peer abuse
I tried to watch a Dr. Phil bullying show but he missed the point so badly I had to stop.
The "shovel girl" was in the hot seat for grabbing a shovel. Dr. Phil clearly watched that video, but he didn't see it. I watched it way back at the beginning and I saw it. He kept grilling her about being friends and the sample bully who'd filmed it was insisting they'd been friends. At one point she kept trying to insist it wasn't, she called out "no, it was fake, it was fake" but Dr. Phil, the boy, and her mother all kept on talking right over her.
I saw her tour the gang round her place. Desperately trying to meet the mark of "don't bug her" with friendliness, trying to keep the situation calm, knowing with dead certainty that it wasn't working.
It was clear to me that this was a pack of bullies playing with it's prey. She knew, her mother knew, and those "friendly" kids knew but they know better to EVER admit it.
That's how they did it with me too. Come over making the friendly noises, gestures, expressions, but all the while with just enough sarcasm and threat, and whispered insults and threats the adults don't see or hear. They round you up and walk you out.
Those kids followed that girl home taunting and threatening and insisting on a fight. They kept saying she called for the fight but I knew she'd only gotten sick of being tapped upside the head, losing her stuff to them, and being surprised with nastiness every few minutes all day. She was a kid, how come she's expected to exercise adult emotional control and not lose her temper or respond to her fear? It's been going on for months, if not years, and she knows the grownups can't fix it. Most won't even try because they consider it a rite of passage. Like the kids sent into the wilderness to become adults or prey, they're handed over to the packs of nasty children to be annealed or destroyed. Destroyed is the same thing as "admitted to the nuthouse." You look closer and you'll see hundreds of lovely young women turning into mindless drudges with poor health and scattered minds. They're people who almost always suffer the stress of abuse. Sexual abuse, parental abuse, peer abuse, every one creates a daily level of stress that would make a warrior cry. Then when after all this callous cruelty the child becomes twisted and you're surprised? Surprised she's stuck on Paxil, or he committeed a crazy crime?
We really need to start spoiling our youth, but not mindlessly. teach them to be gentle, not tough. Teach them to be heroes, not villains. Teach them to do without, and be less concerned about their own futures.
The "shovel girl" was in the hot seat for grabbing a shovel. Dr. Phil clearly watched that video, but he didn't see it. I watched it way back at the beginning and I saw it. He kept grilling her about being friends and the sample bully who'd filmed it was insisting they'd been friends. At one point she kept trying to insist it wasn't, she called out "no, it was fake, it was fake" but Dr. Phil, the boy, and her mother all kept on talking right over her.
I saw her tour the gang round her place. Desperately trying to meet the mark of "don't bug her" with friendliness, trying to keep the situation calm, knowing with dead certainty that it wasn't working.
It was clear to me that this was a pack of bullies playing with it's prey. She knew, her mother knew, and those "friendly" kids knew but they know better to EVER admit it.
That's how they did it with me too. Come over making the friendly noises, gestures, expressions, but all the while with just enough sarcasm and threat, and whispered insults and threats the adults don't see or hear. They round you up and walk you out.
Those kids followed that girl home taunting and threatening and insisting on a fight. They kept saying she called for the fight but I knew she'd only gotten sick of being tapped upside the head, losing her stuff to them, and being surprised with nastiness every few minutes all day. She was a kid, how come she's expected to exercise adult emotional control and not lose her temper or respond to her fear? It's been going on for months, if not years, and she knows the grownups can't fix it. Most won't even try because they consider it a rite of passage. Like the kids sent into the wilderness to become adults or prey, they're handed over to the packs of nasty children to be annealed or destroyed. Destroyed is the same thing as "admitted to the nuthouse." You look closer and you'll see hundreds of lovely young women turning into mindless drudges with poor health and scattered minds. They're people who almost always suffer the stress of abuse. Sexual abuse, parental abuse, peer abuse, every one creates a daily level of stress that would make a warrior cry. Then when after all this callous cruelty the child becomes twisted and you're surprised? Surprised she's stuck on Paxil, or he committeed a crazy crime?
We really need to start spoiling our youth, but not mindlessly. teach them to be gentle, not tough. Teach them to be heroes, not villains. Teach them to do without, and be less concerned about their own futures.