Do they teach children at school about bad people and how to spot them and how to protect themselves? If not shouldn’t they?

[Justwondering3]

Im just wondering as I have small children.

I was not taught this by my parents and got myself in all sorts of mess. Does anything happen at school to prepare our children for the big world in case the parents are not able to for whatever reason? Like myself I was highly academically educated but I was emotionally extremely immature.

Yes it’s up to us as parents to do this but some genuinely can’t.

Slightly un related but a girl in my daughters class has just had 10 baby teeth out because her parents gave her fizzy drinks. The parents for whatever reason have not protected this child but she is the one who suffers.

The difficulty lies in what seeds should we be sowing, and do we all agree on them? We can all agree that sexual and physical abuse is not ok, but what else are you going to say though that everyone agrees on.
Look at the example of all this trans propaganda that has spread and damaged so many children. It would have been better for the institutions to have stayed out of it. Schools shouldn't have too much of an influence on this type of thing because when it goes wrong, it can mess up on a large scale.

They do the pants talk from age 3, in appropriate language. It'll include stranger danger. But most kids are harmed by people they know and trust and love.

Absolutely agree with this. It's MN at its worst when you see people congratulating themselves on their great luck in being born into the right family and screw everyone else who didn't.

Luckily children's services and the governent still recognise the importance of safeguarding and breaking the cycle and it is still societal priority.

what Scares me is quite how much is being pushed into schools as their job: potty training, teeth brushing, emotional intelligence, monetary education. There is zero time in tbe curriculum for this - not to mention zero money for extra staff or resources - this is your job as a parent to do all of this.

Forgot to add the breakfast clubs, or the toaster being on during register as the parents far too busy to give any food or water…

I'm unsure what you mean by "bad people" OP. School are there to educate your children not parent them. The examples you have mentioned are 100% the responsibilities of a child's parent/guardian anything the school does is a bonus.

Most schools and preschools do introduce concepts such as the NSPCC Pantosaurus , Clever Never Goes, Be SMART Online etc. We see schools, all the time, trying to encourage healthy eating, teeth cleaning and general hygiene practices. And they have been since I was in Primary school myself. In this respect schools seem to go above and beyond what should be expected of them, which is to academically educate your child. YOU are responsible for preparing your child for the realities of the social world.

School can do their bit but if they're teaching what abuse is but their patent feels unable to remove them from an abusive home, which side is going to have most influence?

Isn't it part of PSHE or equivalent? Both my kids (primary and secondary) have this each Friday and it is exactly the sort of thing being covered? As well as in assemblies.

@piedbeauty

I grew up in children's so called care homes ,
So obviously didn't have wonderful parents looking out for me as a young child,
To teach me stuff about child safety,

Lucky you , you had the good fortune blessings to have experienced a lot better than myself ,

No, I was using exaggerated examples to make a point.

Pastoral care is an important element of teachers' responsibilities, of course it is. And I agree that the best teachers are great at both the pastoral side and the academic side. And schools already do a lot of fantastic work teaching wider life skills.

My point was that we should not expect schools to automatically teach everything that isn't universally taught well by parents. That is not the primary purpose of school, and school shouldn't be seen as the catch-all solution. And certainly not with the current funding and staffing levels. If we really want schools to do more in these areas, then the school day will need to be longer, there will need to be trained specialist staff, there will need to be the right infrastructure and equipment provided, and there needs to be a lot more funding.

Of course, you'll still get about 50% of teenagers leaving school declaring that it was a pointless waste of time and they never learnt anything that could be the slightest bit useful in the real world.

OP - I think what you’re asking is that children should be taught something that would have stopped you from entering an abusive relationship. What do you think that should look like? Who should deliver it? And to which group of children, at what age?

So many women end up in abusive relationships because abusers don’t look like ‘bad people’ - they draw you in first by being normal and loving, and then change during a relationship. Guarding against that, however aware you are that it happens, is very difficult - hence the large numbers of women who post on these boards every day because they have experienced what you have.

There are some things that can be done to help - raising girls’ and women’s self esteem and self worth is one way. But the only way to systemically solve this issue is to alter the behaviour of men, and to make the abuse of women and girls socially unacceptable. That is the place you could better direct your efforts.

no I don’t recall saying it was the job of teachers but schooling yes I do, with appropriately trained people, yes. The responsibility lies with us all, it takes a village, we are all connected.
It really doesn't take a village at all, I (and many other posters) have raised children without a 'village' behind us.
I think you just want to push responsibility for your child anywhere but at your own feet.

Well there is the internet now so parents and individuals can make themselves more aware.

And if more of your peer groups are aware information spreads.

Not up to schools.

But up to all of us as the more people whom know the more will learn.

@QueenBee1234 I am honestly so happy that you have not had to live through my experience. I wish all people never have to live through my experience, being abused as child by a
mum who was abused by her dad and then ending up in an abusive relationship would not have been top of my list when picking what parents to be born to. How lucky are you.

I’ve learnt my really hard lesson by almost being destroyed by another. I get to teach my children and break my cycle. How many are not so lucky. I wonder what we can do to help those people whilst not stopping the lucky people from being lucky.

I grew up in an abusive household and didn’t end up in an abusive relationship. At the first sign of any potential red flag. I got out.

For me, the one thing my parents did was show me what I didn’t want and what I’d never tolerate. Why that made me that way, yet others who experience it continue the cycle, I don’t know. I was definitely left with a lot of issues which I had a lot of therapy to try to sort out.

I don’t remember getting lessons at school on healthy relationships so who knows how I managed to have them. They were not modelled by anyone I knew and I wasn’t taught. I just somehow knew what was and wasn’t ok based on if made me feel. I know it doesn’t work out like that for everyone though.

i worry that my children may end up in a bad relationship because they haven’t seen the signs from us. I just hope that us modelling a good relationship, having boundaries, cutting out my abusive parents from our lives and talking to them about others, things on tv etc is enough.

@Justwondering3 I had a perfectly shitty childhood of my own thank you.
What I did do was learn from it and parent my own children very differently.

@KissesTasteLikeWhiskey my brother is like you. I reacted to the abuse differently as do so many others.

OP there are many many ills in society - I agree. They do need addressing. We need to protect young, old l, disabled, NT etc. As harrowing as it is, school cannot be the place to address all inequality given how overworked and underfunded the state system is, and then it being yet another stick with which to beat Teachers if a utopian society doesn’t emerge. Sorry if that sounds harsh but boils my piss when people casually say “should be taught at school”. I heard another instance this week on a finance podcast. Apparently teachers should be teaching all children about ISA savings and mortgages. I spat out my tea. Perhaps we can start educating parents as part of their pre natal stuff on how to parent children effectively?

But how do you teach kids or rather teens about 'healthy relationships'? What would you say? And how would you describe relationships given now you'd probably have to account for the whole gamut of genders and the way in which they may or may not engage in relationships? Relationships are very nuanced. How would you explain e.g. stone-walling?

The whole thing is fraught with potholes.

@QueenBee1234 I am really happy that you managed to do that. I can’t bare the thought of any child having my life and having to learn so hard like I have, especially if there is something that can help. My beautiful children are “lucky” to have me as their mummy and so are yours.

My brother has ended up being an abusive controlling person. I don’t know why people come out of it differently. And as I say, I definitely needed a lot of therapy.

I wish I had the answers for you. 💐

I think it’s really good that you recognise this and are aware of it.

Although my relationship is great, some days I still feel broken.

@Shimmyshimmyshoo I guess I say school as it’s the one place all of society go to and spend large amounts of time there and it’s a legal requirement.

@Justwondering3 I'm sorry that you had a difficult childhood and ended up in an abusive relationship and well done on being able to leave it.

These are genuine questions: How receptive do you really think you would have been as a teenager (or possibly younger) to having a teacher suggest your home life wasn't great? How much attention, honestly, would you have paid to that teacher? How defensive would you have felt? How much attention would you have paid in PSHE lessons? How would a teacher model a better relationship to you? One that genuinely would have made you make a different choice of partner?

It might be tempting to think of life lessons in school as some sort of panacea to life's ills ("if only I'd been taught ...") but I think we need to be realistic about how much impact they can really have.