Why are we criminalizing childhood independence?

[Grey Fox]

Yes.

I'm a very laisse faire parent. I see the disapproval in other parents(especially my sister in law & her fiance) every time I let my kids go down the stairs alone.

[Lettow77]

 I'm about the youngest person on Languish, I think- there was more or less unlimited freedom for me when I was a kid. I remember in high school not coming home for days with no contact, walking about the city in middle school, and going to the park to climb trees and throw pennies when I was very small. I never chafed at any sort of rules, and while I had more license than most people I knew, my friends tended to be quite at liberty themselves.

More liberal types, and northern transplants, were far more apt to have restrictions. There was a red-haired maiden from the deeps of the Midwest I cared for who was kept on the sort of strange leash that is being discussed here, but that was the far-and-away exception.

[derspiess]

I more or less had your standard Leave it to Beaver type childhood.  I could wander all day without any worries.  But it was all within the confines of a gated community that had a pool, tennis courts, lots of wooded area and a fishing pond.

[The Brain]

a red-haired maiden from the deeps of the Midwest I cared for who was kept on the sort of strange leash

Elaborate.

[Berkut]

I blame parents. I mean, 30 years ago or so, if a child was moderately bullied while out on playground, the parent would tell the kid how to avoid it or fight back. Now they call the police.

I can't agree with this, not at all.

Bullying is fucking bullshit, and asking children to deal with it simply doesn't work. If child A knows how to handle the bully, whether by temperment or good instruction, then the bully simply moves to another child who cannot handle it well. And there will eventually be a victim.

Bullying, pretty much by definition, is a behavior that children (neither the bully or the victim) are equipped to handle properly. "The good old days" were not good, they fucking sucked and it was largely just tolerated, or punished in a fashion that did nothing to solve the problem, since the punishment often gave attention and fucked up child social status to the bully anyway.

My parents moved constantly when I was young, and so I was the "new kid" probably a dozen times between first and 12th grades. I dealt with my share of bullies, and eventually figured it out, because of course it is pretty simple really. You fight back, and they move on to someone else. But I hated that by doing so I was just dooming some other poor kid to being bullied. Now, there were some schools I went to where this was not a problem because the adults would not tolerate it and the culture of the school reflected that, and there were some where it was tolerated because "kids will be kids". The difference was stark.

Now, my kids go to schools were bullying it simply not tolerated. If some kid actually became physically violent with another in the manner I saw plenty of times while I was in school, you are right - the cops may very well get involved. And you know what? THEY SHOULD! Assault is not ok as long as the person being assaulted or doing the assaulting is a minor. Certianly calling the cops is not the first escalation step for a routine shoving match type fight, but if some 16 year old starts beating on some kid? Damn right that is criminal, and should be treated as such, if necessary.

The only thing as a kid I hated more than bullies were the adults who just let it happen because they were too fucking lazy to do their jobs properly. "Kids will be kids" is an excuse to not do your job.

[Berkut]

ALl that being said - I do totally get the entire kids and how much freedom we give them issue.

And I am totally guilty of it - I have a 14 year old and a 11 year old, and we certainly do not allow them the freedom I had as a child at all.

My daughter has a really good friend who lives in the next housing development over. Maybe 1/3rd of a mile away, and we drive her there and back when she wants to spend time with her. I feel pretty ridiculous doing it. But I do it, and I would in fact worry about her otherwise. There is a busy road between them...but so what? I managed to cross about a million busy roads without getting killed when I was her age.

So I don't know. It is a tough thing, because you create your own sense of what is "dangerous" and then instill that in your kids. Lanie would not even ASK to walk over there herself, for that matter, so it also creates a sense of entitlement/dependency as well.

Of course, when I was a kid, I was one of 5, and there was one car in the family, so if I wanted to go somewhere, I was taking the bus, walking, or biking (assuming my bike had not been stolen and sold for pot by one of my older brothers that year). Now we have two kids, and mostly there is one of us around who can give a ride when needed, so that is pretty much the default.

Less kids per family, more protective?

More cars routinely available, so more likely to just drive them ourselves?

More visible media for every missing kid (often for very good reasons) so either a more exaggerated sense of the danger, or maybe even a more *accurate* sense of the danger?

I don't know, really.

[Malthus]

I think it is simply a social change.

If parents have lots of kids, thete are many stay at home moms, and all the kids in a neighbourhood are free to roam 'till dark, letting your own kid do so makes sense - your society is set up for that.

If, on the other hand, parents tend to only have one or two, there are few stay-at-home parents, and other families do not let their kids roam, it doesn't so much - society is simply not set up for that. If your kids do roam, there won't be a pack of their friends also out playing, there won't be parents looking out, they will be very alone.

[derspiess]

Bullying is fucking bullshit, and asking children to deal with it simply doesn't work. If child A knows how to handle the bully, whether by temperment or good instruction, then the bully simply moves to another child who cannot handle it well. And there will eventually be a victim.

Not always the case.  I think it's at least as likely that standing up to the bully (especially in front of other kids) will put him in his place.  Can't imagine getting the cops involved unless it gets really, really serious.

We're never going to get rid of bullying.  Best we can do IMO is teach our kids how to effectively deal with it.

[Berkut]

Disagree. I've seen it happen too many times to accept that the bully will stop being a bully because one of his potential victims stands up to them. Doesn't work that way, if it did there would be a lot less bullying.

"Not always the case" means there isn't a solution. Because sometimes people handle bullies doesn't mean there isn't a problem, since it certainly means that many times they do not, because, you know, they are CHILDREN.

You might as well say the best way to handle drug dealers outside schools is to teach our children to say no to them - that is obviously true and must be done, but we don't just accept them because it isn't a problem for the majority of kids who know how to respond.

Further, statements like "We are never going to get rid of it" are specious - so what? We are never going to get rid of rape, that doesn't mean we should just accept it. We can, and have, vastly cut down on the incidents of bullying, and plenty of study's have shown that it can be effectively controlled if the adults who are responsible for these environments do their job and don't just cheerfully accept some children beating up and tormenting other children as "kids will be kids" and "we can never stop it, so why try" or "kids should be taught how to handle this!".

Best we can do is teach our kids how to handle it AND create a environment and culture in schools where it is absolutely NOT tolerated - and that should include getting the police involved if it rises to criminal assault, which it does at times when lazy ass parents and teachers chuckle and say things like "Oh, those kids will be kids! Nothing we can do about it! Sure wish the parents would teach the victims how to handle it better! Golly!"

[Martinus]

Clickhole (for those uninitiated, it's The Onion's sister site ) has a heartwarming story:

The Kids At School Bullied Him Just For Being Different. So He Changed.

Posted Dec. 4, 2014

For a long time, middle school was not easy for 12-year-old Alex Lambert. He didn't fit in with the other boys in his class, which made him a target for constant bullying and ridicule. Every day, Alex was afraid to go to school because he knew his classmates would torment him just for being different.


After months of harassment, Alex decided that enough was enough, and that it was time to make sure that he never got bullied again. So, he did something incredibly brave: He completely changed everything about himself to stop being bullied.

Wow.

Alex's courageous stand against bullying was a complete success. He says that, ever since he entirely altered the fundamental aspects of his identity that were making him the target of abuse, the kids at school don't pick on him nearly as much as they used to.

"I used to love listening to One Direction and Taylor Swift, but then everyone laughed at me because that's music for girls. So, I stopped listening to that music," said Alex, who maintains he now only listens to the normal boy music the rest of his male classmates listen to. "I also asked my mom to buy me a lot of new clothes, because the other kids would push me in the hallway, and I think it was because of the way I dressed."

Amazing!

As if these brave steps to combat bullying weren't enough, Alex has also stopped reading comic books, because being seen with them would usually result in a barrage of ridicule and derision, and he has started wearing basketball jerseys to school to give his classmates the impression that he's interested in the same things that they are.

One story in particular perfectly sums up Alex's inspiring campaign against bullying:

"I used to take dance lessons after school because it was fun and I was good at it," said Alex. "But then this kid Ryan Cutler told me that dance lessons are for 'friendless fags.' I wanted to make sure nobody said something mean like that to me ever again, so I don't take dance lessons anymore."

Since that day, Alex, who now goes straight home after school, has not been called any hurtful names. Looks like this kid definitely knows how to put a stop to mistreatment and injustice!

Sometimes all it takes is one brave little boy to completely restore your faith in humanity. Alex, thank you for your courageous stand against bullying. It's always nice to hear a story with a happy ending!

It's obviously satire and I am not saying people should always conform, but I also think we sort of moved from one extreme (conform or die) to the other (be whoever the fuck you want to be). I think school environment is a very good preparation for adult life, in that it teaches us that we always have to negotiate between expressing ourselves in the way we want and responding to how others treat us.

Sure, if there is a sociopathic kid who hurts other kids then he is the problem. But if "bullying" involves all the kids making fun of you, then perhaps part of the blame is on you.

[Martinus]

Bullying is fucking bullshit, and asking children to deal with it simply doesn't work. If child A knows how to handle the bully, whether by temperment or good instruction, then the bully simply moves to another child who cannot handle it well. And there will eventually be a victim.

Not always the case.  I think it's at least as likely that standing up to the bully (especially in front of other kids) will put him in his place.  Can't imagine getting the cops involved unless it gets really, really serious.

We're never going to get rid of bullying.  Best we can do IMO is teach our kids how to effectively deal with it.

I wouldn't bother. I just realised we had this discussion before and it always ends with Berkut building his strawman where bullying is something akin to maiming and raping (as opposed to making fun of) and then proceeds as usual.

That's also why I asked what bullying means in American schools. As I said, from my school days, "bullying" meant, usually kids making fun of other kids, and calling them names. And then I said that when you listen to today's American celebrities, it's as if everyone was severely bullied which left them traumatised. So it must be a cultural thing I guess.

[Malthus]

We're never going to get rid of bullying.  Best we can do IMO is teach our kids how to effectively deal with it.

I disagree with this - in my kid's school, bullying is much less of an issue than it was in my day - mainly because the society of kids themselves has changed. There is much less tolerance and support for it, so it doesn't happen as much. It appears that, if bullying makes *you* the outsider subject to social disapproval - kids won't do it as much.

In kids society, there will always be strong elements of conformity (and a stuggle against that), social disapproval, etc. What changes, is how this is expressed.

[Agelastus]

I agree with Berkut. If the victim stands up to a bully, either by beating him or by making the bullying take more effort than the pleasure derived from the act is worth, the bully will normally just find another victim. That may be good for the one kid, but it hasn't solved the problem. This is why teachers are supposed to be the "responsible adults" in a school environment.

Case in point; one of the years (the Fifth formers IIRC, GCSE age) in my House at Senior School when I moved up from the Junior School had a ground floor room. At lunchtimes they used to amuse themselves by grabbing a new pupil and forcing them out of their window on to the conveniently placed, muddy flower bed below it*. When they tried it with me it took them 25 minutes or so (ie. almost the entire post-meal lunch break) to manage it. They never tried it with me again. Whereas another person in my year ended up going through that window multiple times. They didn't stop, they just moved to an easier target.

*This may have been a "tradition" or "rite of passage". On the other hand, it didn't continue the next year and this year in question was also the year where one of our House Prefects demonstrated his "toughness" to all of us by pouring lighter fluid on his hand and setting it alight in the Common Room, and another of the Prefects was the person who taught me the useful phrase "Shit for Brains" (he was inordinately fond of using it too.)

[crazy canuck]

Best we can do is teach our kids how to handle it AND create a environment and culture in schools where it is absolutely NOT tolerated - and that should include getting the police involved if it rises to criminal assault, which it does at times when lazy ass parents and teachers chuckle and say things like "Oh, those kids will be kids! Nothing we can do about it! Sure wish the parents would teach the victims how to handle it better! Golly!"

I agree completely.  If I punch Marti in the face I get arrested no matter how much he richly deserves it.  I do not punch him in the face because society condemns dealing with unreasonable people that way and so I must content myself with ridiculing the many obtuse positions he takes.  If society provided tacit approval for physical violence in dealing with someone like Marti many people would probably have beaten me to it and so the price of the plan ticket would probably not be worth it - although a close call.

Executive summary - Marti can safely argue for the kids will be kids approach because the law fully protects him and he will have no children, nieces or nephews who might require that same protection.

[garbon]

As far as I can remember, bullying was much less of a problem at my school as opposed to fights. We had a lot of fights that would take place both in school and outside of it. And many of us would leave our classes to watch them.

Btw, I also agree with B.