principal: "kids who are bullied need to be less annoying"; cyber-bullying and digital self harm

JosephDredd

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OK, I'm combining two threads into one because they're both about children's inabilities to deal with hurt.






http://www.kptv.com/story/38000109/...deo-stating-bullied-kids-tend-to-annoy-people

Oregon principal posts video stating bullied kids ‘tend to annoy people’

An Oregon school principal is being accused of “victim shaming” by some parents.

Some parents of children at Centennial Elementary School in Scio say recent remarks by the principal on bullying are offensive.

In a YouTube video, Luke Zedwick stated victims of bullying tend to provoke bullies and must be taught to be “less annoying.”

A viewer contacted FOX 12 about the video. Other parents spoke about being frustrated by the remarks.

On Thursday, Zedwick said he wanted to extend an olive branch to community members who were offends by his comments.

Zedwick has a YouTube channel full of parenting advice. On April 10, he acknowledged that what he was about to say was controversial, and then in a six-minute video he made statements including, “In my experience the kids who get bullied are not really good friends. They're not good at being a friend. They tend to annoy people, maybe without knowing it, but usually they do know it."

He then stated how parents should handle children who are being bullied.

“So if you find your kid being a target, one thing you could do to help them, separate from the bullying, is you can help them learn not to be annoying,” Zedwick said.

Zedwick told FOX 12 he may have come off a bit strong, but he insists parents should be aware there are instances that young children may describe as bullying, but they are actually simple conflicts for which they should take some responsibility.

Some parents don’t see it that way.

“It sends a message to them that it’s their fault and they’re not fun to hang out with,” said parent Nicole Loveberg.

Scio School District administrators said no formal complaint has been made about the principal.

I feel like this man is not actually interested in helping students as much as he wants to "tell it like it is".







https://www.npr.org/sections/health...hemselves?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science


When Teens Cyberbully Themselves

During the stressful teen years, most adolescents experience emotional highs and lows; but for approximately 24 percent of teenagers, their worries and sad feelings turn into something more serious, like anxiety or depression. Studies show that 13 to 18 percent of distressed teens physically injure themselves via cutting, burning, or other forms of self-harm as a way to cope with their pain.

Recent research and clinical psychologists now suggest that some adolescents are engaging in a newer form of self-aggression — digital self-harm. They're anonymously posting mean and derogatory comments about themselves on social media.

Child psychologist Sheryl Gonzalez-Ziegler, of Denver, Colo., says it's a growing problem among teens she counsels. One recent client, an adolescent girl, told Gonzalez-Ziegler she anonymously cyberbullied herself because, as a gay teen, she felt vulnerable and exposed.

"She set up ghost accounts on Instagram and posted mean comments about herself, saying things like, 'I think you're creepy and gay,' and 'Don't sit next to me again,' " Ziegler says.

"She said these things because she feared being mocked by her peers, the psychologist explains. "She thought their teasing wouldn't be so bad if she beat them to the punch."

According to a survey published late last year in the Journal of Adolescent Health, teens are bullying themselves online as a way to manage feelings of sadness and self-hatred, and to gain attention from their friends. For the study, 5,593 middle and high school students from across the U.S., ages 12 to 17, completed a series of questionnaires that asked about their experiences with digital self-harm and cyberbullying.

(Digital self-harm article not quoted in full. Full article at link.)

Are children's lives only getting more difficult with technology? It seems to be the case in many different ways, from the new opportunities it offers people to hurt them to the way the sheer immersion in technology and porn rewires their brains.
 
Bullied kids do tend to be annoying, but you still can't let other kids fuck with them so much.
 
This is why Sherdog needs to be introduced into elementary curriculums.

Toughen up the little cucks and nuthuggers before puberty.
 
If Urkel didn't want to shoved in his locker all the time he'd have stopped acting like such a goddamn nerdlinger.
 
Bullied kids do tend to be annoying, but you still can't let other kids fuck with them so much.

I fault the principal for being blind to the fact that the more bullied someone is means the less well-adjusted they are. No shit they don't know how to function without annoying people.
 
I feel like this man is not actually interested in helping students as much as he wants to "tell it like it is".
I think you got it here. There are a lot of ways he could have said the same thing without coming off like a dick. There's a huge difference in reception between "be less annoying" and "here's how to join a conversation," or whatever.
 
I know its not PC but there is some truth there. Kids learned from bullying, twisted as it may seem. You learn how far you can push people, you learn your limitations, you learn how to cope with unpleasant situations. These are all things I think are lacking in our kids development these days. Its important, IMO, to learn these things when you're a kid.
 
OK, I'm combining two threads into one because they're both about children's inabilities to deal with hurt.






http://www.kptv.com/story/38000109/...deo-stating-bullied-kids-tend-to-annoy-people



I feel like this man is not actually interested in helping students as much as he wants to "tell it like it is".







https://www.npr.org/sections/health...hemselves?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science




(Digital self-harm article not quoted in full. Full article at link.)

Are children's lives only getting more difficult with technology? It seems to be the case in many different ways, from the new opportunities it offers people to hurt them to the way the sheer immersion in technology and porn rewires their brains.
He is full of shit. Yes *some* kids may get bullied for being annoying , but in general kids are bullied because they might look dorky, look poor, maybe fat, look frumpy, weak, awkward, might have pissed off some douche etc.. I think this principal is just trying to cover his ass, so that he doesn't have to do anything against bullying.
 
I know its not PC but there is some truth there. Kids learned from bullying, twisted as it may seem. You learn how far you can push people, you learn your limitations, you learn how to cope with unpleasant situations. These are all things I think are lacking in our kids development these days. Its important, IMO, to learn these things when you're a kid.

This may be true but people shouldn't turn a blind eye to it.

When I was in 1st grade I wore glasses and had a lazy eye. Of course I was bullied. What did I do? I started hitting. Of course then I became the problem. At the end of every school I day I would get either a smiley face sticker or a frowny sticker. I got a lot of frownies......I can't help but think the teachers could've come up with a better solution than this.
 
I know its not PC but there is some truth there. Kids learned from bullying, twisted as it may seem. You learn how far you can push people, you learn your limitations, you learn how to cope with unpleasant situations. These are all things I think are lacking in our kids development these days. Its important, IMO, to learn these things when you're a kid.
Until the bullied gets depressed and commits suicide or shoots up his school..
 
I fault the principal for being blind to the fact that the more bullied someone is means the less well-adjusted they are. No shit they don't know how to function without annoying people.

He’s not blind to anything. He’s pointing out that the kids aren’t well adjusted and don’t know how to function without annoying people. And he thinks parents should take that as a cue to teach their kids that part of human interaction.

You can identify a problem and hope it goes away or identify a problem and take the steps to alleviate it. He’s telling parents to do the latter.
 
He’s not blind to anything. He’s pointing out that the kids aren’t well adjusted and don’t know how to function without annoying people. And he thinks parents should take that as a cue to teach their kids that part of human interaction.

You can identify a problem and hope it goes away or identify a problem and take the steps to alleviate it. He’s telling parents to do the latter.

As a school principal, he's actually in a unique position to make things happen. The way he's approaching this tells me he's not really interested in helping kids.
 
As a school principal, he's actually in a unique position to make things happen. The way he's approaching this tells me he's not really interested in helping kids.

As a school principal I doubt he’s not interested in helping kids, he may be incompetent. He’s approaching it by sending out YouTube videos. Which I admit is pretty fuckin weak. But I dont think that invalidates his point. If it’s as @MicroBrew said above, he just doesn’t want to deal with bullying and is covering his own ass, that’s a problem. There is nothing here to suggest that’s his only solution. But I think teaching your kids not to annoy the shit out of people is a good skill.

Let me get personal here. I’m thirty and I’ve been playing dungeons and dragons since I was 13 or 14. Last month we kicked a 28 year old man out of our group because he’s fuckin annoying and doesn’t seem to have a solid grasp on how to interact with people. I’ve always been friends with weirdos and deal with their weirdo shit. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t put in work to myself in my prepubescent days to not annoy the shit out of people and interact in an enjoyable manner. I’m a well adjusted adult, he isn’t. He enjoys being in this obnoxious role in social situations and it has consequences (even if they’re lame, like being kicked out of a dnd group). Someone should’ve said some shit to him when he was 12. Now that he’s 28 it seems to me like he’s fucked.
 
As a school principal I doubt he’s not interested in helping kids, he may be incompetent. He’s approaching it by sending out YouTube videos. Which I admit is pretty fuckin weak. But I dont think that invalidates his point. If it’s as @MicroBrew said above, he just doesn’t want to deal with bullying and is covering his own ass, that’s a problem. There is nothing here to suggest that’s his only solution. But I think teaching your kids not to annoy the shit out of people is a good skill.

Let me get personal here. I’m thirty and I’ve been playing dungeons and dragons since I was 13 or 14. Last month we kicked a 28 year old man out of our group because he’s fuckin annoying and doesn’t seem to have a solid grasp on how to interact with people. I’ve always been friends with weirdos and deal with their weirdo shit. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t put in work to myself in my prepubescent days to not annoy the shit out of people and interact in an enjoyable manner. I’m a well adjusted adult, he isn’t. He enjoys being in this obnoxious role in social situations and it has consequences (even if they’re lame, like being kicked out of a dnd group). Someone should’ve said some shit to him when he was 12. Now that he’s 28 it seems to me like he’s fucked.

Sounds like an authority figure in his formative years would have been a great help in teaching him social skills. Which is something his principal could have done without riling up any controversy whatsoever.

This principal is not taking steps to actually help kids. Any steps he is taking would be diluted by the completely unnecessary controversy he's creating.
 
This is bullshit.

Back in my school days many whom were bullied were quiet/shy kids who didn't say anything to anyone, they were hardly annoying when they just kept to themselves. This is just some victim blaming bullshit.

The principal is a fucking idiot.
 
This is bullshit.

Back in my school days many whom were bullied were quiet/shy kids who didn't say anything to anyone, they were hardly annoying when they just kept to themselves. This is just some victim blaming bullshit.

The principal is a fucking idiot.
That was before kids started eating Tide Pods though. We're old.
 
This is bullshit.

Back in my school days many whom were bullied were quiet/shy kids who didn't say anything to anyone, they were hardly annoying when they just kept to themselves. This is just some victim blaming bullshit.

The principal is a fucking idiot.
Completely agree. Fuck that guy, and everyone in this thread defending that ludicrous position.
 
Until the bullied gets depressed and commits suicide or shoots up his school..
Yeah but when I was a kid and bullies would kick your ass, kids rarely killed themselves. I mean, its one of those weird situations where theres not much I'm really condoning but I feel like the anti bully movement has sort of left kids soft. I think you have to let kids be kids with each other. That way when reality hits as a young adult, you have some basic skills to deal with it.
 
Sounds like an authority figure in his formative years would have been a great help in teaching him social skills. Which is something his principal could have done without riling up any controversy whatsoever.

This principal is not taking steps to actually help kids. Any steps he is taking would be diluted by the completely unnecessary controversy he's creating.

I don’t think his taken steps are particularly productive but I do think he is taking the side of personal responsibilty for your actions, even if he’s doing it in a flimsy way, which I don’t find to be a form of victim blaming but instead of empowering someone who feels victimized to break that cycle in a nondestructive way.

Anyone who is posting their bullshit to YouTube is on some narcissistic tip unless they’re getting paid for it, but him posting a lame video that is his opinion on a solution isn’t even controversial to me. If he thinks that’s a comprehensive bullying solution he’s a dumbass, but it is one of the steps to having rewarding social experiences with your peers. And if the kids haven’t been taught that yet nows a better time to start than tomorrow.
 
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