I have a friend who swears the demise of current civilization began with the onset of birth control.........
Fast forward to modern times when families often carefully plan the timing and number of their children, and parents are more likely to view children as precious blessings deserving of every wonderful thing we can give them. It is a relatively new paradigm that parents order their lives around their children's activities.
Not saying I totally agree with this point of view...but it does raise some valid concerns. Just think about the generations of kids growing up as the center of someone's universe. They also often grow up with out the benefit of contributing in a meaningful way to "work" in a household......
.......and kids not learning how great it feels to contribute their labor meaningfully and learning the joys of sacrifice. Let's face it...life is much easier for most of us than it was 50 years ago. Regardless of the causes, I don't think the increase in "bullying" is a trend we will see decrease anytime in the near future.
The speculative observation about birth control is an interesting one. I've long felt that many societal and family behaviors have changed in ways that are contrary to cooperative child raising. It seems that each parent I talk to has their own way of raising their child and nobody is welcome to discipline their child in their absence. What's worse is the children who sense they are untouchable and act accordingly.
I think in the past 60 years we've slowly drifted to a society where parents empower their children and then demand that they alone discipline their child. There are many fine ways to empower children to help them grow into amazing people. One way is to teach them to insist they be treated with respect, and to understand their behavior must merit respect...... and what to do when it doesn't.
I know it's not the norm, but some kids behave now as is their parent is going to show up and dish out some pretty severe consequences, but not to whom they should. instead the parents react in disbelief and repeat the mantra that their child is a work in progress and only they have the right to monitor and orchestrate that behavior. I'd like to tell these people to go about this the right way, as was done in the 60's
, by gathering together and living in a commune. Well maybe I'm kidding about the commune, but that process was used in the 60's to insulate groups, by their own choice, from society. Improbable, bu tit would solve my wife's problems as a kindergarten teacher, which are.......
Having to put up with kids that spit, kick, scratch, slap, or punch her. She's not allowed to do more than duck and cover up to protect herself until she can find a way to restrain the child in a very narrowly defined process allowed by her employer, which has reacted to the possibility of lawsuits arising from instances of teachers who've restrained kids in a manner that does not take every possible step to insure the child isn't somehow injured or left with even a bruise. This is on top of having to put up with, or so it seems, the frequent times kids use offensive language that I never knew existed during my own early years..... talk about adding insult to injury. So my poor dear wife has to let kids commit felonious assaults until she can find a saintly way to restrain their behavior.
Sure there are consequences for this behavior, but often the consequence is to do nothing more than employ "strategies" that are little more than saying gee whiz we're sorry you're being abused by the mean kids, but you can take it or leave it. One consequence that seems off limits in the case of kindergarten kids is expulsion. For the older kids who are expelled.... Well it's more like a reward to the child and their parents. The school district is required by law to send, and pay for, a tutor to assure the child continues to receive an equal education. Gee, that's a consequence? These lucky parents now have a one on one at home experience for their child, and can arguably insist the tutor remain with their child through the length of the school day. They don't have to worry about getting their child up and ready for school and getting them to school bus stop on time, or driving them to school when they fall behind schedule.
I wonder if what we're seeing isn't an increase in bullying. Maybe it's a societal shift of the norm in the direction of meanness, brought about by a smallish percentage of parents who get it wrong but insist they are right. Hopefully there are enough parents who get it right and can nudge us back to a gentler society before it gets to the point where the only thing we can do...... is duck and cover.
