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

In My Humble Opinion
41

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.

42

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.

43

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.

44

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.

45

“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

46

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.

47

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…

48

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 :stuck_out_tongue:

  • My mother… what was that line I saw recently about Errol Flynn in these same boards? Oh yeah. 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.

49

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?

50

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.

51

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.

52

:frowning:

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.

53

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.

54

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.

55

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.

56

Oh, I’m really glad to hear you’re in therapy. Best of luck. You can heal! :slight_smile:

57

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.

58

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.

59

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.

60

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.