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.

@Villssev lovely how encouraging.

OP, your example of fizzy drinks really demonstrates how this kind of thing can't be fixed by school. Schools teach children that fizzy drinks are bad for their teeth and their health. My kids both did the science experiment of leaving something in coke or water overnight and coming back in to see it eroded the next day in primary school. The child you're talking about will have been taught in school that fizzy drinks are damaging. But that wasn't enough to protect her from what's happened - it didn't equip her with the tools to stop drinking them or to override her parents. What I mean to say is - schools are doing this stuff already. It hasn't fixed all of society's problems. What would help is people not voting Tory, voting against austerity and for a government to spend on healthcare, education and mental health services along with bringing back Sure Start, funding Early Years provision - investing in the wellbeing of the population and working with families to lift children out of poverty and support mental and physical health. Asking broken, underfunded schools to do the impossible is pointless - but change is achievable. We just need a better government to start with.

@Justwondering3 I still can't work out exactly what you seem to want.
You have agreed in some of your posts that it shouldn't be a teachers responsibility but then you back track and insinuate that it should be their responsibility?
Can you outline exactly what it is you think should be taught and by whom?

In the time you have dedicated to this thread Op

you could have done some extensive research on how schools have undergone a huge shift in their approach to these personal issues since you and I were at school.

and that as your very young child goes through the school, you will see that for yourself

@Villssev and that’s why cases of domestic abuse for example are rising! Perhaps I will just go and do that it sounds like great advice.

Sorry come again?

was that related to my comment? If so, how so?

Oh I see.

Yes, better reporting

as a result of education

Was taught 'stranger danger' in school in the 80's.

Could more be done then fishing people out the water and reporting it. Helping them not get in would be more empowering. It’s like putting all the effort into treating cancer and not bother looking into how we can spot it or decrease our personal risk. We have some personal power. It won’t stop the risk because that’s life but it could help a lot of people later in life. I think it would be a good tool. I’ll have a research into it because like I said I could be waffling. I have no answers I was just discussing.

I’m aware it’s much more wider then schooling. It’s in everything we see around us.

Have you any idea how busy teachers are? And every week on here someone suggests a new thing they should teach. Financial management, how to be around dogs, basic cooking etc etc. It's never ending and impossible.

i suggest that perhaps give this a little more thought before verbalising in RL! 😂

OP, do you regard your daughter’s school quite highly? Happy with it?

@luckylavender perhaps more life skills are more important then say learning French. Not adding but replacing, adapting.

@OfCourseImNameChanging is spot on. Some adults need support through the schemes like Surestart that the Tory government deemed to have no value. Young people are already entering university and workplace under prepared, through no fault of the schools they attended. Parents should be parenting about "bad people" and schools should be providing an academic education.

OP you claim to have had a highly academic education yourself, but seem woefully unsupportive of others receiving the same.

@HewasH2O I don’t recall making any comments about others not being able to have the chance to achieve. You don’t have to take away from some to give another more of a chance. It shouldn’t be a parent lottery.

There seems to be quite a bit of I/me attitude about. We all suffer from other peoples lack of life skills.

I guess the point about grooming is that the bad people go out of their way to look like good people. They're the pillars of society, the ones everyone trusts, the smiley nice ones that always help out.
I guess it's up to us all to look out for what's going on.

You were quite happy to let the current generation drop French in exchange for life skills which their parents should be teaching them.

@HewasH2O As an example 1 in 4 women experience domestic abuse in there lifetime with the same number of perpetrators. In a class of 30 children that’s a large amount of potential victims and perpetrators. Dropping french was an example but how many people use this in every day life that couldn’t learn outside of school or in higher education. Which is more useful as a skill. Something which gives life skills to reduce the likelihood of those statistics or speaking french. How many people are not using their qualifications because of abuse.

But who wound teach that, the French teacher? Schools have a massive recruitment crisis. This really isn't a job for schools.

A begrudging respect for the OP is forming 😂

i don’t think I have ever come across and op that starts…

a) a thread that begins about spotting “bad people” and dental hygiene

b) becomes the importance about teaching children “the world we live in” in relation to their feelings

c) migrates to domestic abuse at the expense of French lessons; and

d) continues despite 95% of a very long thread either disagreeing or baffled and wondering what the heck the OP is actually suggesting!

Again - schools are already giving education on relationships. There is already time devoted to life skills. OP, I'll say again, it's not working just like the kid in your school being taught about dental hygiene and fizzy drinks (because that IS taught already) hasn't protected her from having ten teeth out. Teenagers sitting for the duration of their French lesson being taught about abusive relationships instead is a drop in the ocean. Work needs to be done holistically with families - starting with proper government funding of early years and sure start, continuing with proper funding and availability of mental health services and measures to keep families out of poverty. It's this that will break the cycle, not a misguided belief that a teacher can impart the kind of skills you're imagining here. Fund services properly, intervene to support families from the very beginning, maintain that support and children can grow up with those life skills AND a French GCSE.

A lot of neglect/abuse/bad parenting/unskilled/bad modelling whatever we want to call it is non definable and would be missed so a blanket approach would catch most. It’s not a sin to think outside of what’s normal so I’m off, especially given that the current norm isn’t working. I agree about funding and it beginning with early years though.

@OfCourseImNameChanging

OP, I'll say again

unfortunately even your latest attempt didn’t get through either

The current norm isn't working, but that's what you're proposing. Schools are teaching this stuff. You aren't thinking outside the box. When people say 'they should teach it in schools' it's such vague, woolly thinking and it's totally ineffective. Much harder is the actual societal change needed. By demanding properly funded education, mental health services and healthcare I am very much calling for a blanket approach, by the way! A society with a proper safety net for all, with services that work together to support all families. Not just bleating that someone could magically instill the values, wisdom and understanding that undoes a lifetime of poor parenting in the space of a French lesson.