“Asshole” isn’t the best term, but is it that different than “bully,” a term which everyone seems OK with? We are more caught up with semantics than calling a behavioral spade a spade.
I do think “asshole” and “bully” are different, but even still, he doesn’t describe a bully here. We have one example of a three year old having a physical altercation with a kid who he seemed to think had something of his. Then we have one example of a crying meltdown in class when he was having trouble regulating. Neither to me smacks of a kid who purposely intimidates and belittles classmates (which is what I consider bullying behaviour, and which I will agree is closer to “asshole” behaviour than anything the OP has described).
Can I move to this Utopia where there is no such thing as any kid that that might even remotely be properly labeled as an asshole?
For that matter, can I get a damn time machine and go back and grow up there?
Gawd, only on the gawd fucking damn dope could you have a bunch of retarded assholes argueing that assholes couldn’t exist.
Disclaimer - I am not in any way diagnosing this kid I have never met – I only post this to show why I keep an open mind about kids who act out.
This is what bullying behaviours are (and I suppose I agree, Velocity, that “bully” is probably fairly close to what I think of as an “asshole”):
Here are some behaviours associated with anxiety in children:
From the sparse details we’ve been given, the “asshole” sounds a hell of a lot closer to number two than number one, to me. Again, I am in no way pretending to know what may be going on with this kid, I’m just saying that the OP doesn’t either (and maybe even the kid’s own parents don’t), so isn’t it just plain kinder to show an unhappy little 7 year old kid some patience and tolerance?
I use the term virtue signalling to point out when someone uses some holier than thou PC bullshit. In this case, people are saying “OMG, you can’t call a kid an asshole, they’re all precious little sweethearts and only a jerk would ever see a little kid as an asshole, and if they ACT like assholes you STILL can’t call them assholes because there is obviously some issue with the poor darling”
Thank you. THAT was the point of my OP. This otherwise normal couple have an asshole for a kid because of their hands off approach.
I think you are right on the money. Their daughter is just a bit artsy fartsybut she is very well adjusted and plays well with others. The boy thinks the world revolves around him and the rest of us are PvE content in his life. You get the distinct impression that they are trying to teach him to be an independent, creative individual who has a healthy disrespect for authority. What they are getting is an asshole.
I think that the father is starting to get embarrassed by his son’s behavior at the boy scouts. His kid really sticks out as disruptive and disrespectful. He’s trying to reason with his son, its a lot of effort and frankly I think that ship sailed years ago but everyone appreciates the effort.
I don’t want to get sexist or anything but I think that girls can be raised with a bit less discipline than boys. They just seem to pick up on social cues faster and have more empathy. I think there is real difference between boys and girls.
Well, I guess I’m edgy that way.
If you’re referring to the boy in the shoe store, I think he was about 8 years old, and he was also upset because he couldn’t take that truck home with him.
Wait, do you think most asshole made a conscious decision to be an asshole? :smack:
OK, so I know a shitload of people who are assholes. They work 60-80 hours a week under a lot of pressure. Then they quit and go work a much lower pressure job and suddenly they are normal decent human beings. Those people were assholes as a result of the stress they were under rather than because of a conscious decision to be an unkind person, but they were STILL assholes.
I can imagine retroactively rescinding empathy when the underlying assumptions that triggered the empathy turn out to be incorrect. But that’s not exactly what happened here. I just ran out of patience with the kid.
Where the fuck do you live? I’ve got to move there. This kid is probably not unique in this area. But the other assholes I know about, I only know by reputation, I have not had the opportunity to observe them for most of their lives that I have had with this particular asshole.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is entirely possible for this kid to grow out of being an asshole but based on his behaviour at the moment, he’s an asshole.
Unhappy child? What because my kid won’t have a playdate with him? That’s the sort of unhappiness that no child should have to deal with? Wow, you must have had a fucking magical childhood, if you think that is an unbearable unhappiness.
In this case the behavioural problem is that the kid is an asshole. I thought I already mentioned that the school psychologist doesn’t seem to think he has a psychological problem that requires counseling.
Well I think the default is that others are acceptable. This kid and his behaviour is an exception.
I totally agree that he is a human being. Can you cite where I contest that he is a member of our species? I don’t understand wtf you are even trying to say here?
We’ve known him for YEARS. “Some patience” ran out after the first year or so.
Why the fuck would I try to excuse that asshole’s behaviour to my kid who independently reached the conclusion that the other kid was an asshole long before I did.
“Regulating?” He has “reasons” for his failure to regulate? Yeah his reason is that he is an asshole. And yes, perhaps he wouldn’t be an asshole if he had a normal parenting philosophy applied to him. But if a kid consistently acts like an asshole over a period of several years, then yes that kid himself IS and asshole. It doesn’t have to be a permanent condition but right now it is his condition. he is an asshole.
Wait, so you thin k that I am being the asshole for calling this kid the asshole and NOW you think you might need more information?
Who is being the asshole here?
Now your complaint is that I haven’t given you enough anecdotes? Well shit, let me see…
When he is at the pool, he gets whistled at by the lifeguard for dunking a kid from behind. He yells at the lifeguard for blowing the whistle at him. The life guard ejects him from the pool and the kid that he didn’t do anything wrong because he was just playing.
He thinks its funny when he chases kids and says he is going to bite them. Everyone thinks he is capable of biting them and they run away.
At the beginning of free time when the kids are deciding what to play, he insists that they all play what he wants to play and if they don’t (and sometimes they do), he will start yelling at and insulting the other kids for not doing what he wants them to do and then he will cry and ask why wont they do what i say as if the other kids are toys in his PvE adventure and the game is broken somehow.
The reason I know what the school psychologist thinks is because when I am go to read to the kids, that is also the time when the school psychologist takes the kids with issues, (there are two in my kid’s class, one kid is super shy and the other one is hyperactive and only seems to pay attention to you almost by accident, neither of them are assholes).
Well, as i have been saying, he is pretty epic levels of asshole. If he was just normal levels of asshole I wouldn’t be calling a fucking 7 year old an asshole.
Well, you are trying to advertise what an awfully good person you are because you are so understanding about kids you have never met. I thought that fell into the realm of virtue signalling.
Quite a few do, yes. I don’t know if “most” since I haven’t bothered take inventory and run statistical calculations.
No, they are referring to the boy in the OP. He was three when he knocked someone down.
No, unhappy because he is incapable of coping, and that is a really, really hard way to live.
You asked why the fuck you would teach your kid that there is anything acceptable about this kid. My answer was “Because he is a human being”. As in, his behaviour may not be acceptable, but that is different than him not being acceptable.
No, you know that’s when the school psychologist happens to take those kids. You have no idea what kind of strategies, programming, or behind the scenes work the psychologist is involved in with other kids.
No, that is a motivation you have incorrectly decided to assign to people who think you’re being a bit of a jerk about this. Look, as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, I have a kid with significant behavioural problems. I fully admit that this fact more than likely colours my view of the way you talk about this family. My only motivation in talking to you about other ways to look at the situation is that I know there are people who talk about my family the same way, and I wish that people who do not know everything we go through would not make judgments about us. I’m not trying to look good, I only hoped to give you a different perspective. I clearly have not succeeded, and again, I admit that I am probably taking the whole thing too personally and being overly defensive, so I’ll bow out.
Every spoiled brat in the world has a hard time coping because their parents have never forced them to learn how to cope.
Sure, I also try to teach my kid to hate the sin not the sinner but that is a fine distinction to make. I make it all the time when my kid misbehaves and I tell him how much I love him but disapprove of his actions. And the next time, he hopefully improves his behaviour. This kid has been consistently exhibiting shitty behaviour for years now with no noticable improvement and none of the other kids he knows behave this way. He drew his conclusions long before I did.
So you’re saying that the school psychologist might have diagnosed an issue with this kid, take all the other kids with issues except him? I used to see all these kids once a week, the ones that the psychologist took had some obvious issues (one was very shy and the other one was always distracted).
You’re really trying to find a way around occam’s razor aren’t you?
Does your kid have an actual diagnosed, clinical issue? Then you have my sympathies. It must be tough, it would break my heart if my kid had those issues.
But if your kid is just a spoiled fucking brat then I blame you.
I’m off to cub scouts tonight. You have inspired me to go ahead and risk offending this kid’s parents ask if there is something going on with their kid.
No. He’s just trolling.
So, did you? Inquiring minds want to know.
Nothing clinical. He now recognizes that his son’s behaviour cannot be explained away by saying “he’s a boy” now that he sees his son in the context of 50 other boys at cub scout meetings.
Martial arts can do wonders for some kids. You sound exactly like the type sensei I’m trying to find for one of my kids. Alas, finding the right instructor and school isn’t easy.
And I’ve got a child on the autism spectrum. Damuri, hate to say this, but you’re probably correct this kid is a jerk and the parents aren’t doing all they should.