Posted on 04/22/2014 8:56:25 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, right? Well, not when it comes to bullying.
Some may still consider bullying a harmless part of growing up, but mounting evidence suggests that the adverse effects of being bullied aren't something kids can just shake off. The psychological and physical tolls, like anxiety and depression, can follow a person into early adulthood.
In fact, the damage doesn't stop there, a British study published this week in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests. It actually lasts well into the adults' 40s and 50s.
"Midlife ... is an important stage in life because that sets in place the process of aging," says Louise Arseneault, a developmental psychologist at King's College London and the study's senior author. "At age 50, if you have physical [and] mental health problems, it could be downhill from here."
And health isn't the only thing to worry about. Chronic bullying's effect on a person's socioeconomic status, social life and even cognitive function can persist decades later, too, Arseneault's research suggests.
The study began with a national survey of nearly 18,000 children in England, Scotland and Wales who were born during a single week in 1958. Their parents were interviewed twice — once when the kids turned 7, and again when they turned 11 — about how often the children were bullied. Researchers also noted the children's IQ score at the time and checked reports from teachers for any behavioral problems indicative of anxiety or depression in the kids.
Then, for four decades, they checked in periodically with roughly 8,000 of those children, recording their health, socioeconomic status and social well-being at ages 23, 45 and again at 50.
More than 40 percent of the children were reported as having been occasionally or frequently bullied at age 7 and 11 — not too far from today's estimates in the U.S., where up to 50 percent of kids say they've been bullied at least once within a month.
Researchers found that at age 50, those who'd been bullied – particularly those who were repeatedly bullied — reported somewhat poorer physical health than those who hadn't been, and also had an increased incidence of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. They also had lower education attainment; memory tests indicated that they tended, as a group, to have somewhat poorer cognitive function than those who weren't bullied.
The study accounted for other factors that might have confounded the results, Arseneault says, such as poverty during childhood, family conflict and evidence of physical and sexual abuse. Though the study couldn't definitively say the bullying caused the long-lasting problems, Arseneault says, other studies and statistical tests suggest the association is more than coincidental.
"In terms of relationship, they seem to be less likely to live with a partner, and to have friends who they can speak to or rely on if they're sick," Arseneault tells Shots. "As they get older, you would think that maybe they would grow out of it — but it's not what we're showing."
The study is impressive, says William Copeland, a clinical psychologist and epidemiologist at Duke University, who wasn't involved in the British research but has done work on the long-term effects of bullying. "This is the longest follow-up study we have of victims of bullying to date," he says.
People need to shift their thinking on bullying, Copeland says, from considering it a "harmless rite of passage" to "this kind of critical childhood experience that can really change one's trajectory for decades and decades."
Bullying is somewhat different today from what it was in the '60s — cyberbullying on the Internet has extended its reach. Copeland says the concept remains the same: singling out a weaker person as the target for repeated intentional harm. It's just that the abuse is no longer confined to schools and playgrounds, he says. It can happen in the no-longer-safe haven of a child's home.
Victims need some place where they can get away from the abuse and feel safe, Copeland tells Shots. "As you lose that, as you're getting teased constantly, that can lead people to have much worse outcomes, and to feel like there's really no way they can escape.
"As we see more and more studies like this," Copeland says, "I think people are going to be more and more comfortable thinking of bullying in the same way we think of [other sorts of] maltreatment in childhood — as something that's just not tolerated."
I was bullied in the first grade.
My politically incorrect parents insisted that I confront the bully and punch him in the nose.
I eventually did. The bullying stopped.
No debilitating life-long effects so far as I can tell.
Waitaminute. You're not advocating VIOLENCE, are you? I may curl up into a little ball at the very thought of it.
Don’t forget, any “bully laws” will be automatically applied to anyone who doesn’t agree with leftists.
Simple, succint and correct. Common Core places a huge emphasis on bullying. Why? It goes hand in hand with their leftist agenda. Repeating for emphasis:
I maintain that a little bullying is not necessarily a bad thing. 'Tis better for people to learn how to deal with a schoolyard bully at age 6, than the same mentality as an adult. Still and all, liberals continue to infantilize anyone any everyone who's not in their clique.
Some of the prior posters have talked about getting shot at by bullies, etc. That's an extreme example,IMO, and moves the bully from "kid who's a PITA" to "mentally unstable person who should be jailed".
Kids who are bullied need to learn how to drive a pencil deep into the eye socket of their tormenter.
The whole anti-bullying thing now is all about criminalizing opposition to homosexuality.
“My name is ‘Sue’....how do you do? Now you’re gonna die!”
Thanks for a sensible and compassionate post.
I suspect some of the people on this thread were bullies.
I was bullied a few times. Sometimes I let it go, sometimes I resisted. I'm proud of the times I resisted, ashamed of the times I backed down.
The ill effects of bullying stem from the victim's recalling his/her passivity, fear, and compliance. It's what we used to call shame.
“. . 30 years since I graduated, never been invited to a reunion.”
I would suspect that you aren’t the only one in that dynamic who hasn’t been “invited” to a reunion by these jealous, petty people. You have a right to go if you want to, just as much as any of them do. - However, judging by my own class; they still have the “rock & roll” bands (LOUD). About an hour in, they turn the lights off (so they don’t have to LOOK into their LYING EYES), then the band fires up and all you can hear after that are drums pounding and “bee bop a lulu”. After 40 yrs., I quit going - should have done sooner; but hubby razzed me about it I think because he wanted to see what his old girlfriends from high school looked like. In the dark, he didn’t see much! We’re at the 50 year mark now; and they can have it to themselves and may they get a bellyfull of each other!! I now go with husband to his high school reunion; that’s about all I can manage.
I was picked on “bullied” by a couple of bigger kids when I was in 8th grade( small). By the time I was a senior beat the hell out of all of them.(grew)
Well, to make matters worse, at the 25th reunion that ‘everyone is invited to!’ I still wasn’t invited. One of the few decent people asked where I was (we communicate via email every once in a blue moon) and was told by the head Heather herself ‘she’s too stuck up to be around us!, she’s never been to one, she’s never even replied to an invitation’.
Said decent person chastised me for ‘holding petty grudges’. When I informed him I’d never been invited he was speechless...Firstly that I’d been deliberately excluded from every single one and secondly that the head Heather told the ‘truth’ in such a way as to make me the ahole. He finally sees what was going on in JR high and HS all along...
I can honestly say that after 30 years of being conspicuously excluded by the organizers I wouldn’t attend one now. Not to mention that I’d have no idea where to send the reservation monies and such. Plus, having not seen most of these people for 30 years I’m not sure I’d really remember any of them.
I know of a case just like that.
Wow. NPR reported on this? There’s a shocker. The home of emasculated hipsters and Garrison Keeler.
I was bullied. Everyone was bullied. One I cracked in the face with a tennis racket. The other got arrested and kicked out of school when he was busted for drugs. A few others who knows. I doubt they amounted to much.
Which is why you must take the earliest opportunity to pop the bully in the nose.
Yes, I’m advocating violence against violent bullies.
It’s what they understand.
They told you not to be a tattletale, yet would punish you for standing up for yourself.
My oldest daughter has Asperger’s. When she was in school, a black kid sitting behind her was sticking her with pin stuck in a eraser. I mention the race for a reason which will become apparent.
Anyway, she told us, and we told the teachers. They interviewed her, and said that she said she “loved” him. That's because, as Christians we had taught her to “love her enemies”.
The thing is, she always wanted to say what people wanted to hear, and what the teachers wanted to hear was that there wasn’t a real problem. A teacher who was a friend of the family told us that they didn't want to have to discipline the kid because of his ethnicity.
I don't doubt that they believed there wasn't a problem, because they didn't want there to be a problem. But a problem there was.
It wasn't until the class room teacher actually caught the boy in the act that something was done about it with the kid being removed form the classroom and assigned to another school.
Years later, a kid with the same name was murdered in some kind of gang fight. I don't know that it was the same person, though.
My point, though, is that the educators don't want anything to disturb their idyllic existence. It's too much trouble to separate the sheep from the goats for them. If a fight breaks out, expel them both, no trying to find the aggressor.
what a country.
Don’t get me wrong. I was bullied too. And if I ran into Wayne Ortenburger today I’d punch his teeth in. But the article is talking about creating a whole new class of people who will not-surprisingly require all the features of a new bureaucracy and billions of more dollars of Federal intrusion. And (also not surprisingly) more govt jobs for the article writer and her Therapeutic State cronies.
Understood...and if I saw Curtis E. and Vincent V. today, I’d be doing what I mentioned as well...and I do mean within an inch of their life...
And I agree with your assessment...
I think you’d probably be surprised how many times over the years situations similar to yours and mine have happened; due to jealous, petty people who snatch a little bit of power and use it to punish and lie for years. - IF you run into any of them, or if I do; I’d suggest just holding up your head and being as pleasant as possible. - Meantime, the best revenge is being sincerely happy. (Remember, these snotty people have no power to buy your groceries, make your house payments, buy your clothes or anything else. In my case, it was a whole GROUP of snotty clique who got mad that I was elected to anything they THOUGHT belonged to them and proceeded to try and punish me. Well, KIND would have been better; so sorry they didn’t see it that way; although I do think a few of the boys regretted the way they allowed those few snotty girls to lead them around by the nose.) I don’t blame you for not wanting to do anything regarding your bully situation that you either don’t enjoy or that makes you uncomfortable.
That is correct. And when the leftist teachers unions get around to "responding" to this study, they will develop a typically perverse methodology to reward the bullies and persecute the victims even more.
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