We hear a lot nowadays about bullying; how to stop it, what it does to children, how it's linked to bad things like depression and suicide, and how the fast clip of technology and open world of social networking has led to the extension of these bad behaviors online. But is it always bad? Can we learn something from our enemies?
Well, most of the work on children who are rejected in childhood - children who are not liked by other kids - suggests that they are low in social competence, aggressive and depressed, and that many of these effects may persist on a relatively long-term basis. Not good.
But a new article in the New York Times suggests that these effects may be overstated, at least for the majority of children. As it turns out, the research on our childhood enemies may have been skewed by our focus on rejected children. Chronically disliked, highly aggressive, often impulsive and hostile - these children are a special, smaller group and may not accurately represent the influence of our more moderate adversaries. Many many of us had enemies in our childhood years - the mean kid, the one who threw your lunch or called you names, the friend who turned against you and laughed in your face, the foe who spread nasty rumors about you. But most of us turn out okay. In fact, not just okay. Those interactions with our enemies may have actually led to increases in our social competence. They may have actually helped us.
“Friendships provide a context in which children develop, but of course so do negative peer relations,” said Maurissa Abecassis, a psychologist at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire. “We should expect that both types of relationships, as different as they are, present opportunities for growth.”But how can this be? What might enemies be teaching us? Well, we will always encounter people we dislike - the infinite variability of those around us ensures that to be true. And there will always be people who don't like us. Being able to identify this and respond appropriately is a skill, and it is a skill that can be honed in childhood as we navigate the land mines of the social world. If someone hates you, it's actually adaptive to realize that and not waste energy on trying to be friends - a process that may ultimately be for naught. And a shared enemy? We've known for a long time that that helps us to strengthen our social bonds with our allies.
So we don't have to like our childhood enemies. But we should perhaps thank them for teaching us some important, if unpleasant lessons.
I can't say I'm shocked by these new findings. I got picked on and teased, just like every other child in America, I'm sure. I seem to have a pretty thin skin though, and was often crushed by the mean things people said to me. I never felt like that part of my past made me more depressed or less social, however. I feel like it gave me a quicker recovery time after someone is mean. Instead of being sad for a week, I'm sad for an hour and get over it. All that practice in my adolesence must have paid off!
ReplyDeleteI agree with how this can apply to kids going through bullying, but nowadays bullying has reached a new set of terms. When I was a kid it was the normal pushing around, taking your lunch money kind of deal, but now...my little sister is dealing with physical and mental harm more so than I ever did. Although it is giving her "thicker" skin, I can already see this treatment curbing her personality to be a bit of a more cynical one. She's 11 and her whimsical happy persona is now replaced with critical observation and constant paranoia to not be too "weird". I think bullying methods have advanced way too quick which is making kids grow up and conform even faster.
ReplyDeleteThis article is relevant, but I don't think it is applicable to the majority of treatment kids have to go through now.
Hien N.
I agree with what this article is speaking of. Going to a predominately white Catholic school in the suburbs, I already somewhat stood out with my dark eyes and dark hair. I was on the basketball team for 4 years and never was treated kindly or fairly by my teammates. This concept of "fitting in" always has been a constant struggle and it has taken time for me to accept myself for who I am. I am also thankful towards the girls who treated me unfairly because they taught me how to not treat another person. Instead of making my life and people around me exclusive I have worked very hard to make it inclusive. :-) I enjoy meeting new people and learning from them rather than judging and trying to manipulate people towards my advantage.
ReplyDeleteThis article is very interesting and I am very interested seeing further research done on this idea. However, even though I find this article interesting I do not fully agree with it because I babysit for kids who have been bullied or are being bullied and even though maybe in the long run this will make them tougher, it robs them of their childhood happiness replacing with constant worry about not fitting in. I mean I babysit for one kid who will never played on his favorite slide anymore because another kid said he was not cool enough to play on it. Some even though being bullied has some benefits, such as learning how to deal with such behavior, I think for least in childhood the benefits are not worth the cost.
ReplyDeleteShelbie Dietmeyer
I think that there are both costs and benefits to childhood enemies. On one hand, you would expect there to be possible negative effects such as low self esteem which could impact the individual later in life. On the other hand, learning to deal with people that are not nice to you and situations that are difficult can be a beneficial experience. Throughout your life, you will be confronted with unpleasant situations and learning to deal with your enemies successfully as a child will be helpful. Just as the person in the first comment said, everyone has been teased or picked on at some point and, in my experieice as well, I am able to not be bothered or get over things a lot quicker than if I had been sheltered from those experiences.
ReplyDeleteAmanda F. said...
ReplyDeleteHaving childhood enemies when I was in elementary school definitely helped me learn how to react to the cruel statements that other children would say and things that they would do. In middle school, I was fairly shy and this was probably because of those unpleasant instances of teasing that I hoped to avoid. When I reached high school, I had moved states and had to make new friends which also came with making new enemies. I learned to be as diplomatic and pleasant as I could with people that I was not so fond of. And, if necessary, I completely ignored others who didn't like me and the ridiculous name-calling or death-stares and trash-talk i received from those people. Overall, I would agree, and say that all of my conflicting experiences made me grow up to handle situations more maturely instead of retaliating and sinking to that low level of making another person feel bad about something.
I agree with the findings that having less than positive social interactions can strengthen children and teens (heck, even adults) by helping them to learn how to respond and adapt to these interactions. Where it gets tricky is when bullying is taken online as then the bully can become very anonymous as well as involve other friends in ganging up on another peer. In light of recent cyber-bullying related suicides I think we need to remember that while we stand to learn from every social interaction we are involved in that we need to be especially careful in discussing bullying (in person and online) with our children and other younger folks in our lives.
ReplyDelete-BreAnna Dupuis Kennedy (Summer 2010)