I am an air cadet, and have been for three years. My sister has been a cadet for one and a half. She comes home crying a lot after cadets, and I am worried that it will begin to interfere with her daily life. She is quite emotional and is always worrying about something. Recently, there have been a number of incidents involving her being upset. I will show you what they are in chronological order.
Incident 1
An incident occurred in which I was made to feel slow and stupid. She is very over protective and sent a message to one of the cadet corporals. She had not told me of this until after she had sent the message. The message basically detailed how she felt about their treatment of me. She sent this message over Snapchat. After she sent the message she asked me to back her up, and as I am up for promotion and going to an NCO weekend soon, I didn’t want to get involved. I foolishly didn’t back her up. She feels that she was made to look like an idiot, and the cadet corporal I mentioned now constantly talks about how he got an angry message.
Incident 2
The cadet NCO team was very mean to her, and said how they would like her to stop back chatting the NCOs, and she doesn’t. I am around her a lot at cadets and she doesn’t. However there is another cadet who always does, and he cheeks them and as he is their favourite for promotion, (they always talk about how they want him to get promoted) he never gets spoken to. My sister was cheeky once as a joke in a relaxed environment and they didn’t say anything to het, possibly because the pilot officer was with them. However after this incident at the end of the night they spoke to her, and talked loudly amongst themselves about her, within her hearing range. They told her to stop back chatting the NCOs, and this made her very upset. She barely spoke for the rest of the evening and when she came home she started crying and was talking about howuch she wanted to leave and how all the NCOs hated her.
I am her older brother and I hate to see her upset. I was wondering if there was anything in the regulations against this sort of behaviour by the NCOs? If there is it would help a great deal of you could tell me. I was told by the one nice corporal in our squadron about how there might be a rule against bringing stuff that occurred over social media into cadets, however he might be wrong.
It would be really nice if I could get some replies, and maybe some supportive comments as she is going through a hard time and I could show them to her.
I would suggest speaking with your OC about this, they should be willing to listen. Have you considered getting your parents involved? There is a code of conduct for cadets and many squadrons have implemented a Anti Bullying Charter/agreement, is this something your sqn has? I hope things are sorted soon for you and that my advice helps.
Screenshots help if they are saying nasty things via social media - this is proof and is against the Code of Conduct regardless of if done in or outside of cadets. Be prepared for tit for tat though so if you’ve fired anything back at them - or your sister - they can use it too. I send a copy home with all new cadets for parents to read - and have regular refreshers on it - its important. NCO’s should know better than to try and deal with any situation like this by themselves it will only end in trouble for all concerned. Go and talk to your OC, express your concerns politely and provide evidence where possible. Do give them the opportunity to put things right but also inform your parents - they have a right to know.
The ATC operates a zero tolerance policy on bullying - and without knowing the finer details this may classify as that. But let your Boss do their job - if they don’t get your parents to take it further with your Wing Exo.
Hi, thanks for replying so soon, I think at the end of the day, it’s not my decision but I will suggest taking to the OC to my sister, he’s a great boss and I’m sure he would listen. Our parents know what’s going on, but they have left it up to my sister on what to do. They don’t agree with the NCOs and the way they treat her, but they won’t get involved unless my sister wants them to. I don’t know if it counts as bullying, and I’m unsure if the squadron has an official agreement on bullying, but I know inter cadet relationships aren’t allowed, so naturally I would assume bullying wasn’t allowed also. Thanks for your time and goodnight.
Definitely speak to your OC. There is always two sides to a story but from what you’ve said it definitely seems like bullying and if not it is at least behaviour I wouldn’t expect from NCOs. How old are you and your sister if you don’t mind me asking?
(I’m interested on the “inter cadet” relationships not being allowed… but I won’t get off topic)
Thank you for replying so soon, I will ask my sister and we will probably speak to the OC on Thursday, thanks for the advice. My parents already know and my mother strongly disagrees with the way the NCOs act. She thinks it’s childish and will support us.
I will speak to the OC next parade night, it could be that they just took things a bit too far and didn’t know how she felt about this sort of thing, but she is quite sensitive and cares about what other people think of her, so I understand about there being two sides to every story. My sister is 14, 15 in April, and I am 15, 16 in November.
About the inter cadet relationships topic, it’s just not allowed. Cadets cannot date each other, period. That’s what we get told when we join. It could be that cadets cannot show affection towards each other on site, but no one has ever gotten into a relationship with each other in all the time I have been at cadets, so I don’t know. Isn’t that the same in all squadrons?
Because the culture has made them so incredibly risk averse that the easiest thing for them to do is avoid all risk by stopping absolutely anything they have a semblance of control over.
I don’t know about risk averse, more like dogmatic control freak who’s own life is so absolutely meaningless and probably hen pecked, if he’s allowed himself to have a relationship and get married. The side is someone who can’t get any female company in his personal life and doesn’t want anyone else to.
How can you control people having relationships?
If he had cadets who did, he would have to kick them out no debate, if this rule was have any meaning,. Imagine the response from a parent if their son and daughter came home and said they’d been kicked out and the reason why.
I knew a CO from the very early days of girls in the ATC who didn’t like the idea, but didn’t stop it.
What would people’s reactions be if their son/daughter joined a group and the person in charge said no one is allowed to have a relationship with another member of the group? I’d wonder if they were normal.
On the OP it’s bloody social media again. When will people start to understand social media is Pandora’s Box. How much of this thread stems from social media? I tend to agree with some of what @spicester says.
Yes people have invented rules to say what people can and cannot do, but at the end of the day, it’s written and if the Cpl in this case thinks he’s had an angry message, he has had an angry message and the person writing the message is as culpable as the recipient.
When it comes to something not written, if presented with it at the squadron it’s one person’s word against another.
There is also the side that if someone doesn’t like you as irrational as it might be that’s life.
I just think being confronted with something said in writing can a lot of the times go a long way towards defusing situations before they become very serious. I always attempt some form of mediation and a bit of common sense before going down the disciplinary route - if possible. We have had our fair share of incidents of social media name calling etc. Its more about education and helping them realise once its on the internet its there forever - even snap chat etc. What I don’t agree with is invented rules - not just relating to this kind of subject but everything we do within the organisation. Cadet relationships - will always happen, have always happened and anyone who tries to stop it is doomed to failure. Now an over 18 cadet and someone under age is clearly a different matter - both morally and legally.