tw// all types of abuse, descriptive physical abuse, bullying, sexual harrassment and assault, mentions of rape
This is another controversal post. But honestly? I'm tired of this topic not being talked about. Before commenting, read the entire post and try to see where we're coming from. That's all I ask. So, contronversal post, but here we go.
Minor abusers exist and can cause just as much damage and trauma as adult abusers, if not more. As hard as it is sometimes to catch adult abusers, it's even harder to catch minor abusers. This is because no one wants to believe their kid, or kids in general, are capable of harming someone else. But they most definitely exist and unfortunately, minors who abuse others have become normalized and even expected.
Bullying is a type of abuse. The definitions of physical bullying and physical abuse are pretty much the same (causing physical harm to someone repetitively). This also goes for the other types of abuse and bullying. It's not unknown that minors specifically (although adults are not excluded from this) bully and harm others. Teachers and the school systems do nothing to stop this, but that's a different topic. It's not uncommon for adults to, intentionally or not, ignore when kids bring this to their attention.
Another unfortunately common one is physical abuse from siblings. Allowing siblings to physically fight and not breaking it up is horrible parenting. But it's even worse when you don't break it up when one isn't fighting back. I don't care if the one not fighting "needs to toughen up" or "needs to be prepared for the real world" or the one who's fighting "needs an outlet for their anger." You are still allowing abuse to happen in your watch. They are a minor, your kid, an abusing someone else (usually another of your kids). I'm hoping I don't need to explain more. Even if it's not you hurting them, they are still getting physically abused at home and no one cares because it's their siblings.
The most normalized one, unfortunately, is sexual assault or harrassment. In one of our middle schools, it was a /game/ among students to sexually harrass/assault someone. Depending on the day of the week, it was a game that too many students participated in to touch/slap personal parts of a person's body. The teachers let it happen. Not only that, but catcalling is insanely normalized as well. How can you not consider sexual assault/harrassment as abuse?
That's only a few examples. Now you're probably thinking "Yeah but they'll grow out of it" or "Okay but we can't punish them, they're kids." No. The point of this post is that you should punish them. Ground them from things, give them extra chores for a period of time(not more, literally anything punishing. This does not mean hit them or hurt them in any way as a punishment. That's wrong too. But they won't learn it's wrong and will keep doing it if they aren't punished for abusing others. Not being punished prevents them from learning it's wrong, and sometimes even prevents them from growing out of it. And yes. Sometimes, depending on the severity of the abuse (such as going as far as to rape someone or cause near death), the police need to be contacted and it should be investagated.
romaincrisis
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