Elon Musk details years at the hands of bullies

[Barbarian Conan]

I don't want to divert from Elon's misery in life or him cleverly orchestrating the woke "victim-blaming get out of jail free card" here.

I have a 4 year old, and have wondered about this. How do you prepare your kid for his school years? You want him not to be a dick, but also not to be a victim. I sort of feel that it is better to be a hammer than a nail, if it has to come to that.

Apart from Oom Errol, any other parents that want to weigh in on bully culture?

Not a parent, but I was somehow only occasionally bullied even though on paper I was probably a prime target. I guess having just enough confidence without being cocky helps? Although we didn't have that much bullying in our school. It happened, but it didn't seem like a persistent thing to make other people's lives hell.
What I did notice, is that if kids get the idea that you think you are better than them, they will want to get you. I can see Elon exuding such energy and he reminds me about a kid like that I knew in high school when he speaks.

I also remember another new kid in our school. First week he tells us how in his old school, all the washouts/uncool kids/whatever played rugby, and the cool kids play volleyball.
Half the boys were like.


He moved to another school not long after.

I also attended some engineering week thing over holiday. Came back and told my friends how cool it was and what about it was different than high school. They took it as me thinking I'm better than them and got a bit aggressive.

 

[Cius]

"invited bullying" - wow, you really epitomise the exact unevolved thuggish society of SA that people leave to get away from.

I heard that the time he was put in hospital he mocked a kid for his father dying. He was not innocent. I know he is on the spectrum and as such has less of a filter but he was apparently known for saying stuff that stirred, and was offensive. So yes, he did ask for it. Does that justify putting him in hospital? Probably not, but it does mitigate it. I also went to school in SA, I was also a big nerd, and more bookish and less sporty. Sure I got hit once or twice by bullies, but mostly I learned to avoid them and de-escalate situations so I had very few "fights" in school. Kids that got hit often almost always asked for it in my opinion.

 

[konfab]

Bullies are everywhere. Schools, workplaces and homes.

And governments.

 

[Emjay]

Bullies do usually not need an excuse to bully. However in Elon's case he was often the instigator verbally.

Elon Musk made hurtful comment to fellow pupil, who left him hospitalised, father says | Business

Errol Musk credits his son's uber-macho "South African boy" upbringing with driving his ambition.

www.news24.com

Words are never an excuse for physical violence. Shocking to see people think that this is ok.

 

[konfab]

I have a 4 year old, and have wondered about this. How do you prepare your kid for his school years? You want him not to be a dick, but also not to be a victim. I sort of feel that it is better to be a hammer than a nail, if it has to come to that.

Bullying is one of the reasons why we are homeschooling. Both my wife and I were bullied mercilessly.

Schools are entirely anti-social environments. You are forced to go to them, even if you don't want to, to be forced to hang around people who take joy in tormenting you, and you have no means to fight back because you don't have the maturity to understand why the bullies are wrong, and are not allowed to resort to physical violence.

Dealing with horrible people is only something you can learn how to do as an adult. As a kid, you have the right to enjoy your childhood, and your parents have a duty to protect that right.

If you do have to send your kids to school (well these apply even if you are homeschooling) , there are a few very easy principles that you can teach them:
1) If you can't say something positive about someone, don't say anything at all. Just keep quiet.
2) Only take the opinion of people you like seriously. Treat everyone else's opinion as inferior, because it probably is.
3) Avoid being the centre of attention by keeping your opinion to yourself.

 

[Emjay]

Bullying is one of the reasons why we are homeschooling. Both my wife and I were bullied mercilessly.

Schools are entirely anti-social environments. You are forced to go to them, even if you don't want to, to be forced to hang around people who take joy in tormenting you, and you have no means to fight back because you don't have the maturity to understand why the bullies are wrong, and are not allowed to resort to physical violence.

Dealing with horrible people is only something you can learn how to do as an adult. As a kid, you have the right to enjoy your childhood, and your parents have a duty to protect that right.

If you do have to send your kids to school (well these apply even if you are homeschooling) , there are a few very easy principles that you can teach them:
1) If you can't say something positive about someone, don't say anything at all. Just keep quiet.
2) Only take the opinion of people you like seriously. Treat everyone else's opinion as inferior, because it probably is.
3) Avoid being the centre of attention by keeping your opinion to yourself.

I don't disagree with your approach. But teaching children to not share their opinions can reinforce very antisocial behaviours. Maybe rather teach to be careful about what opinions to share (I am very careful with religion and politics).

 

[skimread]

Words are never an excuse for physical violence. Shocking to see people think that this is ok.

If you have to stop insults then sometimes you have to. Constant insults can cause harm too. Look how many people commit suicide just because of words

e.g.

Girl allegedly bullied into suicide by teacher | The Citizen

She was allegedly shouted at, bullied, intimidated and repeatedly told she was a failure because she posted about “ugly shoes” on Facebook.

www.citizen.co.za

Schoolgirl who killed herself was bullied 'for being bright', inquest hears

Mother of Izzy Dix, 14, who had ambitions to go to Oxford, releases her poem I Give Up to draw attention to problem of bullying

www.theguardian.com

13-Year-Old Pretoria Girl Kills Herself After Being Cyberbullied

A 13-year-old Pretoria girl has killed herself following the non-consensual sharing of a private image on WhatsApp, which led to the girl being cyberbullied by fellow students.

www.cybersmile.org

 

[Emjay]

If you have to stop insults then sometimes you have to. Constant insults can cause harm too. Look how many people commit suicide just because of words

e.g.

Girl allegedly bullied into suicide by teacher | The Citizen

She was allegedly shouted at, bullied, intimidated and repeatedly told she was a failure because she posted about “ugly shoes” on Facebook.

www.citizen.co.za

Schoolgirl who killed herself was bullied 'for being bright', inquest hears

Mother of Izzy Dix, 14, who had ambitions to go to Oxford, releases her poem I Give Up to draw attention to problem of bullying

www.theguardian.com

13-Year-Old Pretoria Girl Kills Herself After Being Cyberbullied

A 13-year-old Pretoria girl has killed herself following the non-consensual sharing of a private image on WhatsApp, which led to the girl being cyberbullied by fellow students.

www.cybersmile.org

The words = violence crowd will very much love to have this be the standard. Words are never a justification for physical violence. Teaching children that physical violence in response to words that make us feel uncomfortable or offended is not the answer.

 

[R13...]

2) Only take the opinion of people you like seriously. Treat everyone else's opinion as inferior, because it probably is.

Bullies hate when you do that, and doing so will just lead to more bullying.

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

If you do have to send your kids to school (well these apply even if you are homeschooling) , there are a few very easy principles that you can teach them:
1) If you can't say something positive about someone, don't say anything at all. Just keep quiet.
2) Only take the opinion of people you like seriously. Treat everyone else's opinion as inferior, because it probably is.
3) Avoid being the centre of attention by keeping your opinion to yourself.

I like this attitude -

 

[Gnome]

Words are never an excuse for physical violence. Shocking to see people think that this is ok.

Bullying can be verbal.
As Elon Musk indulged in based on accounts from others.

If he kept running his mouth even after being warned it was eventually going to get physical.

Do you also not condone the police using force to stop someone?
Like how far can someone go verbally before you'd think physical force is sufficient to stop them?
Or is the sky the limit?

Can I incite violence and do whatever and nobody can lay finger on me because I'm only running my mouth?

 

[konfab]

I don't disagree with your approach. But teaching children to not share their opinions can reinforce very antisocial behaviours. Maybe rather teach to be careful about what opinions to share (I am very careful with religion and politics).

At one stage, I was bullied because I had the audacity to talk about the Lego robotics set my parents bought me in grade 4 and how I was programming it to drive around. Got labelled as a science freak. So yeah, no your logic doesn't apply.

As I said, school is an anti-social environment to begin with because everyone is forced to be there. If people are forced to be in a place, they will find something or someone to amuse themselves with. The social dynamics of a school are closer to a prison than a home, which is why the best thing anyone can do is not bring attention to themselves. Leave the attention seeking stuff to places where you can do it, like a specific club where interactions are much more voluntary. Or sports where there is an activity to do.

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

One can see great examples in these threads

Its one thing debating a topic.
Its another finding agreement

It gets crazy when the ad hominems come out - and some of the responses can be quite nasty.
I dont know if this makes the "bully" responder feel more superior, or if it floats their boat? Who knows?

Some OPs choose to retaliate - some choose to ignore and walk away.

Physical restraint is a bit more difficult possibly because the attacker may not want to stop inflicting pain - and at some point, I imagine our survival instincts kick in.
At what point does restraining someone become assault?
At what point do we take action to stop the bully?
At what point do the people witnessing all of this decide to help, aggravate or ignore?

Tempers may also kick in, then all rationality goes out the window.

 

[konfab]

Bullies hate when you do that, and doing so will just lead to more bullying.

And the alternative is to let them to emotionally manipulate you and make you upset. So they win either way.

Reasons like this are why I am home-schooling.

 

[RedViking]

Stop bullying our favourite African American!

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

At one stage, I was bullied because I had the audacity to talk about the Lego robotics set my parents bought me in grade 4 and how I was programming it to drive around. Got labelled as a science freak. So yeah, no your logic doesn't apply.

As I said, school is an anti-social environment to begin with because everyone is forced to be there. If people are forced to be in a place, they will find something or someone to amuse themselves with. The social dynamics of a school are closer to a prison than a home, which is why the best thing anyone can do is not bring attention to themselves. Leave the attention seeking stuff to places where you can do it, like a specific club where interactions are much more voluntary. Or sports where there is an activity to do.

Unfortunately - schools pit the best of humanity with the worst in an environment where the task is to learn.
Apart from subject learning - there is also those life skills - learning about other people and how to interact with them.

People from different lifestyles come together and some are more open to social interaction than others.

We had two particularly large guys in school.
Both were bullies - in as much as they would actively pick on other kids.

Certainly, they had a following of some kids who were a bit chicken to say anything to them.

I really had very little interaction with them. I think I moered one once when I lost it after they picked on a buddy, but by and large they left me alone. (That buddy went on to become a boxer in SA and now lives in LA. We reunited three years back in the US for a good old reunion).

Oddly - life has some strange turns.

One of them went into the army with me. His arrogance caught up with him, and he was killed in an ambush.

The other went studying textiles. He failed first year and moved on. He was too cool for his socks, not bright enough to reaslise, that life doesnt care about cool - we all have bills to pay.

 

[konfab]

Unfortunately - schools pit the best of humanity with the worst in an environment where the task is to learn.
Apart from subject learning - there is also those life skills - learning about other people and how to interact with them.

People from different lifestyles come together and some are more open to social interaction than others.

We had two particularly large guys in school.
Both were bullies - in as much as they would actively pick on other kids.

Certainly, they had a following of some kids who were a bit chicken to say anything to them.

I really had very little interaction with them. I think I moered one once when I lost it after they picked on a buddy, but by and large they left me alone. (That buddy went on to become a boxer in SA and now lives in LA. We reunited three years back in the US for a good old reunion).

Oddly - life has some strange turns.

One of them went into the army with me. His arrogance caught up with him, and he was killed in an ambush.

The other went studying textiles. He failed first year and moved on. He was too cool for his socks, not bright enough to reaslise, that life doesnt care about cool - we all have bills to pay.

Schools are not a microcosm of adult life, unless if your adult life consists of going to prison. You don't learn anything socially in a school classroom that cannot be obtained elsewhere.

The only socialisation that actually starts mirroring what happens in the real world are interactions during extra-curricular activities like sports or cultural activities.

I don't go to school reunions because I would very likely violate one of my principles about not saying anything if I had to meet the people who tormented me.

 

[Gnome]

Schools are not a microcosm of adult life, unless if your adult life consists of going to prison. You don't learn anything socially in a school classroom that cannot be obtained elsewhere.

Don't agree.
Work can be like school.

These bully types are people with issues or an anti-social personality.

My GF works in the industrail building industry and it seems to contain a lot of people from either another generation or seem to have anti-social personalities.
They bully people, scream, shout, blame others, don't want to listen, more screaming and shouting and so on.

They never learned how to behave like a reasonable human.
Their way isn't to talk rationally and figure out how best to resolve a problem.
Instead they throw a little man tantrum until someone does what they want.

In school those were the kids that bullied people because their parents didn't give them attention or maybe they are psychopaths
My point being, school can prepare you for those types.
They exist everywhere.

Sadly there is no place in the world where you will not encounter them.

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

Work can be like school.

These bully types are people with issues or an anti-social personality.

Sadly there is no place in the world where you will not encounter them.

Agreed

 

[konfab]

Don't agree.
Work can be like school.

These bully types are people with issues or an anti-social personality.

My GF works in the industrail building industry and it seems to contain a lot of people from either another generation or seem to have anti-social personalities.
They bully people, scream, shout, blame others, don't want to listen, more screaming and shouting and so on.

They never learned how to behave like a reasonable human.
Their way isn't to talk rationally and figure out how best to resolve a problem.
Instead they throw a little man tantrum until someone does what they want.

In school those were the kids that bullied people because their parents didn't give them attention or maybe they are psychopaths
My point being, school can prepare you for those types.
They exist everywhere.

Sadly there is no place in the world where you will not encounter them.

It is fundamentally different.

Your GF goes to work to earn a salary. There is a tangible benefit from it. Hence you can motivate yourself to deal with the horrible people. And (assuming you are not a cradle snatcher), she is a grown adult, who is orders of magnitude more mature than children. She actually has a chance to deal with bullies as has the maturity to not listen to them and to just ignore them.

Telling a 6 year old child to deal with horrible people like that is pretty much abuse, as they don't know what to do and do not have the confidence of adulthood to help them.