We had one of those. Thought it was just my son that she didn’t like but after talking to other parents way, way after they’d moved on up to the next class, turns out she favoured girls and always gave boys a hard time. Vicious cow.
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This one who complained about the school didn’t move her child to another school though. And I don’t know how vindictive the teachers became afterwards, but nothing changed. She had a hard time admitting her approach was counterproductive, and I know she didn’t need to hear that from me too so I refrained. 
The one who moved her child to a different school was because of bullying, which is highly underestimated and rarely - if at all - tackled in some schools.
Not at all. I still wonder which is the best approach though, as I personally didn’t find an efficient solution to “fix” things. I just thought they’ll have to deal with this shit at some point in life anyway, which probably was the wisest solution in hindsight…so we didn’t move. I know another child from my daughter’s class moved to a different (public) school but I guess one needed vitamin B for that? I personally thought that school was actually more problematic, but who knows.
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We had one like that. She even told the whole class that she didn’t like teaching the boys.
She’s the one I told that due to her inaction, and lack of seriousness on another topic, I was going to let the Police address the matter instead.
One, an avid Christian was really vicious to my son when he told her he didn’t believe in God (she brought up the subject in many lesson). He was six and is on the high end of the autistic spectrum which means he questioned everything which wasn’t logical, (And let’s face it - a belief in God is not logical at all).
I’ve probably told all these stories before but I get reminded of them often when told, “All Swiss schools are the same, all are excellent”.
You get quite a few of these feminist types in education. I’d look at it as a good opportunity to to school him in the ways of the world.
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Absolutely. Takeaway lesson is that you’re always going to find stupid and frightened people who discriminate against entire groups of people for no reason at all. 
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I guess because many boys don’t easily fit in the prescribed mould. This may or may not have anything to do with feminism, I suspect it has more to do with the rigidity of some teachers. And the “I am the teacher here” attitude.
I thought that religion was only brought up during the Biblische Geschichte class. It seems like this one was out on a mission of some sort…and yes, it is vicious to behave like that, let alone with a 6 y.o. child. You should have taken up this issue directly with the school director…I guess you did, right?
Hmm… 
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Difficult to prove that sort of thing.
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There’s no reason to, it’s clear as is. If Shirley wanted an explanation she should have asked nicely, I for one couldn’t care less whether she understands that post, I was posting to Phil.
I agree, especially teenagers don’t find their parents cool. Better get used to the idea. They’re more influenced by their peers, so it’s always a good idea to know what their friends are up to. My kids are quite open about their friends so I don’t worry that much.(well I know they don’t tell me everything but I believe they feel quite comfortable to talk about the stuff that really matters)
There is no magic solution, try it and see how it works. But it looks more like a short term solution imho.
They reckon it takes about two weeks to change a habit (not an addiction) and make something pretty second-nature.
It would probably take longer to break a child’s social media habit but it could work.
I’m sure they’ll all grow out of it in the end but even then I have my doubts as I see adults pushing their children in strollers with the mothers ignoring their child and scrolling their phone with one hand whilst pushing with the other.
It’s the same with dog walkers and also with many motorists.
My fear is that even if children do grow out of it - they are missing so much as children when they are on the devices.
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I have no dog in this fight, as I have not long for this world and have no kids. But I have tremendous respect for all of you trying to navigate your kids’ way through the dreck out there. It’s getting so that there is no Truth, and no believing anything you see (skillfully photoshopped images, AI-generated “content”). How do you arm your kids against that? My mother did it by inspiring sheer awe, but that was another time and place.
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It’s actually fascinating to see what is happening in China…
TikTok - content is ONLY educational for children… no makeup cr@p
Internet? The proposal is to restrict it by the ISP/telecoms provider for children, with daily caps of 8min, 1hr or 2hrs; depending on age…
I think it’s fair to say that it depends on what they’re doing on those devices and for how long, no? That’s the world we’re living in…
Partly I think. Obviously some activities on them could be mentally harmful more so than others but whatever they are doing, from gaming to Tik Tok scrolling, they are missing out on all the other stuff needed for child development such as physical sports, hand-eye coordination exercises such as arts and playing musical instruments, real social interaction and so on.
As for how long - I think we’ve gathered on this thread that in many cases, it’s too long.
I was thinking it’s probably similar feelings with the parents of every generation.
There have a been a couple of cultural leaps in some of the decades past, every parent during that era probably felt to a degree “how am I going to navigate this”.
But with so much access to so much information nowadays it is indeed getting more and more interesting. I remember dial-up was becoming a thing when I was coming into my teenage years, and spending time on Yahoo! playing pool and chatting to absolute strangers was something that my parents were thinking about. This and forums, and random researching and everything else could be very worrying and very useful at the same time, and I think in the end it just ended up being useful. Channeled my curiosity, got me skills (from typing, to practicing my English, to learning to do research online), and even tought me one way or another that the internet is not a faceless thing with any sort of de facto authority. It’s just another “guy” posting something, maybe they’re an authority and you trust them, or maybe not.
People that consumed mostly legacy media, I think, transferred that inherent sense of authority/veracity to other institutional-like media on the internet, without realising it’s not the same bar to clear to get “broadcasting” on TV/newspaper/radio and to the internet.
And now with social media, the village idiot, becomes viral easier than the rest, and gets to meet with the idiots of every other village, and suddenly together they become influential, and that for sure is a challenge like none before it.
And for me that’s the main consideration I think, the rest is how we consume media, and just cultural evolution, and I’m not one to judge if it’s good or bad, as in the end it’s a matter of taste. I can imagine people complained that 70 years ago everybody’s reading the damn paper on the train and people don’t talk to each other any more. OK, we replaced that with the phone, with a definitive change in journalistic standards and the debatable change in the usefulness of content…
At the same time, if we can navigate this right, there are just more tools for our kids to do more, so at least that can keep us hopeful and be a very delicious carrot to keep on trucking.
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I remember my mom was screaming I was watching too much TV and playing too many games when I was a kid. If I was a kid today and did exactly what I did back then, I would be the most casual noob today’s youth has bullied online 
As I said above, some aspects change, but the main considerations endure across generations.
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Yes, for that you have organised activities aka hobbies. With real social interaction, teachers etc. Some of us have mentioned those too. If you don’t want them to be on their devices most of their free time you get them enrolled in some classes/groups. Or guide them to do that at home, either way can work. (probably not with all kids and not all the time)
Ours do all that but IMO, hobbies should also be a voyage of mistakes and self-discovery which doesn’t happen in an organised, controlled tutored session.
Frankly speaking, I am much more afraid for my kids about the dangers in the real life than in digital word. Playing with fire (my kids say that many kids carry a lighter and a hair spray, you probably know what for), drugs, alcohol, inattentive or very old drivers with slow reactions etc. I often feel angry about my son spending too much time on devices, but whenever I hear some stories that my kids tell about their friends or schoolmates, or when a car doesn’t stop to let me cross the road, or when my son doesn’t come home in time, or when he has to return from after-school activities in the darkness etc I wish I had him at home sitting at PC instead of being somewhere where I don’t know what he is doing and with whom.