Okay, I'm 42. Let's get that out in the open and over with. I'm not in the target demographic for this website.
I have, however, been a geek since about 1968, alienated while in school, and -that close- to whaling on my tormenters with a baseball bat.
Having read the article here, I forwarded it to all my Elder Geek friends with kids, and my comments, reproduced below:
Since most of us on the list could point to the high school experience and resonate with the term "outsider", and since most of us with kids are probably raising another generation of technogeeks, LARPers, filk-singers, and "demon-possessed" gamers (hey, their label not mine), this will be required reading[1] for you.
Really, I mean it. I believe the #1 thing parents can do to prevent Littleton from happening in their own backyards is: make your kids feel like they are part of a group. Scouts, band, a sports team, a church youth group, it doesn't matter.
Imagine the last awkward social setting you were in. One where you didn't know anybody there, but everyone else knew each other and were talking amongst each other.
Now make "everyone else" 800 kids, who don't have the maturity to know (or care) when they are alienating someone. And now face this situation every day, 180 days a year for four years. That's what high school can be like when you are different.
Find out what a typical day is like for your kid in school, even if it's just lower elementary and not high school. Find out if he or she gets picked on, whether they sit alone at lunch, whether their choice of cloths "fits in". No, you don't have to construct a social life at school for your kid, nor do you have to buy them a whole "popular wardrobe" to ensure they won't get beat up. But take some time to lubricate the wheels of education. Your kid almost certainly won't become a rampaging killer. Neither will mine. But if you don't help them, who will?
Little things we've done to help our guys get through this trying time:
1) found out that everybody in junior high wears plain blue jeans if they wear pants. Green, grey, black all get pointed out as "different". Okay, so blue it is. Likewise, sports team shirts are "in". Our kids could care less. So we found a "Taz" shirt that also glorifies the Dallas Drug-Users, er, Cowboys. Sigh: life is a compromise.
2) taught them that the best way to deal with bullies and name-calling is to be elsewhere. Not walk away when it happens, but not to be there in the first place. The bench out in front of school is the popular hang-out, and where the alpha males show off how well they can reduce other kids to tears? Okay, don't go there.
3) got them both involved in band. Expensive? Yup, excruciatingly so. Inconvenient? Ditto--dragging instruments along on Thanksgiving and Christmas visits is a pain, but the practicing doesn't recognize holidays. Rewarding? Oh, man: band is the only subject in which my son doesn't get specialized instruction, and he's acing it all by himself.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I'm 42. Let's get that out in the open and over with. I'm not in the target demographic for this website.
I have, however, been a geek since about 1968, alienated while in school, and -that close- to whaling on my tormenters with a baseball bat.
Having read the article here, I forwarded it to all my Elder Geek friends with kids, and my comments, reproduced below:
Since most of us on the list could point to the high school experience and resonate with the term "outsider", and since most of us with kids are probably raising another generation of technogeeks, LARPers, filk-singers, and "demon-possessed" gamers (hey, their label not mine), this will be required reading[1] for you.
Really, I mean it. I believe the #1 thing parents can do to prevent Littleton from happening in their own backyards is: make your kids feel like they are part of a group. Scouts, band, a sports
team, a church youth group, it doesn't matter.
Imagine the last awkward social setting you were in. One where you didn't know anybody there, but everyone else knew each other and were talking amongst each other.
Now make "everyone else" 800 kids, who don't have the maturity to know (or care) when they are alienating someone. And now face this situation every day, 180 days a year for four years. That's
what high school can be like when you are different.
Find out what a typical day is like for your kid in school, even if it's just lower elementary and not high school. Find out if he or she gets picked on, whether they sit alone at lunch, whether their choice of cloths "fits in". No, you don't have to construct a social life at school for your kid, nor do you have to buy them a whole "popular wardrobe" to ensure they won't get beat up. But take some time to lubricate the wheels of education. Your kid almost certainly won't become a rampaging killer. Neither
will mine. But if you don't help them, who will?
Little things we've done to help our guys get through this trying time:
1) found out that everybody in junior high wears plain blue jeans if they wear pants. Green, grey, black all get pointed out as "different". Okay, so blue it is. Likewise, sports team shirts
are "in". Our kids could care less. So we found a "Taz" shirt that also glorifies the Dallas Drug-Users, er, Cowboys. Sigh: life is a compromise.
2) taught them that the best way to deal with bullies and name-calling is to be elsewhere. Not walk away when it happens, but not to be there in the first place. The bench out in front of school
is the popular hang-out, and where the alpha males show off how well they can reduce other kids to tears? Okay, don't go there.
3) got them both involved in band. Expensive? Yup, excruciatingly so. Inconvenient? Ditto--dragging instruments along on Thanksgiving
and Christmas visits is a pain, but the practicing doesn't recognize holidays. Rewarding? Oh, man: band is the only subject in which
my son doesn't get specialized instruction, and he's acing it all by himself.