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

[Bedheadbeachbum]

As a parent often I see children being kind and inclusive - or even just tolerant of other children they don't know - at play parks, theme parks, parties etc.

I was a child in the 80s/90s & my brother and I remember vividly how mean other kids used to be if you didn't know them or were established 'friends' at school etc. Or just plain picky and 'I'm not going to talk to you'. It was a pattern that ran across our childhoods & I can't believe it was just us. We lived in the south east.

I often see the opposite now. Only today, both my children on separate occasions were included by others when playing in the same area at a theme park by kids they'd just met.

I'm wondering why? Are we parenting differently & supervising our children more? Putting more emphasis on being kind? Are kids TV and films kinder & more good natured now & having an influence? (when I show my kids some of our old shows I think they are questionable by today's standards).

How dare you tell me to open my eyes? I work with teenagers every day and have been teaching for many years. In my school we have transgender, non-binary and gay pupils-and an active LGBTQI+ society. We have children from many different countries including recent arrivals from Ukraine and Syria. My own children go to the school and so I know what their experience is. I teach openly gay boys and girls who are very active within the school community and totally accepted. My son’s close friend has CP and is very popular.
As I said, it totally depends on the school.
In the school I taught in 20 years ago, homophobia and misogyny were rife.

I don't think children are nicer these days, I think as whole we have less tolerance to nasty behaviour, leaving out, name calling, homophobia, racism ect...... but there are still lots of mean children around. They just get called out more..... but some kids thrive off being horrible

in the mid 80s when I was a fine looking kid with an unfortunate haircut, I was walking down the street with my mum (I was probably around 9 years old) and a small group of similar aged boys shouted ‘ what an ugly girl’ at me ! I don’t even remember being surprised or that upset and it wasn’t a rough area or anything. Genuinely don’t think kids would do that today especially to a kid with their mum!
also kids would pick on kids for being overweight, wearing glasses, disabilities, having older parents, list is endless

I have to admit, I work in a difficult school in a deprived area, and whilst there's a lot of stuff that goes on that I don't recall from my school days - pupils hitting and swearing at teachers, having to have internal lockdowns in a Primary school, etc, the big change I have seen in school is with the adults.

For all people are down on the Education system (and I don't disagree), the teachers give way more of a shit than they did when I was at school. The teachers don't join in with the kids piling on another kid, there's a lot less of the 'shame' method (I well recall a teacher at my primary showing us all another child's handwriting and encouraging us to say 'err, that's disgusting'.

Bullying in primary and secondary was treated as a 'fact of life'. Victim-blaming was rife from adults. It was downright nasty. Teachers openly picked a side, joined in the laughter at the bullied child's expense. And let's not forget, they could hit you. And you didn't go home and tell your parents because they'd side with the teacher.

Basically, it was sink or swim. I swear if there was less suicide it was because we knew the trouble we'd be in if we didn't succeed, for trying it!

What I remember about school was the times when it felt nobody was on my side.

I might think it's gone too far the other way in some ways, but maybe we have to go through this to come out the other side with some sort of balance...

I got my first disparaging nickname from a primary school teacher. The kids just followed suit. She also shared something my mum told her in confidence to the whole class as further proof of how “bad” I am. Oh, how we laughed.

This is quite a specific point but I have noticed on baby name threads before, some posters saying 'you can't call a child that because they'll get teased in school' and it struck me as an outdated concern, like that doesn't happen any more.
I have no doubt that bullying still happens but I do have a feeling that children have got kinder, more accepting of each other maybe? I can't really pin down what it is.

Yes, I thought in general my DDs' primary school was much kinder than I remembered mine being.

Don't let teenage girls fool you, it's mostly fake. They turn on each other in a heartbeat and can be vile. They're just much smarter at hiding it now because acceptance and inclusivity has been rammed down their throats. They're still very judgemental about people's weight, appearance, intelligence etc, and now they've got social media there's no stopping them. They all use Snapchat because the messages disappear, and they record TikTok videos to make sly digs.

Because teenage boys are much nicer right?

I thought teachers were leaving in droves due to children's behaviour?

This totally sums it up IMO

I think you're living in cloud cuckoo land!

Well other posters have said similar including teachers on this thread.
I'm not saying all children now are perfect but I think it would be easier to get through school now for a child that is a bit different in any way.

Completely agree with this post but:

“it was better in my day' has gone from being that thing all old people say to being the spirit of the nation, and it's dragging us all down.”

I have hope this is simply because we/ the posters on this thread are now the old people

It's interesting how my observation on children being open to each other and fairly decent to each other in a play park setting has quickly turned into 'look at the stats on teenage behaviour'.

I remember vividly how children would look you up and down and file you under 'don't talk to them' from the early primary years in the 80s/90s.

I remember how you dealt with shit from primary school children and then shit from random children out and about.

And the idea that this generation would have been any better online than the current one is ridiculous - we'd have been way worse.

We had a winners and losers culture embedded into us and I know what I can see - I see some kind little humans these days & I'm glad my children are experiencing this. Even if it's just in these early years and it all goes to crap at high school.

The parents of the significantly many children driven to suicide from online bullying would beg to differ.

Do you suppose the parents of the online bullies were aware of what their DC were up to?

I recognise that OP is mainly interested in young children. As I said upthread, it is exciting that research shows what we’ve long felt: they are, in many ways, intuitively kind.

If something was changing, wouldn’t it be sticking better? Online bullying, and the ‘othering’ of some, can be horrific.

Significantly worse, how?

How does it get worse than circulating nude photos of people, sometimes performing sex acts, without their consent? How does it get worse than driving them to suicide?

Love your user name 🤣

It was definitely worse face to face. I started high school just as bullying became something that was clamped down on (1990). But school was still horrible for some people, I remember some awful incidents. Kids just hide behind their screens to be awful these days

I disagree. Children are too quick to say exactly what they think nowadays. In the 80’s kids may have thought it but they didn’t voice everything. Kids are cruel today and social media makes it much easier.

I think the problem is that the changing age demographics means that the people who think it was better in their day so heavily outweigh the people having their day. It's normal to have both, it's not normal to have the 'past their day' completely dominate politics, media and public discourse - and it's turning us into a nation with no sense of hope or future, all anyone wants to do is look back.

😂😂😂

Yes and 'being your true self', despite the fact that your true self might be an arsehole. You then expect everyone to tolerate that because 'be kind'.

It's the culture rather than anything innate, it's like when you hear people talking about how tough men were in WW1/2 or how hardy people were 100 years ago - we didn't change, we adapted.