"School is the only place where modern humans will experience violence".
FYI: The full quote is "Public Schools are prisions for children, and are one of the only places where many people will experience physical violence."
The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
141–150 of 449 posts
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#142Earlier 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.
Problem: " Existing research indicates that (a) being bullied in childhood is associated with distress and symptoms of mental health problems...; (b) the consequences of childhood bullying victimisation can persist up to midlife and, in addition to mental health, can impact physical and socioeconomic outcomes. " Solution: Let 'em work it out themselves.
I don't see how this research controls for the zero tolerance policies which have been in place for a long time, and which lots of research suggests serve to prolong and escalate conflict.
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#143It's actually a different problem than most people realize. What happens is that you have criminal assault and abuse being tolerated by adults and then blaming the victims. To try to understand, take the behavior of the "bullies" and imagine it is being done by adults. It really comes down to a lack of responsibility and accountability for managing the behavior of children in schools. Instead of dealing with children…
It seems to be very hard to distinguish between bullying and rough play. Rough play is a developmental requirement (particularly for young boys) across the hominoid clade (and likely wider). Being denied it also has real and lifelong consequences. For further reading, Frans de Waal has done a lot of work in this area. Educational policy informed by this research usually looks not to intervene in physical conflict bet…
Humans have physical games with rules. "Bullying" is nothing like that.
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#144It's actually a different problem than most people realize. What happens is that you have criminal assault and abuse being tolerated by adults and then blaming the victims. To try to understand, take the behavior of the "bullies" and imagine it is being done by adults. It really comes down to a lack of responsibility and accountability for managing the behavior of children in schools. Instead of dealing with children…
I'd offer that the problem is compounded (and actually really the root) by anti-social parents who are unable or unwilling to parent appropriately, then raising hell when teachers attempt to cajole the student into being pro-social
As well as that the parents of the victim are easier to deal with even when the child is damaged than the parents of the bullies. And the parents of the victim may also be complicit in the victim blaming. It’s absurd to think it’s something that could be fixed in a generation also.
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#145I've written before that as I get older (as a male), I appreciate the importance of physical prowess more and more, and definitely infinitely more than I did as a teenager.
With regards to taking steps to insulate yourself and particularly your male children from physical bullying (= assault):
The first stop should be developing a body and a physical demeanor that naturally makes any bullies think twice about trying to assault you- the perceived cost should outweigh any potential benefit for them.
If that fails, and it probably will at some point, because there is always someone bigger and stronger, you need to be proficient in some kind of striking sport. Boxing is great for this. You don't need to be able to go to the final bell with Mayweather, but again, you need to be able to hurt the bully enough that in the future they'll know that the cost will outweigh any potential benefit.
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to be very hard to distinguish between bullying and rough play. Rough play is a developmental requirement (particularly for young boys) across the hominoid clade (and likely wider). Being denied it also has real and lifelong consequences. For further reading, Frans de Waal has done a lot of work in this area. Educational policy informed by this research usually looks not to intervene in physical conflict bet…
An interesting approach I read - I think it was a novel, honestly, but may have been an autobiography - was that fights were not just tolerated but sanctioned, with one big proviso: In the gym, with boxing gloves and headgear on, and fists only. Going down or taking a knee ends the fight. Let 'em work out the tension, but with very minimal chance of hurting anything.
This is completely unrelated to the harassment, abuse and assaults labelled as "bullying".
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 bulli…
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Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#148"School is the only place where modern humans will experience violence".
why is that exactly, there is some weird purification/concentration of social things that only happen at school. Is it the spike of age cohorts (+/-6mo) all thrown together without any regulating factors that would occur with older wiser children (say +6 years) being able to correct the misbehaving individuals? Is it a factor of the sheer outnumbering encountered from high student to adult ratios? Is bullying less li…
In the US, probably a combination of reduced birthrates means there is less density of children, in conjunction with real estate development that requires cars to travel point to point, effectively filtering out situations where children get together without adults.
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
My understanding is as follows: 1) If you're roughly evenly matched, you should fight 2) If you're not, your peers should intervene - "pick on someone your own size" 3) If this doesn't work, escalate to older peers 4) If that doesn't work, escalate to adults This relies on children being taught and encouraged to intervene in unfair conflict, which the research indicates they are naturally inclined to do.
There isn’t one of these steps that bullied children are not doing that they could do to resolve their issue. If your point is that their issue could be solved with education; well maybe, maybe they need parenting also…
Re: The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence
#150"School is the only place where modern humans will experience violence".
why is that exactly, there is some weird purification/concentration of social things that only happen at school. Is it the spike of age cohorts (+/-6mo) all thrown together without any regulating factors that would occur with older wiser children (say +6 years) being able to correct the misbehaving individuals? Is it a factor of the sheer outnumbering encountered from high student to adult ratios? Is bullying less li…
Teachers/admin can't long-term isolate the shitheads unless they go really far—notably, it's very hard to be kicked out for bullying that's short of repeated cases of extreme outright violence. A teacher and even school admin can't "fire" a chronically disruptive and/or bullying student. Other students can't vote with their feet and flee the classes with the worst bullies. They're stuck and no-one has the power to fix the situation.
That's why it's so bad. One employee starts pulling dumb shit and several employees report it to the manager, good chance that employee's not going to be able to keep it up much longer or they'll be gone. Yes, abuse happens at workplaces, but school-type bullying doesn't have the same kind of cover it does in a school. Several students report a bully, that bully will still be there next week. And next quarter. And maybe in their class next year. Still being a bully.
Selection bias during admissions gets talked about a lot when it comes to private schools, but they also have the superpower of being able to tell a kid who won't shape up to GTFO permanently. One family's tuition isn't worth risking several other students leaving. This can and does happen, and it doesn't solve all the problems, but it means the worst of the worst don't stick around like they do at public schools, poisoning the whole school atmosphere.