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There's a term for this: Victim Blaming. It's one thing to not be so sensitive when it comes to jokes or teasing, but this requires a maturity that a child doe

There's a term for this: Victim Blaming. It's one thing to not be so sensitive when it comes to jokes or teasing, but this requires a maturity that a child does not yet have. A feel as though a lot of people that say those things haven't been victims of bullying, or maybe, at least, not the a certain extent that others were (I know I'm treading very close to a No True Scotsman with that statement). I was bullied when I was a child and it was BAD. I can't really express how EVIL the bullies were. Like something out of a horror film. Edit: I'm a little confused by the replies - I re-read my comment to see if anything was ambiguous. I'm saying that bulling is way worse than people think. Maybe it was unclear that I am agreeing with the comment I was replying to, not opposing it?

s1artibartfast 4y ago
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?
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  I would take it 1 step farther, if you're not teaching your children how to deal with bullies themselves then you're harming them for life. There's a point at which the child cannot possibly deal with it and you as the parent must step in to protect them, but most of the time if a child learns how to deal with bullies you don't need to.
  - mypalmike 4y ago
    "Stop being weird looking and small. Ah there you go, problem fixed." The only thing you can teach a bullied child to do is to fight back. They will lose the fight but the bully will usually move on to an easier target.
  - anonymousDan 4y ago
    What would you suggest to teach them? I was never really bullied but worry now about my own son and what to do if he is.
    - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
      I don't have a clear answer but definitely they should know you have their back, it certainly makes it easier if the child knows you'll support them in it (even when they perhaps did the wrong thing). Outside of that, they need to be taught that buttholes exist and dealing with them is a fact of life. They shouldn't start things, but they definitely should end them. That was the metric for us while in school, especially if we got into "fisticuffs". I think for you it's important to understand that school and teachers can't be trusted. I'm not saying teachers suck, but shitty teachers exist. My middle brother once had a teacher take a dislike to him because he corrected her in class. I once had a teacher that would make me stand out in the hall behind the coats on the coat rack. My mother showed up at the school for both, I was pulled from that class and put into another class with a teacher named Mrs Parker, whom I absolutely adored. I still remember the song we would sing at the beginning of class (about parking cars). My point is that if your child is having an issue with a teacher, don't assume it's the child, my experience is that it very often wasn't. You build trust with your children by SHOWING them that you're there for them. Of course, that doesn't mean every poor interaction with a teacher is the teachers fault. We were dirt poor so I suspect that had something to do with it as well. --- Anyways, none of that is really concrete, I don't know that concrete advice really applies to a question like that. Imo, kids learn what you teach them even if you don't know you're teaching them, and there is no such thing as a single glorifying lesson, it's a slow march over time, exactly as you would do to build trust with someone.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    You sound like you have never met a real bully. Just because a kid is mean and tough doesn't mean they're a bully. Actual bullies have a very keen sense of how the victim might fight back and what it would cost them. And they go ahead with the bullying - breaking down a person, because they can - because they know the victim can't effectively fight back.
    - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
      The reason people like me don't get bullied is because I learned (and was taught) very early on to stand up for myself. I once had a teacher make me stand outside in the hall behind the coats in the coat rack (ALL DAY), don't tell me I know nothing about bullies.
      - vintermann 4y ago
        Was that before you learned to stand up for yourself, then? Or wasn't it bullying?
        P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        from another comment of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33808521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33808521 > There's a point at which the child cannot possibly deal with it and you as the parent must step in to protect them, but most of the time if a child learns how to deal with bullies you don't need to. And the next step isn't to start arguing about what does, and doesn't, constitute a bully. --- The way my mother tells it, I started crying when I got into the car after school and wouldn't tell her what was going on. After the 3rd day in a row she got very insistent, I finally told her and she never left that parking lot before having it cleared up with the school. They removed me from her class and put me in another class with a teacher named Mrs Parker (whom I adored). You're mistaken if you think my argument is that there aren't situations in which the parent MUST step in.
        vintermann 4y ago
- hateful 4y ago
  Of course I would. I feel as though this is a false dichotomy. It isn't either/or. I wish I got the help that I needed and that adults took it more seriously - not going into detail, but I ended up almost dying because of it.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    The study literally says that you should ALSO help the victim build resilience, it never says that we should stop preventing bullies from bullying. You are creating a strawman here.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  A lot of children discover how to deal with bullies effectively. This can be taught to them.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    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.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      I know several people who endured violent bullying as kids until they learned how to stand up to it.
    - bluefirebrand 4y ago
      Teaching children to deal with physical bullying includes self defense lessons and also involves teaching them not to be passive if they witness physical bullying. Maybe the bully is the biggest kid in class but it won't matter if every kid knows how to defend themselves and also every kid will team up to pull them off of someone.
      - paulryanrogers 4y ago
        Yet some school cultures are entrenched, and extend from the broader community. If people are taught from everywhere else that bearing witness is dangerous then groups of bullies will have free reign. Changing that culture can be like pushing a rock up hill. Solutions may have to be drastic, like electronic surveillance or sending troublemakers to different schools.
- deathanatos 4y ago
  > 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 of public school administrators. (Aside from Ender's Game, there are some good episodes of SG:SG1 that touch on this topic. It is complex even for adults. The permissibility of violence in this situation is likely conditional on authority figures having turned a blind eye to the situation. The level of nuance here probably exceeds what I'd expect a child being bullied to be able to command. The other problem is that bullies don't always operate alone, and a fight one decides to pick might not be a fair one.) But like I said, it's besides the point: to a degree, yeah, you should teach children to have a "thick skin". But "thick skin" only gets the child so far: it can fend off mild amounts of verbal abuse, but I do not think a child can be effectively taught to deal with repeated, long-term verbal abuse, social ostracization, and physical abuse, and to deal with the emotional consequences thereof. At that stage, bullying is a failure of adults to discipline, in so much as it is allowed to happen and moreso and in particular, to persist.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > self defense is not a defense in the eyes of public school administrators While this is true, it's also obviously wrong, and the fact that it's widespread in our society makes it even more wrong. Rather than try to expound that in more detail, I'll just reference a post by The Last Psychiatrist that does the job better than I could anyway: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/10/one_way_our_schools_are_traini.html https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/10/one_way_our_schools_... The TL/DR is at the end: "[W]hat kind of school doesn't want a kid to stand up to a bully, especially when they're doing it to help someone else? What kind of crazy school wants you to back down-- and get someone else to protect you? What kind of school indoctrinates kids that power is only possessed by a) bad people; b) the state? Oh. All of them."
    - deathanatos 4y ago
      > While this is true, it's also obviously wrong, and the fact that it's widespread in our society makes it even more wrong. Just to be clear: I don't agree with it. All I'm saying is that child-me understood that it wouldn't be a valid defense after the fact, i.e., that there would be consequences. That, of course, affects one's decision making. That article is very real, though. (But … and I get this gist from other comments on the thread: that article's example is a mild bully. But yeah, that's how public schools react, and how they inadvertently teach.)
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
> A feel as though a lot of people that say those things haven't been victims of bullying, or maybe, at least, not the a certain extent that others were I say those things and my stepfather was abusive to the point of choking me unconcious and kicking me in the face with a steel-toed boot. Please, do tell about how I know nothing about dealing with abuse at the hands of others.
- Teever 4y ago
  I'd go so far as to suspect that anyone calling this victim blaming is a bully themselves and is attempting to make people at large less resilient to bullying by advocating positions that don't promote resiliency and self control in these kinds of situations.
- jacooper 4y ago
  But that's not bullying, that's just straight up Abuse.
- primax 4y ago
  Just because you have your torments does not mean others do not have their own, in their own inner worlds. And trying to diminish theirs is a cruelty.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    wtf are you on about?
noptd 4y ago
>There's a term for this: Victim Blaming What a ridiculous take. Helping people build the skills needed to defend from being bullied is nothing like victim blaming, at all.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

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?

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
I would take it 1 step farther, if you're not teaching your children how to deal with bullies themselves then you're harming them for life. There's a point at which the child cannot possibly deal with it and you as the parent must step in to protect them, but most of the time if a child learns how to deal with bullies you don't need to.
- mypalmike 4y ago
  "Stop being weird looking and small. Ah there you go, problem fixed." The only thing you can teach a bullied child to do is to fight back. They will lose the fight but the bully will usually move on to an easier target.
- anonymousDan 4y ago
  What would you suggest to teach them? I was never really bullied but worry now about my own son and what to do if he is.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    I don't have a clear answer but definitely they should know you have their back, it certainly makes it easier if the child knows you'll support them in it (even when they perhaps did the wrong thing). Outside of that, they need to be taught that buttholes exist and dealing with them is a fact of life. They shouldn't start things, but they definitely should end them. That was the metric for us while in school, especially if we got into "fisticuffs". I think for you it's important to understand that school and teachers can't be trusted. I'm not saying teachers suck, but shitty teachers exist. My middle brother once had a teacher take a dislike to him because he corrected her in class. I once had a teacher that would make me stand out in the hall behind the coats on the coat rack. My mother showed up at the school for both, I was pulled from that class and put into another class with a teacher named Mrs Parker, whom I absolutely adored. I still remember the song we would sing at the beginning of class (about parking cars). My point is that if your child is having an issue with a teacher, don't assume it's the child, my experience is that it very often wasn't. You build trust with your children by SHOWING them that you're there for them. Of course, that doesn't mean every poor interaction with a teacher is the teachers fault. We were dirt poor so I suspect that had something to do with it as well. --- Anyways, none of that is really concrete, I don't know that concrete advice really applies to a question like that. Imo, kids learn what you teach them even if you don't know you're teaching them, and there is no such thing as a single glorifying lesson, it's a slow march over time, exactly as you would do to build trust with someone.
- vintermann 4y ago
  You sound like you have never met a real bully. Just because a kid is mean and tough doesn't mean they're a bully. Actual bullies have a very keen sense of how the victim might fight back and what it would cost them. And they go ahead with the bullying - breaking down a person, because they can - because they know the victim can't effectively fight back.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    The reason people like me don't get bullied is because I learned (and was taught) very early on to stand up for myself. I once had a teacher make me stand outside in the hall behind the coats in the coat rack (ALL DAY), don't tell me I know nothing about bullies.
    - vintermann 4y ago
      Was that before you learned to stand up for yourself, then? Or wasn't it bullying?
      - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        from another comment of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33808521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33808521 > There's a point at which the child cannot possibly deal with it and you as the parent must step in to protect them, but most of the time if a child learns how to deal with bullies you don't need to. And the next step isn't to start arguing about what does, and doesn't, constitute a bully. --- The way my mother tells it, I started crying when I got into the car after school and wouldn't tell her what was going on. After the 3rd day in a row she got very insistent, I finally told her and she never left that parking lot before having it cleared up with the school. They removed me from her class and put me in another class with a teacher named Mrs Parker (whom I adored). You're mistaken if you think my argument is that there aren't situations in which the parent MUST step in.
        vintermann 4y ago
hateful 4y ago
Of course I would. I feel as though this is a false dichotomy. It isn't either/or. I wish I got the help that I needed and that adults took it more seriously - not going into detail, but I ended up almost dying because of it.
- Jensson 4y ago
  The study literally says that you should ALSO help the victim build resilience, it never says that we should stop preventing bullies from bullying. You are creating a strawman here.
WalterBright 4y ago
A lot of children discover how to deal with bullies effectively. This can be taught to them.
- XorNot 4y ago
  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.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I know several people who endured violent bullying as kids until they learned how to stand up to it.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    Teaching children to deal with physical bullying includes self defense lessons and also involves teaching them not to be passive if they witness physical bullying. Maybe the bully is the biggest kid in class but it won't matter if every kid knows how to defend themselves and also every kid will team up to pull them off of someone.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      Yet some school cultures are entrenched, and extend from the broader community. If people are taught from everywhere else that bearing witness is dangerous then groups of bullies will have free reign. Changing that culture can be like pushing a rock up hill. Solutions may have to be drastic, like electronic surveillance or sending troublemakers to different schools.
deathanatos 4y ago
> 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 of public school administrators. (Aside from Ender's Game, there are some good episodes of SG:SG1 that touch on this topic. It is complex even for adults. The permissibility of violence in this situation is likely conditional on authority figures having turned a blind eye to the situation. The level of nuance here probably exceeds what I'd expect a child being bullied to be able to command. The other problem is that bullies don't always operate alone, and a fight one decides to pick might not be a fair one.) But like I said, it's besides the point: to a degree, yeah, you should teach children to have a "thick skin". But "thick skin" only gets the child so far: it can fend off mild amounts of verbal abuse, but I do not think a child can be effectively taught to deal with repeated, long-term verbal abuse, social ostracization, and physical abuse, and to deal with the emotional consequences thereof. At that stage, bullying is a failure of adults to discipline, in so much as it is allowed to happen and moreso and in particular, to persist.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > self defense is not a defense in the eyes of public school administrators While this is true, it's also obviously wrong, and the fact that it's widespread in our society makes it even more wrong. Rather than try to expound that in more detail, I'll just reference a post by The Last Psychiatrist that does the job better than I could anyway: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/10/one_way_our_schools_are_traini.html https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/10/one_way_our_schools_... The TL/DR is at the end: "[W]hat kind of school doesn't want a kid to stand up to a bully, especially when they're doing it to help someone else? What kind of crazy school wants you to back down-- and get someone else to protect you? What kind of school indoctrinates kids that power is only possessed by a) bad people; b) the state? Oh. All of them."
  - deathanatos 4y ago
    > While this is true, it's also obviously wrong, and the fact that it's widespread in our society makes it even more wrong. Just to be clear: I don't agree with it. All I'm saying is that child-me understood that it wouldn't be a valid defense after the fact, i.e., that there would be consequences. That, of course, affects one's decision making. That article is very real, though. (But … and I get this gist from other comments on the thread: that article's example is a mild bully. But yeah, that's how public schools react, and how they inadvertently teach.)

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

> A feel as though a lot of people that say those things haven't been victims of bullying, or maybe, at least, not the a certain extent that others were I say those things and my stepfather was abusive to the point of choking me unconcious and kicking me in the face with a steel-toed boot. Please, do tell about how I know nothing about dealing with abuse at the hands of others.

Teever 4y ago
I'd go so far as to suspect that anyone calling this victim blaming is a bully themselves and is attempting to make people at large less resilient to bullying by advocating positions that don't promote resiliency and self control in these kinds of situations.
jacooper 4y ago
But that's not bullying, that's just straight up Abuse.
primax 4y ago
Just because you have your torments does not mean others do not have their own, in their own inner worlds. And trying to diminish theirs is a cruelty.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  wtf are you on about?

noptd 4y ago

>There's a term for this: Victim Blaming What a ridiculous take. Helping people build the skills needed to defend from being bullied is nothing like victim blaming, at all.