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Unfortunately, it's pick one. Either: 1. Allow for potential bullying and sexual harassment and other things kids put each other through. 2. Monitor every si

Unfortunately, it's pick one. Either: 1. Allow for potential bullying and sexual harassment and other things kids put each other through. 2. Monitor every single thing they do and police them at all times. We as a society need to make a choice. You cannot have a perfectly safe and positive environment at all times for children(and adults) without constant and detailed monitoring. My guess is that the correct answer lies somewhere in the middle. Ignoring that reality and avoiding handling this at the regulatory level will result in groups going either all the way to one side or all the way to the other. Edit: I'm shocked how insane and unrealistic the people downvoting this are. I feel so unbelievably bad if any of you have children or vote on any policy that has to do with children. Awful people. Just awful.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. How about: monitor them sometimes and train them into good behavior patterns, so as to create a population of civil citizens You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance. Like any civil society.
- momokoko 7y ago
  > You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance You absolutely, positively, cannot have that. Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys. The only way you prevent it all the time is to never leave boys alone in a group with no monitoring or supervision. Edit: If you are downvoting or disagreeing with this, you are part of the absurdly unreasonable expectations we have for our children. Especially boys. And are likely part of the reason 1 in 6 boys are diagnosed with ADHD for not meeting these insane ideals.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    >Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys... I don't think you've ever been responsible for a group of adolescent girls. Far better than boys, at pretty much every aspect of bullying.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >I don't think you've ever been responsible for a group of adolescent girls. Far better than boys, at pretty much every aspect of bullying. If your definition of bullying is mostly physical (which is a crappy definition but I digress) boys are way worse.
  - jdietrich 7y ago
    >Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Kids tease each other, they call each other names, they occasionally get into fist-fights, but that's not necessarily bullying. Bullying is systematic and targeted harassment; it is entirely right and proper that we should not tolerate it. If a kid is a bully, he's an asshole. He shouldn't necessarily be expelled or even necessarily suspended, but someone needs to make it crystal clear to him that his behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, otherwise he'll grow up to be an asshole and raise his kids to be assholes. Don't drag ADHD or insane ideals into this and don't suggest it's some sort of modern mollycoddling. Internet surveillance and helicopter parenting is no substitute for moral leadership and the teaching of values. The idea that kids need constant monitoring is symptomatic of a profound societal cowardice, an abnegation of responsibility for teaching children to be decent human beings. The solution to bullying isn't constant surveillance of children, it's teaching children how to stand up for themselves and instilling them with a sense of duty to stand up for their peers. It's creating a school community in which bullying isn't something to be swept under the carpet, but something to be fought vigorously. It's leading by example, taking the time to listen to children and treating them with the same respect that you expect them to show others. That's not easy, but it's our duty.
    - GrinningFool 7y ago
      > but someone needs to make it crystal clear to him that his behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerate We've been working with the school following 'proper channels' for some ongoing incidents, and it hasn't been effective even though the school acknowledges the problem and that it is with the other kid involved. All this focus on bullying is great - but it feels a lot like lip service. They spend huge amounts of time talking about how bullying is not acceptable - but little preventing it from occurring. If it's not acceptable, the school needs to treat it that way. If they're not (and honestly, I don't think they can - they have limited people, and their primary goal is teaching), then it's up to the students to make clear to their peers that the behavior is not acceptable. > The solution to bullying isn't constant surveillance of > children, it's teaching children how to stand up for themselves > and instilling them with the sense of duty to stand up for their peers We recently told our son that he's welcome to hit back when someone starts bullying him physically - he may get in trouble at school, but we'll support him at home. When 'proper channels' don't work, there's not a lot of options remaining.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    Bullying seems to be such a massively larger problem these days, compared to when I was in grade school a couple decades ago. Or at least people are hyper-aware of it. I suppose part of it is that it's not really acceptable to turn around and punch somebody in the mouth if they are being an obnoxious shit anymore. If it is just allowed to slide, the harassment escalates over time, especially in an environment like a school where you can't escape forced association. There's much to be said for short, sharp, action to set boundaries.
    - spaginal 7y ago
      I think zero tolerance on both parties plays a large part into this. I was mercilessly bullied in elementary school until I attacked my bully at recess in 6th grade. I’m almost 40 now and it still stands out as a pivotal moment in my growth into an adult. That one action stopped the behavior for good and I wasn’t severely punished for it. It also settled down the kid who bullied me. I know now that schools can punish victims as severely as the bully, and I think it exacerbates the problem instead of fixing it. The bullies incentives don’t change, but the victim of it has substantially more to fear. Not only from the bully, but the institution itself if they fight back or get goaded into the confrontation. Frankly, let the children fight it out and allow an environment to develop where children don’t tolerate the behavior and work on conflict resolution themselves. Overt surveillance by adults isn’t a fix for it, nor is allowing it to develop to a point where a kid brings a gun to school to fix it themselves. We’ve lost healthy conflict resolution in this country, and yes, physical fighting can be a healthy outlet to solve it.
      - dmitrygr 7y ago
        Parents can probably help here. School is unlikely to punish the bullied for self-defense if a parent threatens a VERY PUBLIC VERY EXPENSIVE LAWSUIT for his kid being punished for self-defense. Actual lawsuit not needed, the treat will likely be enough. If our legal system provides for self-defense, schools should fall in line. Yes, I know that enforcing this and finding out who hit whom first is hard, well, nobody said law (or rule) enforcement is easy!
  - kevin_b_er 7y ago
    This is a highly sexist view. Girls are just as merciless, often moreso, but will often stick more to psychological abuse. You can ignore this bullying all you want, but it is the new tactic for a few decades now. The bully doesn't have to touch their target. They just need to psychologically abuse them until they get a physical reaction out of their target. Then zero tolerance comes in and the target is punished. The bully gets off free and the message is pounded home: You are not allowed to question or react to the bullies cruelty. That is the consequence of their "zero tolerance" and of your sexist viewpoint toward the bullying requiring physical acts. It is a zero tolerance for victims alone and high tolerance for psychological abuse that is favored by girls.
    - 0815test 7y ago
      You can teach your kid to resist psychological abuse. Physical abuse is more challenging - often the only real option is to push back in self-defense, which can be quite problematic.
      - Avamander 7y ago
        Resisting mental violence doesn't work. It seeps trough defenses. Kind-of like "Don't think about a Pink Elephant".
        0815test 7y ago
        > Resisting mental violence doesn't work. It seeps trough defenses. What? It absolutely does, especially compared to the alternative of not doing it. Your kid must simply internalize the fact that they're trying to get a reaction out of him/her, and that's the only motive behind what they're saying. Oh, and that people who act like that are very unlikely to ever be friendly to you; and in particular, trying to cater to them or to appeal to their humaneness is the worst approach one could take. These things are not obvious to the average kid; they absolutely need to be taught.
        Avamander 7y ago
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Again with the dichotomies. Understand that in one microcosm (school) it may have been like that. But in others it might have worked differently. So from one viewpoint, that's the 'only way' things can work. In my experience, it can work differently. I had 3 boys in public school.
- esaym 7y ago
  I can tell you right now (as someone that actually went to the mentioned Brazosport school) that if they had more stricter rules and monitoring "in my day", I probably wouldn't be here right now (as in being part of the HN community). I'd probably be in prison or working a minimum wage job. I was not interested in going to high school. Perhaps because there were no classes that interested me (another issue). I cut class a lot (missed more than 20% of days), hung with the wrong crowd, ran from the school cop on several instances. And plenty of other unmentionables. If there was more surveillance, I would have just gotten kicked out more or would have been pushed to just drop out. The only reason I graduated was due to the lack of surveillance. So if "surveillance" is meant to help those that are impoverished or disenfranchised, and by my own account would have lead to a worse end in my life, then what are we helping?
  - panzagl 7y ago
    Our it could have earlier identified you as 'at-risk', and led to more positive interventions in your education. You fell through the cracks, that's hardly an optimal outcome.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >and led to more positive interventions in your education You mean actions that are arguably beneficial on paper but in practice amount to the school telling the at-risk student to <cartman>respect my authority</cartman>? That stuff never works in practice when the party the at-risk person doesn't respect/care about is the same party or has sufficient/control or incentive alignment with the party doing the intervention.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - panzagl 7y ago
        So you're saying you were beyond all influence so they just should have left you alone? At that point they should have expelled you- did you ever think of the damage you were doing to the rest of the school population by your actions? edit- did not realize you were not parent poster, though I think this holds true.
- reallydude 7y ago
  > Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. It's not a false dichotomy, it's a practical issue. eg > Kids tease each other, they call each other names, they occasionally get into fist-fights, but that's not necessarily bullying There's no nuance between dominance behavior and bullying. It looks like bullying, regardless if you call it teasing or horsing around. Laws and policies are, in large, black or white. It's not practical to pretend that, because there is a subjective element, that it will be legislated that way.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
BlackRing 7y ago
As hyperbolic as this is, I agree with it. There's no need to constantly monitor people like this and it's realistically "big brother-ish" to do so. What society, parenting, and/or schooling has failed to catch up with is the increasing pace of technological use by adolescents. No one's set proper societal or social guidelines for it, and the schools themselves haven't a solution/educational program outlining it either. Teaching people how to properly behave hasn't been explicitly stated as an area people need to include. They think that phone, or laptop, or tablet is just a black hole and that it's not "real life" or that another person isn't at the other end of it. And I'm not talking about online shitposting, extreme satire, or any other elements of actual freedom of expression that may be offensive, but the reality and effects of bullying. It's a 19th century problem people are trying to correct with 21st century tech, when it's anything but. It's a societal issue, or at work we call them "HR issues". All this tech is going to accomplish is acclimate students to being watched all the time, and that's not a place I want to live in.
jdietrich 7y ago
>I'm shocked how insane and unrealistic the people downvoting this are. I feel so unbelievably bad if any of you have children or vote on any policy that has to do with children. Awful people. Just awful. If you see people disagree with your opinion and conclude that they're awful people who are unfit to vote or raise children, you might want to spend some time reflecting on whether you're being reasonable.
manfredo 7y ago
Or 3. don't monitor anyone, but have mechanisms to report and resolve instances of harassment and bullying. Protection doesn't have to be proactive, it's perfectly fine to be reactive in most circumstances.
- antisemiotic 7y ago
  From what I remember about school, snitching on bullies would be a great way to get bullied more, even more effective than the classic "just ignore the bullies and they'll lose interest".

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. How about: monitor them sometimes and train them into good behavior patterns, so as to create a population of civil citizens You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance. Like any civil society.

momokoko 7y ago
> You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance You absolutely, positively, cannot have that. Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys. The only way you prevent it all the time is to never leave boys alone in a group with no monitoring or supervision. Edit: If you are downvoting or disagreeing with this, you are part of the absurdly unreasonable expectations we have for our children. Especially boys. And are likely part of the reason 1 in 6 boys are diagnosed with ADHD for not meeting these insane ideals.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  >Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys... I don't think you've ever been responsible for a group of adolescent girls. Far better than boys, at pretty much every aspect of bullying.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >I don't think you've ever been responsible for a group of adolescent girls. Far better than boys, at pretty much every aspect of bullying. If your definition of bullying is mostly physical (which is a crappy definition but I digress) boys are way worse.
- jdietrich 7y ago
  >Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Kids tease each other, they call each other names, they occasionally get into fist-fights, but that's not necessarily bullying. Bullying is systematic and targeted harassment; it is entirely right and proper that we should not tolerate it. If a kid is a bully, he's an asshole. He shouldn't necessarily be expelled or even necessarily suspended, but someone needs to make it crystal clear to him that his behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, otherwise he'll grow up to be an asshole and raise his kids to be assholes. Don't drag ADHD or insane ideals into this and don't suggest it's some sort of modern mollycoddling. Internet surveillance and helicopter parenting is no substitute for moral leadership and the teaching of values. The idea that kids need constant monitoring is symptomatic of a profound societal cowardice, an abnegation of responsibility for teaching children to be decent human beings. The solution to bullying isn't constant surveillance of children, it's teaching children how to stand up for themselves and instilling them with a sense of duty to stand up for their peers. It's creating a school community in which bullying isn't something to be swept under the carpet, but something to be fought vigorously. It's leading by example, taking the time to listen to children and treating them with the same respect that you expect them to show others. That's not easy, but it's our duty.
  - GrinningFool 7y ago
    > but someone needs to make it crystal clear to him that his behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerate We've been working with the school following 'proper channels' for some ongoing incidents, and it hasn't been effective even though the school acknowledges the problem and that it is with the other kid involved. All this focus on bullying is great - but it feels a lot like lip service. They spend huge amounts of time talking about how bullying is not acceptable - but little preventing it from occurring. If it's not acceptable, the school needs to treat it that way. If they're not (and honestly, I don't think they can - they have limited people, and their primary goal is teaching), then it's up to the students to make clear to their peers that the behavior is not acceptable. > The solution to bullying isn't constant surveillance of > children, it's teaching children how to stand up for themselves > and instilling them with the sense of duty to stand up for their peers We recently told our son that he's welcome to hit back when someone starts bullying him physically - he may get in trouble at school, but we'll support him at home. When 'proper channels' don't work, there's not a lot of options remaining.
- thrower123 7y ago
  Bullying seems to be such a massively larger problem these days, compared to when I was in grade school a couple decades ago. Or at least people are hyper-aware of it. I suppose part of it is that it's not really acceptable to turn around and punch somebody in the mouth if they are being an obnoxious shit anymore. If it is just allowed to slide, the harassment escalates over time, especially in an environment like a school where you can't escape forced association. There's much to be said for short, sharp, action to set boundaries.
  - spaginal 7y ago
    I think zero tolerance on both parties plays a large part into this. I was mercilessly bullied in elementary school until I attacked my bully at recess in 6th grade. I’m almost 40 now and it still stands out as a pivotal moment in my growth into an adult. That one action stopped the behavior for good and I wasn’t severely punished for it. It also settled down the kid who bullied me. I know now that schools can punish victims as severely as the bully, and I think it exacerbates the problem instead of fixing it. The bullies incentives don’t change, but the victim of it has substantially more to fear. Not only from the bully, but the institution itself if they fight back or get goaded into the confrontation. Frankly, let the children fight it out and allow an environment to develop where children don’t tolerate the behavior and work on conflict resolution themselves. Overt surveillance by adults isn’t a fix for it, nor is allowing it to develop to a point where a kid brings a gun to school to fix it themselves. We’ve lost healthy conflict resolution in this country, and yes, physical fighting can be a healthy outlet to solve it.
    - dmitrygr 7y ago
      Parents can probably help here. School is unlikely to punish the bullied for self-defense if a parent threatens a VERY PUBLIC VERY EXPENSIVE LAWSUIT for his kid being punished for self-defense. Actual lawsuit not needed, the treat will likely be enough. If our legal system provides for self-defense, schools should fall in line. Yes, I know that enforcing this and finding out who hit whom first is hard, well, nobody said law (or rule) enforcement is easy!
- kevin_b_er 7y ago
  This is a highly sexist view. Girls are just as merciless, often moreso, but will often stick more to psychological abuse. You can ignore this bullying all you want, but it is the new tactic for a few decades now. The bully doesn't have to touch their target. They just need to psychologically abuse them until they get a physical reaction out of their target. Then zero tolerance comes in and the target is punished. The bully gets off free and the message is pounded home: You are not allowed to question or react to the bullies cruelty. That is the consequence of their "zero tolerance" and of your sexist viewpoint toward the bullying requiring physical acts. It is a zero tolerance for victims alone and high tolerance for psychological abuse that is favored by girls.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    You can teach your kid to resist psychological abuse. Physical abuse is more challenging - often the only real option is to push back in self-defense, which can be quite problematic.
    - Avamander 7y ago
      Resisting mental violence doesn't work. It seeps trough defenses. Kind-of like "Don't think about a Pink Elephant".
      - 0815test 7y ago
        > Resisting mental violence doesn't work. It seeps trough defenses. What? It absolutely does, especially compared to the alternative of not doing it. Your kid must simply internalize the fact that they're trying to get a reaction out of him/her, and that's the only motive behind what they're saying. Oh, and that people who act like that are very unlikely to ever be friendly to you; and in particular, trying to cater to them or to appeal to their humaneness is the worst approach one could take. These things are not obvious to the average kid; they absolutely need to be taught.
        Avamander 7y ago
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Again with the dichotomies. Understand that in one microcosm (school) it may have been like that. But in others it might have worked differently. So from one viewpoint, that's the 'only way' things can work. In my experience, it can work differently. I had 3 boys in public school.
esaym 7y ago
I can tell you right now (as someone that actually went to the mentioned Brazosport school) that if they had more stricter rules and monitoring "in my day", I probably wouldn't be here right now (as in being part of the HN community). I'd probably be in prison or working a minimum wage job. I was not interested in going to high school. Perhaps because there were no classes that interested me (another issue). I cut class a lot (missed more than 20% of days), hung with the wrong crowd, ran from the school cop on several instances. And plenty of other unmentionables. If there was more surveillance, I would have just gotten kicked out more or would have been pushed to just drop out. The only reason I graduated was due to the lack of surveillance. So if "surveillance" is meant to help those that are impoverished or disenfranchised, and by my own account would have lead to a worse end in my life, then what are we helping?
- panzagl 7y ago
  Our it could have earlier identified you as 'at-risk', and led to more positive interventions in your education. You fell through the cracks, that's hardly an optimal outcome.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >and led to more positive interventions in your education You mean actions that are arguably beneficial on paper but in practice amount to the school telling the at-risk student to <cartman>respect my authority</cartman>? That stuff never works in practice when the party the at-risk person doesn't respect/care about is the same party or has sufficient/control or incentive alignment with the party doing the intervention.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - panzagl 7y ago
      So you're saying you were beyond all influence so they just should have left you alone? At that point they should have expelled you- did you ever think of the damage you were doing to the rest of the school population by your actions? edit- did not realize you were not parent poster, though I think this holds true.
reallydude 7y ago
> Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. It's not a false dichotomy, it's a practical issue. eg > Kids tease each other, they call each other names, they occasionally get into fist-fights, but that's not necessarily bullying There's no nuance between dominance behavior and bullying. It looks like bullying, regardless if you call it teasing or horsing around. Laws and policies are, in large, black or white. It's not practical to pretend that, because there is a subjective element, that it will be legislated that way.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

BlackRing 7y ago

As hyperbolic as this is, I agree with it. There's no need to constantly monitor people like this and it's realistically "big brother-ish" to do so. What society, parenting, and/or schooling has failed to catch up with is the increasing pace of technological use by adolescents. No one's set proper societal or social guidelines for it, and the schools themselves haven't a solution/educational program outlining it either. Teaching people how to properly behave hasn't been explicitly stated as an area people need to include. They think that phone, or laptop, or tablet is just a black hole and that it's not "real life" or that another person isn't at the other end of it. And I'm not talking about online shitposting, extreme satire, or any other elements of actual freedom of expression that may be offensive, but the reality and effects of bullying. It's a 19th century problem people are trying to correct with 21st century tech, when it's anything but. It's a societal issue, or at work we call them "HR issues". All this tech is going to accomplish is acclimate students to being watched all the time, and that's not a place I want to live in.

jdietrich 7y ago

>I'm shocked how insane and unrealistic the people downvoting this are. I feel so unbelievably bad if any of you have children or vote on any policy that has to do with children. Awful people. Just awful. If you see people disagree with your opinion and conclude that they're awful people who are unfit to vote or raise children, you might want to spend some time reflecting on whether you're being reasonable.

manfredo 7y ago

Or 3. don't monitor anyone, but have mechanisms to report and resolve instances of harassment and bullying. Protection doesn't have to be proactive, it's perfectly fine to be reactive in most circumstances.

antisemiotic 7y ago
From what I remember about school, snitching on bullies would be a great way to get bullied more, even more effective than the classic "just ignore the bullies and they'll lose interest".