mommaduck Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 she thinks bullying and teasing are a good thing for kids do deal with, in order to understand and deal with "real life" :001_huh: I'm guessing she was a bully. I was the kid bullied...no, it did not "help" me in any way with dealing with "real life". It about crushed the life out of me, literally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caraway Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 Am I the only one who would have immediately gone to snark? Something along the lines of "Oh no, once a week we have YOU SUCK Day! I follow the kids around all day telling them why they aren't good enough, and then I steal their lunch money. After, I post about it on FB so that everyone can add their mean comments!" :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 So... I am wondering (and I know what the prevailing opinion will be) how do you feel about this particular bullying/ teasing comment? (The MIL comment I can let slide, as I will never be like my MIL..... ) I have not ever heard that come out of anyone's mouth as a valid reasoning against home education. Blew my mind. When people open their mouths, they reveal themselves inadvertently. The last person who maintained the "they must adapt to being bullied" was a man who told me, very vigorously, that ALL children are afraid of their fathers and that is why they behave. This told me about his relationship with his dad, NOT all children's relationship. He would absolutely NOT believe me when I said I loved striving to present a good grade, etc. to my father because I loved him and wanted to live up to his ideals. Later this man told me about his dad giving him some deer food at a tame deer zoo, and the deer jumped on him and trounced him, and that his dad stood back and laughed and laughed. I believed him. I would suspect your speaker of that comment is a believer in "however you get ahead, the getting ahead justifies the means". People who crow at Christmas games when they trade a small child's delight away from them, people who are happy to have a non-smoggy city, but who register their cars in their mother's rural county so they don't have to have a sniffer test, people who cynically think everyone else is out their sticking it to others when no one is looking, so they had better do so, too, or they will be at a disadvantage. There are grown-ups who admire bullies. Some are bullies themselves, some are too timid, and just coddle up to them. My ex was one of those. If one of his jackass "friends" belittled me, he was the first to laugh at the "joke". That said, I feel sorry for children who are expected to cope with such behaviors. I feel, personally, it is much better learned with a kid is older and has a better grounding in the world and what is reasonable/legal/acceptable, and their peers are more mature, too. The safest defense against a bully is a united front against him/her. As my mother said over and over, "consider the source". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 It is one reason, among many, that helped us to decide to homeschool. I want my kids to be free to explore their world, their ideas, their interests, and their friendships. I use the term ostracized (belittled rather than beaten), but is definitely put me on the path of homeschooling. I learned nothing, there was nothing positive about it. Nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionfamily1999 Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 Am I the only one who would have immediately gone to snark? Something along the lines of "Oh no, once a week we have YOU SUCK Day! I follow the kids around all day telling them why they aren't good enough, and then I steal their lunch money. After, I post about it on FB so that everyone can add their mean comments!" :tongue_smilie: You know, it's funny that what you describe would most definitely get you in trouble with the authorities for abuse, and yet that's what people seem to think will make children stronger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiobrain Posted October 30, 2010 Author Share Posted October 30, 2010 Whew! 6 pages! :) I just got home from a L O N G day... I am crabby and tired. Forgive my upcoming incoherent sentences. I will say, that first of all... the vibe I was getting from her was that she had probably been a bully, and if not a bully.. a mean girl. Her husband was meek, and got her wine and "attended" to her, so...you get the picture. ;) She also wasn't completely against HSing either, I think that she was just in the "uh-oh, you're over-protective and you know what that means" wink, wink, nudge, nudge type of camp. Other than that irritating interlude, it wasn't a bad conversation. However, upon reflection, it really got under my skin. See, my opinion is that yes.. kids are nasty to each other, mine have been nasty to other kids... but that sort of institutional acceptance of bad behavior rubs the veneer of goodness off kids. It slowly makes horrible things acceptable. Today it is even worse than it was when I was a kid and I still don't know how I made it out of middle school with a semblance of any self-esteem, or even my life. I was totally self destructive. I know that I am still affected by it today. it is not a necessary part of growing up. My thinking, is that as long as I can get them through middle school and puberty w/o going to a school, I will have done my job as a parent. After that time, they should be able to handle most situations in a different way than when they are younger. Well... I need to go lie down, put my feet up and :chillpill: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audrey Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 First of all, I rarely get any negative comments about HSing... I usually get the typical "Wow!" "I could never do that!" "That is so great!" type of comments. Last night, we were all at my husband's photo exhibition opening at a gallery downtown (it was also Final Friday, where all the businesses and galleries are open late, lots o' street stuff etc) and I was pleasantly talking with one of my husband's drawing class students. She is MUCH older than me. So... the subject gets to homeschooling, and she says... that she thinks bullying and teasing are a good thing for kids do deal with, in order to understand and deal with "real life" so she isn't 100% on board with the idea of HSing. :001_huh: This is one of my specific reasons that we started homeschooling. I am very opinionated about this issue, as I think that that sort of behavior is totally unnecessary and the damage that is done is far more devastating to a person's future development than a possible (and dubious) "life lesson". Let's just say (even through my slight gallery wine haze) I really let her know what I thought. She actually had the guts to say that she was never even teased in school (so why do you have this opinion?) and that she thinks I might have a point... but of course, as she left she had to say... "Just remember to let go of them when they need to move on...You don't want to end up like your MIL" ARG!!! So... I am wondering (and I know what the prevailing opinion will be) how do you feel about this particular bullying/ teasing comment? (The MIL comment I can let slide, as I will never be like my MIL..... ) I have not ever heard that come out of anyone's mouth as a valid reasoning against home education. Blew my mind. In the real world, adults don't have to tolerate beatings and insults. In the real world, adults have legal avenues they can pursue. In the public school world, kids have no recourse. School officials are ineffectual at best. Telling a kid they just have to "learn to deal with it" is abandoning them to the wolves, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sputterduck Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 I bet she got it from this recent private practice episode Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angela in ohio Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 We had a 9-year-old boy in our school district commit suicide. Every news article cited how much he had been bullied in school. This was several months ago, before it became such a 'hot' news story like it has been the past few weeks. The boy that sat on the bus in the seat in front of mine all through elementary schools killed himself in junior high because of bullying. He was a very, very smart boy, and he would have done something great with his life, I bet. :crying: I was a little ticked when I saw a clip of Julie Chen on the View-like show she does, and she was talking about a man bumping his notebook into her in a theater because she was on her phone. She was comparing it to the plight of the kiddos who had been bullied and committed suicide. :001_huh: I know news people have to make themselves relevant to everything, but I think it's a sign she doesn't get it, just like this woman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harriet Vane Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 The only people who can say such asinine things about bullying being good for anyone are those who have not experienced it personally and who lack the empathy necessary to think through that opinion logically. Meanness is NEVER good for anyone--not the bully or the victim, period. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LunaLee Posted October 31, 2010 Share Posted October 31, 2010 She has nothing to worry about. Kids will get plenty of opportunities to be bullied, even when they are homeschooled.:glare: :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.