Live data from Hacker News

The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

351–360 of 449 posts

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

#351
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…

Does anyone have experience with going to a "school within a school" for "gifted and talented" kids? I was trying to figure out why I don't remember any bullying from my middle school or high school, when it dawned on me that I might have been insulated from it by taking classes exclusively with gifted and talented kids —i.e., kids from stable/whole/educated households. I went to a high school where kids came from a…

A lot of the biggest bullies at my schools growing up were the richest kids. They might bully about different things, but they were huge bullies.

It seems like a lot of the HN discussion is focused on kids being bullied for being smart, which makes sense given the audience on here. However, other kids get bullied for lots of different reasons.

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good point. Policing bullying in school (when young) may work if one can catch it in the act but this bully behavior never stops in adulthood, it starts taking different forms. Being aware of bullies and not being affected by their actions helps but they will only find a different target.

I think the point the OP is trying to make isn't to police bullies, but to figure out the influences on the child to be a bully, and to correct for that, so that the kid doesn't bully in the first place.

And if everyone practiced abstinence, teenage pregnancy wouldn't be a thing.

But, as it turns out, people fuck, and it's far more effective to teach people how to deal with sex than to argue the "real" solution is abstinence.

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

#353
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…

Another common thread among ADHD folk is perfectionism. I certainly suffer from it, and it’s extremely harmful to my career.

People end up confused why I’m not delivering when what I do deliver is excellent. They figure I don’t care or I’m checked out, something like that. I become less reliable because not delivering is imperfect, and I begin to give up not only on my objectives but myself as well.

I’ve had this lead to catastrophe twice, but I’m much better at identifying it and speaking about it now.

It’s debilitating at times. Knowing I can do better, but it’s not there yet. I could deliver something so much faster, but if it isn’t the best I can do, I’m ashamed of it. I feel like a complete hack.

Worse still is that when I nail it, do good work, get it out on time, etc… It’s still not good enough.

Fundamentally it’s because I’m not good enough. ADHD can lead to some extremely insidious and harmful self talk.

When it comes to worrying about being bullied, I have to ask: why do you think you’re able to be bullied? Are you worth making into a target? Why did you internalize that?

Personally I think being bullied is a significant part of why I feel I’m not good enough. That’s what I was told for years! Unfortunately, I was young and dumb, very impressionable, and it stuck. Oh well, keep at it and try to do better. You aren’t someone who deserves to be bullied and I’m just fine at what I do. We’ll get there eventually.

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

#354

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?

> If there was something that you could have done yourself to prevent or stop it, would you refuse to do it? I still don't know. "Do you go Ender's Game on the bully?" As an adult, I don't want to condone violence, but at some point, it seems like there must come a point where one must stand up & defend oneself. The problem is that you'll very likely get in trouble for it — self defense is not a defense in the eyes o…

I certainly hope nobody's talking about going full enders game. I think most people are talking about giving as good as you get and proportionate response. Not being afraid to take a punch or get a black eye.

If someone's talking about a real psychopath willing to break bones or with a weapon, the only real responses to run and any martial arts with class will teach you as much.

Thick skin is just quiet suffering unless it is backed up with real confidence and an actual sense of self-worth. Unless you're an award-winning actor, a boy can still tell if they're getting to you.

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

#356
post #289

In the Netherlands there used to be a TV show where victims would explain how being bullied dramatically affected them far into adulthood. At the end of the episode, they'd meet their bully. The consistent pattern across episodes is interesting. Pretty much every time the bully barely (or not at all) remembered the bullying. Not as a type of denial, they were genuinely shocked to learn that they were a bully, or that…

I know my son has bullying tendencies, and he actually struggles to maintain close friendships because of it. Like you say though, it isn’t intentional at all. He would much rather keep his friends and have an easier time socializing.

The trouble is that he, for some reason, sees elevating himself and pushing others down as an appropriate thing to do at times. He is fairly insecure and reflexively does this. His mom is quite similar, and like him, also unaware of how it affects people.

When either of them do this, they are entirely oblivious to how uncomfortable or upset they’ve made someone feel. His mom is much better at apologizing even if incredulously, but he still lacks the social tact to recognize the importance of acknowledging and apologizing if it was insensitive. If anything, over time he may actually be less receptive to the idea that he’s doing anything at all.

I have no doubt that many kids will think he was a bit of a jock and a bully later in life. He will remember school as a somewhat lonely and confusing point in time.

Even discussing this with him openly has yielded no results. It makes no sense to him. Likewise, his mom is also still positive that anyone she offends simply misunderstood her, or that people are too sensitive or lack a sense of humour.

I wish I understood it better. At any rate, I’m fairly certain that a lot of bullies are very misunderstood and often potentially quite miserable and lonely. The more they push people away, the fewer opportunities they get to grow and improve themselves with deeper relationships. It’s not a good situation for anyone.

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

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point the OP is trying to make isn't to police bullies, but to figure out the influences on the child to be a bully, and to correct for that, so that the kid doesn't bully in the first place.

And if everyone practiced abstinence, teenage pregnancy wouldn't be a thing. But, as it turns out, people fuck, and it's far more effective to teach people how to deal with sex than to argue the "real" solution is abstinence.

Actually, sex education is an excellent metaphor here. Teenage pregnancy happens when you assume by not addressing how teen pregnancy happens, teenagers won't fuck. However, teenage pregnancy goes down when you give access to safe sex, robust sex education, and effectively take away the forbidden fruit of fucking.

Similarly, teaching kids how bullying functions and a robust environment that prevents the causal factors of bullying can cut down on the actual bullying behavior.

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

#358
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monsters aren't born, they are created.

This is an unscientific platitude. No more or less.

No, this is true. Statistically, we know many serial killers are actually victims of brain trauma as children (usually through being violently beaten) and we know traumatic brain injury can cause aggression. In fact there's a predictive relationship between childhood trauma and juvenile psychopathy. [0]

0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29598432/ " Results indicate that psychopathy is significantly correlated with childhood trauma. For the Missouri data, trauma significantly predicted psychopathy scores for both boys and girls."

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

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Interesting. https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1129603377401401345

“So the solution is to siphon even more money into charter schools, so that the public schools are left to rot even more due to lack of resources, and ensure the only children left in public schools will be the most desperate and poor among us. Their bullying problems will be 100 times worse, but it won’t be your problem. Let them rot.”

May as well be the rest of the quote.

At this point you may as well just advocate for executing the poor.

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

#360
post #45

This is very important to talk about. I think I still have issues from being bullied and I am in my 40s now. My issues are anger, but more importantly social anxiety and much worse social skills than I wish to have at this age. Just in case any psychologist are reading this, I would like to point out a type of bullying that I experienced but it is never talked about. It is basically sexual harassment by closeted homo…

I now realize that a couple of my bullies in highschool had a crush on me and didn't know how to deal with it. All of us were male.
Post reply on HN