Teaching schoolchildren not to engage in domestic violence

[Deadworm]

Apologies if there is already a thread on this govt announcement. I was quite shocked by the news that the government is instructing schools to hold lessons on the subject of domestic violence.

My first thought was despair that we actually needed to tell children that it was not right. But my rapidly following thought was that the lessons probably would make a difference, would erode children's sense that the violent context of their own family is normal and the way of the world, would contrbute to a culture where domestic violence is at last regarded as unacceptable.

Thinking of my own sons I feel reassured but sad to think they will be exposed to these lessons.

Further thoughts:

Will the lessons avoid the pitfall of concentrating on telling potential victims how to keep themselves safe, rather than telling potential perpetrators not to offend?

The government is instructing schools to hold these lessons. It is shocking how educational culture has changed in a generation. When I was at school any central dictat would only come from a French government to French schools.

But surely reading and writing has to be taught through actually letting the pupils read and write some sort of text? And that text has got to be about something, right? SO why not about citizenship issues?

I never understand people who seem to think that reading and writing takes place in a vacuum. How can it?

The best stimulus to dd's reading and writing skills has been her geography lessons. She needed something to read and write about. And this sort of thing should be perfectly capable of holding children's interest.

And if one teenager is saved from an exploitative relationship- might not that be one teen who is able to concentrate a little better on her reading and writing?

I think it would be very helpful to show older teenagers the warning signs of an abusive/controlling relationship and inform them about how to get help - concentrating too much on physical violence masks the real problems I think. People in violent situations often know that violence is wrong, would never hit someone themselves etc, but abusers are clever and manipulative, they push boundaries so gently that the boundary of what is "acceptable" moves and the victim doesn't notice until it's too late. I like the idea of teaching the potential abusers not to become abusers in the first place but it's laughable to think a school could achieve this.

I agree with Custardo to an extent - education is the way out, the more you see normal relationships and compare them to your own unhealthy one, the more motivation you have to change it. But controlling partners often cut off access to friends, a good job, university.

It's the job of parents to teach this, not school. And yes, some parents won't get the message over, but it's not the schools job to pick up the pieces all the time from dysfunctional families.

Imagine that you are a child in school for whom dv is the 'norm'. School stands up and tells you it's not acceptable, it's not right and it's not normal.

What then?

How does this help?

I actually agree with custardo. It's like the government are saying that parents are no longer able to adequately parent their children, so instead of giving them help to do so, they take away the major parenting decisions and force schools not only to educate children, but parent them too.

So now we have social skills being taught in schools to disruptive children who have never been told that it's wrong to hit, bite and swear at others. We have children as young as 5 receiving sex education so they don't get preggers as teenagers - despite evidence that actually states the contrary. And now children are to be taught to stay away from abusive relationships.

How about the government re-directing that money to help the parents? How about withholding benefits from teenage parents unless they agree to go on parenting courses (no offence to teen parents but stats show that they are the ones in most need of help)?
How about also ensuring that for every child put on the 'at risk' register, their parents must also attend a parenting and relationship course? How about social workers given more powers to remove children from their homes because I actually agree with Dr Barnardo that too much effort is being made to keep children in abusive homes rather than take them away.

If the government don't think that parents are doing a good enough job, then direct those resources to HELPING the parents rather than taking away their parental responsibilities and putting that pressure onto schools.

It's ridiculous.

The initiative seems to tie in with an announcement that there will be a campaign next year about violence against girls in teenage relationship. NSPCC research has pparently shown that 'a quarter of teenage girls suffer physical violence such as being slapped, punched or beaten by their boyfriends, and a third of those in a relationship suffer an unwanted sexual act.'

V shocking stats, and a school-based campaign specifically about teenage violence ie often violence between pupils in a relationship might make a lot of sense. I'm still a bit vexed by the wider questions though.

i think the aim is to prevent abusive homes happening with our future generation....its all well and good not wanting this 'type' of education for your dc's.....but what about their future partners? what if they got involved with an abusive boyfriend/girlfriend?? what then? chances are they won't confide in you...

wouldn't you want to a)have less of a chance of this happening and b) have your kids be able to spot abusers and know how to deal with them?

These kind of questions were taught in Swedish schools 30 years ago, noone saw it as interfering with the ability to read and write (in which Sweden led the world), nor as taking away parental responsibilities- rather there was a perception that the school was there to reinforce parental teaching. So it was seen as a positive.

who teaches the teenage boys what it is wrong to do these horrible acts?

well for my boys it was dh and me.

MY oldest son aged 19 - phoned the police when his girlfriend attacked him.

the police commended him for his actions.

if the children are failing socially it is becuase the parents lack the social skills and knowledge of how to guide their children.

Investment is what is needed instead of shoving it through schools

why no awareness that violence is wrong? why don't parents do this ?

my daughter knows that if anyone hit her it would be wrong

and actually no one would bcause her two brothers would kill them ( metaphorically speaking)

custardo....domestic violence isn't exclusively hitting. you know that!

So they teach teenage girls to avoid being hit. What about teaching boys a bit of bloody respect for girls!

I'm sorry but your home life influences you so much more than your schooling. If you see this happening at home, then changes are that you will repeat that cycle yourself. If you are a girl you'll get together with some bastard. If you are a boy you'll be that bastard.

They need help AT HOME not at school. Abuse of any kind should be stopped and having a class at school telling you that it's wrong will not help one iota if you then go home and that abuse is the norm.

The statistics are awful, but I wonder if the education of girls is being over-played here. I would hope that after the first offence (verbal or physical) that most of these girls finished the relationship.

Yet again, we don't appear to be putting the ownership where it belongs - with the perpetrator.

it's all very well for children who are brought up with healthy equal relationships around them, and congratulations to those of you who feel you can teach your own children these things yourself without state 'interference'.

but what about those children who don't have healthy, equal, respectful relationships around them? for whom abuse of many levels seems the 'norm'? who can speak to them.

like it or not, school IS a safety net for children with less than ideal home lives. School is where they can learn what is and is not acceptable and normal. It's where they can see options for themselves and a way to live differently.

I am not in favour of disempowering parents but i DO NOT think that teaching moral topics is disempowering parents, it is supporting good parents and a saftey net for children of struggling or less good parents.

Fluffles, I completely disagree.

School does not override what happens at home. If parents don't drive these messages home, teaching them at school will be completely ineffective.

100% agree Huw

so we give up and just 'don't talk about those things' in schools and wider society?

I've read through this thread quite carefully as this is quite close to home for me.

Although I'm now 44 and a (fairly) happy single parent I was brought up in a home where extreme violence was the norm. Not against my brother or me but my father used to regularly beat my mother. As his father had beaten his mother. One of my earliest memories is of my younger brother and I being taken to my maternal grandparents in a police car following a particularly nasty incident. My mother didn't actually leave my father until I was 30. When we were young there was simply nowhere for her to go (late 1960s etc). Plus, of course, she was suffering the usual fears of an abused woman.

I'm making this point for two reasons - firstly, I have never/would never tolerate any violence towards me or my child in any kind of relationship. It is not a given that this cycle has to repeat itself.

That said, if this education enables even a handful of children to realise that this is not normal; that they can seek help; that there may be a safe haven for them somewhere then surely it's not a bad thing? Similarly, if it teaches children that violence is wrong and not acceptable there may be an improvement.

Of course, the fact that many thousands of men still get away lightly following violence or even murder of their partners or ex partners is not exactly sending the same message but that's another issue.

Sorry, bit of a long one.

Agree with Huw. It doesn't matter what a school teaches children are far, far more influenced by what their parents do.

I am in complete agreement with Fluffles.

you could extend the same argument to reading though - children will only read if their home is a place with books and where parents read.
but nobody suggests we don't teach children to read at school do they? children of illiterate parents can still get the opportunity to read at school even if they are unlikley to become real book lovers.

I don't think you can extend the argument to reading at all. That is pretty much the whole point of going to school - to learn to be numerate and literate. The question is whether it is also the role of a school to provide a moral as well as an academic education.

A substantial minority of parents don't bother to read to their children at home because "it's the school's job". Surely, the more the state takes over the role of bringing up our children and inculcating their moral values, the more these sort of parents are going to feel this yet is another area of a child's education that they can abdictate responibilty for.

it just seems to be the convenient answer to everything.

low self-esteem? put in on the curriculum

lack of ambition? put it on the curriculum

is there ANY evidence that this actually works for real children in the real world? If not, why not put the money into programmes that DO work?