Serious bias of omission: ASD teenage depression sites

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I second this observation.

But I also agree that social isolation and alienation are depressing and I think it can seem like a sort of social misery continuum with no friends or sympathetic people at one end, verbal insults and public slights in the middle and random acts of violence and group assaults at the other.

At times it can seem like that bleak spectrum or utter loneliness is all life has to offer, and that is a deeply depressing feeling.

Yep...I felt exactly that until I got my first job, and left my mother's house.

Precisely. We have real methods for dealing with abuse but not so with "bullying". No we use incredibly naive intervention programs or try to talk it out with little Jimmy. That is a problem because the victim can lead a deeply unsatisfying life. What they could use is something like cognitive behavioral therapy, and also a serious self defense course (not some BS like karate or tae kwondo) to build confidence.

Ensuring that your child is physically healthy and physically confident, instead of coddling him/her, isn't all that different from making sure the child does homework, and for many kids it can be essential to their mental health. Otherwise they can just go on getting bullied and deal with all of the cognitive dissonance.

Now let's be honest: these cases of bullying oftentimes are primarily not as traumatic or extreme as things that adults go through and seem to cope with pretty well. The difference is that a child doesn't understand, doesn't know how to cope with it, and not only does the child not know but the child is dealing with much more hormones than an adult.



This is why children need to learn confidence and coping mechanisms much more than we who have some experience to reinforce ourselves. I know how deeply dissatisfying this "continuum" is, big surprise from someone with autism I know lol, and as parents and guardians I think we need to go the extra mile instead of just coming up with half baked answers and half baked efforts. Some children need to be coached every day and even given some specific instructions, because trust me it will eventually sink in and that person will lead a richer life.

But most of all I must emphasize again that troubled children be taught self defense, and be taught it in a serious gym like an mma, kickboxing, or krav maga gym, because the training is physically demanding. Obviously the child will not like it because the child doesn't just learn some fancy looking crap and go home. Wrestling/grappling (whether it be catch wrestling, freestyle, judo, or jiu jitsu) involves being in awkward positions where it is difficult to breathe for long periods of time, which is much more taxing on cardio than running. Striking martial arts are almost as taxing but not as uncomfortable or complex. No one thrives under such conditions at first. But the whole purpose is that once the child starts to do well there is a sense of accomplishment and the child's self esteem will be greatly improved. The child will not fear others so much and will feel that he/she deserves respect.

Last edited by Lukecash12 on 07 Nov 2014, 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bullying could take the form either of harassment or of assault/battery. Harassment is a chargeable offense-sometimes less than a misdemeanor, sometimes a misdemeanor. Assault/battery is at least a misdemeanor, sometimes a felony.

It's a serious matter whether done by children or adults.

How would you define coddling though? there are people that would consider, comforting the child to be 'coddling', there are people who would consider the parents attempting to put a stop to the bullying with help of school staff as too 'coddling' when the victim of it is clearly distressed. So how far would things have to go for you to consider it coddling. Also if one is getting constantly bullied that is probably going to interfere with their ability to become physicially healthy/confident let alone maintain it. You could have a confidant and healthy child younger than school age, they could hypothetically suffer bullying and it could effect those things.

The difference between coddling the child and being emotionally available and supportive, is that when you coddle the child you are supporting a victim complex. The child already is a victim, there is no need to wallow in it. You can of course be compassionate and hear what the child has to say and comfort the child. But then you take action along the lines of coaching the child every day, possibly considering cognitive behavioral therapy, and most importantly considering a self defense course like I explained better in the rest of my last post (sorry it takes me a while to finish them sometimes).

Of course the bullying interferes with physical confidence. The whole point of self defense is so that the child is not intimidated by size or aggression because the child already knows things that an average child could not possibly know. Average children do not know how to throw a punch. They do not know how to easily subdue someone or take them to the ground simply by using their own force and lack of balance against them.

Serious martial arts, as opposed to flashy and impractical martial arts, allow normal people who don't seem imposing or special at all to make the average person look silly in a fight, and I literally mean silly. When I was in high school kids from gangs would try to fight me and I would simply hip toss them after ducking a punch, even kids much bigger than me. I would just toss them like a sack of potatoes and the other high school kids would laugh. Then sometimes they would threaten to "jump" me, and I would do what my parents drilled into men then and inform them and the authorities. If I didn't feel safe I didn't walk home, and at school there were enough staff members present for me to feel safe. Because of this I didn't have to fear the inevitable hothead because I knew I didn't have to be as strong as him, as fast as him, or as mean as him.

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