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We've all heard about NC's generous people and their southern hospitality from adults, but I am more concerned about my children attending a new school and hopefully feeling that same southern hospitality from their peers. I know kids will be kids, but for the most part, do the majority of the teenagers pass along their southern charm that they should have inherited from their parents? OR are they your "typical teenagers"...which is not a bad thing either LOL..... Just wondering...
Be careful here, children really do not have any expectations, they learn from us...so if they come from a family who spks down about a certain group of people, they will feel the same...if they come from a open-minded family, this too has an impact...you rarely see a child not play with another due to the way they look unless someone told them not to. Children are probably to some extent (depending on their age) more adaptable and more accepting then we are...we probably could learn a lot from them...there is a poem you can search "All I ever need to know I learned in kindergarten" and this probably says it all
Couldn't agree with you more WenIS02! I just know here where i am in FL, MOST teens are very nice and respectable people, there are a FEW that obviously had a "rough" up-bringing. To be honest, i just wanted an over-all opinion about teens in NC and what my children should expect. If anything, my post was supposed to be a compliment to the NC people, not the opposite. Thanks again for your kind words
Wen, there is truth to what you're saying. Children do learn from their parents. And a young child will play with other children, without reservations about how they look.
But you're missing a key point. Children also learn from the real world. I don't know anyone who teaches their kids to 'look down' on certain people, as you put it. Young children and teenagers learn from the world around them. Eventually that young child, somewhere between age 6 and age 16, is going to realize that he doesn't live in fairy-tale land, and that some kids will jump him for looking at them wrong.
nk0171, I think most southern kids do have 'southern hospitality,' but it is very dependent on their upbringing. How their parents act, how their peers act, what sort of rules their school enforces, etc.
Many kids don't act polite, simply because they feel threatened in their school environment. You can't let your guard down, so to speak. Go to a school with poor white trash and poor black trash, and you won't see any of that 'southern charm'. Even the good/smart kids will get lost in that, because (in their minds) it's all about survival.
But, send your kid to a school with high standards and good kids, and they will more than likely grow up with manners and southern hospitality. I knew kids that moved from Ohio, Michigan and New York (between 10-14 yrs old), and they ended up being very southern and very polite.. simply because they felt slightly out of place when they first came, and were consciously aware of those differences. I don't think most well-raised southern kids are even aware of 'politeness', unless they've moved around often. You're just taught that, and no other way is acceptable. Of course, there are varying degrees of all this I'm talking about, so your mileage may vary.
Last edited by anonymous; 06-30-2006 at 08:40 AM..
you rarely see a child not play with another due to the way they look unless someone told them not to. Children are probably to some extent (depending on their age) more adaptable and more accepting then we are...
I have to disagree on this one. At least from the research I have done. I've read and seen countless studies where they show children pictures of other children and ask them questions and the children really do have prejudices against other kids based on appearances. Mostly what I have studied is overweight children and how they are treated (I'm going to school to be a physical education teacher). Many kids think overweight children are sloppy, lazy and dumb and they say they do not want to be friends with them. There are kids as young as 5 years old with eating disorders and on "diets" just to fit in. It is sad. But again like you said it is learned from somewhere, they aren't born thinking this way. However, it isn't always coming from home. Children see what goes on around them with other adults and other kids and the media, etc. Not that I wish to start a debate at all on the topic, this is just what I have come across. Of course home is a good place to start as soon as possible to teach kids to be open minded and tolerant of others who may be different. While it is nice to believe that children don't share the same prejudices as adults the truth is that they do sometimes. Hopefully we can break this cycle somewhere.
Back to the main point. I met the most lovely girl from the south (I don't know where, but she had the most beautiful accent!) at the doctor's office a while back. She was the most well behaved little girl I have ever seen in my life. She was there with her grandmother and she was kind to the other children and very talkative and outgoing (don't know if that has anything to do with being from the south). When she spoke to any adult it was always maam and sir, and she always said please and thank you. She listened to her grandma and didn't talk back or do things she wasn't supposed to. She had a conversation with another adult in there, and boy was she a smart little girl. Very respectful, to adults and other kids.
Anyway, I have no idea if that was just her personal upbringing or anything to do with being from the south. Just my only encounter, so I thought I'd share.
Well my schools in Winston-Salem had some major issues with people getting along. The biggest divide: class. Snobby rich kids treating the working class kids as crap, etc.
Then there are cliques big time. Jocks beating up on the nerds or "artsy" boys. "Popular" girls against the quiet shy ones. You get the idea.
It's probably pretty universal. I'd add we also had "rednecks vs minorities" and "rednecks vs hippies", "jocks vs hippies" etc etc.
Southern hospitality? That's but a myth in Wake County nowadays. The southern people that are left here are just as much in the Rat Race as everyone else. They aren't "mean" per say, but kids are kids wherever they are. Teachers used to be called "ma'am" by students, but that's not a reality anymore. And as said before, teenagers are teenagers everywhere.
I think if you were 1 "stranger" entering a small rural community, then yes, you might encounter "traditional southern hospitality". But considering how many transplants there are in NC I would say if you are moving to a big city your child will be one of 10-15% new kids starting any given school that year. And probably 50-60% of the other children are not "traditional southerners" and probably were new just a few years before anyway.
I don't think moving here is any different than moving anywhere else where there is explosive population growth.
The only difference I noticed when I moved to Cary in 1998 is people were very friendly. Strangers would come up and start talking to me, comment on my children, etc, which I wasn't used to. But Cary has more than doubled in population since then (almost all transplants) so I doubt you'd find the same atmosphere today.
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