Sinfest

Footsy · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 10

Article here: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/08/08/parenting.protecting.ap/index.html

As a brief summary, the article is saying that not letting gradeschool children feel any form of rejection is the best way to raise kids so that suicide rates in teens lower. Personally, i feel it's the exact opposite, and that sheltering kids from rejection until puberty is what causes higher suicide rates.

Is there anyone out there that agrees with this article? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts (and anyone else's, of course).

Note: I read the waystation post in the other forum and didn't see any real guidelines about posting about stuff like this. I tend to jump right into posting on forums, but some others I go to have certain guidelines about posting that are kind of...odd, so I'm sorry if I missed something.

Drui · Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 541 Location: 'Jersey :}

I have mixed feelings about this. It would be incredible if no child had to feel they were excluded, but it's unrealistic. Even if the birthday child were to invite everyone in the room, it's not difficult for the children who are not the birthday kid's friends to figure out they just got pity-fucked.
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Footsy · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 10

I actually kind of agree with the mother in the article saying that it's dumb to not invite the whole class, because as she said, for the most part friends are on a day to day basis at that age. When I was in gradeschool, the entire class was always invited to parties (unless it was a party at a place like Discover EZone or some such nonsense, since that costs quite a bit more money than just a cake) and it baffles me that it's not that way today. I think it's ridiculous that schools are forcing the issue, since if you don't want 30 little kids running around your house, well, you'll probably want to shoot them all before the day is out, but I still think it's weird that parents aren't doing it that way to begin with.

kame · Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 2563 Location: Alba Nuadh

Since the bulk of cognitive development occurs during the ages outlined here, the idea of hiding kids from completely relavent issues like exclusion, and forming sub-groups of a small population is insanely counter-productive.

Perhaps if it could be acknowledged that the discrete discrimination that occurs in schools is not a product of the schools themselves (though they help a lot), but of the child-rearing that goes on before or during elementary school that is the likeliest source of discriminating behaviour. What makes it worse in schools is that one child with fucked up parents and a modicrum of charisma can influence an entire, or large potion of the class to agree with the bigoted views forced on them by their parents. Let's not forget that xenophobia, and picking friends based on their similarity to themselves is a largely evolutionary process. Again, education into the why of this is much more preferable than including everyone just so noone is left out.

Although global politics is retartadly like an elementary school these days. I just wish there was a teaching-type body out there that could send George W. Bush to the corner for the rest of his presidency, or until he learns that the world is big enough for more than one world-view.
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Mizike · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 5120 Location: Iowa City

Articles like this make me feel as though I must have been abnormal growing up (Me, abnormal? Never). I only ever had a few close friends and never had more than 6 people at a birthday celebration, and that was my first year at a new school.

Even though I tend to reject a lot of this touchy-feely-style stuff, I don't see anything too absurd about this. Parents could easily make arrangements by calling each other and making invitations that way. It's a tad bit silly, but not ridiculous.
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Drui · Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 541 Location: 'Jersey :}

When I was a kid, in like third grade, we had this thing where each student had a week assigned to them in which they were the special student or something. The special student had a shoebox they could decorate, and all the other students had to write something nice about the special student on a piece of paper and put it in the shoebox. Nice concept, definitely.

Well, in third grade, I only had a couple of friends, and was generally made fun of by the popular kids. The not-popular-middle-ground kids stayed away from me because they didn't want the popular kids to think I was their friend. I dunno why this all happened, don't ask. But when it was my week to be "special," I recognized that the "nice things" people wrote were generic shit that the authors didn't necessarily feel and had only written because they were required to.

If anything, it made me feel even more secluded.
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mouse · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 15467 Location: under the bed

that's the thing - no matter how hard you try to make things inclusive, people will find ways to make it clear that they see different people differently. my school had the 'everyone gets a valentine' rule - but you could easily tell whether you got a really nice one, that meant someone actually liked you, or a cheap generic one, that made it clear you had only gotten it because they _had_ to give you one. and then you add up how many there are of those, vs how many nice ones - and most of us end up feeling really cruddy.

i think it's better to learn early that what you think of yourself is most important, that there will always be people who don't like you (and they won't even necessarily have a good reason) - and that you can live with not being loved by everyone all the time. and that's pretty much something you have to learn from your parents and family (and eventually your friends) - i don't think you can just mandate that understanding. unfortunately, not all parents are able to teach their children that kind of self-confidence.
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Dro · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 3830

We just need to teach children how to deal with those feelings. To take them and put them in a little box and shut it tight and bury it deep inside and then squeeze and squeeze and squeeze it until we can't feel those feelings or pretty much any feelings anymore. Then, the drinking.

Marik · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 1233

If you shelter kids from rejection, they just won't be able to deal with it when they inevetably encounter it over the course of life.

Samsally · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 5315

That doesn't seem at all a good idea. I was rejected for the majority of my elementary school years. "I'm sorry I can't be your friend, but if I was the other girls wouldn't want to be my friend" would be something a girl told me in fifth grade and pretty much sums up my elementary school experience... Point being, I've never once been suicidal. I don't understand how sheltering kids from something that -will- happen to them some day, no matter what, could possibly be a good thing.

MsFrisby · Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 11:41 pm Post subject:

Also, inviting all the kids to the birthday party doesn't shelter the birthday kid from rejection when no one comes. You can't FORCE children to go to someone's birthday party that they don't like. Then the kid has suffered a rejection. You know what? It's better to have experienced rejection, because then you don't think that the earth revolves around you. People aren't all there to make you happy.
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Dogen · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 9323 Location: Bellingham, WA

Even if you could get all of the kids to go to a birthday party they'd still just segregate once they were there.

In order to be well-adjusted a person needs experience. That's why everyone thinks travelling is a marvy idea. You see new places, try new things, come back a worldy person and what not. To believe it's in your child's best interest to never experience rejection (which, we seem to have proven, is impossible) is short-changing them on valuable experience.

Also, it makes no sense to suggest this would affect their self-esteem. A kid isn't going to feel liked just because he gets invited somewhere. If he gets an invitation to a party from a kid who beats his ass, he probably isn't going to feel all that great about the prospect of spending an evening in the company of his tormentor.
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Zov · Joined: 29 Jul 2006 Posts: 13 Location: Michigan

I skimmed the article and didn’t notice any references to any trained psychologist or better any statistical study. I’m always really skeptical of claims like the one made when they aren’t backed up by anything but rhetoric. Any policy and be dressed up with some nice words and made to sound like some great new innovation. But cognitive development can be counter-intuitive, and unless something is backed by raw data it’s, at best, a nifty hypothesis for an experiment—not something to start recommending on wide scale.

dazedb42 · Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 2:30 am Post subject:

Better than having this for a mother......

Teh Digital Dragon · Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 5:39 am Post subject:

Life involves rejection. The best gift you can give a child isn’t to hide them from it, it’s to prepare them for it. Everyone will experience rejection, but if you can learn that it doesn’t mean you’re a horrible person, that’s the best start you can get.

Also I’m amazed you people had special weeks for everyone and ”everyone gets a valentine” rules, at my school the teachers were barely above betting on the outcomes of fights.
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