Are We Raising a Generation of Wimps? (1 Viewer)

[Christ Reynolds]

for as long as i attended plymouth public schools, the grade E was always used, and was considered just as bad, nobody thought E was better than F. it's just the letter we used instead.

CJ

 

[Jay Taylor]

Equally discusting is what many of the schools in Oklahoma do. In a class of about 200 graduates they will award over 20 Valedictorians and 5-10 Salutatorians. This may be the result of the "show up for class, give any answer and you get an A" philosophy.

So employers interviewing the job applications of high school graduates take this into consideration. If you weren't a Valedictorian or a Salutatorian, you were a flunky.

 

[MickeS]

I think the problem of school shootings because parents can't tell their kids to beat up other kids is relatively minor

 

[Michelle Schmid]

Why would anyone attempt to get in the vehicle when it was moving? If I'm truly paranoid about this (or in a really bad neighborhood) I can manually lock the doors. Plus, at trains or long lights I might put the car in "park" to avoid having to press the brake pedal the whole time. The doors would then auto-unlock. How would that prevent someone from getting in?

Also, yes, the auto-lock did disable the doorhandle on the inside. I had to to actually put the car in park (neutral wouldn't do it) before any of the doors would unlock. I could probably have overriden this feature if I'd read the manual, but since I was only supposed to have the car for a few days (which turned into a horrible 2 1/2 weeks!), I didn't bother.

Didn't auto makers really hype the "child safety window & door locks for awhile? I figured that's what this was.

 

[Parker Clack]

My question has been for years. What if you didn't have a radio, television or any other form of instant information about the latest murder, child molestation ... ad nauseum. Would you keep your children inside and keep them from going out to play like we used to? Like many here I would go from dawn to dusk playing in the woods, going everywhere on my bike and on and on. Now a days people are so afraid to let their children away from them for even a few minutes. Everything is locked up because of the fear that something will happen to you if it isn't and in the end that doesn't matter all that much because if they really want what you have they are going to get it anyway.

I dread what my daughter has to look forward to in this world as she grows up.

 

[JonZ]

Jeff, what a great post

I sound like Tony Soprano when talking about my G/Fs kids. Ive lost count of how many times Ive said "Those kids need toughening up"

"These days you can get in big trouble for telling your kids to hit another kid. I'm not sure what the exact laws are, but some people see this as no different than the parent doing it themselves. Even the police won't arrest you for it, you're still open for a lawsuit."

Ridiculous! Especially if the school or the other parents arent going to do anything about it. Nothing will cease being picked on like a good beating.

I remember being picked on in elementary school and my aunt(Imagine the lady from Ladykillers 20 years younger) took me outside and taught me how to block and throw punches,and I remember this very clearly, said to me "No one has the right to lay their hands on you or cause you harm,baby you defend yourself" (almost exact words)

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Thanks. Just to let you know, my mom and dad would kill us if they ever found us bullying. Bullies were worse cowards than the kids who didn't stand up for themselves, and "coward" was the worst thing you could be called in my family, worse than any beating you could take.

To show that my parent's lessons did get passed down despite the "violence is always wrong" mantra, I have two stories:

I have a nephew, 18 now, 16 at the time, who was taking crap for the fact that he liked to wear a pink Polo shirt to school. My brother taught him individuality and he tended not to dress like the rest of the crowd. Some of the less desirables around school called him "faggot" every time he wore the shirt to school. What they did not realize was although he was a quiet, respectful kid, under the pink shirt was 180 lbs of solid muscle honed in the weight room since he was 12. They also did not know that he spent his leisure time knocking 200+ lb running backs on their ass and leading his Junior Hockey league in penalty minutes (over 200 in around 45 games), usually taken 5-15 minutes at a time due to "5 for Fighting, 10 for misconduct" calls (his mother claimed that he took out his "anger issues" on the field of play). When his quite long fuse finally burned out in the gym lockerroom one day, one of the unfortunate "bullies" ended up with his face denting one of the lockers right before he mysteriously crumpled to the floor. Needless to say, they went to find some other poor sap to pick on, one probably raised on the "violence solves nothing" BS.


My younger brother has a 10 year old son, 9 at the time. His mother, while 35 in age, tends to dress much younger. Some of the older kids in school (4th graders) noticed his mother dropping thim off and since his name is JT, they started singing "JT's mom has got it goin on", mimicing that silly song on the radio. This he tolerated until they started slipping him notes with graphic pictures and statements of what they wanted to do to his mom. This kid, who is a peanut for his age, beat the ever loving shit out of both of them, at the same time. It was so bad that although the Principal was old school and said he had a right to defend himself from what she considered vicious bullying, she said that next time he should try not to do so much damage. Again, those kids never said a word to him again. I imagine they also went on to victims who don't fight back.

 

[JonZ]

Back in the beginning of the school year my G/Fs son was suspended for 3 days. He was being picked on (hes a bit overweight)and told them if it didnt stop hes kick their asses.

He punched the ringleader in the face and got suspended. When my G/F asked what happened to the other kid, the school told him they wouldnt answer that question, it was private matter and taken care of.

We found out from his friends at school they did nothing to the kid who got punched or any of the others.

But they havent picked on him since.

 

[Carl Miller]

I remember when my son (now 16) was 9 years old and his entire elementary school started this new thing in Language Arts class (that's English class to you) called "invented spelling".

My son and his classmates all had to learn and spell 10 words each week..They had to know what the word meant, but they didn't really have to learn how to spell it..hence the name, "invented spelling".

So my son proudly brought home his first spelling test of the school year, for which he got 100% and a big star sticker.

Only problem was, of the 10 words on the test, only 4 of them were actually spelled correctly...."Believe" was spelled "beleeve", laugh was spelled "laaf" and so on.

So I called the school's teacher and she assured me it was ok and that I shouldn't worry because "invented spelling" was just a way to make learning to spell less stressful and to encourage them to think more freely. Seriously.

This lasted for 3 years and while many parents just let their kids walk around unable to spell but happy about it, my wife and I made sure to teach our son how to spell his weekly words correctly.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

I agree that kids need to learn to fend for their own, but a parent can still get in trouble if they are viewed as actively encouraging their kid to beat another kid (even if the other kid started it). This is especially true if you are actively teaching them how to beat the other kid.

My six year old son has been practicing martial arts for over a year, and is getting pretty good (at least for a six year old). Yet he still gets picked on. I tell him that if a kid punches him, that he should defend himself. If I get too much more specific than that, I'm likely to get in trouble.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Yup, JonZ, I have a friend who is not a big guy and his son is also small for his age. His son was getting grief at school and asked his father what to do. His dad told him he could either put up with it for the rest of his days or he could fight back and maybe take a beating, but it would end right there. His son said that fighting is not allowed and he would get suspended. His dad told him "I know and I'll probably get called in to see the Principal. I'll have to tell you how wrong fighting is and assure the Principal you will never to do it again. But don't worry, cause right after that, we're going to Friendly's (a local ice cream shop)."

 

[Jeff Gatie]

See my story about my parents and bullying. Nobody ever taught me or my nephews to beat somebody up in anything but defense. My older nephew learned these skills on the hockey rink and the boxing ring (hey, they kid had hands like anvils around the net, might as well use them accordingly). But this has nothing to do with the fact that kids today have to suffer through years of vicious bullying because the shy, weak or non-confrontational kids are the ones who are more likely to fall for the "violence solves nothing" crap the "child professionals" spew and sadly, they are also the most probable victims of the bullies.

 

[JonZ]

A martial artist should especially know to fight only in defense. A good teacher should stress that.

 

[Jamie Goff]

Christ, you must be refering to the Nathanial Morton School. That place was achient, and god help you if you wore black pants to school, you would have been covered in dusty footprints. I went there for seventh grade in 87'.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

"Son, its time for you to become a man. I'm going to let you in on a little secret: this is why the bank puts quarters in those neat little wrappers......"

 

[Christ Reynolds]

i can picture the commercial now, shown between the periods of a bruins game. on screen is a father proud of his scrawny son, with two black eyes and swollen knuckles. "hey, your son might not be the biggest kid in school, but at least those two pricks wont ever pick on HIM again. need a place to show him how much you care? come to friendly's, where we have the new bruiser sundae. three scoops of black raspberry ice cream, which matches the color of your son's eyes, topped with strawberry sauce, to remind you of the color of bully blood. with whipped cream and a cherry. You and Me and Friendly's (tm)"

CJ

 

[Christ Reynolds]

that's the one! you went there for 7th grade, you sure about that? i thought PCIS was the only place for 6th-8th grade until they recently built the new middle school. you're a couple years older than me, so it was probably different before i got there. there was a huge overcrowding problem anyway, so it's probabaly why they had 7th grade there. it's funny, our family didnt move, but i went to 3 elementary schools in 5 years. went to mount pleasant, cold spring for 4th, and nathaniel morton for 5th. they couldnt seem to get the re-districting right!

bit of info for those who have seen the movie osmosis jones, the school in question, nathaniel morton elementary school, was the location of the school in the movie. i think it was a school, even though it's a couple hundred yards from where i live, i really dont want to see that movie

CJ

 

[Chris]

While I love AC, and hope schools have it, I do think having AC all the time is actually very bad for children. When you're young, your body is just building itself. Studies tend to show that children who don't "sweat" as kids, or learn to deal with heat well are far more susceptible to heat strokes, problems with dehydration, and also have a lower body metabolism. In other words: being in the cool all the time is not good. It's good to get kids outside and let them sweat it out now and again. I don't want them running around in 104 heat all the time, but if it's 100 degrees, and there are shade trees, and they have a drinking fountain, let them play some darn kickball. They can work it out for 15 minutes.

I remember going underneath a shade tree after taking some big gulps of water to cool down, etc. and yeah, you sweat like a bear.. but when you're little, that's part of what your body is supposed to be doing, learning the responses it should have to it's needs.

The numbers for people suffering problems with heat disorders (like heat stroke) grow every year and we are learning often that it's because as a youth, they didn't have proper exposure to excercise and heat.

You don't need to leave a kid out when it's sweltering hot all the time, and you don't need to have them in hot classrooms all day. But keeping everything at 72 degrees isn't helping either.

 

[Ravi K]

How bad is this "invented spelling" stuff, really? Surely its not all that widespread. We hear about that stuff in the news but not about competent schools.

 

[mattCR]

They do so at some schools here, as long as the spelling is "phoenetically correct"