Multiheaded comments on Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school - Less Wrong

10 Post author: James_Miller 09 October 2013 07:19PM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 10 October 2013 12:57:28AM 5 points [-]

This sounds like a possible viable way of dealing with bullying, but in general, I think that if the children bring the bullying to their parents' attention, and the parents are willing to intercede and make a serious effort on the kids' behalf, bullying is usually solvable. It's when adults insist that kids "need to learn to work these matters out among themselves" that troubles become intractable, and since I became an adult myself, I have on a few occasions had to remind adults that the way it works in the grown up world is that we have authorities we call on to intervene in conflicts because we don't expect victims to be able to resolve matters amicably with their victimizers.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 10 October 2013 12:52:36PM *  5 points [-]

I think that if the children bring the bullying to their parents' attention, and the parents are willing to intercede and make a serious effort on the kids' behalf, bullying is usually solvable.

Also, one important step is that the parents must believe the child's report of bullying. As opposed to e.g. thinking "this is an exaggerated version of something that is probably harmless". (This was a mistake my parents were making all the time.)