An introverted kid is likely to either kill himself or to kill the attackers. Both scenarios had occurred in recent memory.
Children are, by law, a kind of property; they are not entirely humans, as it appears. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not apply to them. Read through it, pretty much every Article is violated when we deal with children. Parents (and schools) can't beat or kill them, but pretty much everything else is OK. Children are told to go there and to do this, but rarely they are listened to, and their complaints are often ignored. This is very dangerous because the society of children is not much different from a wolf pack. Adults are happy to ignore the infighting, telling themselves that "all kids play like that."
Even adults go postal from time to time, when they are unable to otherwise defend themselves or extricate themselves from the situation. Adults have ways to do that; the simplest is to advise your boss that he can have that job and shove it, and then walk out. That's really all that it takes. If you feel the need to leave town - by all means, it's not particularly difficult.
Those options are not available to children. They are told to go to a certain place and be tortured by sadists, day after day after day. Would you, an adult, agree to that? What would you call it when you are forced to go to a plantation school and not just work but also suffer there, with no recourse? What's the difference between a child and a slave? Just the degree of how hard the labor is? Note that children are far more vicious than a group of adults. They may not understand it, but it doesn't change the fact.
If complaints are ignored then anyone, be it a child or an adult, will realize that the torture is not going to stop any time soon. What can a child do? Escaping is not really an option, a 12 y/o kid these days cannot get a job - "for his own good," of course. Children, being immature, can easily jump to conclusions - and they do.
Children are also very sensitive to unfair punishments. They are not cynical enough yet and they don't know the rules of revenge. (Some do, like those two from Columbine.) School's "zero tolerance" rules punish the victim. Many an adult would see red if that is done to him. A child? Nobody knows, and make sure he has no access to anything dangerous.
There could be many good ways to deal with this problem. But adults don't seem to be interested in them. Schools don't care, they have their own marching orders. Parents are often careless. Logically, the best solution would be to allow a child to take control of his life by giving him either the legal status of an adult or at least allowing him to make necessary decisions about his specific situation - with judge's participation, perhaps. When none of that happens the kid, being neither protected nor wanted, sees no other option but to end his life.
“Logically, the best solution would be to allow a child to take control of his life by giving him either the legal status of an adult or at least allowing him to make necessary decisions about his specific situation - with judge’s participation, perhaps. When none of that happens the kid, being neither protected nor wanted, sees no other option but to end his life.”
You label this nonsense ‘logic’. Wow. Your own apparent inability to see the pure sillyness in your ‘logic’ may be an indication of the trouble the Culture is in.
To make matters worse far worse, the parents play mind games with the kid. They tell him:
— “This is normal.”
— “These are the best days of your life.’
— “It's good for you. It will help you learn to deal with the real world.”
— “ We love you so much.” ( That is the cruelest mind game of all.)
Actions that an adult could take to court and win millions from their employer and have the perpetrator charged with a felony are **tolerated** by parents and our collectivist schools.
In the real world an adult can quit his job, move, and get police and court action. In the prison-like world of children they must learn prison survival skills, and form protection gangs ( cliques). Nearly all the social skills learned in school must be **unlearned** if the adult is to have any success in work, marriage, and the community. Thankfully, humans are resilient and most of us make the transition. Sadly, some do not.
To many, school is like falling down the rabbit hole and wandering around in Wonderland. For many it takes many years of adult living before they can climb back out of that rabbit hole and begin to see things clearly. Their parents **knew** school was hell hole, and they did nothing about it.
-——Those options are not available to children. They are told to go to a certain place and be tortured by sadists, day after day after day. Would you, an adult, agree to that? What would you call it when you are forced to go to a plantation school and not just work but also suffer there, with no recourse? What’s the difference between a child and a slave? Just the degree of how hard the labor is? Note that children are far more vicious than a group of adults. They may not understand it, but it doesn’t change the fact.-——
Preach it!
Can’t say that going to a UN declaration in looking how to treat children isn’t jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. It makes certain other normal things impossible such as religious teaching (I’m not speaking of extremism like violent Islamic jihads either). The American ideal sooner gives families the right to be wrong in teaching children about God than to foment a situation where God is utterly ignored by the young generation. Also since even the UN considers children incompetent up to a certain age, it’s not a matter of whether children WILL be drilled, but WHAT will they be drilled in. The UN answer isn’t always pretty, with its gay advocacy and whatnot.
Children used to be an avocation of parents, as much as their professional work might be. Now children seem to be afterthoughts.