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How bullying may shape adolescent brains

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171–180 of 184 posts

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#171
post #2

Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment. We focus so much on the victims, we also need to focus on the perpetrators and see them as victims as well if not of anything else than their own psychology.

Bullies often reflect the environment they're grown into: bad, absent, abusive or too demanding parents etc. They should be helped before resorting to punishment, but any attempt is deemed to fail if their family refuses to cooperate, which is the most likely case since it implies admitting they suck at parenting.

Every bully I knew anything about their home situation the fundamental problem was parents that supported the bullying. They would punish their children for wrongdoing they observed but they categorically would not believe any wrongdoing reported by others.

A prime example, the kids next door when I was growing up. They were younger than I was and never would try anything alone but two-on-one they would sometimes. (Usually when a third troublemaker was on the scene.) One time I was defending myself against an attack with a belt, I disarmed him and threw the belt into the vines growing on our house--high enough up that it would require a ladder to reach. When the belt was recovered the buckle was missing--they called the cops saying I must have stolen it. Just from talking to them the cop figured out I was acting in self defense, I had no possible way of having stolen the buckle (the instant I had control of the belt I threw it), the buckle must have come off when I threw it, bad luck for them. If the cop could figure that out so could their parents--yet they still felt I had stolen it since it couldn't be found. (Turns out there must have been a crack-the-whip effect, the buckle came off and flew completely over our house. We found it in a flower pot on the other side of the house two years later.)

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the worst/most visible bullies probably have narcissistic or sociopathic tendencies. Counseling is totally useless on those folks because they don't really have normal emotions in the first place. "Their own psychology" is all about thinking of the world in zero-sum terms, where they win if others lose. The only approach that can partially make up for such an attitude is cognitive-behavioral training, and the…

> Counseling is totally useless on those folks because they don't really have normal emotions in the first place. I think most bullies are not psychopaths, considering that many don’t stay bullies their entire life.

Not all psychopaths are bullies. They can learn to behave even if they lack the emotions to care about others.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#174

50-something here. I was bullied a lot in elementary, jr. high and high school probably because I was the nerdy kid who was into science. We also moved a lot so I was always the outsider. While my home life was fine (my parents were great) I do suffer from anxiety and difficulty staying in a job for more than a year or two. I've only recently started to make the connection with the bullying I received. Back in the 70…

> the nerdy kid who was into science

Paul Graham, creator of Hacker News and a founder of Y Combinator, wrote a classic essay on the topic of why nerds are unpopular. So much of his writing rings true, especially the part: I've read a lot of history, and I have not seen a single reference to this supposedly universal fact [of teenage misery] before the twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and eager. He has a very plausible explanation of how we created this misery, including a culture of school bullying.

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't most people like this, though?

Nobody likes being made to feel like a loser, but not everybody feels some sort of entitlement to hurt others as a way of coping.

Are you sure? Have you read human history? Or read about corruption in finance, healthcare, education, etc?

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody likes being made to feel like a loser, but not everybody feels some sort of entitlement to hurt others as a way of coping.

Are you sure? Have you read human history? Or read about corruption in finance, healthcare, education, etc?

Narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths make up 10-15% of the population. It's normal for them.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The more you can punish people who are broken socially the more they learn" Punishing a kid is not going to help them get over the fact that their mom abuses them or they don't have a dad or that they are not safe in their neighborhood, etc. Punishment is good, but it can further traumatize or ingrain a kid into their bad behavior. Speaking from personal experience, I remember in elementary school I got very harshly…

In my experience as the target of bullying, talking to the bully doesn't really work, either.

As a target of bullying and a bully myself, teacher intervention or punishment rarely worked either. I was talking more therapy or something like that, or investigation into school environment/ classroom.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#178
post #62

I've never understood why schools seem so reticent to enforce zero-tolerance policies against bullying. In my experience at least, every time bullying seems to be a problem at a school, it's because the environment allows it to occur. Schools will eagerly put in place various other zero-tolerance policies, like no fighting. So if you dare defend yourself against such a social predator, you are taught a lesson by such…

Can you impart some of the lessons your parents gave to you as a child?

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#179
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems to me a large part of growing up is keeping up with the herd. Like a pack of zebras in the savannah. If you stray too far behind or show weakness, you get picked off by the roving lions. Yeah, but you don't see the zebras beating the crap out of each other for being too slow. They just let the lions do it. With us humans, we don't just leave others to their own devices; instead, we take on the role of the pred…

Chickens, on the other hand, are absolute bastards to one another. We're not much like chickens, thankfully. But we're not much like zebras either.

They are? They seem to live together in coops ok. Sorry, I don't know much about chickens except they live in coops (the hens do, not the roosters), and they'll eat just about anything.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#180
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents are the absolute worst bullies. I'm not saying every parent bullies their children, I'm saying the ones who do the bullying is much worse than anything peers can dish out. And it's more persistent and impossible to escape. Then they turn around and act normal in front of other people so the fucked up kid looks like the bad guy to outsiders. From as far back as I can remember until I left for college my mom be…

So sorry you didn’t have it better. Parents should be the absolute opposite of a bully.

I'm not sharing my experience for sympathy, I'm sharing it to challenge the "parents are basically Jesus" narrative of society. If an adult child doesn't provide care for their parents (or even limits contact with them) then society thinks the child is the asshole. Yet it's been my observation that 9 times out of 10 the asshole is the parents, not the broken and innocent child. We have to navigate both the severe emotional turmoil the parents caused and the (sometimes severe) societal disapproval of distancing ourselves from the toxic relationship.
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