I don't believe children in the 23rd century would do that. Like, in the present day, if I made a paper plane that didn't fly properly, someone might say "I can make my plane better than yours". But someone with more evolved sensibilities might say "Your center of gravity is off, and your wing tips need to be further back". Even children in the 23rd century don't do "I can run faster than you" or "My dad could lick your dad".
Most people aren't familiar with mechanistic science or how behavior is influenced by the environment.
For that matter, even Trek writers make the same mistake.
The UFP is supposed to be sort of equivalent to RBE/TVP as proposed by Jacke Fresco, but I'd say they are closer to still being somewhat 'stuck' in the 'transitional' stage and hadn't gone full RBE (since Trek portrayed UFP as still having people in power and prisons).
Rodenberry was exposed to J.F. and RBE concepts but Trek never fully fleshed it out (and, because Trek is written by different writers, not all are familiar with those concepts or behavior arises).
Also I agree that kids in the 23rd (or even late 22nd century) would NOT be harrassing other kids.
The notion that 'kids are 'kids' or that 'greed is a product of being human' is just nonsensical, and not an explanation.
People notice these patterns of behavior across the globe yes, but what they fail to realize that most of the globe lives under the same socio-economic system which creates those behavioral patterns (which as you noted yourself, they will assume are 'ingrained' into humans from birth - and we know they aren't).
People ignore the fact (or more to the point, don't know) that if you changed the environment (and educational system) under which people live to a radical extent, behavior would also undergo radical change.
That's unfortunate, because they are.
The notion that we might evolve or reform ourselves into angels is a pernicious lie expressed way too often in Star Trek. The relative lack of this stuff in SNW is one of the best things about it.
That makes no sense.
Greed is a result of living in an environment/soci-economic system which GENERATES the conditions which allow for such behavior to occur.
Greed, selfishness, competitiveness... we ARE NOT born like this from the get go... these are LEARNED patterns of behavior that arise from the system and cultures in which we live.
We are in fact, victims of culture.
And because the global population lives under (fundamentally) SAME socio-economic system, those patterns of behavior will arise in other parts of the world too... but we are also seeing that in countries where there is ACTIVE effort to educate the populace and raise kids differently, DIFFERENT patterns of behavior emerge.
Bullies will exist no matter the upbringing.
Children will be children. They’re not old enough to know better yet.
No offense, but this is another response which completely ignores mechanistic science of human behavior, epigenetics and neuroscience.
We have tons of examples from real life which demonstrate that kids do NOT tease other kids if they are raised in an environment that doesn't prompt that kind of behavior.
Behavior doesn't arise in a vacuum, and as such, teasing doesn't arise in a vacuum. Its LEARNED.
Kids are mini humans with a similar potential for understanding.
If you don't educate a child to behave in a certain capacity, then you leave them mostly open to the other environmental factors to shape their behavior and responses.
You think a child is incapable of understanding things?
Of course not.
A child (much like an adult) doesn't understand something because no one told them the correct answer to things (and they can end up confused because of this).
Most adults and parents are clueless about how the natural world works. On top of that, a LOT of parents don't have TIME to spend with their kids.
There is one consistent factor with kids... they ask a lot of questions. Many parents are already overworked and stressed and don't have the time to deal with their kids questions.
If a child asks a parent why is the sky blue... and they tell them its because gases and particles in Earth's atmosphere scatter sunlight in all directions, and blue light is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves... it might spur off another question such as 'why'.
And then that answer will prompt another 'why'... and so on and so on.
Most adults get fed up with this line of questioning because they can't be bothered and/or because they don't know (usually, its a combo of things).
This is where problems start to arise (at least partly).
You may think a child's behavior is a result of them 'just being human' but that reply by its definition has no merit whatsoever.
Its not an explanation... so instead of saying syou don't know, you say 'they're human'.
Kids would be better off if parents made the effort and acknowledged to kids if they don't know something when being asked a whole bunch of questions.
They should answer to the best of their ability, say 'I don't know' on things they don't and encourage them to go discover what the answers are together.
When my sister's kids kept asking me question and all the 'why's' started coming in... I had time, so I answered to the best of my ability.
I also said to them 'I don't know' on certain ones and went with them to look up what the answers are. I even suggested to my sister to do a similar thing, but alas, she and her husband had busy schedules so they couldn't really do this most of the time.
