Boy taken to court for not inviting classmates to birthday party.

[SweetPrettyAss]

How does that sit with the Freedom of Association rights?

If you are referring to the US Constitution, that does not apply in Sweden, or any other foreign country. I am sure that Sweden has its own equivalent.

 

[Guest]

Don't give up.

We need all the hero's we can find.



-KC

Kisses all over you, Uncle.

I'm too stubborn to give up easily.

Besides, my own children have quite a few of those labels. And so do I.

So when a parent starts in on how I should give special treatment to their child because they are ADHD, for example, I always just grin.

So am I, I say. So is my husband. So are our children.

Shuts them right up.

 

[keeblercrumb]

Kisses all over you, Uncle.

I'm too stubborn to give up easily.

Besides, my own children have quite a few of those labels. And so do I.

So when a parent starts in on how I should give special treatment to their child because they are ADHD, for example, I always just grin.

So am I, I say. So is my husband. So are our children.

Shuts them right up.

I'm sorry.... what were you saying?



-KC

 

[Guest]

I'm sorry.... what were you saying?



-KC

Look, a duck!

 

[SlickTony]

Leaving out the actual case in Sweden, which if I'm not mistaken pertains to whether a kid's property is his property and whether the school has a right to go confiscating it, I think the original intent of the schools' anti-exclusion policity must have been a response to the "Heather" type handing out invites in such a manner that the less popular kids, whom she deliberately left out, didn't have their noses rubbed in it.

The fact that the rule might also cover the guy who left out the bullies who beat him up and stole his lunch and backpack on a daily basis, is an unintended consequence.

I have a theory that there must have been times when Bill Gates was stuffed into his own locker and had his glasses thumb-rubbed. The consequence: Vista has been let loose on the world and eventually we'll all be forced to use it.

 

[Guest]

Leaving out the actual case in Sweden, which if I'm not mistaken pertains to whether a kid's property is his property and whether the school has a right to go confiscating it, I think the original intent of the schools' anti-exclusion policity must have been a response to the "Heather" type handing out invites in such a manner that the less popular kids, whom she deliberately left out, didn't have their noses rubbed in it.

The fact that the rule might also cover the guy who left out the bullies to beat him up and stole his lunch and backpack on a daily basis, is an unintended consequence.

I have a theory that there must have been times when Bill Gates was stuffed into his own locker and had his glasses thumb-rubbed. The consequence: Vista has been let loose on the world and eventually we'll all be forced to use it.

Nerds will rule the world.

 

[Emperor_Nero]

Nerds will rule the world.

Will

Have you looked at world leaders lately

 

[Guest]

Will

Have you looked at world leaders lately

It's the mantra of my daughter and her geek friends, actually.

I am happy for them. Perhaps they'll earn more money than we do and can support us in our old age.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

People, for the record, the rule about handing out party invitations in school is generally the same all over the U.S., and apparantly in Europe too. It's not like this rule is all that shocking or new. Dad overreacted, yes, and personally I don't think he has the right to take anyone to court. He definitely should have thought ahead. Why the hell would you let your child hand out invitations to a party when you KNOW that there are two that specifically were not invited??? That's just stupid parenting. It's not like it takes that much longer to glue a stamp to the envelope and stick it in the mail.

 

[starrkers]

No effect. School doesn't say you can't do it, you just can't do it at their location on their time.

It's similar to you telling one of your children's visiting friends that you don't care if that's what they do at home, you just can't do it here.

Thanks, Nero, Makes perfect sense. That question was the final brain fart of the evening before choofing off to bed.

If you are referring to the US Constitution, that does not apply in Sweden, or any other foreign country. I am sure that Sweden has its own equivalent.

Why would I be referring to Sweden when i specifically quoted Sarahh's post?

People, for the record, the rule about handing out party invitations in school is generally the same all over the U.S., and apparantly in Europe too. It's not like this rule is all that shocking or new. Dad overreacted, yes, and personally I don't think he has the right to take anyone to court. He definitely should have thought ahead. Why the hell would you let your child hand out invitations to a party when you KNOW that there are two that specifically were not invited??? That's just stupid parenting. It's not like it takes that much longer to glue a stamp to the envelope and stick it in the mail.

I don't think it's "stupid parenting" at all. I think it's stupid to expect everyone to be invited. There are always kids who do not get on with each other, it's human nature.

There is no way I want the kids that make my child's life a living hell at every opportunity to come to a party, or the know it all that drives everyone up the wall.

My kids don't get invited to all the parties, I think there's only been one party where the entire class was invited. No one expects it, and the kids know parties are for closest friends usually.

Policies that ignore human nature and try to force social situations don't work. I wonder how many all-class invitations also have "I had to invite you, but you can't come" corollaries in the school yard? And that's worse than not getting invited in the first place.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Nerds will rule the world.

Reminds me of story long ago from the elite Northwestern University, a Big 10 school with famously mediocre sports teams. The football squad was being pounded by the bruisers from some no-nothing party school, and the smarter-than-average NU students were chanting:

"That's alright, that's OK,
We're gonna be your boss some day."

 

[Guest]

Reminds me of story long ago from the elite Northwestern University, a Big 10 school with famously mediocre sports teams. The football squad was being pounded by the bruisers from some no-nothing party school, and the smarter-than-average NU students were chanting:

"That's alright, that's OK,
We're gonna be your boss some day."

Some of my high school students chanted once:

M-I-T, P h D
M - O - N - E - Y!

 

[OLDERNWISER]

.....

 

[Guest]

As gifted/ADHD (and ours are both Asperger's too) kids mature, they learn coping skills to "fit in" better.

Not dumbing down skills, just adaptation and camouflage skills.

I feel for you and for your son.

It will get easier as he gets older.

 

[SlickTony]

As gifted/ADHD (and ours are both Asperger's too) kids mature, they learn coping skills to "fit in" better.

Not dumbing down skills, just adaptation and camouflage skills.

I feel for you and for your son.

It will get easier as he gets older.

Hey, sarahh, I didn't know you had Asperger kids. I've got one. And they do learn coping skills.

My boy had a horrible time in elementary school, and not that much better middle school. Then I got him into a small private school on a McKay scholarship, and he blossomed. He's quite active in his church youth group and graduated HS with pretty decent grades this spring. He's fixing to start at community college later on in the summer. He has a buttload of friends--he's become quite the social butterfly, both on line and in me*******. He has an on-line girlfriend, who as far as I've been able to find out, is quite smart and physically a somewhat zaftig Lisa Loeb type, and he thinks he is bound to be loyal to her, so there's nobody he's seeing locally. His dad thinks he ought to look around the local landscape, but I figure if this is what he can handle emotionally right now, so be it. Nobody ever got an STD or an adjudication of paternity from an on-line GF. A $500 T-Mobile bill, yes.

 

[SlickTony]

Now this is weird. I wrote the word "me*******" in my post above, and it turned out like that. Was it because I added it to my Google Spellcheck Dictionary?

The word was m-e-a-t-s-p-a-c-e.

 

[Guest]

Hey, sarahh, I didn't know you had Asperger kids. I've got one. And they do learn coping skills.

My boy had a horrible time in elementary school, and not that much better middle school. Then I got him into a small private school on a McKay scholarship, and he blossomed. He's quite active in his church youth group and graduated HS with pretty decent grades this spring. He's fixing to start at community college later on in the summer. He has a buttload of friends--he's become quite the social butterfly, both on line and in me*******. He has an on-line girlfriend, who as far as I've been able to find out, is quite smart and physically a somewhat zaftig Lisa Loeb type, and he thinks he is bound to be loyal to her, so there's nobody he's seeing locally. His dad thinks he ought to look around the local landscape, but I figure if this is what he can handle emotionally right now, so be it. Nobody ever got an STD or an adjudication of paternity from an on-line GF. A $500 T-Mobile bill, yes.

Laughing about the m-e-a-t-s-p-a-c-e!

Yes, Asperger's. It's a blessing and a curse, yes?

Thank the gods for online time, they both love their computers and they do excel academically. Socially things are improving every year.

Late bloomers, they'll be. But I was, too.

Glad to hear that your son has come through it all with flying colors!

 

[rengadeirishman]

I think kids are coddled WAY too much. God forbid they ever feel left out or excluded. The fact is that life can be hard and you do your child no favors with all this nonsense. I was often excluded, especially when i was younger, and i've turned out just fine.

All we're doing is growing weak-willed and ineffectual people.

and remember, if everyone is special then no one is.

 

[SlickTony]

My son will be entering high school in the fall. We are waiting to see how he did on the AP calculus exam – which he took this spring. He has mellowed a lot. He does not have very many friends, and I still don’t know if he is straight or gay. I think the kids in high school will be more accepting of him, and he will be more secure in himself. I hope.

If he's entering a conventional high school, I wouldn't bet the farm on his getting along any better in it. The HS my son would have entered was a huge "student factory" with a bad reputation. (Its name was Sandalwood and the local nickname for it was "Scandalweed.") Fighting, etc.--true, he has a 2nd degree black belt in Taekwondo, but that doesn't mean I expected him to have to be using it all the time. Remember High School Confidential. Remember Carrie. If you have a chance to get him into a more nurturing environment, I think you ought to look into it.

Yes, Asperger's. It's a blessing and a curse, yes?

It runs in our family.

Some of my characters are diagnosable--stories about them got responses from people who were either Asperger people or knew them. I didn't come out and say they had it, because the stories about them were set in a time when nobody knew from Asperger's and any kind of autism-spectrum diagnosis possibly meant institutionalization. I am convinced that there were a lot of parents who took their smart but extremely odd kids in for psych evaluations and as soon as the A-word was uttered, promptly buried the report and never alluded to it or followed up on it again.

 

[OLDERNWISER]

.....

 

[slyc_willie]

As gifted/ADHD (and ours are both Asperger's too) kids mature, they learn coping skills to "fit in" better.

Not dumbing down skills, just adaptation and camouflage skills.

I feel for you and for your son.

It will get easier as he gets older.

Growing up with Tourette's Syndrome, I know what that's like. I spent years enduring no end of taunts and finger-pointing because I made funny faces and had a tendency to touch myself inappropriately (some thigns never change ). But I learned to adapt, and more to the point, cope. I figured out that the thigns I was doing as a Touretter weren't uncontrollable. And even more important than that, my real friends accepted and were patient with me.

All of which, of course, helped to turn me into the well-adjusted exhibitionistic smut writer I am today.

 

[3113]

Missing the Point

2. The one being investigated is not the kid, but the school. And not the "invite all" rule per se. The kid was was ignorant of those or didn't care, whatever. What the ombudsman is looking into is whether the school had the right to confiscate his invitiations, or if private letters are private, even though they were delivered on school grounds. We Swedes can be pretty vigilant about private integrity sometimes.

I think this is important. I don't mind that this thread has become a discussion about inviting all or none or invites at school--but you are all missing the point here. This was not about "You must invite all" or even "No invites at school" this was about handing out private letters. The school didn't know what was in those envelopes. The kid might say "Invites" but how is the school to know? And why take the kid's word for it? He could have been handing out hate mail, or threats; the "invites" could have been blackmail photos (pay up or this goes on the internet!) or test answers to help the class to cheat on a test.

THAT is what this is about. Did the school have a right to take those invites and look at them or not? They may well have returned them after opening them and allowed the kid to give them out. This has NOTHING to do with invites. Nothing at all with a kid who may or may not have wanted to invite everyone in his class to a party.

It only has to do with whether those letters are his private property (that he can hold onto and hand out or not at school) or whether they are the school's property while on school grounds.

 

[slyc_willie]

Not sure I agree with you, 3 . . .

The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.

The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination.

The boy's father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman.

He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.

The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated.

"My son has taken it pretty hard," the boy's father told the newspaper Sydsvenskan.

"No one has the right to confiscate someone's property in this way, it's like taking someone's post," he added.

A verdict on the matter is likely to be reached in September, in time for the next school year.

What I get from this is an initial declaration of discrimination. Not about whether or not a child can distribute invitations, but to whom the child can hand them out.

 

[starrkers]

Apparently, Slyc, that initial report is incorrect. Liar offered corrected info.

The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.

There is no provision for complaint to the Parliament.

 

[slyc_willie]

Apparently, Slyc, that initial report is incorrect. Liar offered corrected info.

There is no provision for complaint to the Parliament.

Well, then, damn me for trusting the media.

As I said, I came into the discussion at a point that piqued my interest, then went back to the first post.

Off to read the rest of the responses, I suppose.