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Status:
"81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies"
(set 23 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,595,865 times
Reputation: 5696
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Quote:
Originally Posted by longneckone
I can understand the woman's feelings. That said she had no business slapping another 5 y.o. child. If the bullying was on the school bus could she not have demanded copies of the tapes and gone to the Principal? Even the police??
Quoted for almost full truth!
The problem is the school administrators, perhaps the police. For the latter, we've all heard stories of how some police officers trivialize the accounts of rape and domestic violence victims. I'm afraid we'd see something similar with victims of bullying -- even with teenage victims. A similar situation goes for the school administrators. The only saving grace of all this is that modern school buses do have video surveillance.
As to why such attitudes exist, ultimately I can only speculate. My best guess is a combination of cultural assumptions, attitudes, and "philosophies" with Social Darwinist characteristics, if not pure Social Darwinism itself. Add to this a dollop of our strong tendency to have a knee-jerk contempt for weakness or otherwise powerlessness and this more or less invites bullying to continue. You or others on here may have a more convincing view, but for now this is my best guess.
Right, but the poster had said it would have been more appropriate had the child been 12 than 5..that is what started that string including the post you quoted. She has since agreed she said that too hastily, and it's done. I do disagree though with your point...kids, even young kids, just want to fit in...they get bullied because they don't, so doing something to make them stand apart even more is going to be as traumatizing to them as the bullying incident itself. When all the little kids on the bus think Joey's mom is weird and scary, and their parents are talking about how out of line and crazy Joey's mom is, Joey is going to suffer for that socially even at 5, JMO.
I was about 5 years old when I witnessed a mother slap her unruly son. To my recollection he never got teased about it.
Edit: Just to be clear I never said what the parent in the OP did was ok no matter what the child's age.
I think it's completely inappropriate for a mother to go up & slap another child. She is an adult, she should act like one. As for the bullying, the kids parents should be approached, by both the mother of the kid who was bullied & also by the school. A meeting with everyone would've been the appropriate action.
Status:
"81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies"
(set 23 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,595,865 times
Reputation: 5696
Quote:
Originally Posted by thefragile
I think it's completely inappropriate for a mother to go up & slap another child. She is an adult, she should act like one. As for the bullying, the kids parents should be approached, by both the mother of the kid who was bullied & also by the school. A meeting with everyone would've been the appropriate action.
That only works on the parents of a bully who strive in utmost good faith to inculcate civilized and humane memes and behaviors in their children. Some parent's simply are not going to care one way or another. It only works if the principle actually has a policy of viewing the tape, then calling a meeting with the parents using the videotape as hard evidence of their kids' behavior, then warn the parents to do something about the kid's behavior or else ban their kid from the bus.
I was about 5 years old when I witnessed a mother slap her unruly son. To my recollection he never got teased about it.
Edit: Just to be clear I never said what the parent in the OP did was ok no matter what the child's age.
Slapping her own son is not even close to the same as walking onto a school bus and slapping someone else's kid, not even to 5 year olds. Your experience is your experience...mine is that I would have felt mortified, even as a child who was bullied....why are you trying to invalidate that?
Also, slapping kids used to be commonplace...what we saw in the 70's as normal, kids today look at as shocking and unusual. Shoot, my second grade teacher put masking tape over my mouth once, now she'd probably be arrested for it. Just saying your experience at 5, depending how long ago it was, may not be relevant.
Slapping her own son is not even close to the same as walking onto a school bus and slapping someone else's kid, not even to 5 year olds. Your experience is your experience...mine is that I would have felt mortified, even as a child who was bullied....why are you trying to invalidate that?
Also, slapping kids used to be commonplace...what we saw in the 70's as normal, kids today look at as shocking and unusual. Shoot, my second grade teacher put masking tape over my mouth once, now she'd probably be arrested for it. Just saying your experience at 5, depending how long ago it was, may not be relevant.
I was commenting on 5 year olds in general not you in particular so there is no need to take in personal.
Yes, because nothing is going to help an already socially ostracized 12 year old boy fit in better than having his mom walk onto the bus and defend him by slapping someone in front of the whole bus....sometimes you have to put your own emotions to the side, think about what's best for your own child (I bet even the 5 year old is mortified by his mom's actions). This is not the way adults resolve matters in any case. Maybe bullying is getting worse because they see the poor example many of the adults around them are setting.
Back when I was 15, my 12 year old brother was getting bullied by a kid on his bus. As his big sister, I decided to put an end to it. I went to the bus stop and literally tackled the bully when he got off the bus. I grabbed his shirt and told him not to mess with my brother ever again.
He didn't mess with my bro again
I think the shame was on the bully for getting tackled by a girl from what my brother said
Edit: back to original topic, hitting a 5 year old is ridiculous, they don't quite understand yet.
If the kid had been 12, I'd have applauded the mom. God knows that age is horrible for bullying and kids that bully at that age will likely grow up and do worse things if someone doesn't nip it I'm the bud.
5 year olds aren't real bullies, they're just little kids being stupid at an age they don't know any better yet(in some cases).
Mom was out of line on this.
My thoughts exactly.
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