Monday 11 November 2013

The wrong kind of Christmas box

Recently in the news was a report of a head teacher who was banning the giving out of party invitations at school,  as this meant some children felt excluded if they were not invited. I applauded her decision.

It put me in mind of those post boxes put up in classrooms for the posting of Christmas cards from pupils to each other. How well I remember those dreaded boxes in my own school classroom, with their contents waiting to delight or humiliate; the awful fear that I would be the one with the fewest cards. It mattered not a jot whom the cards came from; it was the number of cards that mattered, for therein lay the measure of one's popularity (or lack of it).

This cruel (and unnecessary) practice is alive and well in some schools even today. Quite recently, a small grandson of mine, an affectionate and sensitive child, was mortified to find that he was the recipient of just one card when the post box was emptied at the end of term.

Isn't it time that this kind of thing was discouraged in schools? Life is quite difficult enough for less popular   children. Let's not make it even harder; especially at Christmas.


20 comments:

  1. Oh, your poor little grandson. I know exactly how it feels, because I was younger than most of my classmates and therefore unpopular in the post-box kind of way.
    Teachers should never inflict that kind of social pressure on children. I would have thought everyone had that figured out by now, but apparently not.
    K

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    1. I agree, Kay. Especially now that there are no longer allowedto be winners and losers at sports days!

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  2. I'll be lucky to get one card.
    After all these years I've got used to it.

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    1. Oh, Adrian...let me know where to send it and ill happily send you a card.

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  3. Well, nowadays kids use facebook etc. to get as many "likes" as possible for a picture or something else they have posted there, and how many "friends" they have there... it's the same trying to prove to themselves and others how "popular" they are, and there are many cases of cyber-mobbing going on, some even as sad and tragic as to resulting in suicide.
    There is apparently something about humans in a group that has a tendency to want some "ranking", whether it makes sense or not. I must admit that I never quite "got" that.

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    1. I agree, Meike. Which is why kids need as few of these opportunities for humiliation as possible!

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  4. We had a delivery of cards on Valentines day... imagine the anguish!

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  5. Mothers' Day is also a nightmare for a child without one. I'll never forget one of my daughter's classmates sobs that day.

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    1. ER, I remember the first Fathers' Day after my husband died, and my then 14-year-old son buying flowers to put on his grave. The messge said "Happy fathers' day, love B xxx". He told me he "didn't know what else to do". It broke my heart.

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  6. Unfortunately children will ALWAYS find ways of discriminating. Red hair, glasses, short, tall, black, brown; almost anything will do. When I was at school it was birthdays. Cakes would be sent from home, and only the favoured invited to partake.... the others felt like outcasts.

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    1. They will indeed, CM, so why add to the opportunities!

      I do hope you had some cake, at least once...?

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  7. In my experience all humans of whatever age have a capacity for unpleasantness towards each other that never ceases to amaze me. Fortunately there are also many who demonstrate the opposite qualities.

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    1. I think children are especially expert at this kind of nastiness, GB, and particuarly good at choosing a moment when no adult is watching. Another grandson has been teased and bullied all his school life, but no-one ever catches the perpetrators at it. He's getting better at dealing with it, but I wish he didn't have to.

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  8. We didn't have that box, but David Capstick used to always be sick on Valentine's Day because he was embarrassed at how FULL of cards his desk got!!

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    1. Oh lucky David Capstick...at least we didn't have Valentine cards.

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  9. We didn't have such a box, Frances, and I don't remember my children's school having them either. But I guess there were other ways of making them feel left out!

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    1. You were fortunate, Rosemary. They were a nightmare.

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