Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 449 posts

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#121

Post by tristor »

blue039 wrote: post #38

I was bullied pretty severely as a kid. So bad in fact I was put on medication just to deal with it. I was a weaker kid when I was younger owing to the fact I was sick a lot. In America there is a concept of "zero tolerance" that keeps the bullied compliant and the bullies in charge. It was not until I started to get very violent that the bullying stopped. I would fight at a moments notice even sometimes in classroom…

I pretty much concur. The worst part of being bullied for me was that I was punished for defending myself by the adults around me. I got charged with assault in middle school after winning a fight with a kid who chased me to the bus stop with a metal pallet strap whipping me, as soon as we were off school grounds I turned on him and beat him down with a textbook.

We both were arrested and charged, and I was told to my face by a judge that “there is no such thing as self-defense in schools.” Which is not only a bald-faced lie, it’s unconstitutional. You have a right to be secure in your person, and a right to self-defense, well established by the Supreme Court in case law and described in the Declaration of Independence.

I also didn’t get bullied again at that school after that incident. Self-defense is not just a right, it’s an imperative.

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#122

Post by thegrimmest »

cannaceo wrote: post #116
thegrimmest wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning how to respond to antisocial behaviour by a peer, and being able to resolve conflict independently, are two very important skills that it's critical to learn. Being seen as someone who needs adult help to resolve peer conflict is socially disastrous for young people. We do children no favours by intervening in this developmental process.

"Solve the problem yourself". Yeah, you've never had to deal with being chased by bullies and having the shit kicked out of you for no reason. Bullying is not a conflict between peers anymore than a woman getting raped is a conflict between peers. As an adult these problems are solved for you by either human resources, the police, or being able to avoid the situation. Maybe that's why you don't walk around the rough…

Well, bullying is many things, and I think the exact issue is that the conversation lacks nuance. As I mentioned in my first post, conflict which is evenly matched should not be regarded the same way as conflict which is not. If you are attacked by a group of people, or someone substantially larger than you, then intervention is warranted. Ideally this intervention is carried out by older peers. If you're being bullied by one of your peers, you need to learn the skills to resolve that conflict. Sometimes escalation is the best tool, sometimes avoidance is. There's no panacea, but it's something we all need to learn.

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#123

Post by AtlasBarfed »

anonreeeeplor wrote: post #41

I have ADHD and Aspergers. Which results in extremely high anxiety. I did not get along with other children or people. In fact; I found them completely boring and had no desire to interact with anyone. My instinct at school was just to avoid them all. Eat alone, hang out in the school library. I have run into parents who homeschooled their children and let them follow their curiosity. Some of the results I saw them g…

One of the things that happens is similar to the group psychology of hazing.

A person perceives abuse as much worse than the person that deals it out. Hazing is the person being abused then delivering worse punishment than they received to the next round of people, again because their perception of the original hazing abuse was worse than what their abusers perceived.

School tolerance of abuse/bullying is essentially this hazing cycle occurring over generations, more slowly.

That's not the only fucked up human psychology loop in play. Denial, stockholm syndrome, and of course, laziness all come into play.

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#125

Post by [deleted] »

thegrimmest wrote: post #111
david-gpu wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do children no favours by intervening in this developmental process. Will you do the same when your child is being bullied? How do you think that may affect them and their relationship with you? How do you think a child feels when they realize that the adults around them do not have their back? What does it do to their sense of safety and their self-esteem? I have lived through this and have my personal take on…

Like with most things, I think the right move for an adult is to help the child solve the problem themselves, rather than do it for them. As other posts have mentioned, learning when and how to apply violence is a critical skill. We (particularly children) do not live in a post-violence society. Children should of course not feel abandoned by those closest to them, but being overprotective can have its own negative c…

[deleted]

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#126

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Cupertino95014 wrote: post #90

I completely agree about the problem, and some of this thread has the answer: fight back. Being adults, we naturally focus on what the adults can do. Of course if someone in authority sees bad behavior, they should stop it. The problem is all the bad behavior they don't see. The bullies just learn to do it when no adults are watching. Teaching the kid how to fight back is a great solution and several answers have sai…

The advocacy of violence implies the ability to succeed in doing it. Perhaps you don't recall the vast difference in size and strength in adolescence.

Couple that with GROUPS of bullies, what do you advocate?

Well, the modern solution to war is more firepower, and that is the firearm. So essentially, the end state of advocating violence is school shootings.

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#127

Post by thegrimmest »

zmgsabst wrote: post #119
thegrimmest wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning how to respond to antisocial behaviour by a peer, and being able to resolve conflict independently, are two very important skills that it's critical to learn. Being seen as someone who needs adult help to resolve peer conflict is socially disastrous for young people. We do children no favours by intervening in this developmental process.

Do you hold this same view about adults and police? Are we denying women a chance at personal development by having police arrest rapists rather than forcing women to develop the necessary skills of interpersonal violence to defend themselves? …where is the line?

I'm simply pointing to a body of research that shows we have this area of development in common with our ape relations, and that the strategies juvenile apes use to resolve conflict largely apply to children too.

With regards to sexual assault - we surely should teach vulnerable people the necessary skills to avoid violence. It (used to be) common sense not to drink in the company of strangers, especially if you are physically vulnerable (regardless of your sex). None of this is exclusive to punishing perpetrators, which we should of course continue doing.

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#128

Post by soco »

thegrimmest wrote: post #94
anonym29 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rough play is voluntary, being a victim of bullying isn't. I say this as someone who engaged in rough play, got bullied, and was a bully, at different times.

Learning how to respond to antisocial behaviour by a peer, and being able to resolve conflict independently, are two very important skills that it's critical to learn. Being seen as someone who needs adult help to resolve peer conflict is socially disastrous for young people. We do children no favours by intervening in this developmental process.

As we all read stories about bullied kids, or even this study above, not having help to resolve peer conflict isn't especially useful to kids' development either. So, how exactly should they handle it by themselves? Gang up? Outgun the bullies? I'm sorry but I can't even imagine a good way, any good way, how a bullied nerd kid can get out of bullying by themselves.

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#129

Post by tristor »

skorpeon87 wrote: post #58
blue039 wrote: post #38

I was bullied pretty severely as a kid. So bad in fact I was put on medication just to deal with it. I was a weaker kid when I was younger owing to the fact I was sick a lot. In America there is a concept of "zero tolerance" that keeps the bullied compliant and the bullies in charge. It was not until I started to get very violent that the bullying stopped. I would fight at a moments notice even sometimes in classroom…

> In America there is a concept of "zero tolerance" that keeps the bullied compliant and the bullies in charge. It was not until I started to get very violent that the bullying stopped. Exactly my experience as well. Fighting back is the only thing that ever made the bullying stop. I fought back once in the locker room against a boy two years and two feet older and taller than me, basically lost the fight immediately…

Absolutely agree. The law I ran afoul of was called the “Safe Schools Act” and predictably did nothing of the sort. Zero-tolerance is zero-accountability and zero-sense. It does nothing to address or resolve problems, just makes the lives of petty bureaucrats easier.

Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

#130

Post by [deleted] »

lukas099 wrote: post #26
civopsec wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It could also be the well-known effect that "weaker" (physically or mentally) people are more likely to be bullied. Dang, I was going to post this suggestion as a joke (because “proof that weak people deserve it”—get it?).

I don't think anyone said anything about 'deserving it'.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN