Reply #33: lordy lordy lordy

[iverglas]

Does it happen? Sure it does. Do any kids ever try to intentionally hurt another anyway? Probably. Do these kids need to learn that there are people out there who want to intentionally hurt them? Absolutely.

I do love a discussion in which everyone suffers from instant amnesia.

I already said:

Children do indeed get hurt in the normal course of life. And children do indeed need to take risks in order to develop.
What they don't really need is other kids, with the approval and encouragement of adults in authority, assaulting them.

... right there in that post you responded to. So your response was perfectly nonresponsive.

And gosh ... I wonder whether there must might be some way for kids "to learn that there are people out there who want to intentionally hurt them" other than by giving other kids permission to do it ...


Of course, I know what the correct approach would be. It would be to approve of the playing of dodgeball, and make a rule that anybody who hurts anybody else with the ball will be in big trouble. And that will surely both (a) stop any kid from attempting to hurt another kid with the ball, and (b) make any injury suffered by a kid struck by a ball magically disappear."

How would that stop a kid from doing either a or b? It would not at all.

Well fuckin' duh. What did you think my point was? Do I really have to include those little </sarcasm> directional signs for dummies?


You will never make hurt go away and trying to is only going to make it harder on kids when they grow up and realize that the world is not the safe, sheltered place they were taught in school.

Oddly enough, I just don't see much value in teaching children that it is acceptable for other people to hurt them, or try to hurt them; or any need to teach them that.

I even think there might be some value in teaching children that it is not acceptable to hurt, or try to hurt, other people.


I'm actually a big fan of games, and of children experiencing losing. I think it's very important to learn how to lose, and how *not* to let that affect one's self-esteem. And games are one of the best ways of doing that. I used to make a point of playing Rummoli with the kids of a friend of mine -- one of whom had a hell of a time with the whole losing/self-esteem thing -- precisely because of his problem. You learn: you lose -- so what? (My family played it every Saturday night -- it's got loads of room for both skill and chance, and adults can play it happily with children ... unlike Fish ... .) Kids need to learn how to deal with frustration and failure, and experiencing them in the small things gives them that chance.

But I'm able to distinguish between a game and a game that is a concealed opportunity for bullying. It isn't "a game" when you are the target; you aren't a player, you're prey. And no, I don't see the value in teaching any kid that s/he can be made prey and have no recourse. As it stands, lots of kids, more and more seriously these days than in our day, are made prey already, and are afraid to use the recourses available to them anyway, so I just don't see the value in actually setting them up by giving the official seal of approval to the activity that targets them.

And as usual, the "I'm all right Jack" kind of response -- I was a scrawny kid and dodgeball never did *me* any harm -- just doesn't impress me ... and is just a little discordant with the whole "liberal" way of looking at things. That being the way I like to imagine we look at things here.

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