# How do kids & teens get the idea that they can't go to any adults for help? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 21, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470 "2011-01-21T17:23:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/21 "2011-01-21T21:12:18Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/22 "2011-01-21T21:24:48Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Tracyfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@Tracyfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracyfish)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/23 "2011-01-21T21:31:28Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/24 "2011-01-21T21:33:09Z")
**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. ---
**Author:** ![Chopper9760](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Chopper9760](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopper9760)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/25 "2011-01-21T22:07:05Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/26 "2011-01-21T23:49:29Z")
> [@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. This was me exactly. Hell, it’s STILL me. I pretty much just deal with it. Or not, if possible. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/27 "2011-01-21T23:53:25Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/28 "2011-01-22T00:02:00Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/29 "2011-01-22T00:12:01Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![xoferew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/e9a140/32.png) [@xoferew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xoferew)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/30 "2011-01-22T00:25:27Z")
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.) ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/31 "2011-01-22T18:42:59Z")
> [@Chopper9760](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/32 "2011-01-22T19:23:04Z")
> [@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.) 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. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/33 "2011-01-22T21:06:55Z")
> [@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? 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. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/34 "2011-01-22T21:25:11Z")
> [@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? 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. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/35 "2011-01-22T21:42:00Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/36 "2011-01-23T01:39:05Z")
> [@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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/37 "2011-01-23T02:10:05Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/38 "2011-01-23T02:25:08Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/39 "2011-01-23T04:28:48Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470/40 "2011-01-23T07:27:58Z")
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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-kids-teens-get-the-idea-that-they-cant-go-to-any-adults-for-help/568470.md?page=3)