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The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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

#271

Post by fleddr »

progrus wrote: post #133

My parents basically said “If you keep getting bullied, assault the bully, try to draw blood, and we’ll take you out for ice cream if you get suspended.” Highly recommended for any parents of boys out there - it is the best way to address this problem.

Yep. I got my ass kicked in the playground by a much larger kid. Completely unprovoked. I came home crying, my dad told me to return to the playground and hit him back. I insisted that I couldn't, he's much larger and stronger.

"Get a piece of wood then"

I did. As I approached the playground, I felt ridiculous. This wood still wouldn't do anything. To my surprise, the bully fled the scene, clearly afraid.

This incident has taught me a lot. It wasn't the wood that did it. It was the fact that I came back. He could now easily kick my ass again, wood or not. But I might come back yet again, and what (or who) will I bring next time?

From fearful to being feared. A pure mind play.

I do not believe in the perfect world-to-be where one day we've eradicated all bullies and other bad actors by educating them. Life will test you and learning to stand your ground and retaliate is a skill I wish we didn't need, but most definitely need. Address the problem from both angles at once.

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

#273

Post by fleddr »

ilaksh wrote: post #28

It's actually a different problem than most people realize. What happens is that you have criminal assault and abuse being tolerated by adults and then blaming the victims. To try to understand, take the behavior of the "bullies" and imagine it is being done by adults. It really comes down to a lack of responsibility and accountability for managing the behavior of children in schools. Instead of dealing with children…

I don't think anybody really blames the victims and people understand the bullies are the problem.

The issue is, what are you going to do about it? Teachers can't be fully responsible for fixing them, and clearly the parents (often) won't. You can't really go "draconian" mode on the bullies either, they're still kids. And even if you would, they'd get even worse.

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

#274

Post by dionidium »

MrVandemar wrote: post #252
dionidium wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>But what if bullying is just fun for some people? We have a word for those people: "sociopath"

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.

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

#275

Post by dionidium »

thewebcount wrote: post #254
dionidium wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't understand what point you are trying to make here. If some people find bullying fun, they should be taught why it isn't fun for others and dealt with if they continue. I mean I'm sure rapist think that their rape is fun or empowering or something, but that doesn't mean it should be allowed.

I agree with you. The point is just that it suggests a different set of interventions. If you keep digging for the "root cause" when the root cause is, "he likes it," then you're going to waste a lot of time getting nothing done.

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

#276

Post by XorNot »

WalterBright wrote: post #265
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?

A lot of children discover how to deal with bullies effectively. This can be taught to them.

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 absolutely knew who they had a physical edge on, and were absolutely willing to do nothing but escalate.

We don't need to "teach children to deal with bullying" we need god damn physical security around and within schools, and a panopticon of surveillance to make sure that justice happens swiftly and accurately.

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

#277

Post by foldr »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #239
bentley wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that my interactions with adults outside of school (and later, when I was pulled out of public school to be homeschooled) were almost always positive, I’m willing to specifically blame school administration and/or their techniques.

I think you problably have some sampling bias in your adult interactions. Im guessing most of them don't involve the lowest functioning portion of the population, eg, people who regularly comment violence, rape, and beat their wives, or are currently incarcerated. Public schools cut across the entire population spectrum and include children with legitimate social and cognitive deficiencies. Adults also have more deve…

>I think you problably have some sampling bias in your adult interactions.

Is there anyone who doesn't have 'sampling bias' in their adult interactions? This seems like a misapplication of a technical term.

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

#278

Post by progrus »

SoftTalker wrote: post #204
progrus wrote: post #133

My parents basically said “If you keep getting bullied, assault the bully, try to draw blood, and we’ll take you out for ice cream if you get suspended.” Highly recommended for any parents of boys out there - it is the best way to address this problem.

> we’ll take you out for ice cream if you get suspended. Is that before or after their arrest, incarceration and juvenile court hearing?

We lived in a normal city where this wasn’t much of a risk, not San Francisco.

Also, most bullies wouldn’t tell anyone, since they are usually bullying people in the first place because their parents abuse or ignore them. Needless to say, if you are a shitty parent, this is a very bad idea.

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

#279

Post by twiddling »

eastbound wrote: post #267
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…

“To fight bullying, don’t be an easy target” doesn’t that shift the burden to the next weakest person?

You don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster then the next person...

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

#280

Post by teeray »

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…

> Fighting back is the only real solution victims have in the absence of adult supervision

Adult supervision is no guarantee either. Kids are way smarter than adults give them credit for. I remember bullying occurring in the presence of teachers who were completely unaware of the meaning of subtle language or other cues meant to be harmful (with the same meaning known to others of the in-group).

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