Do you know how to handle bullying?

Yes Soz- it's a problem I worry about every day. In fact, we're at an impasse about it right now because she's seventeen and could get her driver's licence, but I've put my foot down and won't let her until I see that she's willing to wear her hearing aids in every situation no matter what anyone might say to her that makes her feel embarrassed to.

It's one thing to not hear something in school and get a C instead of a B on a test. But it's another thing to not hear something when you're driving and get yourself or someone else killed.
And I can picture her being out with a group of friends and maybe a cute new guy is in the car and she doesn't want to look 'different' so she doesn't put them in her ears and starts driving- there are a million different scenarios- all of them dangerous.

I know I can't understand her situation as I haven't had to live it. I try to remember that. And she's a really good girl, lovely, kind, mature for her age - I'm just letting her do what she has to do to get through it her way...not that it doesn't drive me crazy that she doesn't wear them...but again, I trust her in the long run and know when she's ready she'll make the right and mature decision.

In the meantime one of my best friends here is the hearing specialist in Olivia's school. She knows the situation - has informed all Olivia's teachers of how best to work with Olivia in her stubborness and lets her take the exams in her classroom. So she's doing fine -the best she can do without wearing the aids at this point.
Do I think she could do better if she wore them? Yes. Does it make me sad she doesn't feel comfortable enough to do that? Yes.

But - and I will not be swayed on this point - she is NOT going to drive until she shows me she will wear them - peer pressure or no.

And somehow even though we're both stubborn as mules - we get along great
She's mature enough to see my side of it and I was a teen-age girl once - I can see hers.

What is her hearing loss again? 50 db, something like that?

OK, I'm glad to see you are taking it seriously. That's pretty shocking to me. I *have* lived it and I got some "huh, weird" and maybe some teasing early on but the hearing aid was such an obvious necessity to me that I blocked that out. I had absolutely no problem with interest from boys, or "popularity" issues because of the hearing aid.

My hearing fluctuated all over so pretty much whatever her db loss is, I've been there done that. I started wearing hearing aids at about 14 and finished (because my hearing had declined to the point where they weren't useful) in my early 20's.

Would it help if I talked to her? If her hearing is at the level where she needs hearing aids, pretty much by definition she *needs* them and she is really shortchanging herself if she refuses to wear them, in a major, long-term way.

Her hearing loss has been classififed moderately severe-in both ears:


Even though we did catch it early (it is neural and congenital) it has effected her speech slightly.

She's very, very good at reading lips. She's smart so she's always been good at finding strategies for compensating.

But the fact remains - her hearing is effected to the point that if she is not wearing her hearing aids and she's sitting in the back seat of a car and someone is speaking to her without having turned to her and caught her attention and is looking directly at her when they're speaking - she will not be aware that anyone is even speaking.

It really breaks my heart to think about how much she misses because she's embarrassed to wear them. And she doesn't even know sometimes what she's missing. That's what I keep trying to explain to her.

But you know - I'm blind- and I can remember before I got contacts trying to walk around and pretend I could see because I didn't want to wear my glasses.

But you wouldn't see me driving a car without them!

It'll all work out. I really believe that.

*edited to add about the boy thing - Olivia is very, very pretty. And I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom. When I found out she needed hearing aids I asked my friend who was about thirty - would you go out with a girl who was deaf (because at the time we were told it could go either way - it could stabilize and remain static or progress to deafness).
He said -'If she looked like I can tell Olivia is gonna look - Hell yeah!'

And on top of that - she's a wonderful person - socially she's fine - she just doesn't want to be different right now.

That's sad - I guess that is what I am trying to get at for my own personal selfish reasons - my daughter right now are somewhat popular, confident with alot of good solid quality friends. They have the confidence right now to stand up to any sort of teasing of them or other kids. But they go to a small school where they know everyone, the teachers - they trust and know well so they have a feeling of comfort and support.

What will happen when going to high school? Their school goes to the 8th grade. I worry and want to prepare for the future - especially seeing what is going on locally.

And my older daughter is quite shy - another reason I worry. I found out recently that my daughter's best friend (now moved away so they don't attend school together, but still maintain their friendship) was an arranged friendship initially.

My daughter started at the school in kindergarten - the school being so small, you get to talk to the teacher and fill out a form about your child before attending. The teacher realizing she did not know anyone at the school and was a bit shy, planned the arranged friendship with the mother of the most outgoing loud girl - (the mom was the 6th grade teacher). The first day of school, this girl went up to my daughter and said (of course after mom and teacher talked with her) would you be my friend. They have been best friends since.

I think driving in a car is really the least of her worries. I'm completely deaf (that is, I have an ~120 db loss and have no useful hearing) and am a good driver, as are many deaf friends of mine.

If her hearing is that bad, do you know if part of her problem is that she feels the hearing aid just doesn't help her? It was in that range (a little worse) that I started feeling like the hearing aids were more a distraction than a help. A bit after that I started learning ASL which burst my world wide open. I highly recommend that but I realize that's another discussion yet.

I would be perfectly happy to write something to her that you could pass on. If her hearing aids are useful to her -- if she can hear and comprehend things with them in that she can't without -- she is making a decision now that will affect the rest of her life, from the social arena (and not in a good way) to her post-high school educational opportunities and career and LIFE. It's just way too big for vanity to get in the way of (and again it was hardly a blip for me, in terms of what the choice is exactly).

aw, that's sweet though...

Yep - she's just like any other teenager in that regard - sure that she's indestructable and not worried at all. It's not the least of my worries however and wouldn't be even if she had full use of all five of her senses.
But it's the only one of my worries in this situation that I have any control over and can directly do anything about.

I'm sure you're an excellent driver, as many deaf people are - because as other deaf people have explained to me - you've probably honed your ability to use your sense of sight and be hypervigilant in that regard while you're driving.
She's a teenager - she'll be distracted constantly- even if she didn't have to turn her head from the road to watch peoples' lips as they talk to her-
the fact that she can't hear is not my biggest worry - it's the fact that she has shown me that she is so tuned in to peer pressure that she would rather not hear and appear 'normal' than accept who she is and hear.

And actually the use of my car to learn to drive and drive is leverage I have to get her to wear her hearing aids.
So, it is a big worry for me. If she fails a class - she'll live through it. If she crashes a car - she might not.


Her hearing aids do help her. Here's the deal. She's seventeen. She's American in England. She's adopted. She's interracial. She has a lot of differences. She said to me when we moved back here, 'Mom - I just want to try to be normal...can we not tell people that I'm adopted?' I told her that was her choice...now she's told her friends everything about herself, and she does have a lot of friends. She just doesn't want to add hearing aids into the mix at this point.
It's not a choice I agree with, but I understand how she feels. I think it will change.
As long as she is functioning - and she is - I'm not going to force the issue. In fact I really can't - and when your child is seventeen, you'll find out- they've become their own person and they make decisions you have to live with.
I'm just happy this is the only decision she's made that I totally don't agree with.
I've seen it myself in other teenagers (the bad choices they make)- it could be a LOT, LOT worse- I feel lucky in that respect.


That's kind of you, but I think it's under control. She has a lot of friends, a boyfriend- socially she's fine. We've talked about the fact that if her friends are real friends they won't say a word about her hearing aids and she knows they wouldn't - they all know she's supposed to wear them - she just doesn't want to. Actually, I'm surprised (happily so) she's taking her exams in the hearing classroom- I see that as a big step in the right direction. Thatwasn't happening last year.
Yep, it is vanity. I actually think it's harder to be almost perfect looking than not (and she is - she's been scouted by modeling agents- so far she's too short- not 5'7). She puts a lot of stock in her outward appearance. From the time she's been a baby, people have told her how beautiful she is-to the point that I have on occasion asked them not to say that to her anymore and to focus on some other aspect of her being.
The hearing aids don't fit in with her picture of herself and who she wants people to see her as.
I hope that changes when she becomes more mature and out of the teenage years when most people focus on their own outward appearance and that of everyone else.

I think it will - she's not a shallow, surface-driven person in general.
As I said - we're coping- and that's better than some teenagers do who don't have all the extra 'issues' she has.

She's a great girl - I better stop talking about her now - or she'll never forgive me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/opinion/02males.html

Americans never miss a chance to become hysterical about child safety, taking out our fears on our children by denying them the chance to experience the world without overbearing adults ruining everything, all while we **** them over by doing such things as driving the country deep into debt and not taking care if basic national infrastructure.

When did Americans get to be so incapable of learning??

Looking back, I think bullying is a common trait for all of us once in a while, at least in conversation, but as a state of being, I remember only one adult who seemed a total bully. Just lucky, I guess, as abusers are probably all bullies.

This bully was a female who loved to manipulate people for fun (my diagnosis) and punish people for their shortcomings, an odd sort of behavioralist. This is the woman I've described previously as taunting a very heavy person - who became a friend - I hired to help in my lab, and who punished students who parked in the employee parking section by letting the air out of their tires, the number of tires related to how many times they offended (she noted the cars and licenses). Anyway, bright though she was, she wiley'd her way out of a job.

Here's a hypothetical. (My two children are already grown.) Suppose I'm a father trying to bring my son up right with moral values and I learn that he has been bullying other students at his school. Would you say that I should do nothing but accept bullying as natural, as some claim?

that is impossible to say not knowing what happened, why, the events around the event in question, the motivation for the event in question, the ages.

as a rule I stay out of my kids social life unless invited in or else I see a dangerous situation. They need to fight their own battles, they need to learn. My kids learned early on not to pick on people who are not strong enough to handle it, but they have certainly at times taunted in the attempt to inspire a better effort.

If I caught my kids picking on a weakling we would at least have words, whether I give an order depends upon what I find out.

Greetings, hawkeye10. Good evening to you.

I was slightly disturbed by your assertion that bullying serves a useful purpose. I don't think it ever does. I realize that dealing with all sorts of problems is part of life, but I also believe that bullying is morally wrong and cowardly. Bullying reveals a character deficit on the part of the bully, not the one being bullied. Just like the rest of us, a bully bears personal responsibility for his wrongdoing. As a bully he does not serve a socially useful function. And I have a problem with a bullied kid being called a weakling. He's a weakling in what way? A bullied kid may have strengths in other areas of his life.

Believe me, I'm not meaning to get personal here; I'm just curious for the sake of a continued exchange. You say that your kids "have certainly at times taunted in the attempt to inspire a better effort." My question is, A better effort at doing what? Just curious.

Yes, bulling serves a useful purpose, I am opposed to efforts to criminalize bullying. However, it needs to be confined, bullying by students or faculty can become harmful if it gets out of hand. So far as I know nothing that happened to Phoebe Prince is anything that crossed the line for me,,,,,these kids did not have any way to know how close she as to killing herself.


one of the major parts of successful human interaction is pushing each other to do better, what we call bullying is often a very admirable human behaviour. If victims don't want to be bullied anymore then they need to stop being victims, this idea that we can save all of the weak is naive in the extreme.Give a man a fish and he has fish to eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he has fish for a lifetime......protect a victim from one bully and you have protected a victim for the moment, encourage a victim to stop being a victim and you have protected a person for life.

A lot of people have trouble calling a spade a spade, but victims are weak, they are unable to stand up for themselves.

Everyone has strengths and redeeming qualities.

my kids have taunted sports teammates, friends, classmates, fellow xbox players. I approve.

I basically agree. Kids need to learn to be confident and stand up for themselves. Once they get out of the sheltered environment that is school, if they can't deal with insults, taunts, or people not liking them...well, they probably never will be able to. School is the time to figure this out.

Kids being charged for violating civil rights and assault with a deadly weapon (for throwing a drink bottle) in that Phoebe Prince case just seems absurd. Those kids are being punished for the action of somebody else (Phoebe's suicide), not for the actions they committed.

I believe strongly that our main job as parents is to raise and release quality adults, it is not to protect children from all harm that might come their way. Life is full contact, it serves no ones best interest to only teach them the fantasy of a Care Bear world

Incidentally, I was making a random Google search one day last week when I came across a particular post that had been submitted in a forum at another website. The post was submitted by a high-school football player who had gone out of his way to defend a friend of his from a bully. I was quite impressed by his message. (No, I'm not a sports fan.) He described his slightly built friend as being "maybe" 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing only 110 pounds. I was impressed that he did not regard his friend as a "wimp" (as many people would) but viewed him as deserving respect. His friend was riding the bus when a bully shook up a can of coke and threw it at this head. Fortunately, he ducked his head, because the soda can smashed the bus window. If the can hadn't missed his head, he surely would have been knocked out. When the football player heard what had happened, he rode on the bus (which he didn't normally do) and publicly denounced the bully for picking on someone who was smaller than he was. He continued to ride on the bus for a week until the bully finally confronted him. He tried to beat the player up, but the player cleaned his clock. To bring this story to a close, one side after the other kept bringing others into the fight until the bully's side eventually relinquished. I honor the high-school football player for being a decent, noble human being and thumb my nose at the social Darwinism of all those who condone the bullying of children.

I am confident in this case the victim did not learn a thing. This is an example of promoting the victim culture, which will in time do us in if wiser heads do not prevail. It was noble for the knight to protect the damsel, but everyone was clear that this is only because the damsel was weak and thus required others to come to her aid. I am not willing to concede that victims must be victims and thus their weakness needs to be assumed and actually reinforced.

On the other hand, that kid could have just stood up for himself, and it probably would have ended up in a physical confrontation that would have left him physically bruised but mentally dignified and confident in his abilities to defend himself. Now he's only going to be safe so long as his football buddy is around to get his back...

Also, a black eye, or some hurt feelings isn't exactly social darwinism where somebody's going to be wiped out of the gene pool by a bully. A shattered ego and low-self esteem though, from never being hardened by experience, might find trouble passing his genes on...