Private Lives

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by richlevy

BTW, if my parents signed me up for someplace like that I would do everything possible to get thrown out in the first week. If all it took was signing a few petitions, then that would be pretty easy.

I'm inclined to think I'd do the same...except that I don't have the kind of parents who'd have done in the first place. I'm guessing a parent who'd sign their kids up to that sort of regime is already comfortable with stringent rules and punitive measures. Might be a more frightening propect for their child to rebel than it would have been for me. That said. I recall being terrified and dry-mouthed phoning home for Dad to come get me after we'd staged a mass walkout and student strike at school (they caught the ringleaders, of which I was one, through our own stupidity, but thats another story).

If I, with a dad who'd never hit me or even ground me for more than a week (and then end up relenting on day 3) was terrified of 'being in trouble', wtf does a kid who knows their dad is going to belt them, or ground them for a month, or make their life hell for weeks, do?

I see stuff like these schools and my back is instantly up. Our children are legally powerless. They sit at the centre of a system in which various parties vie for control and power over them. With the new emphasis on child welfare and compulsory education (necessary as a lot of that is) we have exchanged absolute parental power over children's lives, with absolute state power over children's lives. To then add to that powerless by enrolling them in systems which are as dismissive of their individuality as any prison is of their inmates just seems wrong to me. Parents are all that stands between kids and school/state power. To give that upn on their behalf, is a betrayal imo. It may be well meant (in fact I am pretty sure it is most of the time). But that doesn't stop it being grotesquely unfair.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I recall being terrified and dry-mouthed phoning home for Dad to come get me after we'd staged a mass walkout and student strike at school (they caught the ringleaders, of which I was one, through our own stupidity, but thats another story....

... which will be appearing in a thread in the near future, please?

[Pie]

Originally Posted by DanaC

If I, with a dad who'd never hit me or even ground me for more than a week (and then end up relenting on day 3) was terrified of 'being in trouble', wtf does a kid who knows their dad is going to belt them, or ground them for a month, or make their life hell for weeks, do?

You get used to it. (The latter two, just to clarify.)
Twenty years later, they sadly wonder why you don't trust them.