The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by oblib » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 6:55 PM UTC

david-gpu wrote: post #105

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.

> 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…

My advice is teach your kids how to fight.

I grew up with 2 brothers and lots of cousins and learned how to fight by watching boxing on TV.

I fought my 2 year older brother to a draw when I was 6 years old. I dropped a 15 year old kid who was way bigger than me and bullying me by kicking him in the balls that same year and then stood over him while he was on the ground writhing and crying in pain and told him he was lucky I wasn't kicking his face in. He never came near me again.

By the time I started school kids in my neighborhood knew I would fight and when I started Jr. High kids in school already knew I would fight, and I was not a big kid, I was pretty small compared to most kids my age.

When I was 14 a kid I didn't know and was way bigger than me hit me in the head with a hockey stick at a city park and knocked me out cold. When I came to he was skating away from me. I skated as fast as I could, caught up to him and jumped on his back and knocked him down and I started wailing on him. I really don't remember how but I ended up sitting on his chest slugging him in the face as hard and fast as I could when I started hearing people yelling "Stop! Stop!" and realized there was a crowd of people watching me.

When I was in my late teens I started taking MMA classes. That taught me how to use an opponent's force against them and when I was 21 I literally bounced a guy who'd been pestering me for years to "wrestle" off his bedroom ceiling. He was in my face pestering me again so I gave him and little shove and he came back trying to shove me as hard as he could, so it was mostly his energy, I just redirected it. He was in shock because it happened so fast. I was stunned at how well it worked.

When people know you will fight back they tend to not mess with you and getting hit is not the worst thing that can happen to you. You'll heal up. Not fighting back sticks with you and hurts forever.

Bullies will only keep bullying kids who don't fight back. I taught my 5 kids this and none of them were bullied in school.

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

#162

Post by mcguire » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 6:55 PM UTC

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…

Homicide and suicide are the second and third leading causes of death for teens and young adults following accidents (primarily motor vehicle). (If it matters to you, males are much more likely to die and females are more likely to report bullying.)

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

#163

Post by cliquecover » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

dotnet00 wrote: post #86

granshaw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if there’s data/studies on this, but I feel that bullying is a bigger problem in the US than in eg Europe and Asia. If so, would like to see more discussion on why that is and how we could improve things by comparing

My personal experience was that Western schooling was much kinder than Asian (Indian) schooling (parent's job had me moving countries every 3 years). Having been a bit of an outsider in both systems (didn't have the years of shared history in Western circles and accent was too American in Asian circles) and extremely timid, while I did initially get bullied in Western schools, it was nowhere near as pervasive, underh…

As someone who went through the Indian education system, teachers were some of the worst bullies who would frequently abuse their power.

- A teacher posed a question to the class and I and another boy answered immediately. The teacher was upset and said "cliquecover and boy are always putting themselves forward"

- A few senior students demo'ed a cool robotics toy they'd built. Our science teacher mocked our class for not being as intelligent as them, instead of explaining how we could build one (doubt he knew anything about it).

- A university lecturer openly ridiculed all the female CS students as "useless"

- A tendency to obscure their incompetence and lack of understanding by focussing on petty details: eg a math teacher ridiculing us for not knowing our multiplication tables and forcing us to memorize them, instead of teaching useful skills, English teachers being obsessed with spelling and handwriting instead of general reading and composition skills

- Universities engaging in extortion by refusing to release student's personal documents unless they would take up the first job offer they obtained via university placements.

Very few intelligent people in India would become teachers in the kind of school I went to. They would rather take up software/IT/private sector jobs, so you get mediocre non-entities who have free rein to treat students as they please.

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

#164

Post by dandanua » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

The problem with bullies will never be solved if we don't solve the problem with teacher first.

Teachers, in essence, is the most bullied class in social hierarchy. They have low wages, huge overtimes, tremendous responsibility of upbringing children, yet almost no real authority over them. It just doesn't make any sense.

Because of this I'd bet that most teachers nowadays are either spineless, or bullies themselves. Teachers that can display a real leadership are miracles.

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

#165

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

0xfeba wrote: post #56

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 think you go a bit far, but I agree somewhat. I was picked on a fair bit in school. The nature of "zero-tolerance" meant that fights were quick. I recall one day just being shoved into a a door threshold unexpectedly. I had had it at that point from this person, so I took my heaviest book out of my bag and slammed him in the head with it as he was already walking away triumphantly. Looking back, he could have been…

[deleted]

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

#166

Post by conductr » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

kneebonian wrote: post #136

conductr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What age did you start them with BJJ? I've been considering for my 4 year old but not sure if that's too early. It seems too early to tell him to punch the bully in the face (what I did as a kid) but I like the idea of equipping him with the ability to subdue a bully until an adult can take control.

So the gym I train at (they grabbed me after I saw my kids doing it) has a rule that they need to be at least 3 and potty trained, so our youngest started a little bit ago and is more working on the skill of listening and paying attention than some of the techniques but my 5 yo is learning some good stuff and is soon going to move from the young children's class to the youth class where the emphasis moves from holdin…

Great thanks for the feedback and resources! This led me down a path to discover we have a dojo in our neighborhood I was unaware of and they have an age 3-5 class. Just in time for winter break too! Thanks again- I would have just assumed he was too young for BJJ but this is pretty exciting actually. I probably won't do it myself but he can practice on me at home :)

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

#167

Post by DontchaKnowit » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

granshaw wrote: post #50

ilaksh wrote: post #28

It'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’m not sure if there’s data/studies on this, but I feel that bullying is a bigger problem in the US than in eg Europe and Asia. If so, would like to see more discussion on why that is and how we could improve things by comparing

I dont buy it. Ill bet bullying is way more normalized in the UK.

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

#168

Post by mcguire » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #127

zmgsabst wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You might wish to examine the statistics on the relationships between rapists and their victims.

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

#169

Post by mcguire » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #142

mcguire wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Source?

I have a pretty low opinion of the zero tolerance policies because they seem to primarily operate to the benefit of the bullies in this case: the bullying is not readily visible as a problem to the adults and when it is, many of them think as you do, that kids will be kids and they should work out their problems themselves. However, a fight is an immediate problem and the obvious instigator is the victim of the bullying.

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

#170

Post by thegrimmest » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #162

thegrimmest wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Homicide and suicide are the second and third leading causes of death for teens and young adults following accidents (primarily motor vehicle). (If it matters to you, males are much more likely to die and females are more likely to report bullying.)

well of course - how else are the healthiest members of our population going to die?