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Boys are to blame

Filed under: General — Downunder @ 7:14 am Tue 6th January 2015

Now this is an article that will rock your socks.

He said schools were constantly having to keep on top of new technologies and seek clarification from police when images being shared involved students under the age of 16.

Of course you’ll remember a few years back the last labour government wanting to lower the age of consent to 13 years of age.

“We’re at the point where principals are proposing that parents be prosecuted for parental negligence when they’re aware of the inappropriate and sexual behaviour going on with their children online, yet choose to do nothing about it.”


I’ve copied the article in full below, it’s mind blowing stuff.

School leaders are blaming social media and a lack of parental supervision for the increasing numbers of primary school children being stood down from school for sexual misconduct.

Stand-downs for sexual misconduct in primary schools rose 31 per cent from 2000 to 2013, and in secondary schools they rose 21 per cent, Ministry of Education figures show.

Former Secondary Principals’ Association president Patrick Walsh says the way young boys treat girls, objectifying and sexualising them, has taken “a great leap backwards”.

“It’s a disturbing trend and it’s starting in primary schools.”

Primary school stand-downs for sexual misconduct had gone from 44 incidents in 2000 to 58 last year. Walsh said schools were not resourced to deal with the range of issues the advent of social media had brought on them.

“We’re at the point where principals are proposing that parents be prosecuted for parental negligence when they’re aware of the inappropriate and sexual behaviour going on with their children online, yet choose to do nothing about it.”

He said one North Island school was shocked late last year when a group of boys took a photo of themselves with a group of heavily intoxicated girls who had their genitals exposed.

“It’s difficult to understand the mentality of the boys doing it, but when the school found out and spoke with the parents of the boys who took the pictures, they were not even concerned the images had been shared on social media. Instead, they just accept it as normal behaviour for teenagers.”

He said schools were constantly having to keep on top of new technologies and seek clarification from police when images being shared involved students under the age of 16.

“It’s murky and bordering on sharing child pornography.”

Walsh wants the ministry to undertake consultation with schools to measure how big the problem is and resource those schools needing assistance.

A recent review of sex education guidelines had not gone far enough to deal with schools’ concerns around social media and the role it played in teenagers’ lives, he said.

Hastings Intermediate School principal Andrew Shortcliffe said some parents’ response to sexual misconduct incidents included excuses of being too busy to deal with it, it not being a school matter or “it’s just kids being kids”.

“In those cases I understand exactly what [Walsh] is saying about parental negligence.”

Shortcliffe said in the past five to 10 years sexual misconduct had become more prevalent in primary and intermediate schools. “Kids are exposed to things that possibly parents don’t even know about. Unless parents are actively monitoring things like Facebook and Snapchat, they’d have no idea what is going on.”

The onus was put on schools to deal with it as there was little support from other organisations, he said.

“The reality is victims of this are only a short step away from youth suicide but we don’t have the health sector working with us on it.”

Although Facebook required account holders to be at least 13 years old, Shortcliffe said most 10 and 11-year-olds found a way around the restriction, and arrived at intermediate school with an account. Pupils even younger were also engaging with it.

“There’s been instances where the police have turned up at schools aware of intermediate students communicating with 17 and 18-year-olds on social media and the school and parents aren’t aware. The police consider that to be sexual grooming.”

The Dominion Post

6 Comments »

  1. Yes, the trend towards punishing parents for their teenagers’ behaviour has been building exactly as parental rights to discipline children are being removed. Many parents now would be afraid to confront their teenagers and even younger children about behaviour of concern because they are likely to receive a hostile, offensive response, they will feel powerless to enforce boundaries, and they may well face CYFS or other authorities when their children complain they are being mistreated.

    So what might parents do if they find their teenagers engaging in bad behaviour, perhaps the kind of behaviour that Former Secondary Principals’ Association president Patrick Walsh is worried about? Parents could lecture their teenagers about the behaviour, which is likely to be useful in the long term as the executive frontal lobe functioning of the teenager develops with maturity. However, immediate and short term responses are likely to involve feedback ranging from “You don’t understand modern teenagers” to “All my friends do this stuff” to “Stop spying on my Facebook” to “Fuck off, you can’t control me”. So then the parents could ‘discipline’ under the current feminist-based rules. They could ‘ground’ the teenagers, but the teenagers may not agree to be grounded and no force is legally permitted to ensure the grounding happens. Locking the teen in his/her room is likely to lead to charges against the parent for illegal imprisonment. What will the parents do when the teenager simply walks out or climbs out the window? The parents could withhold pocket money, remove mobile phones, tablets etc but ongoing consequences of that nature will simply damage the parent-child relationship. The parents could refuse to let the teen borrow the car but friends will have a faster car the teen can then get picked up in. The parents could remove internet but the teens will just go to their mates’ place to hang out, and the parents will then also suffer the inconvenience of having no internet going at home. The parents could go to the authorities but narking on your own child may lead to permanent loss of trust and relationship. Yet parents are left with little option but to rely increasingly on agents of the state in raising their children, those agents of the state being the only ones who are now allowed to use force in the process of child behaviour management.

    All of these issues will be ten times more difficult for the many fathers discarded from their family who look forward to their every-second-weekend opportunity to try to maintain some bonding with their children.

    It’s unclear what Patrick Walsh wants exactly. Will some reasonable efforts by parents to address inappropriate behaviour be sufficient legal defence against prosecution, or will the law require parents to inform CYFS or police? The latter course of action is likely to involve even more blame, threat and stress for the parents than if they were simply prosecuted for not controlling their teens!

    In addition to banning male methods and wisdom in the raising of children, the issue of blaming the boys when both boys and girls behave in disinhibited fashion after drinking alcohol (and isn’t self-disihinbition the aim of drinking?) is another facet of feminist reasoning. This ongoing portrayal of males being responsible for women’s behaviour is just another example showing that equality is not really of interest to feminists.

    Comment by Man X Norton — Tue 6th January 2015 @ 10:03 am

  2. I’m confused. If I am a 17yo boy, who gets drunk, and I’m with 17yo girls who get drunk, I’m responsible not only for my own actions, but also theirs, and they’re not responsible even for themselves?
    If they end up stripping down, and maybe even having sex, they can wake up and say ‘I was drunk, and therefore taken advantage of; I didn’t consent or know fully what was happening’; but me as a boy, I cannot use the same lines? I am always expected to be fully in control, consciously cognitive at all times and can always make the ‘yes’ decision for myself; and bear not only the consequences of my own decisions, but also of the drunk girls who can never consent or bear responsibility for their own sexual activity, when equally drunk?
    Stop the world! I want to get off.

    Comment by OMG! You're *&(^&%$%* — Tue 6th January 2015 @ 10:37 am

  3. Very interesting. I have known of a boy [17/18] sending a photo of his genitals and that photo making its rounds on the social media [this was some 6 years ago]. A more recent case involved a girl [15] sending a nude shower photo/video of herself to a boy of the same age. The boy sent the photo on. The girl wished to attract the attention of the boy. CYF became involved and tried to blame the boy it was only when the father of the boy pointed out that the girl had committed the first offence that CYF withdrew. Another case involved the consensual intercourse between two 15 year olds and who got the blame?. There have been occasions when 50% of the female intake at year 9 [6 years ago] had been sexually active according to rumour. Yet back in the 1950s playing “doctors and nurses” did involved detailed examination of body parts. Conclusion both sexes do indulge in some sort of sexual activity which may be against the law and sometimes involves both homosexual or heterosexual playing around. I really do not think that this activity can be controlled by teachers nor is the law breaking confined to one sex.

    Comment by Andreas — Tue 6th January 2015 @ 11:44 am

  4. Thanks Man X Norton for starting the conversation.

    My head just went into overdrive when I read the above article this morning, and it’s still reeling.

    Little old NZ is getting to be a really screwed up little country.

    There’s so many things that need to be talked about here, but I’m not sure which is more important and where to start.

    I hope a few people more get into this conversation.

    Comment by Downunder — Tue 6th January 2015 @ 5:31 pm

  5. Man X Norton has HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD with his whole write up. Us men/boys are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. We are always wrong. F— political correctness.

    Comment by Brian — Tue 6th January 2015 @ 5:44 pm

  6. All tyrannical governments and despots have used children to gain power over their populations. Only sheeple would have fallen for it and only cowards stand idle while it is being done to us.

    Comment by phil watts — Wed 7th January 2015 @ 6:22 am

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