Friday, December 20, 2013

Today's kids are falling behind. In bullying.

Today's kids just don't measure up. Back in the day we did more bullying in a day than this generation can manage in a month.

That's not the impression we get reading stories of bullying on social  networks, or NYT articles on girls at war (or maybe not). It also doesn't match the scary graph on this Guardian article. So it's my anecdote against the world.

Still. It's what I see with my special needs kids, and it's what other parents (usually younger than me) comment on.  We see high school sports teams not only tolerating special needs "managers" and athletes, but making conversation, exchanging polite greetings, even being supportive.

Weird. Nothing like we were.

I know things aren't this good everywhere, I hear from friends in the old country that bullying of special needs kids is still widespread in Montreal schools. I expect there's a lot of more subtle bullying we don't see.

Still. I think there's progress. In our personal experience, todays kids just aren't the bullies we were. They're failing at nastiness.

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