I'd love to read those studies! It's crazy how things change, it both frightens and saddens me.

It's the way people parent now-a-days. In our day, we'd get our asses handed to us by our parents for even looking @ the teacher cross-eyed. Now, parents are encouraging their children to talk back to the teacher if the child feels like it.

I had a 6th grader tell me that he wasn't going to do any effin thing I said because his mom said if a teacher "doesn't give respect" don't give any back. All I asked him to do was stop playing his instrument and do the worksheet he was assigned.

My mom was yelled at by a parent for saying 'stupid' in class. She never directed the comment to the student, instead she said something (to the entire class) like "i don't care if you don't like this assignment or think it's stupid."

Parents need to get back into the habit of whooping their kids butts for getting out of line.

My parents encouraged me to stand up for myself (and clearly, I have no problems doing that haha), but also made sure my sisters and I knew to respect our elders/authority figures. If I felt that someone was out of line, there are better ways to address the issues.

"I'm curious to know why you want me to finish this assignment when I completed it already"

works better than

"Bitch, I'm not doing this shit. I did it already! Kiss my ass!"

ETA: And, yea, beat your kids' asses from time to time.

I'm Prettyface08 and I approve this message!

I'm just sayin. . . It's the truth.

LOL!! Wait! No. But seriously, that's how they talk to teachers nowadays. I love that my mommy was one of those parents who had NO problem asking to have a meeting with me, her, the principal and the teacher I was having an issue with. I'd better NOT try to handle it on my own.

Back in graduate school, I had a conversation with one of my friends about this very topic. She had gone to some conference about how parenting shifted somewhere around the early to mid 80s. It used to be that people just had kids. They had them when they were young, without really really trying and if they couldn't have kids, they adopted (back when it was easy to do so) or they just didn't have kids.

Around the early 80s, it was a much bigger deal to have kids, for middle class families at least. For the first time, mainstream folks timed their careers around the best time to start a family. If it wasn't very easy, they spent thousands of dollars on difficult adoptions or reproductive technologies. Even if it was easy to have a kid, the safety of that baby became the center of their lives. This was around the time that "crib death," something that a lot of women experienced before, got the name SIDS. Remember the "Baby on Board" signs? Car seats weren't standard until around that time. In other words, people became so proud of their investment and creation that the kid could do no wrong.

My mom was the same way. If there were problems, she wouldn't hesitate to call the teacher and administrators (some of which weren't even involved lol) to get to the root of the issue.

Then I had to deal with "Wait til I tell your daddy."

To this day, I will second guess my decisions if I'm afraid mom and dad are gonna pop up and say something about said decisions.

That makes sense.

But I was born in 84 and my parents were very invested in their careers. That didn't cut into their parenting, though, and they didn't think my sisters and I could do no wrong.

I know that my bubble isn't representative of the entire population, but from what I can tell, a lot of the problems have come up with these 90s babies.

OK...

...so going with the logic of "these crazy kids are out of their damn minds these days," doesn't that potentially apply to both the bullies and those who are being bullied?

I don't care how much everyone is their parents' bundles of joy, parents never really know what their kids are doing when they are at school. There are some kids who are angels most of the time, but many kids (even the straight A students who are uber religious) have outlets where they unleash their badassness.

With that said, the bullies' parents are probably shocked by their behaviors and the the bullied's parents are probably clueless as to what their child may or may not have done to contribute to the bullying. Not every kid contributes to his/her bullying, but some kids do. So, blame the parents and adults, perhaps partially blame the kids at times--but, definitely examine this further to get a more complete picture of what's going on in these kids' lives.

YEP!

I had a 3rd grader, mind you--he was 8 years old, tell me exactly what you typed out (minus the 'bitch' part cause I woulda whooped his ass myself) because the teacher assigned the class math problems they already did.

The others said it nicely. They didn't have to do the work. I made him do them again, along with writing out the question in its entirety plus answer choices (if there were any) and he had to draw out the problem and show how he did it. He was pissed and had a baaad attitude, but trust me when I said my bad attitude was much worse than his.

Why would it be hard for a teacher to know how to respond? I don't understand that either. Many teachers these days need more backbone too. They shouldn't let the kids bully them.

You're right. Many parents have NO idea what their kids are doing at school. And kids ARE often really good at presenting themselves as little innocent angels while at home.

I also have found that in some instances, a parent may not exactly know, but they have an inkling because the child bullies THEM at home. smh

I was diagnosed with some kind of authority disorder when I was a little bitty...I don't think I had an actual disorder but my issue with being told what to do was bad enough to register with a therapist. And I STILL never once talked back to a teacher/adult authority figure. My parents would have killed me dead. No way in hell would I have said "boo" to a teacher, much less physically attacked them. I don't get why that happens so often these days.

I grew out of my 'tude, and learned the right way to do it. My mom explained that if a teacher is really being rude to me to find a way to nicely ask if I've done something wrong. I tried that one time and it turned out the teacher told me they thought I was unresponsive and rude in class because I never showed interest and always looked angry (I was really just sleepy). So I apologized and started paying more attention instead of doodling, and the problem was solved. If a teacher was grading me unfairly she advised me to take the assignment to them and discuss it with them every time. The only time this didn't work I had to go to the dean. And if nothing works, chalk it up to a sucky teacher. In high school you have them for a year, in college for a semester. Not for life. These are all ways to solve situations without being rude, obnoxious, or aggressive. And they're so EASY to do.

So when you've tried every route and your kid is still being tortured every day, you'll stick it out because you don't want to be inconvenienced? Are you going to go kick a 12 year old's ass?

As my mom used to tell me, "That's cutting off your nose to spite your face". Even worse, it's at your child's expense.

Yep the 90s kids were the start of the problem. I was born in '85 (and my cousins in '86 and '88) and we were all well-behaved and knew our right from our wrong. Our parents kept us in line when needed and just like k_s told us to speak our minds when necessary....to an extent.

Some of them have that mindset of "i'm not gonna be like my parent" so they act like the complete opposite.


The laws. What do you expect the teacher to do? The teacher can't do anything without risking getting fired. It's not about having a 'backbone.' Teacher's can't tell a student to 'sit their ass down' without being reprimanded. All a teacher can really do is call for help.