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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, igno

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 that way, but rather that your kid probably won't do so if you tell them to, because if they had the guts to do so, they wouldn't be targets of bullying in the first place. Their preferred "solution" is to have a conversation with the child and brainstorm ideas and strategies, which essentially come down to: a) avoiding the bully, b) involving the teachers and school. So essentially a mix of two of the strategies they discounted at the beginning of the article. No evidence or data is presented to back up any of the points. The author even invokes mockery of readers with evidence (albeit anecdotal) that standing up to bullies works. Feels like we're teaching these kids victimhood and to look to someone else to get them out of a rough spot, instead of having enough confidence and self-respect to stand up for themselves.

pchristensen 17y ago
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.
tptacek 17y ago
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.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  I stand by what I wrote. His position may be backed by reams of data and rigorous scientific study, but this article is bullshit, for three reasons: 1. None of that data is presented. 2. He leverages mockery to preemptively discredit people with real-world experience that disagrees with his position, despite offering no evidence, experience, or data of his own. Come on, linking to a standard response that someone who disagrees with him can use to come up with their own formulaic response? Clear anti-intellectual mockery, and hardly the mark of a rigorous scholar. 3. His logical process as presented in this article makes absolutely no sense, particularly with regard to why telling your kid to stand up for themselves is a bad idea. To repeat an analogy I used in another comment: this is like saying that you shouldn't advise someone whose website just got hacked to secure their app, because they got hacked because they didn't follow proper security protocol, and are therefore unlikely to follow your advice. To accept the article as a well-written and well-argued piece on the proper response to bullying, just because the author is a leading scholar in his field is just a bizarre kind of reverse ad hominem. Edit: reworded a few things
  - logjam 17y ago
    You: "No evidence or data is presented to back up any of the points." Did you even read the article? The authors link to six websites that each describe research on the subject of bullying. In addition, he specifically cites comprehensive review books and papers. You, on the other hand, cite nothing but anecdote and "analogy". A simple PubMed search on the term "bullying" gives pages of results on the topic, and I daresay they mostly are consistent with the advice given by the authors of this paper, and not yours.
    - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
      1. Linking to six websites on the general subject of bullying is hardly a well-reasoned presentation of research and evidence to support an argument. In addition, several of these websites specifically contradict the advice of the author and encourage kids to stand up for themselves in the face of bullying. 2. The average reader is unlikely to conduct a PubMed search for research and scholarly works related to the subject of bullying. 3. I was specifically referring to the lack of evidence to back up the position that standing up to bullies is rarely effective, not everything in the article. You're right that this wasn't clear. My mistake. You seem to have missed completely that I'm not primarily disagreeing with his position (though I do), but rather with the shallow presentation of that position. EDIT: removed a mistaken reference to the Guardian

pchristensen 17y ago

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.

tptacek 17y ago

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.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago
I stand by what I wrote. His position may be backed by reams of data and rigorous scientific study, but this article is bullshit, for three reasons: 1. None of that data is presented. 2. He leverages mockery to preemptively discredit people with real-world experience that disagrees with his position, despite offering no evidence, experience, or data of his own. Come on, linking to a standard response that someone who disagrees with him can use to come up with their own formulaic response? Clear anti-intellectual mockery, and hardly the mark of a rigorous scholar. 3. His logical process as presented in this article makes absolutely no sense, particularly with regard to why telling your kid to stand up for themselves is a bad idea. To repeat an analogy I used in another comment: this is like saying that you shouldn't advise someone whose website just got hacked to secure their app, because they got hacked because they didn't follow proper security protocol, and are therefore unlikely to follow your advice. To accept the article as a well-written and well-argued piece on the proper response to bullying, just because the author is a leading scholar in his field is just a bizarre kind of reverse ad hominem. Edit: reworded a few things
- logjam 17y ago
  You: "No evidence or data is presented to back up any of the points." Did you even read the article? The authors link to six websites that each describe research on the subject of bullying. In addition, he specifically cites comprehensive review books and papers. You, on the other hand, cite nothing but anecdote and "analogy". A simple PubMed search on the term "bullying" gives pages of results on the topic, and I daresay they mostly are consistent with the advice given by the authors of this paper, and not yours.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    1. Linking to six websites on the general subject of bullying is hardly a well-reasoned presentation of research and evidence to support an argument. In addition, several of these websites specifically contradict the advice of the author and encourage kids to stand up for themselves in the face of bullying. 2. The average reader is unlikely to conduct a PubMed search for research and scholarly works related to the subject of bullying. 3. I was specifically referring to the lack of evidence to back up the position that standing up to bullies is rarely effective, not everything in the article. You're right that this wasn't clear. My mistake. You seem to have missed completely that I'm not primarily disagreeing with his position (though I do), but rather with the shallow presentation of that position. EDIT: removed a mistaken reference to the Guardian