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

#321

Post by creata » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 1:54 AM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #233

thewebcount wrote: post #212

I sometimes feel like I'm in some alternate universe when I read stuff like this: > These new findings indicate that interventions should also focus on supporting victims of bullying and helping them build resilience; ... > These studies suggest that public health interventions could aim at preventing children from becoming the target of bullying behaviours from an early age. Have we considered ways to make bullies n…

This presupposes that bullying is always explained by something environmental or that it's learned behavior. But what if bullying is just fun for some people? What if human beings have differing innate levels of aggression, empathy, and tolerance? What if some people see bullying and feel a little pit in their stomach -- fear, disgust, anger -- and what if others simply don't? "The blank slate" conception of the worl…

If you're going to make a claim like "'the blank slate' conception of the world continues to mislead us", it wouldn't hurt to have more than a series of what-ifs.

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

#322

Post by ShroudedNight » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #190

Cupertino95014 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doe…

Those boundaries exist because they're mutually beneficial. If the state is derelict in its duty to enforce them, it's not obvious to me why the individual has a moral duty to either the state or the bully to simply endure injustice.

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

#323

Post by dionidium » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

primax wrote: post #315

dionidium wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, that's too glib. The people at one extreme end of the spectrum might accurately be called sociopaths, but lots of more ordinary people fall to the right of center on the "enjoys bullying" bell curve.

Monsters aren't born, they are created.

This is an unscientific platitude. No more or less.

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

#324

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #224

thewebcount wrote: post #212

I sometimes feel like I'm in some alternate universe when I read stuff like this: > These new findings indicate that interventions should also focus on supporting victims of bullying and helping them build resilience; ... > These studies suggest that public health interventions could aim at preventing children from becoming the target of bullying behaviours from an early age. Have we considered ways to make bullies n…

> Have we considered ways to make bullies not want to bully? That seems way more productive to me. At over 40 years of age I've had to deal with people attempting to bully me, most of them are completely shocked when they realize they can't. My point here is that if you think bullying is something that stops at graduation then sure, that sounds like a reasonable position, but the premise itself is wrong. One of my fa…

[deleted]

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

#325

Post by XorNot » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #285

XorNot wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep wondering what you think bullying is, at the school level? Because at my level, it was physically violent - and I was not in a school where this was considered "a problem". Everyone knew who the bullies were, and there was a collective culture of silence because the school could not possibly enforce proper physical safety on the grounds or around it. You avoided them and stayed away from them, because they abs…

Teaching children to deal with physical bullying includes self defense lessons and also involves teaching them not to be passive if they witness physical bullying. Maybe the bully is the biggest kid in class but it won't matter if every kid knows how to defend themselves and also every kid will team up to pull them off of someone.

And then the bully, because for some reason they're still in the school - because you seem to think its "going too far" to enforce the rules in anyway other then mob justice - cries about how it's unfair, and then jumps one of the kids at the bus stop after school.

This is a stupid idea that doesn't scale, and continues the cycle of victimization: the victim gets to take on all the risk of physical retaliation. Maybe the next punch kills someone? It's impossible to know. Now they get to be on trial for murder while everyone declares they "just don't see how little could have deserved this".

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

#326

Post by XorNot » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

nickthegreek wrote: post #292

XorNot wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep wondering what you think bullying is, at the school level? Because at my level, it was physically violent - and I was not in a school where this was considered "a problem". Everyone knew who the bullies were, and there was a collective culture of silence because the school could not possibly enforce proper physical safety on the grounds or around it. You avoided them and stayed away from them, because they abs…

A panopticon of surveillance? That’s absurd. Anyway, a lot of bullying actually happens online these days. It can be much more effective than physical bullying.

Why is surveilling schools with cameras absurd? A societal panopticon is, but visual surveillance of an entire school, surrounding streets and buses? That's already happening, it's just not coordinated. We've pushed the responsibility onto kids with cellphones, so school authorities can pretend they "don't know" what's going on.

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

#327

Post by jimkleiber » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:23 AM UTC

kingofheroes wrote: post #62

When I was coming up, especially in middle school, we were always told that you should just ignore bullies and they would go away. This, of course, never actually worked. And anyone who did fight back against their bullies were punished just as severely, if not moreso if they swung first, as the bully. This entire approach was complete BS and only served to enable bullies because they now know that their victims eith…

> When I was coming up, especially in middle school, we were always told that you should just ignore bullies and they would go away. This, of course, never actually worked.

I don't think ignoring works well, if we consider "ignoring someone" as an emotional attack. The bullies may feel more hurt/rejected/ignored and therefore bully more or in different ways. The ignoring/conflict avoidance can be quite similar to a silent treatment, which can escalate conflict.

> I only realized this way later in life when I started training in Muay Thai and found I had way more confidence standing up to other men, both because I knew how to handle myself and because I wasn't as afraid of getting punched in the face. Bullies only go away if you make them go away. Fighting back is the only real solution victims have in the absence of adult supervision (which is often the situation).

I agree with you that I'd love if more people took self-defense (full disclosure, I train people in what I call Emotional Self-Defense), as when I took Krav Maga I felt more confident to stand up for myself in situations where I had previously thought I would be physically attacked. I disagree, however that "fighting back is the only real solution" because I think what I learned in Krav Maga was the confidence to stand up for myself without having to fight back. I learned that I could fight back if I needed to but that in most situations, just standing up for myself and not attacking back would bring quicker and longer lasting resolution.

Part of the reason I created Emotional Self-Defense is because I thought most self-defense/martial arts don't go far enough upstream to resolve the conflict when it's at an emotional stage and before it becomes physical violence.

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

#328

Post by mypalmike » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:31 AM UTC

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #228

s1artibartfast wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was something that you could have done yourself to prevent or stop it, would you refuse to do it? If there are skills that could be taught to children to prevent their own bullying, would you deny them?

I would take it 1 step farther, if you're not teaching your children how to deal with bullies themselves then you're harming them for life. There's a point at which the child cannot possibly deal with it and you as the parent must step in to protect them, but most of the time if a child learns how to deal with bullies you don't need to.

"Stop being weird looking and small. Ah there you go, problem fixed."

The only thing you can teach a bullied child to do is to fight back. They will lose the fight but the bully will usually move on to an easier target.

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

#329

Post by PragmaticPulp » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:31 AM UTC

corobo wrote: post #52

Heh, decent timing. My last CBT session ended with me realising one of my issues may be a lasting effect of bullying. Essentially I was trying to find out why I procrastinate, beyond "it's just the ADHD lol" Boiled it down and down and down until we hit the core of the issue and realised I don't want to poke my head up and ship code/sites/ideas/etc because I believe I'll be bullied for it. In school doing anything th…

> Essentially I was trying to find out why I procrastinate, beyond "it's just the ADHD lol"

Along this vein, I think the internet (Reddit especially) has been spreading an idea that "ADHD explains everything" in recent years. Every year I feel like I see more and more people self-diagnose with ADHD and then stop looking further for any explanation for their psychological situation. In some cases, people seem to get worse after receiving the ADHD diagnosis and medication and then hyperfocusing on their distractions even harder. From my position I see a lot of people with anxiety issues, perfectionism problems, or even textbook depression becoming convinced that ADHD is the explanation for everything in their life. Not all ADHD patients, mind you, but largely the recent influx of people who start with self-diagnosis via internet memes and TikTok (mis)info about ADHD.

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

#330

Post by jimkleiber » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:35 AM UTC

I feel quite shocked reading the other replies to see that so many people seem to believe the only way to resolve violence is to respond with violence.

Perhaps I wasn't bullied as physically or severely as people here, but I had a few people that picked on me a lot in high school. One who ended up dating the girl I was in love with and whom I introduced to my friend group. He rubbed it in my face for almost four years that he was dating her and I wasn't. It wasn't until a few years ago, when I saw him at a friend's bachelor party and he got so drunk he got thrown out of the casino, that I started to reflect on how his life may have actually have been as a kid. His dad seemed to bully him like crazy, to have ridiculous demands on him and thus he would rebel. He didn't seem to have a lot of close friends and didn't seem to have a lot of confidence in his physical appearance. I don't know. What I did realize is that he probably struggled a lot as a kid. Same with another kid that would bully me. And another.

I just strongly reject the idea that the only way to resolve violence is to respond with violence—I don't know if I even believe it is a very effective medium- to long-term solution at all.

I think what works better is to stand up for ourselves while also trying to stand up for them. To humanize ourselves and to humanize them if we can. To say how we're feeling, to say how we imagine they might be feeling. Physical violence may cause them to feel fear, but at what point do we then become the bully trying to instill fear in them?