By October 10, 2010 Read More →

Violence And Schools

Last week was a very strange one. My daughter is in 11th grade and witnessed a fight where a sophomore boy was beaten so severely in the school hallway that he needed to be flown from the school to a shock-trauma center in Baltimore. He was just released from the hospital and is home with multiple skull fractures, swelling of the brain and is blind (hopefully temporarily) in one eye. If you are interested in all the details, you can read about them at Eye On Annapolis.

Maybe I am out of touch, but my kids have never been involved in a true fight–squabbles, quarrels, and spats, for sure, but never a physical fight. Personally, I have never been involved in a fight.  But it seems that significant fights (albeit not quite as significant as this recent one) are more and more common.

Another local school allowed a “child” who had been arrested for assault and attempted rape back in school, where he assaulted and raped a 14 year old girl. Yet another local school also allowed a “kid” back in after being charged with assault twice only to have him charged a third time.

The question I have is where are the parents? I do not blame the schools (well I can blame them for how they handle the situation) but not for the moral compass of these kids.  When did it become right (or even not completely wrong to do these types of things? The kid at my daughter’s school has life changing injuries because his iPod was stolen and he made the mistake of asking for it back.

What about my single parent readers, are you finding this type of violence in your local schools more and more common? What is the situation outside of Maryland?  I am interested to know–please leave a comment!

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5 Comments on "Violence And Schools"

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  1. Anabela says:

    Your daughter, school, city and state are not aone in this. I am the single parent of an 11 year old daughter and a police officer in NJ, I can tell you that these type of incidents are not only prevelant in high schools, they are far to common in grades K thru 8. I have seen many incidents where children as young as 5 have commited unacceptable acts of violence against another child with little or no remorse. They are learning at home that violence is not only the norm, but socially acceptable. Parents have to realize they are not “just kids”, they are the future of our society, and who they are as children is an indicator of who they will become as adults. We need to teach our children now how to become good adults later.

  2. Marilyn says:

    I pulled my son (age 12) out of public school before the school year ended last year and this year he is in a small private school because he was being bullied repeatedly (physically and verbally) and was depressed and angry. It started when he was 9 and never truly let up. Last year he moved to our middle school and it escalated and the school was unable to deal effectively with the problem. It goes on everywhere. I’ll never put him back in a large public school.
    I wonder how much is because our kids see people being ridiculed on all these “reality” TV shows where it’s considered funny and they think that’s the normal way to treat people you don’t like.

  3. John says:

    You may have a point on the reality television shows. Our system is fairly large (I understand it is one of the top ten largest systems k-12 in the nation) but the level and severity of the bullying has escalated a lot over the past few years.

    Unfortunately, the private schools here are too expensive. I had all three of mine in private school for a LONG time and when they wanted $15K for my first grader, I needed to switch to a public school. I just could not swing $50K plus for three kids.

    Thankfully, none of my kids have ever been bullied nor have they bullied anyone (to my knowledge), but it definitely concerns me when I see the degree of the bullying.

    What happened to the days when you pulled a girls pig tails or pulled the chair from under a kid?

  4. Donna says:

    When my son (now 20!) was in school and bullied, the prevailing attitude was “boys will be boys”. Teachers looked the other way. School officials denied the sports stars could have been bullies, or blamed the victim by saying you have to learn to take it. With recent publicized tragedies, hopefully the tide is turning. Teachers are learning it is not ok to turn their heads. Parents are having conversations with their children. It is never OK to be mean to another.

  5. Peggy says:

    We are in a fast moral decline. It seems anything goes & that it’s a person’s right to do just about ANYTHING they want. In my child’s school there is zero dress code. When there are no boundaries I think young minds can’t handle it & go overboard. I agree with Donna – since the school was turning a blind eye to my child’s bullying I had to teach her how to accept it – that is twisted.

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