👏👏👏 I agree with all of this! Our kids have never participated in pink shirt day because I feel that all of this anti-whatever BS does nothing more than attract more of what we don't want (just like the war on drugs, and the war on terror, and anti-hate, etc). The hypocrisy of it all drives me crazy as well...I will never forget when a particular chief medial officer was asked a few years ago how mask mandates would be enforced and his reply was essentially that they would rely on people to bully others into wearing them 🙄 So when our "leaders" basically endorse bullying and then turn around and promote pink shirt day, I'm just not buying it.
Absolutely! We have developed and promoted a culture of snitching.
The difference between a dictatorship and totalitarianism is that in a dictatorship, police have to oppress the masses. In a totalitarian state, the masses are indoctrinated and become the police. East Germany before the wall came down was a great example. Here in Canada COVID snitch lines were set up, and people turned in their neighbours for having 1 extra person in the house, or here in NS people called the police if they saw people outside not social distancing properly.
Good for you for not letting your kids become part of the Woke Borg.
Good one. It's just another arrow in the "culture of weakness" quiver.
I was bullied as a kid in junior high and highschool. My parents gave me several ideas on how to fix it. One of them was to try to be friends with the guy. I thought that was weird, but I was willing to give it a go. It didn't work.
The last bit of advice came from my Dad: Go for the nose.
That one worked like charm. Even got a day off school on account of that one. Also, it got me some good notoriety. But the best thing is, it allowed ME to fix the problem.
Much truth in what you've written. In many ways we've created the "snowflake" generation, much to their detriment.
That said, as I tried to clumsily point out recently in an article I wrote on "PInk Shirt" Day, there are kids for whom bullying is an absolute nightmare — these are the sorts of kids I see in the pediatric ED with suicidal ideation or following a suicide attempt; and while bullying is nothing new, and will never be NOT be a part of the messy business of growing up, the explosion of social media has torqued the problem into a rather more malignant issue.
I totally agree that virtue-signaling one day a year with pink garb does nothing to "prepare our kids for the road". None of my kids wore pink that day, most of their classmates did not, and essentially nothing useful was delivered at their schools with respect to intelligently dealing with bullying, either in person or online.
In sum, I agree with most of what you write; but as the old adage goes, we mustn't throw the baby out with the bathwater — there are many kids who suffer terribly at the hands of bullies, with grievous impacts on their lives no matter how tough and resilient they are... and telling them they should just suck it up because it's a rite of childhood isn't a reliable blanket solution.
For sure. I think that the "baby" is that cases of bullying that involve gang beatings, threats of attempts of serious harm (knives etc) need to be dealt with by authority. In my experience they always are and always were. I've literally met zero teachers who would not deal with severe bullying (and that's even more true now that we're more sensitive to it).
The "bathwater" IMO is the constant stream of anti-bullying that magnifies the issue far more than it should have been, and causes all the second-order effects that I mentioned.
Most bullied kids I've met are bullied because they are bully-able, and helping them to be less bully-able is a lot more realistic and has much fewer side effects than trying to keep every bully away from them.
I've met lots of kids in ER over the years who were suicidal (all the ER's I've worked in weren't adult or peds specific) and many said it was due to bullying. In my experience, the situation was essentially always "complicated" in that there were many social factors at play, and the claimed bullying was just one of them. Saying that they are suicidal solely because of bullying misses the complexity of these situations.
All that said, I agree it's not nice to bully people and we should teach kids not to. But that (like all the other SEL they teach - how to be nice to trans kids by respecting their pronouns, the importance of Pride month, etc etc) is too complex and value-driven for schools to be taking it over. Exactly how a specific kid's bullying situation should be dealt with is much more a matter for parents than for schools or bureaucracy.
I got a beautiful email from someone and had a back-and-forth that got into a complex issue. Yes, bullying sucks. But many (?most) kids who have been on the wrong side of a bully don't respond by bullying, they respond by growing into kinder, more sensitive and respectful older children and eventually adults. Our difficult experiences are important molding events for our character. Eliminating adversity sounds noble but can stunt our children's growth.
When there is “real” bullying we keep hearing that we should have sympathy for the bully for many reasons be it their economic situation or race or sexual orientation. Anti-bullying rhetoric is just another way to make more victims this time out of the bullies instead of the bullies taking responsibility for their actions. The real victims are more or less dismissed.
Great point! I had thought a bit about that but I figured I had already droned on too long so didn't get into it. But it is so, so true!
In my experience, I think although it is very true that many bullies have been bullied themselves or had a rough home life, many have not. And many people I know who had really crappy home situations (in come cases out-and-out physical and sexual abuse) ended up being some of the most caring, sensitive, and thoughtful adults I know. Being on the wrong end of bullying/abuse made them understand they should never do it to others. The same way that the children of alcoholics are somewhat more likely to be alcoholic, but many of them I have met go in the opposite direction.
Reminds me of the joke "If you can't be a shining example, at least you can be a stark warning"
Thanks Chris It won't surprise you to know I completely agree with you and in Southern Ontario that's exactly how we were brought up as "war babies" and proud to be one.Thanks for posting and reminding how things should be (IMHO)
Thank you docs for this article. Today we are enabling and encouraging people to be snowflakes. Most people will be teased or picked on during their lives. That doesn't really fall under the umbrella of bullying. No one likes it. We have all been there. However, as you say you need to get through it. Hopefully without an excess of coddling. However, if it is severe to the point of your life being threatened then I say, help is needed.
I am pleased to see you didn't join in with the wearing of the pink t-shirt craze, all with social issues attached. That is all virtue signalling. I swear these things are used to coerce people into 'going along'. One of our grandchildren was heading to school with the orange shirt on and I said how do you think this is helping? At 10 years old, she wasn't sure. It is nothing more than programming.
The very idea that 10 year olds should be co-opted into social movements, which they are completely incapable of understanding arguments for and against, is scary. How much different is it from Hitler Youth?
Excellent article! I always commend kids who tell me they fought back to stop their bully from harassing them. I never say they shouldn't have fought back, but instead should ignore their bully and seek help from their teachers.
Oleg - as a child psychiatrist I would be very interested to hear more from you on this. Is bullying really a huge scourge now compared to the past? Or is it the response to bullying that has changed?
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. I do encounter some children who are bullied, and most of them seek help and protection from their teachers and parents. However, this assistance is not always effective. Standing up for oneself isn't very common. Nevertheless, when it does occur, it tends to be quite successful in halting the bullying.
Sounds like you don't consider it near the top of the issues that you see? In my (relatively limited) experience, it seems like very few of the kids I have seen where either the child himself or his parents ID bullying as "the" cause of his problems are actually fully functional in other ways. Many have what I'd call "risk factors" for being bullied (or feeling bullied). They are socially awkward, poor emotional control, a tendency to lash out and/or blame others, autistic traits, unsettled home situations, and more. Certainly not 100% by any means. I suppose there are cases of "pure bullying" where the child is perfectly well adjusted, socially reasonable, and has stable parenting and still gets very impacted by bullying.
I wonder if there’s an analogy here to how a generation of parents tried to keep their kids from being exposed to “germs” (sterilizing the pacifier if it touches the floor for a second, etc.) and those same kids developing asthma, allergies, etc. Just as our immune systems need to be challenged to work properly, so do our psyches.
Absolutely! This is an idea that some authors have recently explored. We have a culture of "safetyism" which overprotects kids and stunts their social and emotional development, but also their immune systems and bodies in general. Drive a kid to school rather than letting him walk, and he becomes weak and flabby. Don't let him get exposed to germs, and he will become very sick when (inevitably) he does.
Regarding safetyism, Sigmund Freud said "the good mother necessarily fails". ie: a mother's job is to protect her kids, but if she always does it she ruins them.
Thank you forthis post. I only just came across it. I have much to say on this matter and would love to participate in organizing an effective strategy that deals with this problem. The reality is that to effectively correct this behavior you need to be present and address situation in a specified way. In the end, most kids are reasonable and often change their habits after they are addressed. This often involves close supervision following the intervention. My observation in schools has been adults who often do not appear to want to see the problems escalating and therefore, do not have respect and are ineffective when intervetion is required.
As for bullying, there is only one solution - and that is to teach your kids to step up and sort it out. Bullies very quickly learn the lesson and the bullied learn not to take it.
A lot of problems in schools today happen because everyone is a special snowflake and never suffers any repercussions from their own mouths.
It's largely projection. Like you said about anti-racism, etc. The reality is that they are creating the very thing they claim to be fighting against. In other words, bullying is OK so long as your being bullied into doing the thing we think is correct (pink t-shirt day), as in the case of anti-racism (racism is ok so long as we (often the POC) are the ones doing it).
For me, I've reached the point where when I hear someone put "anti" in front of anything, I just assume their going to do the very thing they are claiming to be against. Anti-racists are racist, anti-bullies are bullies, etc etc.
I think there's another angle to this too, that being the rise of the managerial state. Every aspect of our lives is becoming managed. It's unsustainable and will only lead to destruction.
I have heard from a number of teachers that they are not very thrilled with their new role of being Bullying Policeman. It's hard enough to teach the basics in classes where there are often numerous special-needs kids at wildly varying levels. Adding on to that the responsibility of taking perceived slights seriously is a straw on a camel's back.
I don't really know any teacher who wouldn't respond to severe or dangerous bullying.
Horrible. Sad. I do appreciate your trying to make a difference.
The biggest bullies on the planet are the government apparatchks in the West (especially our 5 eyes WEF'd up insane asylums). Being a citizen in one of these failing states is identical to being in an abusive relationship with a violent psychopath. Personally, I am ready for a divorce or, at least, an annulment.
The more I reflect on the "bullying" thing, the more certain I am that this little charade is but another clever bit of gaslighting to keep us divided and at each other's throats. We are being constantly subjected to the pathologic projection of our oppressors' characteristics onto we-the-peasantry. If you wish to know who and what makes up our Ruling Elite you have no further to look than "their" focus on bullying and other created "social justice" issues that are actually ANTI-Human. The goal of all this insanity? Complete and utter totalitarian control of every aspect of the 99.999%'s lives.
When you have had enough, you will know. Leave with a clear conscience and the knowledge that you did all your could, Move on through the next open door... There will be many opportunities ahead!
👏👏👏 I agree with all of this! Our kids have never participated in pink shirt day because I feel that all of this anti-whatever BS does nothing more than attract more of what we don't want (just like the war on drugs, and the war on terror, and anti-hate, etc). The hypocrisy of it all drives me crazy as well...I will never forget when a particular chief medial officer was asked a few years ago how mask mandates would be enforced and his reply was essentially that they would rely on people to bully others into wearing them 🙄 So when our "leaders" basically endorse bullying and then turn around and promote pink shirt day, I'm just not buying it.
Absolutely! We have developed and promoted a culture of snitching.
The difference between a dictatorship and totalitarianism is that in a dictatorship, police have to oppress the masses. In a totalitarian state, the masses are indoctrinated and become the police. East Germany before the wall came down was a great example. Here in Canada COVID snitch lines were set up, and people turned in their neighbours for having 1 extra person in the house, or here in NS people called the police if they saw people outside not social distancing properly.
Good for you for not letting your kids become part of the Woke Borg.
Good one. It's just another arrow in the "culture of weakness" quiver.
I was bullied as a kid in junior high and highschool. My parents gave me several ideas on how to fix it. One of them was to try to be friends with the guy. I thought that was weird, but I was willing to give it a go. It didn't work.
The last bit of advice came from my Dad: Go for the nose.
That one worked like charm. Even got a day off school on account of that one. Also, it got me some good notoriety. But the best thing is, it allowed ME to fix the problem.
Much truth in what you've written. In many ways we've created the "snowflake" generation, much to their detriment.
That said, as I tried to clumsily point out recently in an article I wrote on "PInk Shirt" Day, there are kids for whom bullying is an absolute nightmare — these are the sorts of kids I see in the pediatric ED with suicidal ideation or following a suicide attempt; and while bullying is nothing new, and will never be NOT be a part of the messy business of growing up, the explosion of social media has torqued the problem into a rather more malignant issue.
I totally agree that virtue-signaling one day a year with pink garb does nothing to "prepare our kids for the road". None of my kids wore pink that day, most of their classmates did not, and essentially nothing useful was delivered at their schools with respect to intelligently dealing with bullying, either in person or online.
In sum, I agree with most of what you write; but as the old adage goes, we mustn't throw the baby out with the bathwater — there are many kids who suffer terribly at the hands of bullies, with grievous impacts on their lives no matter how tough and resilient they are... and telling them they should just suck it up because it's a rite of childhood isn't a reliable blanket solution.
For sure. I think that the "baby" is that cases of bullying that involve gang beatings, threats of attempts of serious harm (knives etc) need to be dealt with by authority. In my experience they always are and always were. I've literally met zero teachers who would not deal with severe bullying (and that's even more true now that we're more sensitive to it).
The "bathwater" IMO is the constant stream of anti-bullying that magnifies the issue far more than it should have been, and causes all the second-order effects that I mentioned.
Most bullied kids I've met are bullied because they are bully-able, and helping them to be less bully-able is a lot more realistic and has much fewer side effects than trying to keep every bully away from them.
I've met lots of kids in ER over the years who were suicidal (all the ER's I've worked in weren't adult or peds specific) and many said it was due to bullying. In my experience, the situation was essentially always "complicated" in that there were many social factors at play, and the claimed bullying was just one of them. Saying that they are suicidal solely because of bullying misses the complexity of these situations.
All that said, I agree it's not nice to bully people and we should teach kids not to. But that (like all the other SEL they teach - how to be nice to trans kids by respecting their pronouns, the importance of Pride month, etc etc) is too complex and value-driven for schools to be taking it over. Exactly how a specific kid's bullying situation should be dealt with is much more a matter for parents than for schools or bureaucracy.
I got a beautiful email from someone and had a back-and-forth that got into a complex issue. Yes, bullying sucks. But many (?most) kids who have been on the wrong side of a bully don't respond by bullying, they respond by growing into kinder, more sensitive and respectful older children and eventually adults. Our difficult experiences are important molding events for our character. Eliminating adversity sounds noble but can stunt our children's growth.
When there is “real” bullying we keep hearing that we should have sympathy for the bully for many reasons be it their economic situation or race or sexual orientation. Anti-bullying rhetoric is just another way to make more victims this time out of the bullies instead of the bullies taking responsibility for their actions. The real victims are more or less dismissed.
Great point! I had thought a bit about that but I figured I had already droned on too long so didn't get into it. But it is so, so true!
In my experience, I think although it is very true that many bullies have been bullied themselves or had a rough home life, many have not. And many people I know who had really crappy home situations (in come cases out-and-out physical and sexual abuse) ended up being some of the most caring, sensitive, and thoughtful adults I know. Being on the wrong end of bullying/abuse made them understand they should never do it to others. The same way that the children of alcoholics are somewhat more likely to be alcoholic, but many of them I have met go in the opposite direction.
Reminds me of the joke "If you can't be a shining example, at least you can be a stark warning"
Thanks Chris It won't surprise you to know I completely agree with you and in Southern Ontario that's exactly how we were brought up as "war babies" and proud to be one.Thanks for posting and reminding how things should be (IMHO)
Thanks for reading, and it means a lot that you thought it was OK. I greatly respect your opinion.
Thank you docs for this article. Today we are enabling and encouraging people to be snowflakes. Most people will be teased or picked on during their lives. That doesn't really fall under the umbrella of bullying. No one likes it. We have all been there. However, as you say you need to get through it. Hopefully without an excess of coddling. However, if it is severe to the point of your life being threatened then I say, help is needed.
I am pleased to see you didn't join in with the wearing of the pink t-shirt craze, all with social issues attached. That is all virtue signalling. I swear these things are used to coerce people into 'going along'. One of our grandchildren was heading to school with the orange shirt on and I said how do you think this is helping? At 10 years old, she wasn't sure. It is nothing more than programming.
The very idea that 10 year olds should be co-opted into social movements, which they are completely incapable of understanding arguments for and against, is scary. How much different is it from Hitler Youth?
Bingo!! All these 'causes' put us in a worse scenario than we have ever been in. Indoctrination - let's call it what it is!
Excellent article! I always commend kids who tell me they fought back to stop their bully from harassing them. I never say they shouldn't have fought back, but instead should ignore their bully and seek help from their teachers.
Oleg - as a child psychiatrist I would be very interested to hear more from you on this. Is bullying really a huge scourge now compared to the past? Or is it the response to bullying that has changed?
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. I do encounter some children who are bullied, and most of them seek help and protection from their teachers and parents. However, this assistance is not always effective. Standing up for oneself isn't very common. Nevertheless, when it does occur, it tends to be quite successful in halting the bullying.
Sounds like you don't consider it near the top of the issues that you see? In my (relatively limited) experience, it seems like very few of the kids I have seen where either the child himself or his parents ID bullying as "the" cause of his problems are actually fully functional in other ways. Many have what I'd call "risk factors" for being bullied (or feeling bullied). They are socially awkward, poor emotional control, a tendency to lash out and/or blame others, autistic traits, unsettled home situations, and more. Certainly not 100% by any means. I suppose there are cases of "pure bullying" where the child is perfectly well adjusted, socially reasonable, and has stable parenting and still gets very impacted by bullying.
I wonder if there’s an analogy here to how a generation of parents tried to keep their kids from being exposed to “germs” (sterilizing the pacifier if it touches the floor for a second, etc.) and those same kids developing asthma, allergies, etc. Just as our immune systems need to be challenged to work properly, so do our psyches.
Absolutely! This is an idea that some authors have recently explored. We have a culture of "safetyism" which overprotects kids and stunts their social and emotional development, but also their immune systems and bodies in general. Drive a kid to school rather than letting him walk, and he becomes weak and flabby. Don't let him get exposed to germs, and he will become very sick when (inevitably) he does.
Regarding safetyism, Sigmund Freud said "the good mother necessarily fails". ie: a mother's job is to protect her kids, but if she always does it she ruins them.
Thank you forthis post. I only just came across it. I have much to say on this matter and would love to participate in organizing an effective strategy that deals with this problem. The reality is that to effectively correct this behavior you need to be present and address situation in a specified way. In the end, most kids are reasonable and often change their habits after they are addressed. This often involves close supervision following the intervention. My observation in schools has been adults who often do not appear to want to see the problems escalating and therefore, do not have respect and are ineffective when intervetion is required.
I didn't realize you went to CJ81 as well.
As for bullying, there is only one solution - and that is to teach your kids to step up and sort it out. Bullies very quickly learn the lesson and the bullied learn not to take it.
A lot of problems in schools today happen because everyone is a special snowflake and never suffers any repercussions from their own mouths.
It's largely projection. Like you said about anti-racism, etc. The reality is that they are creating the very thing they claim to be fighting against. In other words, bullying is OK so long as your being bullied into doing the thing we think is correct (pink t-shirt day), as in the case of anti-racism (racism is ok so long as we (often the POC) are the ones doing it).
For me, I've reached the point where when I hear someone put "anti" in front of anything, I just assume their going to do the very thing they are claiming to be against. Anti-racists are racist, anti-bullies are bullies, etc etc.
I think there's another angle to this too, that being the rise of the managerial state. Every aspect of our lives is becoming managed. It's unsustainable and will only lead to destruction.
I have heard from a number of teachers that they are not very thrilled with their new role of being Bullying Policeman. It's hard enough to teach the basics in classes where there are often numerous special-needs kids at wildly varying levels. Adding on to that the responsibility of taking perceived slights seriously is a straw on a camel's back.
I don't really know any teacher who wouldn't respond to severe or dangerous bullying.
Excellent!
Horrible. Sad. I do appreciate your trying to make a difference.
The biggest bullies on the planet are the government apparatchks in the West (especially our 5 eyes WEF'd up insane asylums). Being a citizen in one of these failing states is identical to being in an abusive relationship with a violent psychopath. Personally, I am ready for a divorce or, at least, an annulment.
The more I reflect on the "bullying" thing, the more certain I am that this little charade is but another clever bit of gaslighting to keep us divided and at each other's throats. We are being constantly subjected to the pathologic projection of our oppressors' characteristics onto we-the-peasantry. If you wish to know who and what makes up our Ruling Elite you have no further to look than "their" focus on bullying and other created "social justice" issues that are actually ANTI-Human. The goal of all this insanity? Complete and utter totalitarian control of every aspect of the 99.999%'s lives.
When you have had enough, you will know. Leave with a clear conscience and the knowledge that you did all your could, Move on through the next open door... There will be many opportunities ahead!