still putting a burden on those who are motivated and able.

It’s all rather twee, isn’t it?

Mine are out of primary now - which is the age when you really tend to know about all the other kids, and also know lots of parents.

I can tell you that my experience was the parent group had far more conversations about social issues than academic.

So actually, my experience is that nobody needed some smug, twee poster to think about this 🤷🏻‍♀️

What I did notice, is that it was the mums of girls who were all worried about including others. The most “awkward” child in my daughter’s class was a boy. He constantly invaded their personal space, and touched a lot. The girls hated it, yet all the girl mums were saying, “but poor X finds it hard to make friends, you need to make allowances, you need to include him...” to the detriment of the girls’ own comfort. The boy mums... not the same level or socialisation. I think there’s a balance to how much you put on your young child to do. Be friendly, yes. Take on responsibility beyond their years? No.

@Ericaequites

Teachers could make classrooms less stressful. Having everyone sit at separate desks facing front would cut down on distractions and opportunities for teasing. Explicitly teaching efficient practices and assigning groups for small group work should help. Too often, the clever child is forced to play tutor. People talk about consolidating skills and such, but it’s still putting a burden on those who are motivated and able.

Teachers should be given smaller classes to start with.

Kids now have facing front desks because of covid, but come on, it's school, not prison. Separate desks and no one to talk to during lessons is grim! Even in secondary.

But I agree that the clever child playing tutor, the well behaved child having to be in charge of the disruptive ones.. it's very wrong.

Every child is struggling in different areas, and working through their own stuff, they don't need to take on more burden. Let them be kids.

I struggle with prescriptive memes like this - they are mostly totally oversimplified statements- I think in this case most parents promote both. Also agree with pp posters that some children can be "kind" to the extent that it is detrimental to their health. When DD was younger she was empathetic to the extent that she neglected her own needs - I had to encourage her adopt tactics to stop her worrying about "lonely children in the canteen".

I know my kids are good. Both are doing extremely well in school. When they tell me that they asked the person being mean to others to be friends, and they stopped being mean, I know they have a good grasp on what’s happening around them. I like to check at parents nights that they are not at the butt end of bullying nor are they being the bully. I think it’s important, but i agree it’s the parents that don’t give two shits about their kids who are the ones that will most likely be on either end of this. It’s sad. I hate to think there’s any child sitting on their own at lunch time not out of choice. Then again parents now have so much going on they maybe are just greatful they get through each day and don’t consider such things.

Every child is struggling in different areas, and working through their own stuff, they don't need to take on more burden. Let them be kids

I agree

I think we as adults struggle to find the right balance. So we are expecting kids as young as 4 to achieve what we cant.

We see thread after thread after thread of parents posting about how their once happy child is a nervous wreck at school. Cries at home every day. And is not coping.

You do how much of the behaviour change is due to all the extra burdens and responsibilities placed on children. Responsibilities that should belong to the adults around the child.

I'm not saying no child should ever help any other child etc quite the opposite. But there seem to be an awful lot of things that are dressed up as being beneficial to children, that's given sone fancy name like peer support or some study trial but is really just children being given responsibilities they didnt sign up fir on top of still being children and trying to figure out their own stuff.

@FlattestWhite

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.

100% agree with this.

@wesowereonabreak perhaps you are getting me confused with another poster, as I didn't "preach being kind" or even mention "both sides of the story" - I simply reported what happened to my daughter, and suggested it may mean parents who believe their child is kind are deluded.

If my child had acted in the way those other kids did, if they were indeed a little shit or had weakly colluded in the bullying of someone else, damn right I would want to know about it - but as I said, parents never do find out, so they can carry on deluding themselves.

I find it incredible that anyone could reach adulthood without being able to grasp what is pretty obvious to most people, unless they've lived a very sheltered existence - that kids absolutely can be vile.

I'm so glad my DD's teacher wasn't like you. She did not make excuses or defend the kids who treated my daughter in that way. She was angry on my DD's behalf, she absolutely took the problem seriously and, thankfully, was able to sort it out.

I don’t see why it has to be one or the other. Ideally they’ll do well academically and be caring people...

and

Sometimes MN posters will have you believe that the academic bit is the ONLY thing that matters.
Being kind to other children is not going to get you those qualifications/top paying career.

Why must everything be reduced to either / or these days? The desire to make everything into a 'you are either with us or against us' trope is tedious and quite frankly pisses me off.

FWIW my experience at school was it was NEVER the brightest kids who were the bullies. They were usually the ones who were bullied to high heaven by insecure scrotes who wanted to beat the bright kids up precisely for being bright.

The whole thing of 'don't be a swot...'

Socially its acceptable to be cool and mediocre way before being clever.

@FlattestWhite

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.

God yes.

I fucking hate memes for this reason.

Another perspective:

I had a great friend at primary school. We were inseparable. Then my friend's mum encouraged her to sit with the sad child at school. Friend did so - at the expense of me. Friend actually said to me "I have to look after Mandy because such-and-such a thing happened and she's sad". That was it. She never played with me again. I became the lonely kid.
I'm sure her mum was pleased that her daughter was looking after the sad child though.

That's not a criticism of my friend or her mother's parenting. It's just a very, very fine line between making new friends and maintaining other friendships. Whilst I would want my child to have the confidence to ask others to play and learn the skills to include them - negotiation, compromise, viewing things from alternative perspectives etc - it's also imperative that they learn the art of maintaining friendships - which means treading that line between "I want you to play this group game" and "my best friend Allison really doesn't want you to play".

Friendships in school and the accompanying social dynamics are not true to the rest of life anyway. If I have a friend that doesn't click with the rest of my social circle it's very easy to see them separately. It's not the same at school where you're with the same 25 people all day every day and if you don't play with Dan on Wednesday he is keenly aware that you're playing with other people.

Girls could do with much less deferring to and accommodating everyone else at their own expense. Some say it is kindness but it really is just training them to be a doormat. The pettiness and competitiveness among girls should be discouraged. How great would it be if girls were more loyal to each other.

Boys could do with being a little more accommodating to others and having some responsibility to take care of something besides themselves.

I say encourage your DC to do the very best they can at school. The world is changing fast and they'll need those skills.

Yanbu. Aslong as my ASD son with other learning problems isn't getting bullied and has someone to eat lunch with then life is good.

My favourite parents evening was the one where his maths and reading wasn't mentioned, but his teacher told me at length about how kind and supportive DS had been towards a classmate with additional learning and medical needs. I think he was about four or five at the time. I came home bursting with pride.

My kids are not academically gifted nor do I think it's any of my business how they arrange their friendships at school, as long as they aren't actively unkind.

I don't think we should interfere.