Live data from Hacker News

The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

181–190 of 449 posts

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

#181
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…

>> Bullies aren't beat enough at home This I have to disagree with. Some of them I believe have a terrible home life and are handing down the abuse to whomever is a weak target. You may be right in other cases though, and that had never occurred to me. Lack of respect and self control may stem from neglect or lack of parenting rather than abuse.

>Muh bullyocaust

Sweetie, that's a cope. Bullying is a choice. It's this kind of pro-crime, pro-rape thinking that lets all the bad things happen to people. It's always a choice. Plenty of people happen to go through much worse things without hurting other people. Like for example, the victims of the bullies. So it's clear that there's no inherent reason for the bullies to do it, they just want to.

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

#182

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

The US compares relatively well because, despite having comprehensive education, the system is also designed to segregate schooling areas. In Europe, bullying is worst in countries with comprehensive systems (UK/Nordics/Eastern Europe, unsurprisingly they are countries that have left-wing education systems built for the social justice goals of adults, not learning outcomes of kids). I believe it is as bad or worse in…

> UK/Nordics/Eastern Europe, unsurprisingly they are countries that have left-wing education systems built for the social justice goals of adults, not learning outcomes of kid

Learning outcome rankings are commonly pretty high for UK and the Nordics -- there's a number of metrics, and some asian countries come out outlier strong depending on the test, but it's pretty common to find Finland, Sweden, and the UK in the top, and Finland in particular seems pretty enviable by a number of standards.

Also, learning outcomes for kids are social justice goals -- people who think of their social values/goals in those terms (vs people who use "social justice" as a drive-by disparaging/othering term to signal their own ideological allegiances) are almost always concerned with broadening positive educational outcomes. Perhaps you don't share those goals, or perhaps you believe that some social movements are promoting policy that isn't well-optimized for those goals, but it's entirely false to state that they're mutually exclusive.

And as they say, "citation needed" for stats about bullying or sexual violence.

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of what being bullied by a peer would look like and what skills would be required to resolve that conflict?

If one of your classmates takes to pushing you around, taking your stuff, embarrassing you, calling you names, etc. This is normal behaviour in apes who are trying to establish a dominance hierarchy. The bully likely sees you as a soft target who is easy to dominate. The best course is to correct that assumption - escalate conflict - fight back, fight dirty. It's the same rationale as in prison - you don't want to en…

In adulthood I’ve never had to resolve a problematic interaction through physical violence, and I hope to never have to. The methods I have used—distancing myself from the bully, reporting to management/HR/oversight agencies—are quite like the methods I used to avoid bullying in childhood. I never used violence back then either.

The only meaningful difference between now and then is that in adulthood I have more such avenues and they are much more effective. The fact that they were less effective in childhood is an indictment of the administrative and social structure we have constructed schools to have, not of nonviolent methods themselves. I reject your assertion that it’s helpful for a bullied child to model behavior on chimpanzees in the jungle or criminals in prison. Becoming violent in childhood would have had negative long‐term effects on me, and I’m glad nobody back then gave me the “advice” you’re sharing now.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of what being bullied by a peer would look like and what skills would be required to resolve that conflict?

If one of your classmates takes to pushing you around, taking your stuff, embarrassing you, calling you names, etc. This is normal behaviour in apes who are trying to establish a dominance hierarchy. The bully likely sees you as a soft target who is easy to dominate. The best course is to correct that assumption - escalate conflict - fight back, fight dirty. It's the same rationale as in prison - you don't want to en…

> It's the same rationale as in prison - you don't want to end up at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy.

The simple fact that you think it's not a problem to somewhat approvingly compare schools to prisons is already a bad sign. Schools shouldn't be like prisons. Prisons shouldn't be like prisons either, but that's another story...

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

#185
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically you advocate not only educating the own kid, but also educating their peers to intervene, and also educating the older ones to police the area, and educating the adults in the end. Do you really think this is a realistic policy, over the lifetime of your school kid? In an ideal world, no idea, but in this real world Id say zero chance. However I can tell you how it works around here (Switzerland, by no m…

This was basically how things have worked and continue to work in (particularly rural) areas where policymaking is lacking and people are left to their own devices. "Bullied" kids seek help from their immediate peers, from their/their peers older siblings, and from adults, roughly in that order. Parents typically do not hesitate to suggest aggressive escalation as a conflict resolution strategy. This strategy is ofte…

The problem with American zero tolerance policies is not that they attempt to stop violence, but that they find the bullied to be as culpable as the bully, because “participating” in violence is what’s considered wrong, not instigating it.

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

#186
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…

Based on your virulent tone I suspect you still harbor strong resentment against your childhood bullies. I somewhat get that, I was bullied too and I still hate those kids.

As an adult however I realize that my bullies were actually abused children who had a rough time at home and took it out on me at school.

> When they break a bullies nose/arm/etc and get suspended you should not only encourage them to continue you should celebrate the victory.

Sorry, but this is completely sociopathic insanity. Celebrating one child maiming another? What is this, the hunger games?

> Bullies aren't beat enough at home, so it's your job to bring the beatings to them.

Do you think it's ever ok for an adult to beat a child? You have it all wrong, it's the kids who are beat who become bullies.

> If you are not capable of violence you are not peaceful, you are harmless.

Capable of violence is one thing, systemically encouraging it as part of normal upbringing is however strictly antisocial.

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

#187

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.

They are very important skills to learn, and they're ones we as a society haven't really learned because we're still dealing with this problem.

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

#188
post #83

Earlier 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.

I was a peaceful kid and no good at gym class, which played some part in why I was bullied. What benefit would I have received from officially sanctioning my regular physical humiliation?

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one of your classmates takes to pushing you around, taking your stuff, embarrassing you, calling you names, etc. This is normal behaviour in apes who are trying to establish a dominance hierarchy. The bully likely sees you as a soft target who is easy to dominate. The best course is to correct that assumption - escalate conflict - fight back, fight dirty. It's the same rationale as in prison - you don't want to en…

> It's the same rationale as in prison - you don't want to end up at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy. The simple fact that you think it's not a problem to somewhat approvingly compare schools to prisons is already a bad sign. Schools shouldn't be like prisons. Prisons shouldn't be like prisons either, but that's another story...

Approval has nothing to do with it - we are apes living in dominance hierarchies, children even more so.

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

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So now it's groups of bullies, not just one? That wasn't part of the problem statement. Also firearms: that wasn't part of it until you brought it up, either.

So bullies are people that stress the societal boundaries of acceptable behavior.

The advocacy of violence in response is a further stepping over of a societal boundary, essentially the same one used by bullies.

So the boundaries are crossed, both legal, institutional, and societal.

But you want to be pedantic about "problem statements"? That firearms and school shootings are some boundary that is fantastical and doesn't get crossed in the real world (that is, the USA conception of the real world)?

You want boundaries on the problem statement, which is about using violent extralegal means to address violent extralegal threats?

What a bizarre comment. Like, you don't think gangs exist? You don't think bullies who crave power and strength don't crave strength in numbers? You don't think gun violence exists, exists at schools?

Are you in some fantasy land where BJJ is the solution for world peace? Are you some gun nut scared that this will cross into gun control? Are you just some spectrum resident pendant/troll?

Weird.

Post reply on HN