Fear of Success and How Kids Become Bullies
Sunday, 9 September 2007
Therapydoc writes about the fear of success. This was an eerie description how I used to feel:
…if your parents put you down, then you don’t think you’ve got what it takes to be someone. Having a gift at something doesn’t change your mind. Knowing you have certain strengths means nothing… If you’ve been abused then you might develop the fear that if you try to do something fabulous you’ll be PROVEN the idiot you think you are. You’re sure you’ll fail and everyone will KNOW you’re a loser as opposed to just guessing. From Therapydoc’s Tough Neighborhood- Fear of …
Therapydoc then describes what happens to some of the kids who live in an environment of constant put-downs that may be either emotional or physical (usually accompanied by violence). They become bullies and turn on the most vulnerable kids. These vulnerable kids are who the bullies are when the bullies are at home, being bullied by their parents.
These vulnerable kids learn not to draw attention to themselves, and when they become adults, they come to fear success, because it draws attention them. They self-sabotage to keep being invisible.
My question is, What’s a parent to do?
Parents whose children are vulnerable to bullies may want to do something to make the bullying stop, yet by acting, they draw additional attention to their children and adds fuel to the fire in the bullying cycle. But if they do not act, who knows how far some bullies will go, and what parents in their right mind would stand by and do nothing when their children are being tortured on a daily basis?
Do they talk to the bully child’s parents? That may be one approach, but I suspect that the bully child’s parents may often be the very reason why their kid has become a bully. These parents may very well be big bullies themselves, torturing their kid with emotional or physical abuse on a frequent basis.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I’d like to find out what you think may be solutions.
No. 1 — January 24th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
[...] reader wrote me after reading my post, “Fear of Success and How Kids Become Bullies”. How does one deal with this fear of success and continual [...]
No. 2 — October 9th, 2008 at 9:38 am
When I was in 6th grade,(1976) this girl Kelly wanted to beat me up (or threatened me through my ex-friend Jill) I was very upset about it, so my mother intervened. She called Kelly’s mother and requested about having a “rap session” at my house with refreshments of milk and cookies. Kelly’s mother addressed the problem to Kelly. Kelly re-evaluated her discision to bully me. We became friends, we never did have that “rap session”. But Jill still continued to make prank phone calls to my house and was relentless about it. She also got the whole class to go against me. We did become friends the next year. I forgave her. But I did learn last year (we still keep in touch) that her father used to put her and her brother down and not have any positive feedback as a father would. I can understand now why she did the things she did to me.
No. 3 — October 11th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
@ Julie Curran:
Thank you for sharing your childhood story about Kelly. We don’t often have an opportunity to find out the whole story behind a bully’s story. I’m glad you had the opportunity.
Jane