As hard as it is to admit, when I was in high-school, I bullied kids. Let me explain…
I didn’t take their lunches (I was a 6ft lanky fella who could have easily been beat up), get in physical fights, give out wedgies and hang them up by their underwear, or shove people into lockers. I was into sports, had popular friends, usually had a popular girlfriend, was invited to junior and senior parties as a freshman and sophomore, and dressed nice.
On the inside, none of that shit really mattered. I was incredibly anxious, insecure (pro at hiding it), constantly questioned where I stood in the eyes of others and typically felt inadequate because of self-comparison.
How did I bully people?
My bullying method of choice in high-school was mental warfare. I would insult other people about how they looked, moved, ate, spoke, and just about anything else they was available for others to see. In my insecure teenage mind, if I put someone down 10 social/confidence points then I would go up 10 points and so on. Making fun of others to feel better about myself was the currency and I was rich in that respect, but oh was I super fucking poor in more important areas.
You see, I had convinced myself that this was the fast way to feeling confident, happy, accepted, and comfortable. Unfortunately, this method breeds the opposite feelings and sets you on a really challenging trajectory.
A kid’s search for acceptance is very messy.
As a parent, you may not agree with the decisions your kid is making and that is completely fine. Coming from a place of, “I can understand why you would do this but it doesn’t make it excusable”, is a healthy mindset.
As a Freshman on Varsity soccer and baseball, I was hanging out with the “super cool” Juniors and Seniors. I started smoking weed, drinking, and finding ways to “fit in” with others because I wasn’t sure at all about myself. I managed to get “good enough” grades so people would stay off my back and expect just a little less out of me compared to others. I got into trouble at home and in school, with the exception being sports. Sports was special because I was able to channel many of the tough emotions (anger/sadness) into physical output. It was the closet thing I knew to a direct correlation between how much personal effort I put in and how much positive feedback I got out of it. It kept me more in line than anything else at the time.
One thing I know for sure is that if you put all your eggs in one basket for support, as a crutch, and tie it to your identify then you run the risk of a crisis down the line. That’s what happened next.
After high-school graduation, I moved up to New England to play baseball for the University of Rhode Island (notice how I didn’t say “to be a student” or “to major in…”). On September 17th, which just so happened to be my birthday as well as two weeks after I moved-in and less than a week before training started, I broke my left pitching elbow. Getting my legs taken out from under me playing (sober) soccer on a basketball court did me in. It was the ending of baseball career before if started and the beginning of a crisis.
I have to be a student now?
That’s not what I signed up for but it was my new reality. It caused significant anxiety, panic attacks, a desire to isolate myself. Since I’m left handed and broke that elbow, I couldn’t write and so I stopped going to a lot of classes or just never took notes which led to my gpa being an impressive 2.4.
Things got a little worse before they got massively better and I credit where I’m at today with reaching out for outside support.
In the final two years of undergrad, my gpa was almost a 4.0. The first year out I worked psych research with detained adolescence, got accepted and went to Boston University’s Sport Psychology and Counseling Master’s program (on a 75% scholarship and finishing with a 3.9 gpa), and have been running a Youth, Family, and Adult Life Coaching company for 10+ years.
We live in a world where it’s all too common for kids to be shamed for their weirdness and uniqueness. It teaches them to turn AWAY from their uniqueness and TOWARD… acceptance.
With kids, this basically means trying to “fit in”, conform, and act within the group norms. Conformity has its appropriate place and time as does groups norms, but having kids turn AWAY from their weirdness and uniqueness because of shame, uncertainty of what their social status will be, or whether they think others (including parents) will accept them will in no doubt backfire for them in the future.
Every week, I see the impact this has on young people. I hear them share perspectives and stories on how they feel as though they are “putting on a show”, “don’t know who they are”, “will lose friends in a second if they don’t…[insert superficial factor]”, how they “don’t feel good enough”, and how they “feel that they can’t act like themselves around their parents and most of their friends”.
I see a little bit of me in each of them.
It’s sad, but it’s real and the solution starts at home. Parenting is tough, being a kid is tough, and it’s not about placing your kid in a bubble. No bulldozer, helicopter, or tiger parenting here. We need to get back to a place where we put down our screens, have them put theirs down too, listen and communicate with empathy and honesty, find out what kinds of weirdness/uniqueness they have, help them explore it, and teach them ways to persevere.
Parents need to have boundaries (which are seen as a source of love from kids), talk about the tough topics, incentivize healthy behavior but also (appropriately) discipline poor choices. Yes, this can be done compassionately and keeping in tact the message that you love and support them.