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No, but you're not getting the same amount of social contact as you would in school and you're not dealing with the same issues on a regular basis. Life sucks sometimes and the sooner you can learn that and how to deal with it the better.
All social contact is not good social contact, and bad social contact teaches bad reactions. As we say in the military, "It's not necessary to practice bleeding."
The artificiality of the school environment teaches negative social reactions that kids must unlearn when they enter the "real world." It's "negative training." It's like someone who has been socialized to prison life has to unlearn that peculiar socialization when released back into the "real world."
Socialization that must be unlearned is better never learned in the first place. Kids can, and should, be introduced to significant real-world society, not with an expectation that high school provides it...because high school does not.
My nine year old's energy/attitude lights up a room. At age 13 school social pressures negatively affected by daughter's self esteem/mood. She lost her child like joy/happiness. It was replaced with middle school social, appearance, and competitive sport concerns/worries.
Their stressful school social lives will at times be heartbreaking for both of you to experience. It may bring you sadness watching them struggle with pressures.
This is the reason I chose to homeschool my youngest. So far his self esteem is intact. He's a happy child compared to his sister who at his age attended school.
School social pressures, this "pecking order", " Lord Of The Flies" experience forever changed my daughter. Stold her joy and broke my heart to watch. As a tall, thin, pretty, intelligent 13 year old, she lost all self confidence and became shy. As a result was often excluded, it was a vicious cycle. Her self worth became dependent on acceptance into school cliques.
....
I can feel for you so much. Even before reading our post, my first response to the OP is middle school stole the joy from my kid's hearts. Sure, there were ups and downs, but they were in many ways beaten down by middle school. Strangely enough, JROTC in high school began to give it back to them. But it really wasn't until college that they truly began to get joy back into their lives.
What I disagree about is that I don't believe social pressure and pecking order is the main cause. Sure it's there and has an impact. But I think the basic school structure, the forced interaction, the prison like rules and policies do tremendous damage right as kids are naturally at their most vulnerable. Yes, the pecking order exists, but school magnifies it because there is no escape. Kids are forced into an artificial social environment that doesn't fit their own personality.
No, but you're not getting the same amount of social contact as you would in school and you're not dealing with the same issues on a regular basis. Life sucks sometimes and the sooner you can learn that and how to deal with it the better.
This is just another way of saying "bullying is good for kids because it will toughen them up."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
All social contact is not good social contact, and bad social contact teaches bad reactions. As we say in the military, "It's not necessary to practice bleeding."
The artificiality of the school environment teaches negative social reactions that kids must unlearn when they enter the "real world." It's "negative training." It's like someone who has been socialized to prison life has to unlearn that peculiar socialization when released back into the "real world."
Socialization that must be unlearned is better never learned in the first place. Kids can, and should, be introduced to significant real-world society, not with an expectation that high school provides it...because high school does not.
I love how you put that -- negative training. My way of surviving jr high and high school was to treat it like a Nazi prison and I was a prisoner of war. Name, rank, and serial number was all they were getting from me, no matter how many beatings I had to endure; no matter how often I saw a teacher turn and look the other way as the same group was beating the crap out of me again. Took me a long time to unlearn that and have semi normal social relationships in college. Even today, 40 years later, I still don't possess the social ease of most of my peers.
When I was a youngster spending summers with my grandparents in the early 60s, my grandfather would rouse me about mid-morning, "Come with me, boy."
"But grandaddy, I want to watch cartoons."
"Come with me, boy."
And my morning would be spent accompanying him on his morning of going out and handling his business affairs with other adults. I didn't understand at the time what he was doing. I understood it years later.
An excerpt from "Why Nerds are Unpopular"
Quote:
Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.
In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn't want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric.
Why is the real world more hospitable to nerds? It might seem that the answer is simply that it's populated by adults, who are too mature to pick on one another. But I don't think this is true. Adults in prison certainly pick on one another. And so, apparently, do society wives; in some parts of Manhattan, life for women sounds like a continuation of high school, with all the same petty intrigues.
I think the important thing about the real world is not that it's populated by adults, but that it's very large, and the things you do have real effects. That's what school, prison, and ladies-who-lunch all lack. The inhabitants of all those worlds are trapped in little bubbles where nothing they do can have more than a local effect. Naturally these societies degenerate into savagery. They have no function for their form to follow.
I think good parents never emotionally leave their parents, and I that good kids never emotionally leave their parents, although the kids may not recognize this. Don't ever give up on your kids. They will be yours for life, says a 77 year old man with three grown kids, scattered across the globe.
Teenagehood can have challenging days. I used to say there are a lot of good times, then there are moments of intensity. They are no longer children, yet they are not adults yet. I think it is a tough time for them. One moment we are telling them they are acting like babies and the next moment we are telling them to grow up.
And--if you waited a bit to have children, there is the teenage hormones and the perimenopausal hormones going on--what a combo!
Teenagehood, young adult stage you are dumb and stupid and know nothing. They rarely want to do family activites. When forced, they do seem to enjoy it. I always say if they tell you they hate you, you are being a good parent, it happens and it is painful the first couple of times! Suddenly it turns and they are calling you for advice and come home and want to spend time with you
And then there is the joy when they are teenagers and you see them acting beautifully and you can pat yourself on the back.
The feeling never completely stops. There are moments it comes to a stand still, this too shall pass.
This thread is so sad. I feel guilty now for wanting my kids to go to bed so I can have alone time. Sounds like once they become teens I'll have more alone time than I could have imagined
Depending on the teen, you may find that to be a relief, too, lol. One of mine is very, very, extra. Big personality; big emotions; outspoken to an extent that is rather abrasive; needs to be talking and socially-interacting every waking moment. Huge heart and is everyone’s cheerleader, but it can be exhausting... and paradoxically causes a lot of conflict with her peers. It’s actually been nice for her to have more of a social life outside of the immediate family, because it does lighten the load a bit, lol.
When I was a youngster spending summers with my grandparents in the early 60s, my grandfather would rouse me about mid-morning, "Come with me, boy."
"But grandaddy, I want to watch cartoons."
"Come with me, boy."
And my morning would be spent accompanying him on his morning of going out and handling his business affairs with other adults. I didn't understand at the time what he was doing. I understood it years later.
I read the article. Boy does she ramble around. Here's the part where I think she completely misses the ball:
It didn't have any noticeable effect. What struck me at the time was that she was surprised. You mean she doesn't know the kind of things they say to one another? You mean this isn't normal?
It's important to realize that, no, the adults don't know what the kids are doing to one another. They know, in the abstract, that kids are monstrously cruel to one another, just as we know in the abstract that people get tortured in poorer countries. But, like us, they don't like to dwell on this depressing fact, and they don't see evidence of specific abuses unless they go looking for it.
I disagree with that. My experience and that of my kids is the teachers and administration DO know. They know the popular kids. They know the nerds. And the jocks. And the cheerleaders. And they know which cliques are in and out and who is being bullied or pushed aside. They know. And what's worse, they tacitly support it. Most teachers come from the middle of that pear she talked about. Because they've spent their entire lives in that school environment, they don't have a "real world" experience to break the chain. My observation is the best teachers, the ones who don't still play the popularity game she describes are the ones who come from outside -- prior military, former scientists, engineers, business people.
I know what you're talking about. My husband and I had a tremendous outpouring of joy with the first one - constant singing of songs we made up out of joy over the kid. That level recedes, but the fact is, we're still very joyous over the accomplishments of all of them, and the youngest's milestones bring us as much joy as the first's did.
I do have to say that with teenagers, there was some very strong agony, too. I remember standing in the kitchen, alone, sobbing with sorrow over the worst wrongdoing - and I'm not talking about cheating on a test, or taking the car without permission!
the joy does recede when they call you from jail or the rehab center.
Middle school and high school can be very damaging particularly if a child is one of the not so popular ones. I can remember trying to squeeze myself into a certain clique. I somewhat got in and was accepted but I was never one of the cool ones. Then I transferred high schools where some of the kids had been there since middle school and the cool kid cliques were already formed. Some of the new kids were let in but not me. I was part of the unpopular crowd, not the cool girls. In looking back I don't really know why. I was nice to everyone but I guess I was too shy and not as pretty. It's so crappy how the good looking kids are always popular. That's how it was at my school anyways In my class of 100 people. It seems like people are more accepting these days but I can't imagine much has changed.
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