Not ready

It's appalling to learn that so many children starting school nowadays lack all sorts of basic skills and abilities like using the toilet, climbing a staircase, reading books, or even getting dressed.

Their deficiencies are so common that the government is to introduce a checklist of skills that children should possess by the time they start school.

Teachers are increasingly finding that on top of their normal teaching functions they're having to do things like changing nappies and helping children up the stairs - things parents should have taken care of long before start of school.

As I recall from my early schooldays, there weren't any children who lacked such basic skills. It would have been totally shocking if they had. My mother obviously had a very clear idea of what school readiness meant, and would have been mortified if I'd turned up at school in nappies.

It seems a lot of young children are simply not getting enough exercise and not using their muscles enough to strengthen them because they spend so much time looking at screens.

While nine out of ten parents considered their child ready for school, teachers said one in three children weren't. Some parental education is plainly much needed.

Everybody does it

I was shocked to read of an Irish school where manipul-ative, controlling, pressurising relation-ships are so common the students think they're normal. They have no idea relationships are meant to be about equality, respect and kindness.

The majority of 200 students questioned about their relationships at a school in Tralee, Ireland, reported being constantly "told what to do, who to talk to, who to block, who to spend time with, and what to wear". The students said the behaviour upset them but "everybody does it".

I think back to my own time at school, and I can't remember anything remotely like that. Yes, there was a bit of bullying at my boarding school, usually just making fun of someone, but nothing as toxic as what these students are describing.

Social media is partly to blame, I'm sure. It's become so common now for people to criticise other people, and anonymity means they can be as abusive and threatening as they wish with no comeback. So abusive and threatening comments are normalised as routine behaviour.

Lack of self-confidence must come into it as well. If young people don't have the confidence to follow their own instincts, resist coercion and tell the person concerned to get lost, then things can only get worse.

It seems that today's students need lessons not just on what is and what isn't sexual consent, but also on what a normal relationship consists of - caring and affectionate behaviour that respects the other person's needs and wellbeing. It's extraordinary that anyone needs to be reminded of such things.

PS: I see that in England, the Department for Education has introduced a compulsory Sex and Relationships Education curriculum in all schools, focusing on relationships in primary schools and sex and relationships in secondaries.

Good riddance

It's a great relief that my advanced age means all the awkward and embarr-assing things I had to do as a youngster are now well behind me and I'll never be subjected to them again. To name but a few:

• Obeying my parents. Or furtively disobeying them, doing what I wanted to do anyway and making sure they didn't find out.
• Dating. All those nerve-racking encounters with complete strangers, all those clumsy conversations and inept questioning.
• Losing my virginity. All in all a rather gauche and fumbling experience, trying not to make a complete fool of myself.
• Trying to look handsome/dashing/virile etc. Nowadays my only aim is to be not quite as wrinkled and flabby as other seventy somethings.
• My first day at school. I've forgotten it, but it must have been quite an ordeal for a young boy who wasn't sure what to expect.
• My first day at work. Wondering what I was supposed to be doing and almost suffocating in the dense cigarette smoke.
• Going on strike. Necessary as it was, other people's lack of interest in our grievances was disconcerting.
• Getting on the property ladder. Desperately trying to get enough money together to buy a flat and escape greedy landlords.
• Learning to drive. Always scared I would do something wrong and smash into a line of very expensive parked cars.
• Playing football/cricket/rugby. As I was obliged to do at school, utterly indifferent to all of them and hating every minute.

Who'd want to be young again? Who'd want to go through all those things a second time? Not me, for sure.

Bullying

We've all been bullied at one time or another, though we don't like to admit it because there's still a tendency to blame the victim - they somehow invited it, or they should have done more to resist.

I was bullied on and off for four years at the dreadful boarding school my innocent parents sent me to. I just didn't fit in with the aggressively masculine culture of the other boys - based around sport, snooker, sexual prowess and status-seeking - and they showed their disapproval by ostracising me, taunting me and hiding my possessions. What particularly galled me was the sight of the bullies trooping into chapel every Sunday and professing to be generous, compassionate Christians.

To this day I can't explain why I didn't fight back or simply run away from school. I somehow felt there was no alternative and I just had to struggle through it and not show them they were getting to me.

When I worked at a bookshop a few years ago, a new manager turned out to be a systematic bully who pushed all the staff to work harder and faster and watched us all like a hawk, ready to pounce the moment we slowed down or started to chat. Fortunately we were all union members so we could put up enough collective resistance to keep the pressure at bearable levels, but what had been an enjoyable, easygoing workplace rapidly became a seething morass of resentment and hostility. When the manager's house was burgled one day, we couldn't help letting out a collective whoop of joy, such was our thirst for revenge.

So again, why did I stay there and not instantly hand in my notice? I think because despite the way the staff were treated, we all got on famously and we were loathe to move on in case we jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

But it's still alarmingly common for the victims of bullies to be told it's somehow their fault. Women subject to merciless sexism are told they can't take a joke or are too over-sensitive. Boys picked on by other boys are told they should toughen up and brazen it out. Seldom are the bullies themselves confronted and told they should grow up and treat others with respect. And line managers who should be intervening turn a blind eye and pretend nothing's happening.

Despite all the anti-bullying declarations popping up in every organisation like spring daffodils, the reality has hardly changed and there are still an awful lot of people living miserable lives because of the continuing assumption that bullying is nothing more than the rough and tumble of everyday life. What are you making such a fuss about? For God's sake, just get a grip!

PS: Have a look at this excellent piece on bullying and the massacre at Virginia Tech in America by a Canadian blogger.