In recent news I read an article online that discussed a boy who was being bullied due to bringing a My Little Pony lunchbox into school. Apparently, due to the theme of My Little Pony seeming more feminine than masculine this young boy was being picked on about his choice in cartoon character lunch box. I am all for boys being masculine and girls being feminine. Totally, 100%. With that being said, we all can like similar cartoons or shows that appear to push to be liked by one gender over the other. I know many shows I watch are geared towards men, but I enjoy them just as much as the next male in our society would. There is nothing wrong with that.
We are raising our children to be judgmental and rude.
There is something wrong with that.
The part of the lunch box story that really struck a cord was that the school system denied the boy from using this lunchbox any longer, citing he had to bring a different lunchbox because this one was causing too much of a ruckus. Rather than dealing with the children who were picking on the boy, they decided to shun the boy for his choice of a lunchbox. I could see if this was deemed inappropriate content for a school, but I am pretty sure My Little Pony; a cartoon that promotes friendship, doesn’t fall into the inappropriate category. The children who were picking on this boy got a message sent to them immediately upon hearing this boy was having his lunchbox banned, the kids heard, “we can be in control of our elders and our peers”.
What is wrong is that our school systems appear to be sending the message to children that they can rule the world if only they be cruel & mean.
We need to be raising our children to accept and embrace our differences, this is what makes us a unique society to live in.
A more recent article that popped up on my feed was about a young girl who shaved her head in support for a friend who is battling cancer. The school banned the 9 year old girl from attending school because their policy cites that the child must have a wig or her natural hair grown back. That is their policy. Of course, the girl was able to return because this story got enough media coverage, but again, what in the world is wrong with our school systems?!
We ban a child, a girl child, who I am sure didn’t think that shaving her head in support of a friend battling cancer would cause such a ruckus. We send the message that “supporting our friends isn’t acceptable in schools”. It seems the more I read, the more frustrated or flabbergasted I get with society today.
Are we not to raise our children with the heart of one who supports their friends in times of need?
Why are so many suppressing these young children? It is wrong. On so many levels.
Why am I so upset about both of these stories? I will tell you why ….
As a Mom who recently found out her middle child is autistic, I have zero tolerance for people teaching children to not be accepting of those who are different. In reality, we all are different. Do you not agree? While I knew my son may be autistic, having a professional psychiatrist evaluate him and provide that diagnosis allowed our family more fighting tools and resources for our son. Based on our experiences as a family and individuals we are a united family of people who will support others, people who have compassion for those who may be different, people who have what I consider wonderful people skills.
We are a family who believes in having good morals, in giving to thy neighbor when thy can. We are a family who believes that we do not say mean things to those who we just don’t really like for whatever reason. We are a family that accepts others have dreams, goals and beliefs that we may not understand nor believe in. We wouldn’t ever make another human being feel like dirt, at least not on purpose.
Society has started to show a trend, specifically in the public school systems, that our children are not to be taught to live outside of the normal mold of what a child should be. Society has started to teach children it’s okay to hide who you really are, because we don’t want to work to teach bullies or mean children how to behave properly. After all, most of our society is built up of higher end people who are bullies. Who have learned that the meaner and more intimidating they get, the more they succeed.
That is wrong. On so many levels.
Let us teach our children to be different, to be who they are. Let us teach our children that intimidation isn’t going to break us. Let us teach our children to accept those who are different. Let us teach our children to have an open mind, a big heart and compassion for others. Let us teach our children that a school system cannot shun us for our choice in lunch boxes or our decision to shave our head to support a fellow friend battling a hefty disease. Let us show that kindness rules the Earth, not intimidation tactics.
Haven’t read the stories I referenced?
Click here to read about the boy and his lunchbox.
Click here to read about the girl and her shaved head.
“Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.
It is sad what the school system is doing these days. Ive been tempted to do home school so many times!
It broke my heart when I first read about the boy being bullied about the My Little Pony backpack. I agree with you, I just do not know what is going on with society nowadays – especially the policies at the school level. And the little girl who shaved her head in support of her friend…instead of celebrating her loving act, the school system bans her from attending school..what is wrong with this picture?
It’s really sad the state of the school system and people these days.
There’s a lot not great happening with our society, unfortunately. Too many parents want to please their kids and aren’t parenting.
I can’t believe that this type of behavior still happenes in schools today. Stories like this make me want to homeschool my babies.
The school system is totally messed up. If I had a school-aged child now, I would home school them.
The schools are so messed up. All they did with the school lunch thing was to condone the actions of the bullies. It’s ridiculous.
I have read both and it’s sad to see what our children are learning these days. With the first one, the initial response from the school was just ridiculous. Ban something non-offensive because they felt a child shouldn’t carry it?! Wrong on so many levels.
Its so sad that the school system focused on the wrong thing. They took the easy way out and decided not to deal with the other students behavior.
The boy with the MLP backpack actually took place in my city. When I heard which school this happened at, it did not shock me. It is not reflective of the entire city or county. But there are schools that have administrators that don’t do a good enough job sticking up for ALL of the kids.
It saddens me on so many levels that sort of treatment happened. As a parent, as a community member and as a wife of an educator. I hope that the media coverage will help other kids not be bullied (and possibly teach school administrators that this sort of treatment will not be tolerated.)
I’m curious about the bald story. my youngest son is 14 and has alopecia and is balding. We buzz his head where it doesn’t bald on its own. What do they expect children to do?
There are so many things wrong with these stories. It is so sad they way our world handles things these days, but I am a firm believer that these things need to be taught at home and reinforced at school. Schools can’t reinforce values or behaviors that parents find silly or useless, they are already teaching everything else. (not that I agree at all with how these issues were handled) It really is a sad society we find ourselves in.
I totally agree, I am writing an article actually right now about to publish today because I cannot agree with you more about how parents need to parent, not schools parent our youth! Hope you will stop by to read it in about 45 minutes when it’s live!
If you aren’t encouraged to love yourself, then how can you love others? We need to find a balance.
I think the schools are in a hard situation. I feel as though ‘entitlement’ has gotten a little out of control. Egos are big and people seem to think that they are the only ones that matter. I am glad that I do not have to be in charge of making decisions. The schools can’t seem to do things right and it’s ultimately hurting our kids. Teachers aren’t allowed to teach. During the winter the school was blasted for canceling school too often and then when they had school the other side was upset because they didn’t cancel. Teachers are getting in trouble for passing out bad grades when in fact, those were the grades that were earned. I’m not saying at all the 2 instances that you pointed out were right or handled correctly, but we also need to say to the parents who were bullying the boy that they need to step up. Your kids shouldn’t bully. It’s not the schools job to teach that. Moms and Dads need to help teach our kids!
I cannot handle it when parents blame schools for a grade their child got. It drives me batty! My ex boyfriend, the father of my daughter is like that. It is downright ridiculous and frustrates my daughter. My daughter was raised by me to be held accountable for her actions and the grade she gets is the grade she did. Too many want to baby our youth or befriend them — sad sad and not good! Our future generations of adults scare me!
It’s so heart-wrenching when justice gets all screwed up and misaligned. I hadn’t heard about the boy, but how ridiculous of the school, and aww to his little heart. Those things hurt.
I totally agree! I’ve seen so many parents just let the schools do all the disciplining which isn’t enough~! And my poor 4th grade daughter’s entire class gets punished for just a FEW misbehaving kids. They lose their entire recess and that is not fair!
I’m with you. I am SO tired of parents not parenting their children. My daughter is a preschooler and it’s already VERY evident which parents are parenting and which parents expect children to miraculously parent themselves.