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In reply to the discussion: Fred Guttenberg: THE FATHER BOUGHT THE FUCKING GUN AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT!!! [View all]ShazzieB
(19,357 posts)64. I don't know...
Would it be too much for schools to form "Friendship Clubs" -- kids who would make it a point to eat lunch with the loner, to drag the loner out of his/her shell as best they can?
This might be helpful to some kids, I guess. But I was a loner, not because I wanted to be, but because I was painfully shy with a ton of social anxiety that was exacerbated by my family moving around too damned much during my tween and teen years. The idea of my peers being tasked with trying to "drag" me out of my shell makes me shudder. I was IN that shell to begin with because of my peers treating me like a freak because I didn't talk, dress, act, and think exactly like everybody else. The last thing I would have wanted was to be targeted with forced "friendliness" by the same kids who I already KNEW saw me as a weirdo and a misfit.
I think one of the best things schools could do is teach kids about how people are NOT all just alike, and that's OKAY.
In my experience, teens are, collectively, the most judgmental people in the world, and they can be beastly to any kid who is a little bit different in any way. Every time we moved and I had to change schools, each school had its own culture and its own rigid set of unspken rules about what was socially acceptable, and God help anyone who didn't know ALL of those rules and follow them perfectly. It was exhausting trying to figure out what the expectations were in each new place, and anyone who isn't clairvoyant is bound to mess up somewhere. So of course I did mess up,
especially when I was new somewhere and still trying to figure out how things worked.
I wish that schools would teach kids that it's perfectly all right to be "different," and that being a square peg who doesn't quite fit into the little round hole everyone thinks you should fit into does NOT mean you are a freak or a complete failure at life. It would have meant the world to me to hear a message like that, and I think it would have done the kids who were NOT misfits a lot of good as well, in a different kind of way. It might have helped all of us to be nicer to each other and less quick to pronouce judgment.
Nothing like that ever happened at any of the schools I attended. We were all allowed to treat each other however we wanted and ostracize anyone who didn't fit in The kids who knew how to fit in or had some ability they could get recognition for found success and approval in various ways while the rest of us floundered along as best we could.
The teachers never seemed to notice someone was having trouble, unless they acted out or or were literally flunking. People like me, who were quiet and shy and didn't cause any trouble, who were not stellar students but not literally failing any of their classes were ignored. I got along fine with teachers and other adults, and they never seemed to notice I had any problems or needs that weren't being met.
Nobody paid any attention to bzd bullying or acknowledged it in any way back then. Nowadays, everyone knows bullying is a thing, but the approach seems to mainly be just to tell kids not to do it and maybe punish them if they do. IF anyone is teaching kids to accept and embrace their own and each another's differences, to be kind to themselves and their peers, and to understand that we're all different and that that's a feature of being human, not a bug, I'm not aware of it. But I think that could help SO much.
P.S. Sorry for writing a freaking book, lol. This topic stuck a nerve with me!
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Fred Guttenberg: THE FATHER BOUGHT THE FUCKING GUN AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT!!! [View all]
Dennis Donovan
Sep 2024
OP
Maybe, like Lauren Boebert, he wanted to make sure his son would be a "real man" not one of those effeminate
Walleye
Sep 2024
#3
Yep, buying your kid a gun at the same time saying your pro life. They are trying to virtue signal,but there's no virtue
Walleye
Sep 2024
#32
Makes you wonder what age they think is too young to own a gun. 12, seven, five?
Walleye
Sep 2024
#41
Good the Father needs to pay for what he has done...and the parents of those kids who died or were injured...
Demsrule86
Sep 2024
#10
Although that war was wrong and awful but I am very glad your M-16 worked for you in Vietnam
Botany
Sep 2024
#29
The depth of depravity this story reveals is repeated across many homes in America.
Aussie105
Sep 2024
#28
The parents of the shooter in Michigan.are in jail now. They gave him the gun as a gift
Srkdqltr
Sep 2024
#38
I am 81. If I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes, I would have to show ID to prove I am over 21
appleannie1
Sep 2024
#48
Where are the parental rights people screaming about parents not being notified of credible shooting threats at
brewens
Sep 2024
#53
Has anyone asked the father: What the fuck were you thinking? I'd really like to hear his answer.
Jim__
Sep 2024
#54
'Cause nothing says Santa Claus and Baby Jesus like having the ability to shoot other children.
tclambert
Sep 2024
#63