I never see anyone talking about how kids can abuse adults though.
Growing up I saw a lot of adult teachers get bullied by students and it sucked. They would purposely push them to their breaking point until they exploded, yelled, cursed, threw desks, and the ones who didn’t have that kind of reaction would just quit or end up fired because the kids would start rumors. One was because our new math teacher was effeminate so the guys thought “obviously this guy is gay and he’s after our dicks” and if he was ever nice to a male student (which… he was nice and friendly with EVERYONE and was the best teacher we’d had that year) they would start whispering behind me, “yo, look at that, did you see that? He’s flirting with his male students, that’s nasty” and so they made trouble for him.
My mother worked at a Discovery Zone type place when I was little and she would come home and break down crying because groups of little boys would call her names, call her stupid her whole shift.
I had friends in childhood who absolutely abused their parents. They were relentless and mean and hacked them into submission and it made for a lot of awkward moments when I would hang with them, because I couldn’t do anything since… they were my abuser too.
Just because you’re a minor doesn’t mean knives you throw are not sharp and won’t hit someone. The fact that so many kids on this site use their age as a weapon, as a way to say “but nothing I do has any impact because I have no social power” is SCARY and we need to try to make people aware of this kind of stuff from a young age because most people who are like that don’t really realize it and they need guidance and rehabilitation so the cycle can stop. Because those people grow up and have kids and do it to their kids and they don’t learn that it’s not normal or okay, that they cannot deny reality by controlling the people around them.
But sometimes it isn’t always that way, some of those parents were so nice and kind and I considered like family, and they just had absolute evil villains for kids.
Check in with yourselves, guys. Especially right now. There’s a lot of upsetting stuff being shoved in our faces all the time and it makes it hard not to get tunnel vision when our emotions get out of control, especially with the pressure to perform by a lot of social circles on tumblr. And if you’re young and a lot of this is new, pace yourself, you’re learning, and you need to be open to the idea of learning more and know that us being adults doesn’t mean we’re just out of touch boring old farts who don’t know anything. We’ve lived things and we have experience and when we say to you that it’s not okay to tell people who like things you do not like to kill themselves, we’re not “apologists”… we’re the survivors too.
yo this is really important
my piano/choir teacher in 6th grade was only around 20-23 whenever she came to our school, and she only stayed for 2 years because all the kids were so awful. one time she told me that me and a few other of my friends were the only ones who hadn’t said a bad word about her the whole time.
in 4th grade, we got an awesome music teacher. he was in his late 20’s at the time, really chill and easygoing (we were in elementary school). some of the kids would just slowly drive him off the edge until one day he ended up throwing pens across the room out of frustration and anger. everybody was either scared of him or laughed at him, and it kinda made it worse. he left 2 years later and teaches a civilized and nice group of kids now.
kids really can abuse adults. I’ve seen it happen a lot and it’s sad and heartbreaking and overall awful to see because so many people brush it off as “kids being kids.”
In 7th grade or so I had the most delightful Maths/Science teacher (the two were taught by the same guy) and he was always super nice. Like he adored teaching, he brought us snacks sometimes and like really wanted us to do well.
By 8th grade he was a changed man. We had young neo-nazis starting shit. We had kids screaming and throwing shit at him. We had knife fights and I’m 90% certain I remember him straight up being forced into a position where he had to wrestle one of my more violent classmates to the floor. My class had actually driven this calm, cool, great guy (he couldn’t’ve been more than 27 at the time) to actually break down crying in class. As far as I heard he was gone by the time I entered grade 9.
I remember lots of my classmates mocking my math teacher because of her accent, when I was a freshman. She was from Syria, in a mexican school. Little pieces of shit were always imitating her accent and mocking her from getting certain words wrong.
I saw her about four years later and she looked so tired of everything, less cheerful and with a tougher attitude from the beginning. Fortunately she still talks to me calmly and smiling, but it’s awful to know she’s always anxious around thw kids she teaches.
In seventh grade I had a teacher named Ms. Burns. It was only her third year of teaching, and it was her first year of teaching middle school. And the class I had her for?
My fellow classmates were fucking awful to Ms. Burns. They talked over her when she was trying to teach, they made fun of her appearance (said she looked like man and called her a ‘tranny’, or “It Burns” instead of Ms. Burns), and when a few months into the school year, she broke down and screamed at the top of her lungs at the class before sitting down at her desk and crying, they considered it a triumph and laughed about it for weeks.
Being a kid doesn’t exempt you from being a piece of shit, and just because, on the whole, adults have more power than minors doesn’t mean that minors get a free pass on being purposefully cruel to adults. Some of you on this website really need to learn this.
Discipline your goddamn kids.
Seriously doubling down on the last part because this behavior doesn’t form in a fucking vacuum.
just because you fed your kid and put a roof over their head doesn’t mean you succeeded as a parent lmao if your child cannot navigate adult life in a healthy way you have failed. if your child has such deep self worth issues thanks to decades of you only focusing on what they were doing wrong, you failed. if you tell your child that having money is more important than happiness and doing what you want in life, you’re a fucking failure.
here is an idea: normalise the idea that adopting kids is a valid option even for parents who could conceive a child themselves, and not just an inferior backup option for parents who can’t
so hey who else was taught as a kid that “”””wanting attention”””” in any way was wrong and shameful and has grown up unable ask for help or support even in great distress/suffering
Parent: why do you never come to me for help
(two days later)
Me: I need help with something
Parent: CAN’T YOU SEE I’M BUSY WHY CAN’T YOU DO ANYTHING BY YOURSELF GOD YOU’RE SO-
Me: never mind
And don’t forget the You Can Tell Me Anything (Except Things I Don’t Want to Hear)™.
Bonus round of You Can Tell Me Anything (But If I Don’t Like It You’re In Big Trouble Even If You’re Asking For Help)
I’m Always Here For You! (Until You Upset Me In Any Way)™.
Just so everyone knows, all of these are emotional abuse.
Before you become a parent do your future kids a favour and figure out what your automatic first response is to being annoyed or frustrated (because it will happen) and if it’s to get angry then you need to work on that. Kids can be annoying. They like loud noises and repetition and jumping around and being silly and don’t really understand social cues when they’re starting to wear on you.
Like obviously no one will ever be perfect. But if your immediate response to a grown adult annoying you is to snap back at them you’ve got to fix that before you hurt your kids with those responses.
Don’t have kids if you’re traumatized and it’s going to get in the way of raising a kid safely and healthily and not in a way that’s also gonna traumatize them in a different way. And don’t have kids if you think it’s going to “heal yourself through the purest form of love” children and their childhoods aren’t your guinea pigs to experiment with for your own healing
I want kids and specifically don’t want my trauma to mess with them, so I’m reading a lot about emotional parental abuse and developmental psychology.
I will never forget the moment my abusive father used the “I turned out fine!” to defend his upbringing.
Anyone who wants kids, I want you to spend real time every day preparing yourself for what you’ll do when your child backtalks. When your child points out something you hoped they were too naive to notice. When your child is completely aware of your insecurity and fallability. When your child may exceed your capabilities academically. When your child is not just hurt but angry with you. When your child won’t take ‘no’ for a sufficient answer. When you must explain yourself to a child.
When the authority you imagined you had over them begins to waver, and they become someone so different than the fantasy you had of them before they were born.
That is going to matter the most. What will you do?
Agressive reminder to all parents that if your child is really struggling with/is unable to do basic everyday things like going to school , socializing or helping out at home your first assumption should be that there might be something wrong mentally or physically, not that they’re bad, lazy people who aren’t trying their hardest.
ifesbob 