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Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

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Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#21

Post by talvisota »

Many of the commenters here seem not to understand the setup: when a bullying "relationship" has been established, it already has become a difficult issue.

Standing up against a bully works - but only when it is a fair show of balance of power. Let it be sophisticated or vulgar. If this doesn't happen very soon after supposed bullying starts, it is probably not going to happen. And if the resistance works, where is the bullying here?

It can be observed that even in this flow of comments it is not seen that a shy kid is entitled to life without bullying. By not cutting off the bullying, you're raising the shy kid into accepting that yeah, he truely is a victim, and nothing can be done. It's a jungle, live with it. "Civilization" is just a word, "justice" is a joke, and "human rights" just an invention of a twisted mind. The only way left to put things back in balance for a tormented kid is by getting a gun and showing everybody the exact reason why everybody should have some kind of elementary respect to each other.

People, kids, do have different temperaments. The mind is not tabula rasa. You can't tell a shy kid "stand up and show them" and expect it to happen or have any effect.

It is completely useless to offer solutions which apply only to those who don't really have problems.

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#22

Post by pchristensen »

kingkawn wrote: post #12

Not saying everyone can do this, but; My grade school friend was being bullied. He asked people's advice on what to do, they said 'don't be violent, just talk to an adult, talk to your parents, and they'll help you resolve this.' He went to his mother, she told him to beat the kid up or learn to live with being treated like shit. He beat up both the kid and his friends by himself. I still laugh thinking about it.

Was your friend's name Charles Norris?

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#23

Post by barrkel »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #16
barrkel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from article: > Some readers will now be eager to share stirring success stories that prove standing up to a bully really does work

Yes, because they anticipated people countering their hollow and completely unfounded advice with real-world experience to the contrary, we should discount anyone with an opinion based on fact and personal knowledge of the subject.

I was just pointing out the irony, not trying to prove you wrong.

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#24

Post by bonsaitree »

mynameishere wrote: post #2

Well, I've never been bullied, but if an adult "bullied" me (as an adult) in any serious way, I would refer him to the police within a matter of minutes. This is the proper solution. Any assault on a child should be dealt with legally, and if it means moving a thug to a reform school, then all the better.

Applying adult standards to child behavior is so fraught with flaws, I don't even know where to begin.

Suffice it to say that, with near universal applicability, all human societies throughout recorded history have made clear distinctions between the boundaries of acceptable social behavior (and punishments for breaching these boundaries) for children and adults.

There's also quite a large accumulated body of modern scientific measurements which suggests that children and early teenagers lack the sufficiently streamlined cerebral pathways (pre-puberty) which would allow them to make the social judgment calls and impulse control to both avoid being a bully and/or a bullied victim. In both roles, they can not balance the short-term costs against the long-term consequences.

You also make a gross assumption about the training and responsiveness of a local police force to situations involving minors in the custody of a school. Baring extreme violence, a history of criminal behavior, or property damage, in most municipalities, this is the fiduciary responsibility of the public school district. For private institutions, a specific set of liability clauses and insurance is part of the enrollment contract.

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#25

Post by sethg »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #17

That's a very strange account of how bullying works. The impression I get from what people tell me and situations I have witnessed is that the lonely male bully described here is a very rare exception. The typical situation is a group of people led by a smaller sub-group acting against an individual in pretty obvious ways. The victim is sidelined and ridiculed openly so everybody knows. Teachers always know. The auth…

I don't think the authors are claiming that bullies are geniuses. You don't need to be a genius to know who you can get away with bullying. You just need to know that if you abuse X then the only people who might witness the abuse are people who are highly unlikely to snitch.

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#26

Post by mdakin »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #19
mdakin wrote: post #13

The time-honored assumption is that if your child cleans a bully's clock once...he'll leave your child alone. It would be nice if life worked this way...but it usually doesn't. This is inconsistent with my personal experience. I would like to know how the author drew this conclusion. Granted I might be a special case. For my size (small) I have always been quite strong/athletic. For my general demeanor (sweet/calm) I…

The author isn't even really making the argument that this won't be effective, but just that your kid won't do it: One hallmark of a bully is a sophisticated ability to pick victims who won't put up a fight. When you urge your child to stand up to a bully, you're asking him to do something that the bully already figured out he was unlikely to do. That's why the bully picked him in the first place. Bullies tend to cho…

Agreed. It seems he believes the children have Dweckian fixed/entity mindset. And that would be a very bad thing for a psychologist to believe.

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#27

Post by sethg »

mynameishere wrote: post #8
bobdole2695 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because criminalizing the behavior of children just starting to understand social dynamics isn't a way out of proportion response.

So...free pass then. Right, carry on. You say to the thug, in no uncertain terms, "The next time you do XYZ, the consequences will be a removal from school." And, yes, have the police deal with it because they are actually equipped for such activity, unlike your typical teacher. ...and to be clear, I'm talking about instances of actual assault, and not the vast bulk of things in the category "bullying".

And the thug says "What do you mean, 'the next time you do XYZ'? I never did XYZ! If he says I did that, he's lying!" And since the third parties to the abuse are other kids who don't want to have reputations for being snitches, the thug can continue to abuse with impunity.

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#28

Post by pchristensen »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #9

Sorry, but this article is total bullshit. Here's why: They list four possible responses to your child being bullied, including standing up to the bully, ignoring and avoiding the bully, involving the parents of the bully, or involving the teacher/school. They state that these are all likely to be ineffective. That said, their problem with kids standing up to bullies isn't that it's ineffective, though they paint it…

The key to the solution is for the kid to come up with something. You want the kid to feel some power over the situation, some ability to help themselves and change the context, so they no longer fit the victim profile anymore.

The last paragraph links to a sidebar full of sites with more information and research.

Re: Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

#29

Post by tptacek »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #9

Sorry, but this article is total bullshit. Here's why: They list four possible responses to your child being bullied, including standing up to the bully, ignoring and avoiding the bully, involving the parents of the bully, or involving the teacher/school. They state that these are all likely to be ineffective. That said, their problem with kids standing up to bullies isn't that it's ineffective, though they paint it…

Whatever else you may have to say about how this is "total bullshit", this article isn't the standard half-educated reporter writing whatever comes in their head for The Guardian. Alan Kazdin has more scholar hits in his field than anyone commenting here has for theirs.

You're right that there's not a lot of data in the article that backs up his point, but you'll be wrong if you follow that logic to the conclusion you seem to want to take it to.

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