Totally agree @HarvestMoon1. The difference in social “norms” and support between girls and boys is amazing. Boys seem to find their spot in a hierarchy of the pack and stay there. Girls seem to constantly be rearranging the pack and friendships seem to come and go with much drama. Social media does not help, IMHO. I think you have hit on another reason for less men are choosing college. It is not their “place” in the pack.
At least on this aspect, sounds like your K-12 had much more lax discipline than the Catholic Schools I attended. And from reports from older neighbors who attended those very same schools a decade or two before…the disciplinary standards were much more strict when they attended than was the case with my experiences.
If a child was found to have a pattern of instigating fistfights…even a second time, that child would likely be well on his/her way if not already expelled with prejudice with the parents being pointedly told by the principal to find another school for that child. .
Nowhere near the gravity of a student getting caught with a weapon on school grounds.
Indeed. Noticed that here on CC with the presence of some parents who make excuses for behaviors “because they are boys” which would not only not have been acceptable to the teachers/admins of the 2 Catholic elementary schools I attended, but also most parents in my old neighborhood.
Especially the retired Marine SNCO veteran and former drill instructor from his reaction to the punishment* the teacher doled out to his 8 year old son for talking and disrupting the teacher’s lesson in class.
- He felt while the teacher was being kind and well-meaning, it was too lax and felt the need to impose hos own much more severe punishments to drive home the point that behavior was unacceptable, period.
@HarvestMoon1 – this drove me batty and really affected D18. It became obvious around 5th grade when the girls would start claiming guys as their “boyfriends”. The “couple” didn’t do anything together, it was purely a competition between the girls. That led to the ridiculous “popular” competition, where girls would put down others in order to gain admission to the club. D18 was never into that stuff and it alienated her from all her friends … very sad.
@OnMyWay2013 I think there are lot of things you can do without a college degree. Unfortunately, a lot of jobs are now requiring degrees not because they are necessary for the job but because employers can so require. I costs a lot of money for the kids and some are unable to get the jobs because they cannot pay the entrance fee.
If I were king, I would make high school more meaningful. Combination of college prep that we see now and trade/job skills training as well. Jobs that don’t really require a college degree wouldn’t require one. Kids who want to go to college and who will get something out of it can go. Those who won’t and are only going there to gain the admission to the job market (on a check the box type basis with a college degree) won’t feel obligated to do so (that would include men and women). Grad school would then not need to be what grad school was 2-30 years ago. But its all big business at this point so there are a lot of vested interests that have no interest in seeing anything change.
^ not my experience with my kids’s social group at all, maybe they were just lucky, because i heard that kind of competitive stuff from some other parents.
@OHMomof2 that was not my experience either. D had wonderful close friendships, very few negative issues with girls outside her social group, no “drama”.
Do I think it happens? Yes, with some people. I also know that some guys create “drama” (it just isn’t called that).
Depends on the group of boys and the local culture.
There was plenty of jocking for higher spots in the hierarchy among the boys I grew up with…cept the jockeying took the form of bullying and outright fights(including knives and guns at the public middle/high schools in my old neighborhood back then.
One older neighbor ended up getting knifed just a few weeks into his freshman year at our neighborhood high school requiring multiple stitches and he cited his experience to urge us all younger kids to do whatever we could to avoid attending our neighborhood HS. One key reason why I took the exam for my public magnet HS and enrolled there instead among being admitted.
“Our system’s answer to this problem has been to drug them and sit them in the corner.”
I agree this is a huge issue. In addition to the downside of being drugged on a daily basis, think of the psychological impact on a young person by being told by parents and other adults in his/her life that “You are not normal”. Pretty much sucks that so many choose pharmaceuticals sometimes only for supposed performance enhancing reasons.
Agreed.
One common “remedy” for that approved by most of the fathers/parents in the old neighborhood was for other boys to grab such “drama kings”, rough them up a bit*, and then toss them into the nearest trash bin/dumpster.
- Sometimes, this took the form of the other boys grabbing some live roaches and sticking them right in the face of the "drama king" as he was being held down by other boys.
Granted, this particular action was also sometimes used by older boys as a dare to see whether we were tough enough to be nonchalant about it or prove ourselves to be weak by being squeamish/disgusted by it. Only difference was that in the dare scenario, the ones going through with the dare weren’t being held down as it was supposed to be “voluntary”.
This is clear evidence your school wasn’t representative of parochial schools nationally, either before, during, or after you attended. If all Catholic schools had tried to kick out every 6-year-old boy that fidgeted, very few of them would have been able to maintain their target enrollments.
Big difference that I see with private schools today compared to when I was a kid is when I was a kid, parents typically would say to their kids “I am paying a lot of money for this school so don’t screw it up” but now they say that to the school instead. And as the waitlist at the given school decreases, their willingness to comply increases.
The first school expelling me and another boy for fidgeting…yes that’s definitely more strict than the norm…but not by much. And from what I’ve heard from older neighbors…behavioral expectations/discipline at those very same schools…and many others in the NYC area was MORE strict just 1-2 decades before.
Especially considering corporal punishment such as being slapped hard on the palms/knuckles with a hard wooden ruler by the teachers for fidgeting/talking in class used to be the norm back then.
And parents didn’t try to excuse such behavior or defend their child/dren as normal boy behavior". The few who attempted to do so tended to be shut down by the school principals and other parents tended to regard them as “bad parents” making excuses for their child’s bad behavior.
It’s a big country. You can’t assume whatever was the norm in NYC was the norm nationwide. There’s a big difference between slapping a kid with a ruler and expulsion or a long suspension. In debates, that’s an example of moving the goal post.
My kids attend(ed) a private school, and it has even expelled trustees’ children (cyberharassment). A proper learning environment is one of the things parents pay for, and the school created it.
What I experienced seemed to be considered such a norm at many Catholic schools across the country that there’s even inside jokes about how Catholic school students are often subjected to much more serious punishments…including expulsion for disciplinary infractions which would likely get a slap on the wrist or even ignored altogether at public and some non-Catholic private schools.
Also, while they may not usually resort to long-term suspension or expulsion of students for relatively minor infractions…they all reserved the right to do so.
The ones in my area, ones HS/college classmates/colleagues attended not only in NYC…but also around the nation, and the parochial HS my younger Mississippi cousin attended used it when they felt a need and reminded students/parents to drive home the point and as a selling point for parents looking for a more disciplined school environment than the local public or other private schools.
I think there are two issues with discipline. In my Catholic grade school, the nuns ruled with an iron fist, and woe to you if you broke the rules. To give you an idea, I once got a detention for running in the halls. I was running because a lay teacher, one in a long line who did not appreciate my sense of humor, was chucking books at my head to chase me out of her room. BUT, the rules were different. Fighting was treated as what it was, young boys learning to stand up for themselves and find their place in the social order. You might get sent home, you for sure were going to get swatted, but that was the end of it. When my kids went to catholic school, the few fist fights that were discovered were treated as a huge deal, potential bullying, etc. Referrals get made to children’s services, counselors appear, letters get sent to the whole class, the whole deal. It is just a far different environment today.
And @cobrat, I am confident we went to very different high schools. My school was the last stop on the train. You couldn’t get expelled from there. In fact, a buddy of mine wanted to attend all five high schools in our city. He started at the Catholic school and didn’t last a semester. Then he made it about a year at another public. And then he ended up with us, and he couldn’t get expelled no matter what he did. It really bothered him. Weird dude.
In the second Catholic school I attended which was much more lenient than the first, any fighting on OR OFF school grounds was grounds for a minimum of in-school detention and possibly expulsion on the first offense(the school reserved that right as they frequently reminded us students and our parents).
And throw in a side of public humiliation in the form of being denounced in front of the entire school.
However, the admins did go through the trouble and effort to differentiate between those who instigate fights and those who were caught up in it because they were attacked. Instigators were considered by school teachers/admins and most parents as 100% culpable for any fights* and they received the punishments while the ones caught up were let off.
Also, considering there were many WWII veterans among our neighbors, there was a tendency for the school admins/parents and older neighbors to analogize those instigators to acting in the same manner as the aggressor Axis powers when they attacked countries without any provocation…including what happened on December 7, 1941 in Pearl Harbor. As such, the idea of punishing both the instigator and the one being attacked in fights was not only considered patently absurd, but grossly unjust to the one being attacked.
- And regarded by school admins/most parents as "bad influences". Another reason why they focused most/all the culpability of fights on them and if they continued to instigate fights, expelled them with extreme prejudice.
Actually, my public magnet HS was much more lenient than the two Catholic elementary schools I attended in many ways.
However, as a selective public magnet HS, they did reserve the right to expel students for violent or behavior which was perceived to endanger the school community. Never saw/experienced any fights/physical assaults in HS.
Any bullying or one-upsmanship was all based on academic/co-curricular performance and perceptions of one’s intelligence.
Now, I think you’re just making up stories. I’ve known some ww2 vets and talked to some Pearl Harbor survivors. I’m sure none of them would trivialize what they experienced by comparing it to some schoolyard bullying.
My siblings attended school in rural Georgia for awhile. There was a paddle in the principal’s office and it was often used. As a NYC public school kid I found that shocking.
@Ohiodad51 your school sounds like the York Prep of Catholic schools 
Nope.
One common theme many of the WWII veterans in my old neighborhood tried to drive home with us kids…especially boys is that while it’s ok to finish fights once one is attacked(one has a right to self-defense), it’s NEVER OK to instigate them by throwing the first punch or otherwise physically attacking someone who wasn’t physically attacking you first.
Once one throws the first punch or otherwise instigates a physical attack/fight without provocation in kind, s/he is 100% culpable for the fight.