In my quest to figure out whether home-education or sending the children to school when they are five is best for our family I came across this case study in Margot Sunderland’s book ‘The Science of Parenting’. It really makes me want to keep my kids at home to learn.
How Bullying Begins
Joe is being bullied by his brother Sam,aged seven. Sam is suffering from painful sibling rivalry and isn’t being helped with it by his parents. Mum tells them to stop fighting,but in a half-hearted way. When she’s not looking,Sam hurts Joe,again and again. Joe sometimes runs to Mum and she gives him a cuddle and tells Same to stop picking on his little brother. But there is rarely a clear and firm consequence for Sam. Sam sometimes gets smacked by his Dad for being mean to Joe,but this endorses his own hitting responses.
Every time Joe gets hit,he learns more about hitting,and his brain starts to alter to be more suited to living in a bullying world. He stops asking for help with it from his Mum. One day Joes thumps George,a little boy who is crying in the playground. Instead of feeling powerless like he does with his brother,Joe suddenly feels very strong. George’s parents and the school are concerned and tell Joe off,but they just don’t have the staff to protect the children properly in the playground.
When George goes home,he starts to pick on his toddler brother,and so it goes on –the epidemic spreading from home to school and school to home and back again.
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