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Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

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Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#111

Post by lhorie »

twillerelator wrote: post #110
lhorie wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think enjoyment is at the top of your mind when the task at hand is to get three big guys off of your back...

Having got the three guys off your back, how do you feel then?

Pretty good and not particularly bullish. What's your point?

I don't think "enjoyment" of the fact that you just asserted/defended yourself does any harm. Holding a grudge is far worse, imho. I recall some guy from the ScienceBlogs commenting on his high school reunion, and you could tell he had some deep running hatred going on even after several years - to the point of enrolling his kids in martial arts classes with a "so-maybe-they-can-get-some-sweet-revenge-for-me" type of attitude.

The martial arts are not bad per se, but a parent teaching a kid that it's ok to turn to violence when they can't get along with their peers is not very responsible.

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#112

Post by anthonyb »

hugh3 wrote: post #109
anthonyb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My, you are a nasty little troll, aren't you? Nobody's pressuring you to conform with anything. That's the whole point of non-conformity. And I call bullshit on your choice metaphor too. Whether someone's different due to choice, lack of ability, not giving a damn about fashion or if it's just the way they're wired, bullying them for being different is wrong.

It's kinda sad that I've been called a troll and modded down for being the only one in this thread to suggest that perhaps social skills and popularity rather than violence are the best way to avoid being a target of bullies. bullying them for being different is wrong. We're not arguing about whether bullying is wrong, we're assuming that bullies exist and arguing about what the best way to protect your kids from bul…

Having been bullied myself, social skills often don't make a difference. All you have to do is cross a bully's path on the wrong day and from then on your life's a misery. Once you're tagged low down in the pecking order, most kids will go along with the bully, so nobody will talk to you or give you a chance to practice your social skills, much less a dozen of them.

I had a friend in Uni who had to move schools twice - once to get away from the bullies, a second time when the kids at his new school found out that he'd moved due to being bullied. He was fine up until that point, but as soon as he'd been pegged as a victim, the bullying started up again.

So it's not sad that you're being called a troll. You don't seem to have a particularly sound grasp of what some kids go through, and yet you're quite happy to take up an inflammatory position (kids who get bullied are asking for it by not having social skills, and should just shape up). That's pretty much a textbook definition.

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#113

Post by anthonyb »

feral wrote: post #75
itistoday wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want you to know, I really appreciate your post and for mentioning Aikido. Of all the martial arts I know, I find it to be the most profound and wise in its philosophy. There is also the interesting practice of Tonglen that I was recently introduced to. It is a meditation technique (endorsed and practiced by the Dalai Lama), that teaches you how to train your mind to effectively and healthily handle the issue of…

Profound and wise, and less than optimally effective. Its a little like the bullying problem in microcosm. In theory, Aikido is wonderful and beautiful and the right way to solve the problem. But, fundamentally, trying to block and redirect someones attacks away from you without doing violence to either party is a much riskier strategy than striking back. Its just much harder to do right. In practice, if you do end u…

Aikido is fantastic once you've had five or ten years of serious practice to master it, and some of it's techniques border on magic. So yeah, not likely to be good for high school aged kids.

btw, Aikido is not a nice but ineffective hippy martial art, despite its reputation and philosophy. There are lots of really nasty joint locks. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wristlock#Supinating_wristlock for one example - "If performed correctly this technique will break the opponents wrist, elbow and dislocate the shoulder."

The throws can also be pretty brutal ie. throw people face/head first into the ground. Some of the comments on http://www.aikidodemonstration.com/aikido-questions-and-answ... might be worth a read.

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#114

Post by twillerelator »

lhorie wrote: post #111
twillerelator wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having got the three guys off your back, how do you feel then?

Pretty good and not particularly bullish. What's your point? I don't think "enjoyment" of the fact that you just asserted/defended yourself does any harm. Holding a grudge is far worse, imho. I recall some guy from the ScienceBlogs commenting on his high school reunion, and you could tell he had some deep running hatred going on even after several years - to the point of enrolling his kids in martial arts classes wit…

OK, good point -- by all means enjoy having defended yourself. Just don't enjoy inflicting suffering on others (lest you become a bully yourself).

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#115

Post by lhorie »

twillerelator wrote: post #114
lhorie wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty good and not particularly bullish. What's your point? I don't think "enjoyment" of the fact that you just asserted/defended yourself does any harm. Holding a grudge is far worse, imho. I recall some guy from the ScienceBlogs commenting on his high school reunion, and you could tell he had some deep running hatred going on even after several years - to the point of enrolling his kids in martial arts classes wit…

OK, good point -- by all means enjoy having defended yourself. Just don't enjoy inflicting suffering on others (lest you become a bully yourself).

well duh :)

FWIW, the other day I read about a research (and this matches my personal anedoctes) that younger brothers (i.e. the ones who usually get bullied by the older brothers) tend to show more empathy towards other people than older ones.

In contrast, psychopaths almost always have a history of being a victim of child abuse by family members. So, in my mind, values coming from the authority figures in a family are really on a whole different level than simply having maturity.

>> enjoy having defended yourself

Uh. I think the term we should be using here is "relief".

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#116

Post by loewenskind »

btilly wrote: post #30
tomjen3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen anybody hitting back for real where it didn't work.

I have. I got beaten up, and once the bully had demonstrated his ability to beat me up at will, things got worse. It is worth noting that one cause of bullying is a way for the bully to feel better about himself. In my case said bully had failed 2 grades, and so chose to pick on a smart kid who was not popular to make himself feel better.

Too bad you weren't able to use your superior intelligence to learn BJJ (there was no way to know which martial arts worked when I was growing up). If he got you down and suddenly his arm was broken and he didn't even see how it happened I bet he would have left you alone.

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#117

Post by VladRussian »

brc wrote: post #77
VladRussian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're not strong enough to impose your will on someone making violence on you, then train and get stronger. If you're intelligent, it doesn't matter if the other guy is bigger than you. Take up boxing or martial arts. Brain beats brawn. In 9th grade having a little boxing under my belt, i was attacked by and successfully won the fight with 2 10th graders. Well, a half-day latter, the 10+ of them met me. Not ever…

But did the bullying stop? Was that the end of it? I don't think of bullying as a single or even pair of incidents. The type of bullying being discussed here is years of mental and physical torment. Physical bumps and bruises heal, mental bruises not so quickly. You may have lost the battle but won the war by showing strength to the bullies and to yourself.

"Physical bumps and bruises heal, mental bruises not so quickly."

Unfortunately, I don't know about any study correlating bullying (or lack of it) with future success or failure in life. For example, do we know that being bullied in childhood encourage or discourage (or have no correlation with) development of one's psychological resilience?

While playing - growling, biting, jumping - wolf puppies prepare themselves to live as wolves. Humans are the most cruel animals on Earth, thus it seems natural that the play of human puppies is much more cruel than that of wolf puppies.

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#118

Post by Entlin »

gcheong wrote: post #55
Entlin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the best post in this entire thread. People don't get bullied in adulthood because there is a working police and judicial entity. People get bullied as kids because there isn't one. Currently kids grow up for 18 years in a everyone-for-himself, in-order-to-be-successfull-you-need-physical-strength-and-iron-will world, and just then they switch to the much better and fairer world where being sucessful is not de…

"People don't get bullied in adulthood because there is a working police and judicial entity." Unfortunately while adults may be largely free from the physical violence, workplace bullying does occur. Usually it is more subtle than the outright taunting and physical violence of schoolyard bullies, which means its harder to retaliate against but it can be very stressful - and HR is not on your side. "Currently kids gr…

Bogus. Forget HR, if you're bullied your options are 1) switch department 2) file a police report 3) sue 4) switch company 5) move to a different town.

If you're a kid, there is no option to switch 1) class 2) file a police a police report 3) sue 4) switch school or 5) move to a different town if your parents don't cooperate. You're completely dependent on them.

If you don't get the difference between being a free agent in state governed by rule of law, and being a dependent person in a defacto unpoliced area, you should reconsider your way of thinking.

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#119

Post by gcheong »

Entlin wrote: post #118
gcheong wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People don't get bullied in adulthood because there is a working police and judicial entity." Unfortunately while adults may be largely free from the physical violence, workplace bullying does occur. Usually it is more subtle than the outright taunting and physical violence of schoolyard bullies, which means its harder to retaliate against but it can be very stressful - and HR is not on your side. "Currently kids gr…

Bogus. Forget HR, if you're bullied your options are 1) switch department 2) file a police report 3) sue 4) switch company 5) move to a different town. If you're a kid, there is no option to switch 1) class 2) file a police a police report 3) sue 4) switch school or 5) move to a different town if your parents don't cooperate. You're completely dependent on them. If you don't get the difference between being a free ag…

I'm not saying that there are no options to workplace bullying, I am saying that it happens.

Re: Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

#120

Post by Psyonic »

loewenskind wrote: post #116
btilly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. I got beaten up, and once the bully had demonstrated his ability to beat me up at will, things got worse. It is worth noting that one cause of bullying is a way for the bully to feel better about himself. In my case said bully had failed 2 grades, and so chose to pick on a smart kid who was not popular to make himself feel better.

Too bad you weren't able to use your superior intelligence to learn BJJ (there was no way to know which martial arts worked when I was growing up). If he got you down and suddenly his arm was broken and he didn't even see how it happened I bet he would have left you alone.

Very possible, but now the requirement is you have to fight back and win, not just fight back, which is probably asking a bit much in some cases. Some kids that get bullied even have handicaps, so this probably won't work for them.
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