How do kids & teens get the idea that they can't go to any adults for help?

[Anaamika]

First, a story:

In my first month at a new high school, I had an episode I've never forgotten. It is hard to call it molestation, though I have used the term before, since it was incredibly brief and mild as far as such things go (though it did upset me greatly). It was between periods, it was indeed very brief, although rough, and I remember seeing the boy run off afterwards, supremely self-confident.
Self-confident I was not. I found out later there was a gang of boys doing this to every girl, so I wasn't singled out or anything, but at the moment I certainly felt as though I had been singled out. I wondered what I had done to draw attention to me.

The thing is, I clearly remember wanting to tell someone about it. My next period teacher was my English teacher. I loved English class, but he was an ineffectual teacher at best. He couldn't control the class and people hardly payed attention to him. So I remember deciding in my mind that I could not tell him. And I was really upset - I spent the whole class nearly in tears, and to make matters worse, he didn't notice at all, and I was the only 'A' student in his class. I guess I kind of expected him to notice.

What I don't know is why I didn't tell anyone else. I would never have told my parents; they would definitely have blamed me and said I must have egged him on in some way. But I trusted a lot of teachers. I was a straight A student, and the teachers liked me. But somehow I had it in my head that I couldn't tell anyone this.

Where does this idea come from in the first place? Do other parents notice this about their kids? Is it just an inherent fear of authority we all have? A lack of self-esteem? I know it could be said it stemmed from my distrust for my parents, but IME, even people who trust their parents sometimes have issues with this.

Thoughts?

[purplehorseshoe]

You've taked in the past about your mother, and I've posted how strikingly similar she sounds to mine in many respects despite the cultural differences, sooooo .... here's my not-very-well-thought-out WAG:

As I kid, I sometimes (often? I've blocked so much of this crap) got in trouble for things that were so totally not my fault. I could see in a situation like this, where even though at the time you didn't understand ezzactly what the hell just happened to you, you probably felt intuitively that it was a Big Honking Deal, and that an adult would make a Very Big Fuss over the event. Perhaps .. I dunno, you didn't want to call attention to yourself in case it turned out to be negative attention? (Maybe you knew this was coming: "Dammit, aanamika, how could you *sob* DO this to us??!? You must have led that nice boy on, didn't you?")


If you wanted to hear from Dopers who didn't have trust issues w/ their parents, you'll have to wait for someone else to chime in.

[Tess Trueheart]

As I kid, I sometimes (often? I've blocked so much of this crap) got in trouble for things that were so totally not my fault. I could see in a situation like this, where even though at the time you didn't understand ezzactly what the hell just happened to you, you probably felt intuitively that it was a Big Honking Deal, and that an adult would make a Very Big Fuss over the event.

I agree with this. I had plenty of adults I could've gone to about various things. However, my parents often blamed me for things I didn't do, didn't understand, or that they told me to do in the first place. I tried each of the following a few times, then started keeping quiet:

-Parents: would put blame on me.

-"Good church people" (group leaders, etc): would be judgmental, or give advice to do things that wouldn't help (basically amounted to waving it away by saying "pray about it" or "God has a plan" when it was clear they were out of ideas).

-Teachers: meant well, but were consumed with their work, which involved helping hundreds of kids, some of them with problems much worse than mine. Would sometimes seem not to care, sometimes treat me with pity, and sometimes act like they thought I just wanted a way out of doing the work for their class.

-Friends' parents: all were neutral to slightly fond of to extremely big fans of my parents. My family put up a great front for a long time. To a teen, not being believed or taken seriously a few times feels like "Nobody will ever understand."

Depending on the problem, of course there are usually adults - doctors, counselors, religious figures, or just people who care about the child - who can help solve the problem. Sometimes, though, the kid tries a few times, finds no one, and doesn't realize that just trying one more time might make a huge difference.

[SpoilerVirgin]

If you wanted to hear from Dopers who didn't have trust issues w/ their parents, you'll have to wait for someone else to chime in.You know, this is interesting. While reading the thread, I was thinking that I generally had no problem going to teachers or other adults with issues -- in fact, I explicitly trusted them to be able to help me. But it is definitely true that I did not have trust issues with my parents. They were not perfect by any means, and we had our conflicts, but I trusted them. If my father said that something was stupid (smoking, for example), then there was no way I was going to do it. And if I went to my parents with a problem (anything ranging from "I'm afraid of dying" to "I want to drop my biology class"), they would sit down with me, calmly talk it out, and help me figure out what to do. I guess because of their example, I expected the same type of response from other adults.

So there's your answer from a Doper who didn't have trust issues with her parents.

[Chopper9760]

I know it could be said it stemmed from my distrust for my parents, but IME, even people who trust their parents sometimes have issues with this.

I think it's nearly universal. Your experiences maybe/probably exacerbated those feelings but it seems like all of us were reluctant to reach out to adults.

I hated getting in trouble and I hated being hassled, it always seemed like involving teachers/adults meant a big dose of both.

School really screws with our perspective, no one likes a tattle tale. Also, adults are practically required to hand down responsible, mature advice which is largely ineffective in a school setting.

We have dust-ups in the bullying threads around here all the time. People point out that it's irresponsible to advise kids to fight and then a bunch of us pipe up that fighting was the only thing worked when we were young.

Experience is the most convincing teacher and mine taught me that adults didn't give a shit and when they did they couldn't produce results.

[ZipperJJ]

I'm another Doper who totally trusted/trusts their parents, and never kept anything from them. In turn, I was very open with teachers and adults.

[Chopper9760]

So there's your answer from a Doper who didn't have trust issues with her parents.

My folks were great but they couldn't always help. When I got bullied my mom hauled me in and talked to the principal, he did nothing to help and basically told us to stop whining. Mom did her best but she could not help me and she added to my stress by getting my principal involved.

My dad advised me to just have the fight and be done with it. It turned out that he was right but we can't expect responsible adults to hand out irresponsible advice. An educator can't tell a bullied kid to try and give as good as he gets.

One of my friends told me about her abusive boyfriend. It scared the shit out of me and I told the only teacher I was close to. My teacher was sympathetic but she couldn't do anything.

Those kind of situations crop up for kids all of the time and experience teaches them that adults can't or won't help. It really, really sucks. There were kids in my class who did drugs, vandalized property, and were generally bad over and over. They got caught and punished but they didn't go away or change behavior so why would some kid risk being branded a tattle tale and make themselves a target? It's not worth it.

[shiftless]

I think it's nearly universal. Your experiences maybe/probably exacerbated those feelings but it seems like all of us were reluctant to reach out to adults.

I hated getting in trouble and I hated being hassled, it always seemed like involving teachers/adults meant a big dose of both.

School really screws with our perspective, no one likes a tattle tale. Also, adults are practically required to hand down responsible, mature advice which is largely ineffective in a school setting.

We have dust-ups in the bullying threads around here all the time. People point out that it's irresponsible to advise kids to fight and then a bunch of us pipe up that fighting was the only thing worked when we were young.

Experience is the most convincing teacher and mine taught me that adults didn't give a shit and when they did they couldn't produce results.

This is my take on it too, maybe without the touch of cynicism at the end. My parents didn't jump up in alarm and rush out to right wrongs whenever I pointed them out and, more often than not, I ended up with a lecture which I really didn't like. Short of a major problem I just learned to take care of it myself. Thanks mom and dad, and I mean that.

[Ellen Cherry]

I totally trusted my parents — yet sometimes I was afraid of disappointing them. They were not pressuring over-achievers; in fact, they always seemed slightly astonished that I was such an achiever.

My guess (and how I operate as a parent) is that children fear the disapproval of their parents or teachers. They grow up learning how to behave, which naturally requires a lot of correction on the part of the parents and other adults. Often it is a mystery to the child what he is doing wrong, until he internalizes it. Finally he 'grows' a conscious after repeated reinforcement of positive behavior and negative consequences for undesirable behavior.

When something unexpected, frightening and confusing happens, which something like a hallway groping might cause, the child experiences unfounded guilt. Guilt keeps the kid from talking to a parent ...after all, in the past before he understood why something he was doing wrong was wrong, he felt confused and guilty. So the child now in his/her state of guilt and confusion, is afraid to talk to the parent, for fear of disapproval and/or chastisement.

We adults won't disapprove or chastise in a circumstance such as this but the kid or teen, in their immaturity, doesn't know that. So they're afraid to tell. That's why it's so important to create and open atmosphere of communication – so that your child always knows that he can talk to you, even if it's something that he feels he might get in trouble for.

That was sort of ramblie. I hope I was clear.

[Chopper9760]

Yeah shiftless, that was kind of harsh. Both of my posts are rather grim but I agree that I basically just learned to handle my own problems and that was a good thing.

You said it better, I definitely wanted to avoid the dreaded lecture whenever possible.

[dangermom]

I trusted my parents and liked them just fine. They were not lecturers. But I never told anybody anything if I could help it.

I remember quite clearly as a kid that I actually didn't know that I could go to a teacher or an adult for help. I wonder if it was a failure to generalize (because I was little)--I knew that adults could help with, say, an injury on the playground, but I was not aware that I could ask my teacher for help with difficulties in math. For the most part, I saw my life as something I had to deal with pretty much on my own.

In high school, many of the girls were perfectly aware that the chemistry teacher was a creep and it was best to stay away from him. If you were a TA in his class (only pretty girls got that job), you told each other never to accept a ride from him in his pretty red sports car. He used to come up behind me and massage my shoulders in the middle of class, which was horrifically uncomfortable but I didn't know what to do about it. I'm not certain that I earned that A I got in that class.

And none of us ever told any other adult about the chemistry teacher. Why didn't we? In my own case, it simply did not occur to me at all. I don't think I would have expected anyone to be able to do anything about it. I guess I was a really fatalistic kid. I don't know what the others were thinking.

[Malthus]

For boys at least, there was when I was growing up a very strong culture or expectation among one's friends that you did not involve adults in your problems as a matter of "honor". No-one wanted a rep as a "mamma's boy" or "squealer".

[Anaamika]

Yeah, my parents were pretty bad in some cases. I remember not even a year later this particular incident:

I got pulled over by a cop on the way home one day - I can't remember why. Maybe I was speeding. I pulled out the insurance and registration and the insurance had been expired for one day. Whatever it was, he admonished me gently to carry current insurance papers and sent me on my way without a ticket.

Cool, right? So I went home and told my parents, and asked my dad if he could just put the new insurance papers in the glove box. Conversation's over.

Three hours later, my dad goes down to put the new insurance papers in. He finds the new ones already in the glovebox, underneath the old one - I had grabbed what was on top and didn't even know there was more in there.
So...and it still kind of stings to remember this one...he comes back in and FLIPS OUT over this. I mean yelling, screaming, getting my mom involved, who also started yelling and screaming at me for being dumb and irresponsible and didn't I ever look with my eyes open? I was taken aback. And that match went on for three hours.

Things like that do of course erode your trust. And maybe I thought since my parents didn't listen, no one would. Especially when it came to anything sexual, since I knew my parents would believe me. But it irks me a little to this day that that kid and his horrible little gang got away with everything they were doing. I wonder if THEY ever think about it.

I also had a feeling of the "whatever happens, it's YOUR problem to deal with it" that dangermom and others referenced. And a significant lack of self-esteem.

Upon thinking about it more, I think I want to add one more thing, too. My home life was pretty fucked up in terms of emotional abuse - but no one knew this outside. I was desperately trying to maintain an image of the perfect little girl with perfect grades and perfect mannerisms. Admitting something like this might have marred that image I was trying to maintain.

Nowadays we tell kids all the time - go talk to a parent or teacher. Do kids listen more now, do you think? Do they think it's safe?

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

As I kid, I sometimes (often? I've blocked so much of this crap) got in trouble for things that were so totally not my fault.My mom hated hearing the following:

"I don't care who started it—you're both grounded!"

As far as my mom was concerned, that was just evil and taught kids a terrible, terrible lesson: if you're the victim, you'll be punished too.

[Markxxx]

I think a lot of it comes down to "what's the point?"

If something has happened it happened. And you say "What good will come of it?"

You can't make it "un-happen" and if the person isn't removed, they're only gonna get madder and get another attempt at you.

It's like at work, when you work with a jerk, who does nothing, but you know will never get fired. So if you complain, the manager will confront the jerk and let him/her know that she was told upon, but nothing will get done.

Now the guy/girl who was a jerk before, knows you got him/her in trouble and now he'll be even a BIGGER jerk and the situtation will be the same since he/she won't be fired.

[Sattua]

Looking to authority for help is often a losing proposition even as an adult. There are plenty of things that are technically not legal that no law enforcement officer actually cares about, or will do anything about, or is able to do anything about without proof-on-tape that it happened. The HR person at work is not your friend, in fact she's your worst enemy. Your insurance provider is out to screw you. Your doctor thinks you're an idiot. Social services thinks you're scamming the system, etc etc etc.

The bottom line is that a lot of things that supposedly deserve help, don't actually when you come down to it (like, every time someone advises a doper to call the police about noisy neighbors? HA!)... or if the help is given, you've gotta crawl for it.

It's just better to deal with things yourself, in any situation that you can. Or duck your head and put up with it.

[The Devil's Grandmother]

And none of us ever told any other adult about the chemistry teacher. Why didn't we? In my own case, it simply did not occur to me at all. I don't think I would have expected anyone to be able to do anything about it. I guess I was a really fatalistic kid. I don't know what the others were thinking.
In a similar situation at my school, I never expected the adults to take my side. Teachers were like a thin blue line you didn't cross.

[SecretaryofEvil]

For boys at least, there was when I was growing up a very strong culture or expectation among one's friends that you did not involve adults in your problems as a matter of "honor". No-one wanted a rep as a "mamma's boy" or "squealer".

Inside the chest of every hardened criminal beats the heart of a ten year old boy. And Vice versa.

Snitches got stitches. Or more likely social ostracized.

I think the root of this type of thinking is that children don't have much real power. They live on the whims and orders of more powerful people, like parents or teachers. Parents, teachers, cops, and human beings in general are imperfect. We all knew at least one authority figure who was cruel or unfair. To the powerless, authority becomes viewed as arbitrary and ineffectual, which it frequently is.

[Malthus]

Inside the chest of every hardened criminal beats the heart of a ten year old boy. And Vice versa.




I, too, have the heart of a small boy.

I keep it in a jar on my desk. :D

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Thoughts?

They learned it from watching/reading Harry Potter. One of the most annoying things about the story, to me, is that their world is in this incredibly serious crisis and for no particularly compelling reason 3 inexperienced kids have to solve it all on their own.

To me it just jumps out as annoying that of all the good guys, three of the least capable do all the work. It's pretty easy to ignore that and enjoy it for what it is, but it jumps out at me immediately. I would imagine for most younger people it doesn't jump out as much - it makes more sense to them that kids aren't really with the adults and they need to solve their own problem.

That said, I'm not particularly old and it would probably have annoyed me when I was younger too. I did not have a problem trusting adults or turning to them for help.

[Anaamika]

They learned it from watching/reading Harry Potter. One of the most annoying things about the story, to me, is that their world is in this incredibly serious crisis and for no particularly compelling reason 3 inexperienced kids have to solve it all on their own.

To me it just jumps out as annoying that of all the good guys, three of the least capable do all the work. It's pretty easy to ignore that and enjoy it for what it is, but it jumps out at me immediately. I would imagine for most younger people it doesn't jump out as much - it makes more sense to them that kids aren't really with the adults and they need to solve their own problem.

That said, I'm not particularly old and it would probably have annoyed me when I was younger too. I did not have a problem trusting adults or turning to them for help.

Or does it, rather, resonate with them? A kid like me, I might have felt a little vindicated, had HP been around when I was a kid. Look, here's these kids, they have it super-tough and no one helps them either.

If you come to the books already feeling like no one is going to help you, they will only cement your way of thinking.

[Lightnin']

I was bullied quite a bit in Elementary, and in my experience teachers (and adults in general) didn't do a damn to thing to stop it. Heck, they sometimes made it worse- one teacher even punished me for fighting back.

[Tracyfish]

A friend of mine once said that she didn't tell anyone that she was being molested by a relative because she didn't think they would believe her. She wasn't totally off with that assumption. When her parents finally found out about the last incident, her mother said that she must have done something to provoke the relative.

As for why I didn't tell an adult about my classmates bullying me in the sixth grade, I think it was a combination of thinking no one could do anything about it (which turned out to be wrong) and not wanting to appear vulnerable. It doesn't totally make sense because I trusted my mom and my teacher.

[Ferret Herder]

dangermom: We had a pervy biology teacher in high school; this was in the late '80's. And everyone knew, because you could see him doing stuff like paying more attention to the girls with bigger breasts, coming up behind girls who had any hint of a gap in a shirt or a lower cut to her top, to peer right over her shoulder, and so on. If you had to ask for help with something, often we'd put our hands on our chest at the neck of the shirt to pin the shirt down first. He'd have a pissy look on his face but not say anything. He even had a nickname about it, "Rapin' Rick" (not his real first name).

Why didn't we say anything? I guess we assumed his behavior was known and not considered important. We were warned by the previous year's girls from his class, and in turn warned anyone that we knew who would be going into the next class. He was married, and the rumor was that he was not allowed to be near his stepdaughter from his wife's previous marriage - I don't even know if this was true, but it cemented the idea in our minds that people, adults, knew about his behavior and didn't think it was that important that he couldn't be around female students.

[Chopper9760]

Great point Ferret Herder, we had the same situation with three different teachers in middle school and high school. It was just a known fact that these guys were pervs. We bitched and joked about it all the time. It never occurred to go tell an adult - how the hell could they have been unaware?

My mom wouldn't let me take chemistry my freshman year because the pervy guy from her day was still teaching. I ended up taking it senior year from one of the other pervs. What is it about chemistry?

[Dr. Woo]

I trusted my parents and liked them just fine. They were not lecturers. But I never told anybody anything if I could help it.

This was me exactly. Hell, it's STILL me. I pretty much just deal with it. Or not, if possible.

[Rachellelogram]

In my case, I was sexually victimized by a parent who told me that if I told my other parent (or anyone else), I would get into trouble.

That's surprisingly effective on an 11 year old.

[Omega Glory]

I trusted my parents, but there were things that I didn't tell them, or other adults about as a kid because I wasn't sure they were definitely wrong, until well after the fact. That's not exactly true, but there were situations where I thought "this seems wrong, but ___ is an adult, and s/he's supposed to know what s/he's doing, so maybe I'm the one who's wrong."

I'd have gone to someone in charge if I was having a problem with someone my age, but pointing fingers at someone in authority usually wasn't going to happen.

[norinew]

I know in my particular case, and I suspect in the OP's case, I knew that if anything effective was going to be accomplished, my parents would have to be involved at some point. By 'my parents', I mean my Mom, because she 'castrated' my Dad early on in the marriage, and from that point on, everything was 'my way or the highway'. And I knew, whenever trouble was brewing, that getting my Mom involved would result in one of three things:
1. My Mom would insist on justice, and would not rest until justice was served.
2. Mom would blame me for what had happened (as she did for the man who lived with us who molested me repeatedly)
3. Mom would brush it off, telling me I was making a "mountain out of a molehill".

Yeah, when it was #1, it rocked. My Mom knew how to get her way. But really, chances were very good it would be #2 or #3, and who the hell wants to deal with that?

I think it's super-important to let your kids know that, no matter what, you have their back. That's one of the main reasons why, when mudgirl was sexually molested at the age of 9, the first thing I did was call the cops. Of course, one of the main reasons she immediately came into the house and told me about the abuse was that she already knew I had her back. No matter what.

As far as bullying, etc. is concerned in schools, I do think the situation has gotten better. I think the administrations, at least imhe, take it much more seriously now. Back when I was in school, it was often brushed off with "Oh, well, kids will be kids"; now, bullying (in many schools) is not tolerated, and is treated very seriously. Thank goodness.

[xoferew]

I felt (and still feel) like my parents would be disappointed if they knew I was upset about some big problem. Not disappointed in me, but just sad, knowing that their child was unhappy. Therefore I wanted to keep that knowledge from them whenever possible. I was also afraid that they would try to help and fail and then they would feel even worse about the situation. (or do some bumbling, embarrassing thing like call me by a cutsey nickname when talking to my teacher.)

[Kaio]

Experience is the most convincing teacher and mine taught me that adults didn't give a shit and when they did they couldn't produce results.

Exactly this. I did tell parents/teachers when the bullying started, often, during the first 2-3 years. The sum total of their "help" was to tell me to ignore them and they'll stop. :rolleyes: When I'd come back a couple weeks later saying it wasn't working, they told me that it wouldn't until I "stopped letting them see it bothered me." In other words, they were telling an eight-year-old not to have feelings.

By around forth or fifth grade I didn't bother anymore because I knew no one gave a shit; and, well, by then I'd gotten a lot of practice in giving the teachers what they wanted and burying my emotions. No one had ever so much as talked to the bullies, or their parents; it was all on me, a little kid, to make them stop. Which didn't work, obviously. I had gotten a very clear message: No One Wants to Hear About It. So by the time it escalated to more overt violence in seventh grade, I didn't say anything, because I knew no one cared and no one would help.

[chizzuk]

I felt (and still feel) like my parents would be disappointed if they knew I was upset about some big problem. Not disappointed in me, but just sad, knowing that their child was unhappy. Therefore I wanted to keep that knowledge from them whenever possible. I was also afraid that they would try to help and fail and then they would feel even worse about the situation. (or do some bumbling, embarrassing thing like call me by a cutsey nickname when talking to my teacher.)

Yeah, I feel this way, too. My mom is a huge worrywart and tends to dwell on things for long periods of time, way after it is productive to do so. Thinking about her worrying that I'm stressed or unhappy makes me more stressed and unhappy, so for awhile now I've tended to sugarcoat things or not tell them everything. She also overreacts to problems or freaks out about things she doesn't like and oftentimes dealing with her reaction just adds to the problem and it's easier just to handle things myself. Also, I like to have control over when I talk about issues that bother me, and if you tell someone else about something, they might bring it up when you don't want to talk about it and then you have to foist it off somehow.

I haven't had the experience that people don't help if I ask. But I have some social anxiety and don't like to make a fuss unless it's incredibly important and there's no other way.

[dangermom]

Great point Ferret Herder, we had the same situation with three different teachers in middle school and high school. It was just a known fact that these guys were pervs. We bitched and joked about it all the time. It never occurred to go tell an adult - how the hell could they have been unaware?


I would not be surprised to learn that the teachers in my school were not aware of the chemistry teacher's ways. After all, we weren't telling them and it's not like they hung out a lot. He was a funny guy and fairly popular except for that whole pervy thing and he wasn't that blatant. There were a couple of teachers that I quite liked (the sophomore English teacher, known as Killer Miller, and the history guy, an elderly Greek gentleman) and now I think they might well have taken me seriously if I had said something. But I never, ever saw teachers as potential problem-solvers or people one might want to speak with about anything besides homework. And I had nothing but friendly contempt for the school counselor--nice lady, but wait, you mean I was supposed to go to her if I had problems?? No way would I have considered that, if I had even known that was what counselors were for.

We also had a freshman English teacher who was well-known to be much too friendly to the cute boys, who were fairly horrified by her.

[Kaio]

Great point Ferret Herder, we had the same situation with three different teachers in middle school and high school. It was just a known fact that these guys were pervs. We bitched and joked about it all the time. It never occurred to go tell an adult - how the hell could they have been unaware?

Oh, there was this too. In (parochial, Catholic) elementary school, the PE teacher physically assaulted students with other teachers personally witnessing it. Absolutely nothing was done. He didn't get fired, for sure, and as far as I'm aware no one even gave him a talking to.

[delphica]

I had a good relationship with my parents, and trusted them, but I was terrible at articulating exactly what was bothering me in troublesome situations. This is probably because I was a kid/teen, and not that good at self-reflection. At the time, I thought it was because my parents (and other adults) were terrible listeners.

After a few frustrating attempts to share a problem and have them completely miss the point, I gave up on it. It's only looking back on it that I realize that I was the one failing to express what I needed help with. Like many kids (I suspect), at the time I chalked it up to my parents being well-intentioned, but essentially bumbling idiots.

[norinew]

I had a good relationship with my parents, and trusted them, but I was terrible at articulating exactly what was bothering me in troublesome situations. This is probably because I was a kid/teen, and not that good at self-reflection. At the time, I thought it was because my parents (and other adults) were terrible listeners.
My 11YO daughter sometimes has trouble articulating to me what her problem is. For instance, this morning, at bowling league, there was a new girl on her team, named Casey (Changed to protect the innocent); well, mudgirl noticed quite a few mistakes Casey was making that shadowed mistakes that mudgirl made early in her bowling career. She came to me and said she might give Casey a few pointers, and I said that would be nice, but don't just start giving her pointers or she'll feel like you're just criticizing her; introduce yourself first, and get a little friendly, then maybe you can start giving advice.

Well, a few frames later, mudgirl was practically in tears.
Our conversation went like this:

Me: What's wrong, honey?
MG: Nothing
Me: Don't tell me 'nothing'; I can tell when there's something wrong. What's wrong?
MG: Oh, I'm up (meaning it's her turn to bowl). Nothing's wrong. I'll be back.
(a frame later)
Me: OK, what's wrong?
MG: It's just Casey. I don't think she likes me. It's nothing important.

After more 'digging', it turned out that she wanted to introduce herself, but Casey seemed to be friendly with everyone in that area of the alley except mudgirl. After checking, it turned out that Casey was the cousin of everyone else in the area.

Once I reassured the Kid that it's OK to feel left out, but you should really think about why someone is leaving you out, not just assume that there's something wrong with you that makes people want to ignore you.

She was OK after that, but it took some real detective work on my part.
My guess would be that, in the days when Moms had a lot more kids, and had them closer together, maybe they just didn't have the time for that kind of detective work.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Tiny offences get conflated into terrible events.

So, when something that is actually terrible happens, nothing is said.

Samething happens in business, just look at the lead-up events to the Gulf oil rig disaster.

[Boyo Jim]

Like some others have noted, your parents and your teachers probably can't help, except for some who would let you cry one their shoulder. You claim this kid did a bad thing, and he says he didn't. The only change is that he now knows you ratted him out, and your next encounter will be a lot more painful. In my childhood at least, the thug kids moved in packs, so it was impossible to either have a fair fight or even to ambush them.

Odds are, you you learned this by experience after some previous incident. You may not remember THAT incident because it was so minor compared to the later one, but you remembered the lesson from it. Or maybe you saw the little bastard get away with mistreating some other kid.

[Lamia]

This has been alluded to by a few posters already, but I think part of it is that kids don't necessarily realize that adults don't know what's going on without being told. I think a lot of children have the idea that authority figures are just supposed to know about important things that are going on. Even teenagers may feel that a caring adult should be able to sense that something is wrong (although perhaps not the specific problem) without being told, or feel that if an issue is common knowledge among their peers then surely all adults in the area have already heard about it.

Alternately, I think there are also situations where it wouldn't even occur to a kid to go to an adult for help because the problem was within the "kid sphere" and seemed like it could/should only be dealt with inside that sphere.

[Maiira]

In a freshman year math class in high school, we had a seating chart based on groups of four. My teacher put me with a group of three "punk" boys, and I had no idea what he was thinking. These three were obviously not going to work well together, because all they did, the entire class time, was talk about doing stupid vandalism shit and making mocking, sexual comments about me. Eventually the teacher noticed something was wrong and moved me elsewhere, but I just couldn't help but think he'd failed me by putting me in that situation in the first place.

Another part of it was simple embarrassment. Once it got out that these guys were harassing me, my teacher offered me the chance to talk to the (male) assistant principal about it. I was far too humiliated to even consider it--for one, by that point I'd felt that I'd dealt with far too many men. For another, I just wanted the whole thing to GO AWAY. Well, I suppose I also would've been content with the three boys in question being shot into the sun, or something. Anyway, I just wanted everyone, including me, to forget that this had ever happened.

[Chopper9760]

We've touched on the 'snitches get stitches' attitude - basically just another tool of bullies - but it's true that no one likes a tattle tale. I remember kids unrepentantly screwing with substitute teachers, to the point that I found it less funny and more irritating, but it never occurred to me to rat on them.

Particularly at the elementary level, there were snotty girls who seemed like they were just waiting to get others into trouble, that always really pissed me off. I remember feeling a startling level of contempt for tattle tales and occasionally it seemed like teachers felt the same way.

I've been enjoying this thread but it's actually creepy how many lessons we all seemed to internalize and then wrongly apply later when crimes and consequences were much more significant.

[Sailboat]

As so many others have implied, I believe this attitude comes simply from rigorous observation of past experiences. Telling an adult usually sucks and results in something bad. Kids who are reluctant to tell adults are just kids who have learned what adults taught them; kids who would still go to an adult are usually stubborn idealists, who do it because they know they should, not because they have had good experiences.

[msmith537]

In our modern civilization, children and teens essentially live in a completely seperate society until they reach adulthood. They are raised in mostly institutional environments where they are separated from their parents and raised by strangers for most of the day. IMHO, this creates a sort of "prison yard" mentality where adults are not really there to be their advocate or protect them, but merely to keep order and dispense discipline.

They have their own "rules", activities, interests and social networks that are largely invisible to the adult world. Part of it is also about trying to assert their own individuality. Think of Charlie Brown and the faceless teachers making the "waaa waa waaa" noises.

[mnemosyne]

Considering the rest of the threads on boards like these, it's not like adults can often go to other adults for help either. It's a mistake to assume that others are competent or that you can trust them, or less cynically, that they are in a position to actually be able to help - how many coworkers, bosses, relatives, friends have tried to help you fix a problem and either made things worse or were entirely unable to resolve the issue? How many parents have posted here asking for help in dealing with a school administrator when their kids have been bullied?

It shouldn't surprise anyone that sooner or later, kids figure this out too.

My dad likes to joke that there are only 27 nice people in the world. Unfortunately, most of us never get to meet them.

[seanchai]

"How do kids & teens get the idea that they can't go to any adults for help?"

At that age, we were trying to find a personality "fit" that was acceptable to us, our parents, and our peer group. Any conversation had to avoid judgement re: our fragile, growing, sense of self.

If I thought you wouldn't be sympathetic to my case, there would be no way I would open up to you - on anything.

Case in point: At 16, I was opining on some weighty matter - I forget what it was, now. My older sister turned to the rest of the family and said, with a broad grin, "Don't you wish you were 16 again, and knew everything?"

I would not have told her anything remotely personal, after that!

an seanchai

[Anaamika]

And of course I think the damage done by kids thinking they have no recourse (not "no help") is sometimes far, far worse than the molestation or whatever occured. I think adults don't even know how to deal with these situations, but how much better would it have been if we had had the strength to stand up to our tormenters? I don't mean it still wouldn't have happened, but maybe we wouldn't have had the shame and guilt that so many do.

As to our "modern society", I'm not sure the other ones are better, either. In my parents' culture, children are assumed to be innocent and wonderfully sweet except when they draw attention to themselves or speak against their elders. What kind of environment is that to grow up in?

I guess childhood is just going to screw you up either way. I've often felt that, anyway.

Oh, and I too had the "isn't she cute" sort of commentary when I tried to speak amongst adults. Not being taken seriously, ever, is a great way to stop talking.

[Filbert]

For me, I quit bothering 'telling' as I knew the end result of any complaints would be someone Telling My Mother. Telling My Mother was always a bit fraught with danger- she could decide something should be done, and then it very likely would be fixed (sounds a bit like norinew's experience, reading the thread) or I would be jumped on for daring to suggest that something was wrong.

As an example, one of her friends was, and probably still is, a total pervert. He used to 'help out' at their business, when I was around 16. 'Helping out' took the form of following either me or another 15-year-old volunteer around, staring at boobs and (at least in the case of the other girl) asking extremely personal questions, about exactly how far her and her boyfriend had 'gone' yet for example. Not really the business of a 35-year-old friend of your boss. The other girl told me about it, as my mother was a bit of a dragon to everyone sometimes, so I said I'd bring it up with her, knowing it wasn't just me getting the skeeves now.

I did pass it on to my mother, and her response was to go, guns blaring, up to the 15-year-old, and snap, 'Do you have a problem with my friend, The Perv???' to which she nervously replied 'Uhhhh... no?', my mother says 'Good', then accused me of making the whole thing up.

A few weeks later, she asked me if I wanted to go on a trip around Europe with her and my dad that summer, then once I'd said 'Yeah, great!' told me the Perv was also invited. Oh, and the two of us be sharing a room, because of course I needed to get over the Totally Irrational Dislike I suddenly had for him...

Incidently I did flatly refuse, and the trip never happened at all in the end. Still wonder what the hell she was thinking.

Mind you, my mother always had a 'thing' about age gap relationships, I think because she was 17 when she met my dad, who was 24 and they're still together, despite relative's advice. However, instead of getting the perfectly rational view that sometimes age gap relationships could work, she instead decided that the bigger the gap, the better! She actively encouraged me to date a 34-year old who I told her about because I said he was creeping me out, when I was 17, on the grounds of having seen a photo of him, and didn't drop it even AFTER he'd been arrested for statutary rape of 3 girls, at least 2 of whom were my friends, aged 14/15.

By the way, my Dad just stayed out of the whole thing, don't think he knew much about it- I think my mum just told him she'd be the better person at understanding a teenage girl's sex life, which he, reasonably enough I suppose, assumed she would be. I've always been closer to him really, he's not a doormat on other topics.

I feel very lucky that I didn't encounter any worse than a basic Grade B Perv, or even them before I had the awareness to realise this wasn't right, because I certainly would not have had any back-up at all, for anything short of serious injury. I don't think rape would have concerned her, unless it was in the attack on the streets way; she certainly disparaged a friend who had been abused by her stepfather since she was 8 ('Silly girl should have told someone! I'm sure she's making it up anyway...' :rolleyes:), and her comment when told about the 3 girls raped by the 34-year-old she liked was 'Oh, they only complained because they found out about the others... '.

My mother has Issues, and to be honest, it probably had a big effect of how rubbish I am with men even now...

[Nava]

I can tell you how I got to that...

* I'd been told, repeatedly, not to ask for help for situations in which I knew it was perfectly normal for other children to get help. For example, homework. I'm not talking about "I won't do your homework for you", I was not to ask for any help on it, period. The one time I did, the problem ended up having a typo which made it unsolvable with the math I was supposed to know - but I'd already been yelled at, thank you much, and Dad apologized for assuming that I could solve it but reminded me that I was not to ask for help with homework, I was to solve homework problems on my own.

* Any conflict between me and "a person in authority" would see my parents siding with the other adult, no matter what. Conversely, any attempts at speaking about my problems at home with third parties were met with derision, with laughter, with "oh, but you have such wonderful parents!" - in the mildest cases, with a reminder that you shalt "Honor Thy Father And Thy Mother". For some reason, "parents, do not exasperate your children" never gets glossed :p

* My mother... what was that line I saw recently about Errol Flynn in these same boards? Oh yeah. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13361165&postcount=39) Mom is like that: you can count on her to let you down. Or, closer to the Spanish version, to screw you over. Self-deluding, self-centered... she's always made it clear she didn't want either me or Middlebro, but that since we happen to be around we may as well make something useful of ourselves and take care of her.
She even sided with "people in authority" when said people did things like grab my ass. I already knew that my parents had been the only ones who did not file a complaint when a certain teacher "overstepped propriety" with several students in my class; I knew Dad considered it important to be as impartial as possible, given their position as Secretaries of the PTA... what I did not know is that Mom managed to hide it from him that I was one of the students that teacher assaulted. Considering the way he reacted that one time he caught one dude trying to grope me in the street, he would have blown a gasket, PTA be damned.

Basically, what I knew was that my problems weren't serious, and it was not acceptable for me to ask for help: it was perfectly fine for other people.

[Cat Fight]

As for why I didn't tell an adult about my classmates bullying me in the sixth grade, I think it was a combination of thinking no one could do anything about it (which turned out to be wrong) and not wanting to appear vulnerable. It doesn't totally make sense because I trusted my mom and my teacher.

I think this is part of it. Depending on the severity of the incident and your age, you may not want to bring it up to a parent because it will color their view of you, and perhaps keep them from giving you the privileges and freedom you crave. If you got beat up while walking home from school and tell your parents, are they going to do something about it (that could cause more trouble), or embarrass you further by making you walk home with an older relative, or get a lift from someone each day? Will they offer to drive you but make it clear that taking the time out of their day is a real chore? Will they accuse you of overreacting?

In the case of unwanted sexual attention, even mild, I think this is part of not wanting to discuss anything of a sexual nature with parents. And again, if you get groped by an older boy at a dance and they find out, will they suddenly start monitoring what you wear, prevent you from going to dances and dancing with boys you like, blab to family and friends who'll wonder if you're lying or exaggerating?

[FloatyGimpy]

The thing is, I clearly remember wanting to tell someone about it. My next period teacher was my English teacher. I loved English class, but he was an ineffectual teacher at best. He couldn't control the class and people hardly payed attention to him. So I remember deciding in my mind that I could not tell him. And I was really upset - I spent the whole class nearly in tears, and to make matters worse, he didn't notice at all, and I was the only 'A' student in his class. I guess I kind of expected him to notice.

In 7th grade I told three teachers that I was being molested. I told them in front of each other all at the same time. Not one of them did anything.

[Fair Rarity]

I burst into tears reading this thread. I don't want to be a blame-my-shitty-parents-for-everything-in-my-life kind of person, but it gave me a break through.

I don't remember what exactly happened, when it started, but I think my inability to go to any adult for help in bad situations was from my ineffectual, asshole parents.

Reading some of your stories, while my situation was better than some, worse than others, I realize regardless of the severity, it was not a consistent nurturing environment. That if I asked for HW help, I was not likely to get it. After a while, you just get used to do everything yourself.

No one in my life has ever unequivocally stood up for me. Ever. No matter what someone has done to me, there is always a "well, what did YOU do?" question that comes from my "support" and no one has ever had to face serious consequences for screwing with me.

So why in the world would I as a child, teen, and now adult, go to someone for help when all my life I have been told to suck it up and have no one TEACH me how to stand up for myself, which battles to fight, how to fight those battles? Maybe that's something people can learn on their own, but I didn't learn that by trial and error and observation. Maybe I could have taught myself to read or tie my own shoes, but I still had people teach me that. I wasn't being taught self-sufficiency. I was thrown to the wolves.

So reading this thread just kind of hit me with clarity I hadn't had.

My ex beat the living shit out of me. I question myself why I let him, why I didn't leave, blah blah blah. I give myself such a hard time for never reporting it and wondering why I didn't. But I have been assaulted and molested at other times and I never reported those either. It's just not my nature and I was never taught how to do it, taught how to trust that the person I would tell would be outraged on my behalf and fight for me as well. I didn't tell because it would embarrassing to tell whatever happened and I felt ultimately fruitless; who would believe me, who would help me?

That's kind of sad.

But I'm kind of glad I had that epiphany. I might have been screwed up as a child, but I need to know what was done wrong so I can use my adulthood to fix it.

[norinew]

I burst into tears reading this thread. I don't want to be a blame-my-shitty-parents-for-everything-in-my-life kind of person, but it gave me a break through.

I don't remember what exactly happened, when it started, but I think my inability to go to any adult for help in bad situations was from my ineffectual, asshole parents.

Reading some of your stories, while my situation was better than some, worse than others, I realize regardless of the severity, it was not a consistent nurturing environment. That if I asked for HW help, I was not likely to get it. After a while, you just get used to do everything yourself.

No one in my life has ever unequivocally stood up for me. Ever. No matter what someone has done to me, there is always a "well, what did YOU do?" question that comes from my "support" and no one has ever had to face serious consequences for screwing with me.

So why in the world would I as a child, teen, and now adult, go to someone for help when all my life I have been told to suck it up and have no one TEACH me how to stand up for myself, which battles to fight, how to fight those battles? Maybe that's something people can learn on their own, but I didn't learn that by trial and error and observation. Maybe I could have taught myself to read or tie my own shoes, but I still had people teach me that. I wasn't being taught self-sufficiency. I was thrown to the wolves.

So reading this thread just kind of hit me with clarity I hadn't had.

My ex beat the living shit out of me. I question myself why I let him, why I didn't leave, blah blah blah. I give myself such a hard time for never reporting it and wondering why I didn't. But I have been assaulted and molested at other times and I never reported those either. It's just not my nature and I was never taught how to do it, taught how to trust that the person I would tell would be outraged on my behalf and fight for me as well. I didn't tell because it would embarrassing to tell whatever happened and I felt ultimately fruitless; who would believe me, who would help me?

That's kind of sad.

But I'm kind of glad I had that epiphany. I might have been screwed up as a child, but I need to know what was done wrong so I can use my adulthood to fix it.

:(

I would strongly recommend you look for a therapist. If you find the right one, they can help very much in sorting out the shit.

I was in therapy for two years in regards to my childhood sexual abuse, and it helped a lot, even though my abuser and my Mom (who allowed it all to happen, even though she knew about it) were long dead by then. What wasn't dead was my brain. I still had all these memories that were driving me batshit. Therapy helped a bunch.

[Dangerosa]

.

And none of us ever told any other adult about the chemistry teacher. Why didn't we? In my own case, it simply did not occur to me at all. I don't think I would have expected anyone to be able to do anything about it. I guess I was a really fatalistic kid. I don't know what the others were thinking.

Ours was an English teacher. And we didn't tell because we all KNEW, how could they not KNOW?

I also had the experience of my parents going to bat for me on bulling and the school telling us all to stop whining. That was when my parents agreed to let me leave school early. I finished all my credits and was out of there.

Telling my parents everything - no, not everything. I trusted them, but I tried to protect them from a lot of stuff that would just worry them.

[Boyo Jim]

...I wasn't being taught self-sufficiency. I was thrown to the wolves. ....

It's a sad fact of life that many people see throwing children to the wolves as a method of teaching them how to cope.

[Fair Rarity]

:(

I would strongly recommend you look for a therapist. If you find the right one, they can help very much in sorting out the shit.

I was in therapy for two years in regards to my childhood sexual abuse, and it helped a lot, even though my abuser and my Mom (who allowed it all to happen, even though she knew about it) were long dead by then. What wasn't dead was my brain. I still had all these memories that were driving me batshit. Therapy helped a bunch.

I'm in therapy and I realize I came off a lot more upset than I was. I mean, I did have an OMG EPIPHANY which moved me to tears, but I wasn't up all night stewing. It was like more relief at the revelation rather than "MY PARENTS SUCK!". That certainly wasnt' the first time I thought they sucked... even the first time this week!

I did email a friend and jokingly say "Well, I know what I'm talking to my shrink about next time!"

I just thought there was something about me in my nature that made me stfu and not go to adults. It was shocking reading this because I see it was a whole lot of "nurture" too/instead.

[norinew]

I'm in therapy and I realize I came off a lot more upset than I was. I mean, I did have an OMG EPIPHANY which moved me to tears, but I wasn't up all night stewing. It was like more relief at the revelation rather than "MY PARENTS SUCK!". That certainly wasnt' the first time I thought they sucked... even the first time this week!

I did email a friend and jokingly say "Well, I know what I'm talking to my shrink about next time!"

I just thought there was something about me in my nature that made me stfu and not go to adults. It was shocking reading this because I see it was a whole lot of "nurture" too/instead.
Oh, I'm really glad to hear you're in therapy. Best of luck. You can heal! :)

[HazelNutCoffee]

Like Anaamika, I was desperate to project the image of the perfect kid. I didn't want to cause any trouble or upset the adults I looked up to.

Now that I'm a teacher myself, I consider it a compliment when students come to me with problems outside of class. I really do want to help my students, but sometimes it isn't obvious when they're upset, especially if you have a class of more than 10 students.

[DoctorJ]

My parents were excellent in almost every respect, and always meant well. However, they had a tendency to jump to conclusions about things. So when I tried to tell them something (or when they found it out somewhere else) they'd arrive at complete misunderstandings that I couldn't talk them out of. They also tended to overreact to small things and to keep revisiting issues over and over long after I thought of them as dealt with. By and large, it was WAY easier to just deal with things on my own.

My mom was a teacher at our middle school, which was connected to the high school. I learned early on that I couldn't tell my teachers about anything without them immediately running down the hall to tell her. (Mom hated this, but that didn't stop it, either.)

If I'd had real problems (which I didn't) I could have gone to my parents, or just about any other adult in my life. But I would have exhausted every possibility first.

[SciFiSam]

Well, I'm not going to count my own experience because my childhood told me to never trust anybody at all and it took a while for that to change, but when some of my friends - with lovely parents who they told all sorts of things - went through bad things, they didn't tell their parents because their parents would have overreacted.

Hell, when one of my friends was gang-raped she didn't report it to the police, and neither did I, because her Dad would have taken it into his own hands, gone against them in person, and either been killed or been up in court himself.

And that's partly because there was so little he could do to remedy it in any other way. He couldn't help. Why tell those grown-ups when they can't help?

I'm currently treading this fine line with my daughter; she's had a lot of trouble, really serious trouble, with local kids, but I know that if I overdo my reaction she just won't tell me the next time it happens.

One time as a trainee teacher I sat in a staffroom where someone mentioned that they'd seen a 14-year-old student out on the game again. She'd been abused by her stepfather and was still living with him. All the teachers knew this; nobody could do anything beyond make reports, which they always did, probably with the kids thinking that nobody noticed anything at all.

[Kevbo]

Got all the way through this without seeing one important factor mentioned: Even when kids trust the adult, they can still be intimidated by them. Consider that many adults still fear public speaking. It is exactly that terror that many kids feel when required to speak to any adult they don't know well.

And my mom didn't help. "Speak up", "Look at the man when you talk" etc. etc. All gave me the idea that there were lots of rules to follow when you spoke to adults, and I was bound to do it wrong.

[Robot Arm]

I think it's super-important to let your kids know that, no matter what, you have their back. That's one of the main reasons why, when mudgirl was sexually molested at the age of 9, the first thing I did was call the cops. Of course, one of the main reasons she immediately came into the house and told me about the abuse was that she already knew I had her back. No matter what.I've had occasion lately to reflect a lot on my childhood, and no one had my back. I honestly can't remember anyone sticking up for me, ever. My brother could do anything to me; pin me down on the ground for a half hour, call me any name, intentionally break my toys, threaten to hide my viola to get me kicked out of the junior symphony. It was never anything as major as molestation, but my mother's answer was always "you're old enough to settle these things between yourselves", or "he's only doing that because he knows it bothers you". The lesson of my childhood is that I'm not worth standing up for.

norinew, keep taking such great care of mudgirl.

[Cat Fight]

My ex beat the living shit out of me. I question myself why I let him, why I didn't leave, blah blah blah. I give myself such a hard time for never reporting it and wondering why I didn't. But I have been assaulted and molested at other times and I never reported those either. It's just not my nature and I was never taught how to do it, taught how to trust that the person I would tell would be outraged on my behalf and fight for me as well. I didn't tell because it would embarrassing to tell whatever happened and I felt ultimately fruitless; who would believe me, who would help me?

There's always going to be someone saying 'Well why didn't you just tell someone?' or 'Why didn't you phone the police straight away?' 'Why didn't you go to HR?' 'Why didn't you report it when it happened?' It's usually a pretty good indication that they either grew up in a supportive environment, or that they've lived a pretty trouble-free life. (I don't want to complicate this further, but sometimes the reaction is also split down lines of gender, ethnicity and class.) Malcom Gladwell touches on it, a bit, in his books, these kids raised believing they have a right to ask for help, to question authority, and that the world is theirs to navigate. I feel like, lately, we hear a lot about spoiled, bratty kids and overly protective parents, but not so much from the alternative.