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Comment by soco | Hacker News Reader

As we all read stories about bullied kids, or even this study above, not having help to resolve peer conflict isn't especially useful to kids' development either. So, how exactly should they handle it by themselves? Gang up? Outgun the bullies? I'm sorry but I can't even imagine a good way, any good way, how a bullied nerd kid can get out of bullying by themselves.

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My understanding is as follows:

1) If you're roughly evenly matched, you should fight

2) If you're not, your peers should intervene - "pick on someone your own size"

3) If this doesn't work, escalate to older peers

4) If that doesn't work, escalate to adults

This relies on children being taught and encouraged to intervene in unfair conflict, which the research indicates they are naturally inclined to do.

So basically you advocate not only educating the own kid, but also educating their peers to intervene, and also educating the older ones to police the area, and educating the adults in the end. Do you really think this is a realistic policy, over the lifetime of your school kid? In an ideal world, no idea, but in this real world Id say zero chance. However I can tell you how it works around here (Switzerland, by no means perfect either) where school personal will usually intervene - and somehow the bullied kids manage to learn their social skills as well. Yes we might be apes but even among apes the social structures are so different that the comparison is mostly meaningless.

This was basically how things have worked and continue to work in (particularly rural) areas where policymaking is lacking and people are left to their own devices. "Bullied" kids seek help from their immediate peers, from their/their peers older siblings, and from adults, roughly in that order. Parents typically do not hesitate to suggest aggressive escalation as a conflict resolution strategy. This strategy is often applied successfully.

I'm suggesting that the current "zero tolerance" approach practiced in North America does more harm than good by halting this process before it can resolve conflict - thus harming both the bullied and the bully.

My own experience growing up in rural America is not so romantic. Bullies were sometimes those who had a numeric advantage when it came to having relatives who were peers and adults at the school. Their victims, often, outsiders who were not physically strong, had no big siblings to protect them, and were not “favorites” of the teachers. Such children would not benefit from your strategy.

One notes that rural teens and young adults die of suicide at nearly twice the rate of those in urban areas. (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...)

"This was basically how things have worked and continue to work in (particularly rural) areas where policymaking is lacking and people are left to their own devices."

So in rural areas if a child in school grabs another child, throws them on the ground, and starts beating them in the middle of math class, the teacher will not attempt to intervene?

Sorry but I don't believe this.

The problem with American zero tolerance policies is not that they attempt to stop violence, but that they find the bullied to be as culpable as the bully, because “participating” in violence is what’s considered wrong, not instigating it.

There isn’t one of these steps that bullied children are not doing that they could do to resolve their issue. If your point is that their issue could be solved with education; well maybe, maybe they need parenting also…

I think the point is that the education system has to embrace this strategy rather than fight it with zero tolerance policies.

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