I can’t believe it’s September already.. This year has flown by..

If you’re celebrating the start of Ramadan today – may you have a blessed Ramadan Mubarak.

If you’re not, keep this quote from the Qur’an in mind anyway..

“A good word is like a good tree whose root is firmly fixed and whose top is in the sky.”

Remember, a few kind words go a long way. Tell someone you believe in them, and their limits will be endless.

Mighty Oaks From Little Acorns Grow.

There’s a child in my class who very clearly has behavioural problems. He bites, kicks and pushes the other children, and sticks his tongue out at adults when they speak to him. His mother seems to think this is all perfectly normal behaviour, replying with “Oh, haha, boys will be boys!” whenever anyone mentions her son’s behaviour.

He spat at another child today, who came running to me in tears. I called the child who spat over to me, and he immediately screamed and started smacking me as hard as he could. I removed him from the group, and calmly explained that this was not acceptable behaviour, and that he should apologise for spitting at the other child, and for smacking me. Cue long explanation of why we do not spit, and why it is important to say we are sorry when we have done something wrong.. Yada yada yada.

The kid then turns to me, and at full volume screams

“I will spit if I want!”

I said, no, we do not spit, it is dirty and not how good children behave. And then it came.. Full pelt,

“I WILL SPIT IF I WANT, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!!”

Then, he LAUGHED, right in my face!

Firstly, what the fuck? Did I fall out of England straight into USA? Who says ASS?
Secondly, that kid’s mother needs to learn how to parent her little shit of a son. This isn’t a little boy being a boistrous little boy. This is a child with behavioural issues that will severe unless his retarded bitch of a mother takes some responsibility for showing him right from wrong.

The child is a nightmare. There’s absolutely no reasoning with him. But every now and again, you can see a perfectly happy and calm child in him (deep, deep inside.. Somewhere.. Maybe..).

He spent the remainder of the afternoon throwing a full scale tantrum (which was ignored) because he’d been told off for spitting at a child, for using ‘rude words’ and for shouting at a grown up.

And when I told his ‘mother’ (and I use that term loosely.. Just because she gave birth, it doesn’t make her a mother figure..), she smiled and said, “Oh, he’ll have got that from The Simpsons.”

Then, she handed him some sweeties and took him home, as though his behaviour was perfectly acceptable – leaving me open mouthed..

I’d love to kick her ass, irresponsible bitch.

It amuses me really, that the government have forbidden any body of education (schools, nurseries, etc) to (supposedly) ‘label’ children. We can’t use words like, “naughty” or phrases like, “I am cross with you” or “That is bad behaviour”. Instead, we have to say “I am very sad with you”, and “That behaviour is not good”.

There’s too much concern over how to ‘coax’ children into good behaviour through positive sentences and removing priviledges rather than giving punishments. Parents can’t even lightly smack their children, they are frowned upon for raising their voices and using non-positive verbal messages (for example, “You are being naughty” should apparently be phrased as “Please can you show me good behaviour”). And what do we end up with? A bunch of kids who are not afraid to misbehave, who do not even have an incentive to behave well. And a bunch of parents who are afraid to parent their children properly.

When I was preschool age, I wouldn’t have dared to misbehave like that. Why? Because I’d have been given a good old fashioned smacking, told I was a very naughty girl, and then been sent straight to bed.

In my opinion, what this child needs (and what most children need), is some clear discipline. Going to bed without pudding, having his toys taken away, and a very cross voice to tell him that he is being very naughty indeed. He needs an incentive to be good, and something to deter him from behaving badly. Oh, and a mother who isn’t a total dipshit would be preferable too.

To me, virtual/online worlds conjure up images of freedom…

I’ve never participated in a community in Second Life – but after reading about SL in various media articles, I gave in and checked it out.

If I’m going to be brutally honest, it looked horribly boring.. A game without rules and restrictions, or a fancy, pixelated extension of internet chat rooms. Either way, I wasn’t interested in participating. But I was interested in the sociology of Second Life – in how it’s residents interacted and whether this virtual society was impacted by social norms from the ‘real world’.

I carried out a study on the social norms and relationships between people on IRC, four years ago (possibly the only part of my degree that I actually enjoyed..). I’ve been a participating member in various IRC communities for around a decade. The social norms and the general sociology of online communities has fascinated me ever since I first logged into a chatroom and began thinking about how a virtual world was different from the ‘real world’.

I wont flatter myself into thinking that anyone (or many people, anyway!) would be interested in what I think about the ethnology/sociology of Second Life. However, The Bryant Park Project have filmed an interesting video.. It may not be rocket science, but it’s interesting nonetheless – I can practically guarantee will get you thinking (even if you’re adamant that you just don’t care about the sociology of online communities!)

A virtual world is free of social and cultural ties, free of the pressures of conformity, free from the confines of the social norm.. Or so we may imagine. The question is,

Are we ever as free as we think we are?

If you’re interested in this sort of thing – check out The Daedalus Project – The Psychology of MMORPGs.