Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I enrolled our DDs in Korean street fighting a few years ago and they are now black belts. When our grade school child was being bullied by a boy on the playground, she whipped out a roundhouse kick one day. Didn't hit him anywhere close, but it was a warning. He has never picked on her again.

My DDs are quietly confident. They know they could literally kick an attacker's ass if that were a last resort. I highly recommend martial arts for girls.

LOL no. WTF is Korean Street Fighting?

Also, if you have girls, the risk for them from their peers is less being physically bullied but rather nasty mean-girl behavior which your "Korean Street Fighting" (if that even exists) will do nothing to help them with.

And martial arts do little to protect children from predatory adults.

Anonymous wrote:I enrolled our DDs in Korean street fighting a few years ago and they are now black belts. When our grade school child was being bullied by a boy on the playground, she whipped out a roundhouse kick one day. Didn't hit him anywhere close, but it was a warning. He has never picked on her again.

My DDs are quietly confident. They know they could literally kick an attacker's ass if that were a last resort. I highly recommend martial arts for girls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents.

Look no further than the hard-partying cliques of moms and dads. The ones off having block parties, happy hours, throwing themselves birthday parties, taking vacations together, tailgating at youth football games, hanging out with travel sports parents - they're the ones sitting at the hotel bar and shutting it down, running boosters and coming up with new ways to socially engineer their kids' lives. They set up a cabal of sorts. If you complain or challenge...watch out...you, the adult, are the social pariah.

Yes, these people are my neighbors and collectively, their kids are mean girls/boys. Anything to be be popular! The kids all date each other, play on the same teams, hang at their parents' parties, etc.

Wow.

Truest thing I’ve read on this thread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents.

Look no further than the hard-partying cliques of moms and dads. The ones off having block parties, happy hours, throwing themselves birthday parties, taking vacations together, tailgating at youth football games, hanging out with travel sports parents - they're the ones sitting at the hotel bar and shutting it down, running boosters and coming up with new ways to socially engineer their kids' lives. They set up a cabal of sorts. If you complain or challenge...watch out...you, the adult, are the social pariah.

Yes, these people are my neighbors and collectively, their kids are mean girls/boys. Anything to be be popular! The kids all date each other, play on the same teams, hang at their parents' parties, etc.

Wow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think it comes down to the preschool teachers. I have seen nice and mean kids come from super nice parents and jerky parents, WAHM and SAHMs.

If the preschool teachers take a more Americanized approach of let them work it out, lord of the flies emerges. The aggressive natured kids get emotionally rewarded for relational aggression. The target kids try to avoid it the best they can and withdraw which makes them more of a target. It becomes a learned behavior.

If you have a preschool or daycare teacher that immediately stops the kids from behaving aggressive the ones with this nature don't get the reward. I used to think it was overkill how the preschool teachers in my kids class would stop everything if a kid did something not nice to another kid. They would get them all into a circle and then talk about the action was not nice and how important it is to be nice to each other. I tell you years later the kids from those classes are all pretty nice even though the parents ran the gamut. The teachers were middle eastern or Indian so I think it was more their cultural approach than a teaching philosophy of the school.

Seriously?! WTH!

Actually if you read up on relational aggression in early childhood you will see that it is very much a learned behavior. Kid (A) is mean to kid (B). Kid (A) receives no consequences, gets what they want and feels good. Kid (A) subconsciously gets rewarded for the aggression and uses it again with the same results. It becomes part of their social skill set. As they enter new situations or feel insecure they will fall back on that learned tool set.

This starts in non-sibling group dynamics which for most young kids actually is preschool or daycare.

Anonymous wrote:
I think it comes down to the preschool teachers. I have seen nice and mean kids come from super nice parents and jerky parents, WAHM and SAHMs.

If the preschool teachers take a more Americanized approach of let them work it out, lord of the flies emerges. The aggressive natured kids get emotionally rewarded for relational aggression. The target kids try to avoid it the best they can and withdraw which makes them more of a target. It becomes a learned behavior.

If you have a preschool or daycare teacher that immediately stops the kids from behaving aggressive the ones with this nature don't get the reward. I used to think it was overkill how the preschool teachers in my kids class would stop everything if a kid did something not nice to another kid. They would get them all into a circle and then talk about the action was not nice and how important it is to be nice to each other. I tell you years later the kids from those classes are all pretty nice even though the parents ran the gamut. The teachers were middle eastern or Indian so I think it was more their cultural approach than a teaching philosophy of the school.

Seriously?! WTH!

Anonymous wrote:I enrolled our DDs in Korean street fighting a few years ago and they are now black belts. When our grade school child was being bullied by a boy on the playground, she whipped out a roundhouse kick one day. Didn't hit him anywhere close, but it was a warning. He has never picked on her again.

My DDs are quietly confident. They know they could literally kick an attacker's ass if that were a last resort. I highly recommend martial arts for girls.

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to the preschool teachers. I have seen nice and mean kids come from super nice parents and jerky parents, WAHM and SAHMs.

If the preschool teachers take a more Americanized approach of let them work it out, lord of the flies emerges. The aggressive natured kids get emotionally rewarded for relational aggression. The target kids try to avoid it the best they can and withdraw which makes them more of a target. It becomes a learned behavior.

If you have a preschool or daycare teacher that immediately stops the kids from behaving aggressive the ones with this nature don't get the reward. I used to think it was overkill how the preschool teachers in my kids class would stop everything if a kid did something not nice to another kid. They would get them all into a circle and then talk about the action was not nice and how important it is to be nice to each other. I tell you years later the kids from those classes are all pretty nice even though the parents ran the gamut. The teachers were middle eastern or Indian so I think it was more their cultural approach than a teaching philosophy of the school.

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to the preschool teachers. I have seen nice and mean kids come from super nice parents and jerky parents, WAHM and SAHMs.

If the preschool teachers take a more Americanized approach of let them work it out, lord of the flies emerges. The aggressive natured kids get emotionally rewarded for relational aggression. The target kids try to avoid it the best they can and withdraw which makes them more of a target. It becomes a learned behavior.

If you have a preschool or daycare teacher that immediately stops the kids from behaving aggressive the ones with this nature don't get the reward. I used to think it was overkill how the preschool teachers in my kids class would stop everything if a kid did something not nice to another kid. They would get them all into a circle and then talk about the action was not nice and how important it is to be nice to each other. I tell you years later the kids from those classes are all pretty nice even though the parents ran the gamut. The teachers were middle eastern or Indian so I think it was more their cultural approach than a teaching philosophy of the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most people posting here haven't seen middle school yet.

True. You think that cliquey mom at the pool is horrible? Wait til you see her 12 year old daughter modeling everything she does.

Sure did, it is still the parents. Even if you meet the parents and they seem great and nice at first, if you get to know them a bit better, there is always something wrong with them. They might not think what they are doing is wrong at all. Such as a mom that has her dd tell her every single minute of her day in school and all of the interactions, and then she dissects it with her dd and tells her who to "cut off" and who is nice. She thinks she is doing it for her dd's sake, but she is actually a gossip and teaching her dd to criticize and bully kids.

Yeah these mean moms are the ones that always volunteer at the school so they can keep an eye on their kids' social standing and pick on other kids.

I remember one former pageant girl telling me her mom used to volunteer and sub at her school so she could size up the competition and watch the other girls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most people posting here haven't seen middle school yet.

True. You think that cliquey mom at the pool is horrible? Wait til you see her 12 year old daughter modeling everything she does.

Sure did, it is still the parents. Even if you meet the parents and they seem great and nice at first, if you get to know them a bit better, there is always something wrong with them. They might not think what they are doing is wrong at all. Such as a mom that has her dd tell her every single minute of her day in school and all of the interactions, and then she dissects it with her dd and tells her who to "cut off" and who is nice. She thinks she is doing it for her dd's sake, but she is actually a gossip and teaching her dd to criticize and bully kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most people posting here haven't seen middle school yet.

True. You think that cliquey mom at the pool is horrible? Wait til you see her 12 year old daughter modeling everything she does.