4 ms·

Personally, I was suicidal in 4th grade from bullying. Shrugging that off wasn't exactly easy.

nosianu 5y ago
I think he's talking about later in life, middle aged or later. It is clear that kids have much less maturity and ways to deal with things and need help when an adult usually does not. Even if they could, they have a lot less options to do anything by themselves, for example they can't just quit and move away (leaving aside that as an adult you still need a certain level of money to do that). Also, in all those discussions I think it would be safe to assume "statistically speaking" unless being able to show one individual counter-example proves or disproves a point being discussed. Usually statements are not made under the assumption to be valid for every single person unless it is explicit. (Edited)
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  A lot of this carried over into adulthood for me. I'm still uncovering traumatic things from my childhood that are affecting me in ways I wasn't aware of.
- phkahler 5y ago
  PTSD doesn't just shrug off. If you follow the EMDR camp, it's due to experiences that have not been "properly" processed and stored due to the level of emotional association at the time. It can be "unstuck" and filed away but it's not always easy and not something one "just does". The lack of understanding around this in some of the comments is really eye opening to me.
  - nosianu 5y ago
    > The lack of understanding around this in some of the comments is really eye opening to me. I had my own physical bullying experiences in school, fortunately nothing constant. There was no way to get any help either (or maybe my uneducated and inexperienced kid brain just did not know any better), so I know the feeling of helplessness at least. But you mention PTSD, which is really really severe. As I said, are we talking about some extreme cases here? How frequent are those? The points made was as I see it for much less severe than "PTSD stage" things. When you get to PTSD it's criminal level and I don't think that this is what those people you claim have "lack of understanding" assumed was what we were talking about. I certainly didn't, and I still don't. I think extreme cases are something else.
tejohnso 5y ago
Sorry to hear that. I wonder what a parent can do in this situation. And would they know if the kid is just suffering typical school harassment (which shouldn't be allowed, but happens all the time) or if the kid is experiencing something more severe. I know teachers are sometimes well aware of some regular abuse that is going on. Typical stuff, like verbal assault, theft, battery, threats of violence. All criminal offenses in the real world. But in school it's just a detention or a request to curb the behaviour. I think it's difficult to judge the difference between a situation where the victim needs to learn to toughen up, vs a situation where the offender needs to learn that society doesn't allow these behaviours and there are serious consequences.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  In my case? Nothing. But I'm an outlier. (Brief horror story follows.) They had to move me to a private school because school thought I was the problem. The school had started publicly pulling me out of class in front of everyone for "therapy" from a "licensed child psychologist". (This was the last in a steadily escalating series of public humiliations and punishments by teachers and staff over 4 years.) It quickly became clear I wasn't the problem because I did very well in a small religious school that was willing to make minor adjustments for a child with ADD. This whole thing is absolutely bizarre to me because the school was basically your Midwest standard American suburb in the 1990s. There was no religious or political motivation that would explain it.
  - thewebcount 5y ago
    Yeah, I had a similar issue in 2nd grade. Teacher was abusive. Parents sent me to another school for the rest of the year. I returned the following year and didn't really have that sort of problem again. The teacher in question continued bullying, and eventually switched to teaching special education, which just chills me to the bone. This was late 70s. Really bizarre. Anyway, glad things improved for you. One thing I learned from this is that parents are often a terrible judge of the situation, often don't believe their own children when they say something is wrong, and often are afraid to do their damn job and protect their child from harm. In my opinion, they should have sued the school or at least made a much bigger stink about it and gotten other parents involved (as I wasn't the only one being bullied by the teacher), but they didn't. C'est la vie.

I think he's talking about later in life, middle aged or later. It is clear that kids have much less maturity and ways to deal with things and need help when an adult usually does not. Even if they could, they have a lot less options to do anything by themselves, for example they can't just quit and move away (leaving aside that as an adult you still need a certain level of money to do that). Also, in all those discussions I think it would be safe to assume "statistically speaking" unless being able to show one individual counter-example proves or disproves a point being discussed. Usually statements are not made under the assumption to be valid for every single person unless it is explicit. (Edited)

kayodelycaon 5y ago
A lot of this carried over into adulthood for me. I'm still uncovering traumatic things from my childhood that are affecting me in ways I wasn't aware of.
phkahler 5y ago
PTSD doesn't just shrug off. If you follow the EMDR camp, it's due to experiences that have not been "properly" processed and stored due to the level of emotional association at the time. It can be "unstuck" and filed away but it's not always easy and not something one "just does". The lack of understanding around this in some of the comments is really eye opening to me.
- nosianu 5y ago
  > The lack of understanding around this in some of the comments is really eye opening to me. I had my own physical bullying experiences in school, fortunately nothing constant. There was no way to get any help either (or maybe my uneducated and inexperienced kid brain just did not know any better), so I know the feeling of helplessness at least. But you mention PTSD, which is really really severe. As I said, are we talking about some extreme cases here? How frequent are those? The points made was as I see it for much less severe than "PTSD stage" things. When you get to PTSD it's criminal level and I don't think that this is what those people you claim have "lack of understanding" assumed was what we were talking about. I certainly didn't, and I still don't. I think extreme cases are something else.

tejohnso 5y ago

Sorry to hear that. I wonder what a parent can do in this situation. And would they know if the kid is just suffering typical school harassment (which shouldn't be allowed, but happens all the time) or if the kid is experiencing something more severe. I know teachers are sometimes well aware of some regular abuse that is going on. Typical stuff, like verbal assault, theft, battery, threats of violence. All criminal offenses in the real world. But in school it's just a detention or a request to curb the behaviour. I think it's difficult to judge the difference between a situation where the victim needs to learn to toughen up, vs a situation where the offender needs to learn that society doesn't allow these behaviours and there are serious consequences.

kayodelycaon 5y ago
In my case? Nothing. But I'm an outlier. (Brief horror story follows.) They had to move me to a private school because school thought I was the problem. The school had started publicly pulling me out of class in front of everyone for "therapy" from a "licensed child psychologist". (This was the last in a steadily escalating series of public humiliations and punishments by teachers and staff over 4 years.) It quickly became clear I wasn't the problem because I did very well in a small religious school that was willing to make minor adjustments for a child with ADD. This whole thing is absolutely bizarre to me because the school was basically your Midwest standard American suburb in the 1990s. There was no religious or political motivation that would explain it.
- thewebcount 5y ago
  Yeah, I had a similar issue in 2nd grade. Teacher was abusive. Parents sent me to another school for the rest of the year. I returned the following year and didn't really have that sort of problem again. The teacher in question continued bullying, and eventually switched to teaching special education, which just chills me to the bone. This was late 70s. Really bizarre. Anyway, glad things improved for you. One thing I learned from this is that parents are often a terrible judge of the situation, often don't believe their own children when they say something is wrong, and often are afraid to do their damn job and protect their child from harm. In my opinion, they should have sued the school or at least made a much bigger stink about it and gotten other parents involved (as I wasn't the only one being bullied by the teacher), but they didn't. C'est la vie.