If you love a child and you’re worried
that something about them is going to make them a target for bullying or
other cruelty in the future, the best possible thing you can do is give
them as much validation and support as you possibly can, and do your
best to counteract the cultural messaging they’re going to receive about the ‘wrongness’ of being different. Show that child unwavering respect as a human being, and demand that others in that child’s life also treat them with respect.The worst possible thing you can do for a
child who is fat, gender nonconforming, disabled, LGBT+, or otherwise
different from most of the other children they will grow up knowing, is
to tell them they have to hide or get rid of their differences so people won’t be mean to them.You
need to refuse to become a child’s first bully. The world can be an awful,
cruel place to kids who aren’t like their peers – but you can counteract
some of that cruelty instead of being the first to show it. Accept kids for who they
are and teach them that they deserve respect and care as they are, that they don’t have to earn love or kindness by suppressing parts of themselves to fit someone else’s idea of who they should be.Even
if you actually succeed in forcing a child to be ‘more normal’, the
lessons they take away from seeing themselves as unworthy without
changing major aspects of their appearance, personality, etc., will stay
with them forever. It’s traumatic to be told who you are as a person is
a bad thing.Whether you succeed or not, the attempt will teach them
that it’s acceptable for others to demand they change major aspects of
who they are; that bullying is an acceptable way to show love; that they deserve any cruelty people show them for being different; and that if others around them are ‘weird’, they’re entitled to bully those others into compliance just as they themselves were bullied – by you.Children with eating disorders are in a
worse position than happy fat kids with adults in their life who love
and support them exactly as they are. Children who are bullied until
they stop self-expressing in ways that defy gender roles are in a worse
position than happy gender nonconforming kids who have adults in their
life who stand up for them and love and support them exactly as they
are.Autistic kids who grow up in an environment where their differences
aren’t treated as burdens are better off than autistic kids who are
traumatized by abusive therapies where they’re trained to deny any uniquely autistic needs, pain, or body language and taught implicitly that who they are is lesser.Don’t
try to change a child to make the world safer for them. By teaching them
that who they are is the problem, rather than the bullying itself, you are being part of that danger.
Instead, do everything you can to honour and respect the children you
love for who they are.Encourage them to think well of themselves and to
not believe any messaging they’re receiving from the world that tells
them they’ll never be good enough until they conform. Seek out and
create positive representation of people like them – and people who are
different in a multitude of other ways – who are good, interesting,
worthwhile people. Compliment them on the unique ways they express
themselves. Teach them not to be afraid of not being exactly like
everyone else.A kid can grow up different and still be
okay. But they need the support and love of the people around them to
make it in a sometimes hostile world. And they need the adults in their
life to work to keep that hostile world at bay as much as possible, and
not be part of the hostility.
Tag: bullying
There’s that weird gray zone that’s neither ‘death threats’ nor ‘suicide baiting’ where people just like to send you graphic descriptions of the violent, dehumanizing things they wish would happen to you, like some kind of moral loophole.
“Death/rape threats are immoral and illegal! That’s why I’m merely describing in vivid detail a fantasy I have about what I think someone else should do to you. Not little old me, though! And not by your own hand – that would be suicide baiting! I’m just praying to God that it happens, and I want you to have this imagery in your brain forever.”
It’s called harassment. If it includes anything sexualized, it’s sexual harassment. 99% of the time, the “protect children” or “protect the lgbt community (from fakers)” screechers are the real predators.
Ditto the people who want to claim they didn’t send a death threat because they just said they wanted to hurt you 🙄 Like whomstever once said they wished they could get a car and come run me over.
I mean, they don’t care whether this is harassment or death threats or suicide baiting. They justify it to themselves by claiming they’re defending the community from inclusionists, or… don’t even bother justifying it at all. Like, I think the car one was because I had said some fucking celebrity was bi, which is… quite a reaction.
But it’s important for the people who get this shit to know that it’s abuse, and that it’s not okay. It’s important to know that your community recognizes that, and doesn’t endorse treating anybody like that.
The underlying message of “this person deserved this abuse, because ___________” is always “and if you don’t act the way I want, you’ll ‘deserve’ it too.”
you know, as someone who took years to realize that “graphic threats of violence are abuse”, one of the biggest mindfucks on tumblr is the fact that a large part of this website thinks that this kind of behavior is not only ok, but should be encouraged, as long as the abuse is directed at the “right” target.
it’s really awful to see people normalize abuse (which is what bullying and harassment is!) by calling it cool, funny, and progressive. it’s disgusting to see people say things like “bullying teaches social skills”, some people need to be shamed into being normal, calling people freaks, while also turning around and saying things like “death to cringe culture!” either you think it’s acceptable to abuse others or you don’t. if you engage in this kind of behavior you are an abusive person you’re no different than someone who abuses their partner but draws the line against kicking the dog. stop trying to justify why it’s ok to abuse some people (namely: the people you want to abuse, and not you or your friends) and stop being abusive.
ion even care im so pressed tonight. anyway, why is asexual awareness day or whatever trending when just yesterday trans people’s rights were threatened, and are probably going to be taken away. And don’t give me that bullshit ‘owo they both need to have a light shed on them’ bc trans people are in fucking imminent danger here and we need support more than ever. For once in yall’s lives can you dig up some compassion and understanding? Call me aphobic all you want, but im sick of trans people being fucking ignored and left to fight for ourselves.
Don’t bother actin a fool, i’ll just block you
Can anyone on Tumblr shut the fuck up about asexuals for five fucking seconds? Can you please do that for me? I know you’re going to fucking assume I’m a cishet or some shit but I’m literally fucking tired of this. Who the fuck cares about a trending hashtag? We, as trans people, are going to lose our fucking rights in the near future and all you can fucking talk about is asexuals? Go to fucking hell and shove this post right up your ass on the way down. You have the fucking gall to gloat like “ooh stay mad” like it’s all some fucking game. I’ve not seen a single post from asexuals or some shit trying to distract from what the Trump administration is trying to push, but you’re so fucking absorbed in bullshit Tumblr politics that you literally cannot resist somehow bringing up asexuals. You’re fucking pathetic. People are going to lose their rights, their mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical health are in direct jeopardy because some of us might lose the right to change our bodies so we won’t want to fucking kill ourselves but oh thank fucking god that some loser online is speaking truth to power against the tumblr acey waceys!! This literally insignificant minority of people on a fucking website who happened to have an awareness day or whatever. You’re a fucking joke. Get your fucking shit together. Fuck this post and fuck everyone who reblogged it.
Full fucking offence OP but theres literally NO CORRELATION between ace people celebrating ace awareness week and trump administration threatening trans people’s rights and the fact that you are hiding behind the “Why dont we care about REAL issues!!!1!” to spread your disgusting views about asexuality is fucking DESPICABLE
TRANS ACE people exist and you arent doing them ANY favors by acting like they dont deserve to celebrate and talk about their aceness lol.In fact many of them are using ace awareness week to feel better about at least one part of their marginalized identity and distract themselves against something they cant control and telling them that they are horrible to do so isnt achieving ANYTHING
Its high fucking time yall stop taking out your anger on ace people and blaming them for every single problem in your life bc they are marginalized and can be easily rattled while the cis oppressors are too powerful to be affected by you.
Trump administration isnt gonna take back their decisions regarding trans people if people stopped celebrating ace awareness week so direct your efforts towards things that WILL MATTER and AFFECT this threat on trans people’s human rights instead of attacking marginalized orientations who just want to spend a WEEK without being felt guilty for existing
We will fight for trans people’s human rights AND celebrate ace awareness week.Also its SO funny how you are hiding the notes of ANYONE who is calling you out on your bullshit especially TRANS ACE people.Dont make posts speaking about trans people’s issues if you arent gonna listen to many of them
please have a terrible day week month year OP. you suck. you suck so much. punching on people who are already down. what a turd. what an absolute mess
Ace awareness week was a known date for like a year. It’s not any ace person’s fault the trans story broke at the same time. Also, shockingly, most people are able to care about multiple things at once, and if you’re too flighty to do the same, well, that’s only your fault.
Aphobes and their double standards…
Apparently, asexual awareness week is a distraction from trans issues because we can’t care about multiple things. And yet, here we are with exclusionists complaining about asexual awareness week which, you know, isn’t doing anything about trans issues, it’s just pointing fingers and flapping lips about something entirely unrelated. And apparently that isn’t a problem because exclusionists, the pinnacles of greatness that they are (/s), are able to care about multiple things.
Instead of postulating about how little the “asexies” are doing, how about you worry about how you’re spending your time. If you’re so upset about asexuals wasting their time and not focusing on the issues, how about you stop wasting your time preaching at them and go focus on the issues.
As far as I can tell, going by Internet key word searches, “Asexuality Awareness Week” happens every year in the third week of October. And nationwide Election Days have been happening the first week of November since the 1800s.
Trump is pulling out all the stops of his outrageousness to get his political base excited for voting two weeks from today.
Are you registered to vote? Are you going to vote Blue? I know I am – my application for an absentee ballot got approved today (The first application I mailed out got lost, somehow… I was getting nervous.). I am so ready to do my part and flip the House and Senate.
(See? I’m one of them Asex-you-alls. And I vote. I can be who I am, and care about people who are not me at the same time. Who’d a-thunk it?)
Facts that adults don’t tell you about bullying
– Communication doesn’t work on bullies. Telling a bully they’re making you feel bad is the wrong way to go. They want to make you feel bad. That’s the point.
– being kind to a bully doesn’t always mean they’ll stop. Sometimes it means they’ll just use your kindness to manipulate you while still continuing to bully you.
– not every bully has a sympathetically tragic home life. Sometimes people are just mean. Sometimes people just get off on hurting others.
– on that note, a tough home life is a reason, not an excuse. You don’t have to put up with bullying because somebody’s life sucks, just like you don’t have to let someone mug you because they’re broke.
– in order to forgive someone, they have to apologize first. If your bully has not apologized to you, you do not owe them anything.
– getting bullied as a kid can still mess you up in adult life. Maybe kids grow out of being bullies, but the marks they left often don’t go away.
– there are ways to get people to stop bullying you, but they almost all involve being mean back.
– as long as parents keep raising shitty bullying kids, there will be bullies. No amount of assemblies and hand-drawn posters will fix the problem. It’s the parents’ fault.
– It’s not your responsibility to fix your bully or to stop the abuse they send your way, but some adults sure will act like it is.
– Many times (especially in the case of girls) your friends can be your bullies. This makes things even worse as these are people who know you and your intimate secrets and use them to their advantage. If your friends are bullies, don’t take crap from them. Get new friends.
im gonna throw in that its never your fault, people will pick a target to gang up on because theyd rather it be you than them. even if you think “this must be because im weird”- everyone is weird, in different ways. anyone can be made a target. it’s not just you for some reason in particular, i promise.
Can I please get a new nurse?
They were always the ones who wanted to go into nursing, or early childhood education lolol
And no wonder, with such great opportunities for power over people who can’t effectively fight back too well 😩
[Image description: screen shot of a tweet from lil d (@spaghettiinbed): Thinking about girls who were absolute demons in high school getting a degree in nursing makes me so nervous. Description ends]
^^^This^^^
I’ve tried, at various times, to explain to people that when you grow up with a disability, the worst of the bullying comes from adults rather than other kids. Because it’s the adults (The teachers, doctors, therapists, etc..) who have the actual power to try and force you to conform to their idea of “normal.” When kids bully, they’re generally just picking up on stuff adults have (unintentionally, perhaps) taught them.
…I’m not often believed.
An important lesson for students and bully teachers:
I was talking to one of my brothers last night about kids and teachers from our old high school and one teacher in particular came up. When I was 14 my brother passed away, and I was hardly in any shape to go back to school afterwards but after a 5 month leave, I went back. I basically cried every day. On one such day I was sitting in study hall. I had my head down, crying and just wanted to be left alone. The teacher in question ordered me to pick my head up and when she asked why I was crying I told her why and asked if I could be excused to the bathroom. She said no and told me to “suck it up” and proceeded to berate me for being upset. Meanwhile students in class just watched, not saying a word, either because they didn’t know what was going on, they hated me, or didn’t want to get sent to the dean. One of my friends stood up though and told her to cool it, that my brother had just died and she was being a bitch. She made some comment and immediately went into her office.
Lesson: If you see a teacher bullying a student in any way, you need to speak up. You might be afraid of going to the dean or getting detention or the teacher giving you bad grades because of it but they literally can’t. They might try but they have people they answer to that are usually nicer than them and if they try to use your education as leverage to bully, it won’t stick. It’s much more important to speak up and stop them, because high school is hard enough without teachers treating their students like shit.
Facts that adults don’t tell you about bullying
– Communication doesn’t work on bullies. Telling a bully they’re making you feel bad is the wrong way to go. They want to make you feel bad. That’s the point.
– being kind to a bully doesn’t always mean they’ll stop. Sometimes it means they’ll just use your kindness to manipulate you while still continuing to bully you.
– not every bully has a sympathetically tragic home life. Sometimes people are just mean. Sometimes people just get off on hurting others.
– on that note, a tough home life is a reason, not an excuse. You don’t have to put up with bullying because somebody’s life sucks, just like you don’t have to let someone mug you because they’re broke.
– in order to forgive someone, they have to apologize first. If your bully has not apologized to you, you do not owe them anything.
– getting bullied as a kid can still mess you up in adult life. Maybe kids grow out of being bullies, but the marks they left often don’t go away.
– there are ways to get people to stop bullying you, but they almost all involve being mean back.
– as long as parents keep raising shitty bullying kids, there will be bullies. No amount of assemblies and hand-drawn posters will fix the problem. It’s the parents’ fault.
the only time I got a real life bully to stop was when I punched him in the face.
Some from my own experience;
-Even if teachers and the kids’ parents do their darndest to end the bullying with detentions and such, it might not work.
-Changing schools might not work, either.
-Fighting back might not work, if the bullies are strong guys and like to beat you up. I fought back, but got punched and kicked a lot back.
-If nothing seems to work, try to find a way to take courses in adult education.
Every situation is different, and so is what’s more likely to help. Sometimes nothing really does, besides riding it out the best you can. (And I know how much easier said that can be.)
I got two main approaches, neither of them remotely helpful.
At school: “Maybe try not being so weird”/“Ignore it!”
At home: “You must not have beaten on them enough, or they wouldn’t still be bothering you!” (Or, you know, maybe that approach is not actually appropriate in all circumstances, and might make it easier to paint you as The Real Problem 😩)
I’ll add that even in cases where bullies do get physical, they don’t necessarily have to be good at fighting for giving it back to them not to work so well as a deterrent. Sometimes they’re just sneaky. Sometimes they’ll carefully keep out of lunging range and throw stuff, after they’ve learned that getting closer is bad for their health. Sometimes provoking you into flipping your shit is apparently worth the beatdown. (Especially with the right audience. See also: sneaky.) And so on.
Expecting bullies’ motives and actions to even make sense to anyone but other people with the same mindset can be a mistake.
There is no one-size solution. I really wish I could offer one, myself. But, too many adults do want to think they have one–and it’s somehow a child’s fault if that’s just not working.
All this. And also. There will be adult bullies when you are an adult. (Adults can also bully kids, of course.) And if you run into the worst, they will be sophisticated, dedicated beyond belief to hurting people, and adept at what they do beyond what you may be able to imagine or believe is possible.
Hitting back did help sometimes. A lot of my bullies were boys, and I think they were too embarrassed to be seen fighting a girl, so they’d run away. One of them hopped on a tricycle he found lying by the road and pedaled away down the road when I tried to catch him once we got off the bus. He never bothered me again after that.
I have also been thinking about how people think a bully and a stalker can’t be the same thing. Some bullies might just be opportunistic and pick on you when you’re in their line of sight. But some decide they like bullying you so much they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth to do it.
Facts that adults don’t tell you about bullying
– Communication doesn’t work on bullies. Telling a bully they’re making you feel bad is the wrong way to go. They want to make you feel bad. That’s the point.
– being kind to a bully doesn’t always mean they’ll stop. Sometimes it means they’ll just use your kindness to manipulate you while still continuing to bully you.
– not every bully has a sympathetically tragic home life. Sometimes people are just mean. Sometimes people just get off on hurting others.
– on that note, a tough home life is a reason, not an excuse. You don’t have to put up with bullying because somebody’s life sucks, just like you don’t have to let someone mug you because they’re broke.
– in order to forgive someone, they have to apologize first. If your bully has not apologized to you, you do not owe them anything.
– getting bullied as a kid can still mess you up in adult life. Maybe kids grow out of being bullies, but the marks they left often don’t go away.
– there are ways to get people to stop bullying you, but they almost all involve being mean back.
– as long as parents keep raising shitty bullying kids, there will be bullies. No amount of assemblies and hand-drawn posters will fix the problem. It’s the parents’ fault.
the only time I got a real life bully to stop was when I punched him in the face.
Some from my own experience;
-Even if teachers and the kids’ parents do their darndest to end the bullying with detentions and such, it might not work.
-Changing schools might not work, either.
-Fighting back might not work, if the bullies are strong guys and like to beat you up. I fought back, but got punched and kicked a lot back.
-If nothing seems to work, try to find a way to take courses in adult education.
Every situation is different, and so is what’s more likely to help. Sometimes nothing really does, besides riding it out the best you can. (And I know how much easier said that can be.)
I got two main approaches, neither of them remotely helpful.
At school: “Maybe try not being so weird”/“Ignore it!”
At home: “You must not have beaten on them enough, or they wouldn’t still be bothering you!” (Or, you know, maybe that approach is not actually appropriate in all circumstances, and might make it easier to paint you as The Real Problem 😩)
I’ll add that even in cases where bullies do get physical, they don’t necessarily have to be good at fighting for giving it back to them not to work so well as a deterrent. Sometimes they’re just sneaky. Sometimes they’ll carefully keep out of lunging range and throw stuff, after they’ve learned that getting closer is bad for their health. Sometimes provoking you into flipping your shit is apparently worth the beatdown. (Especially with the right audience. See also: sneaky.) And so on.
Expecting bullies’ motives and actions to even make sense to anyone but other people with the same mindset can be a mistake.
There is no one-size solution. I really wish I could offer one, myself. But, too many adults do want to think they have one–and it’s somehow a child’s fault if that’s just not working.
All this. And also. There will be adult bullies when you are an adult. (Adults can also bully kids, of course.) And if you run into the worst, they will be sophisticated, dedicated beyond belief to hurting people, and adept at what they do beyond what you may be able to imagine or believe is possible.
Facts that adults don’t tell you about bullying
– Communication doesn’t work on bullies. Telling a bully they’re making you feel bad is the wrong way to go. They want to make you feel bad. That’s the point.
– being kind to a bully doesn’t always mean they’ll stop. Sometimes it means they’ll just use your kindness to manipulate you while still continuing to bully you.
– not every bully has a sympathetically tragic home life. Sometimes people are just mean. Sometimes people just get off on hurting others.
– on that note, a tough home life is a reason, not an excuse. You don’t have to put up with bullying because somebody’s life sucks, just like you don’t have to let someone mug you because they’re broke.
– in order to forgive someone, they have to apologize first. If your bully has not apologized to you, you do not owe them anything.
– getting bullied as a kid can still mess you up in adult life. Maybe kids grow out of being bullies, but the marks they left often don’t go away.
– there are ways to get people to stop bullying you, but they almost all involve being mean back.
– as long as parents keep raising shitty bullying kids, there will be bullies. No amount of assemblies and hand-drawn posters will fix the problem. It’s the parents’ fault.
the only time I got a real life bully to stop was when I punched him in the face.
Some from my own experience;
-Even if teachers and the kids’ parents do their darndest to end the bullying with detentions and such, it might not work.
-Changing schools might not work, either.
-Fighting back might not work, if the bullies are strong guys and like to beat you up. I fought back, but got punched and kicked a lot back.
-If nothing seems to work, try to find a way to take courses in adult education.
Every situation is different, and so is what’s more likely to help. Sometimes nothing really does, besides riding it out the best you can. (And I know how much easier said that can be.)
I got two main approaches, neither of them remotely helpful.
At school: “Maybe try not being so weird”/“Ignore it!”
At home: “You must not have beaten on them enough, or they wouldn’t still be bothering you!” (Or, you know, maybe that approach is not actually appropriate in all circumstances, and might make it easier to paint you as The Real Problem 😩)
I’ll add that even in cases where bullies do get physical, they don’t necessarily have to be good at fighting for giving it back to them not to work so well as a deterrent. Sometimes they’re just sneaky. Sometimes they’ll carefully keep out of lunging range and throw stuff, after they’ve learned that getting closer is bad for their health. Sometimes provoking you into flipping your shit is apparently worth the beatdown. (Especially with the right audience. See also: sneaky.) And so on.
Expecting bullies’ motives and actions to even make sense to anyone but other people with the same mindset can be a mistake.
There is no one-size solution. I really wish I could offer one, myself. But, too many adults do want to think they have one–and it’s somehow a child’s fault if that’s just not working.
Unpopular opinion that shouldn’t be unpopular: anti-bullying programs in school that don’t address the root causes of bullying – which are almost invariably larger forms of bigotry and oppression like racism, ableism and homophobia – are completely useless and ultimately futile.
kids get bullied, frequently, because they’re “weird”. but it just so happens that the traits society calls “weird” are overwhelmingly related to poverty, minority religion or ethnicity, neurodivergence, non-straight sexuality, and gender non conformance.
funny, that.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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