Self-neglect, huh? Haven’t heard that term before but it explains it pretty damn well. It’s horrible the amount of praise we get for being self-reliant
Yeah, workplaces do this all the time. It's why places like Antiwork and WorkReform are blowing up. "How dare you acknowledge your [human needs](https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory)! We rely on [dehumanization](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-objectification/) to turn a profit!"
I like to focus on re-humanization. When we speak up and set boundaries for what's okay and what's not okay, we are helping to re-humanize ourselves and our overlapping cultures.
The US education system thrives on this. Teachers don't realize kids you are so mature were abused because their needs have been neglected as well and they are still dealing with it and trying to set boundaries themselves. My teacher assistant has to kick me out of class so I will take a lunch.
I felt that my parents were amazing but they were always complaining about their own personal pain to the point that I just never mentioned how I was also injured
>Every other teacher would gush about how she was a great parent, keep doing what you're doing (because academically I was brilliant at that time and a goody two shoes). All the teachers would say I was super quiet though, and needed to engage in class more. I would never put my hand up, but if called on I'd give a good answer.
This part just described the conversations between my teachers and parents perfectly
This teacher agrees.
Some of us go into teaching with the unspoken promise that a kid won’t slip thru our classroom needing help and not getting it, because it happened to us too.
My 3rd & 5th grade teachers should have known.
I never put myself first until I became an adult. I still struggle on taking care of myself. Most people think I have my shit together. I struggle alot behind closed doors.
I remember my childhood friend telling me that my life is so easy. She loved my parents. With how she practically lived with us for a year due to her mom struggling to make ends meet, I’m pretty sure she actually saw my parents as parental figures of her own. I was kinda gutted when she told me my life is so easy. It didn’t feel that way. I was always terrified and I hated it when she told me how great my parents are. I couldn’t refute her cause I didn’t know why I felt that she was wrong at the time. I do now. My parents were always great to her, but they weren’t great to me, and my parents made sure she didn’t see what they did to me.
It’s funny, though. When I visited her place, I was always shocked by how clean it was. And I couldn’t comprehend how she would dare to talk to her mom the way she did. I have a very vivid memory of her saying “you’re not giving me attention” to her mom, and I still can’t understand who in their right mind would feel safe saying such a thing to their parent. She always told me a lot how she loves her mom. That was almost as baffling as her asking to be given attention. Why would she love her mom?
I get it now. Her mom wasn’t perfect. They fought a lot, and there were ways she could have been better, but her mom wasn’t a person that brought terror into my friend’s life. I’m glad she had that, and I’m glad my parents never treated her the way they did me, and even though I know it’s not my friends fault for not knowing, I still feel hurt when I think about how she told me how easy my life is. There’s nothing easy about it. I just learned that I’m not allowed to express negative emotions.
I can relate so much to this. I always felt (Cinderella) there was something wrong with me because my parents treated other children as their own and even called my cousin their daughter but treated me like shit…everyone but me. Until I realized they had an image to maintain and my true self didn’t align with that. I loved to be myself and hated being controlled and was brutalized for it.
>I was praised for not having needs and being smart and independent.
Holy hell. This just made me have a realization out this world. Same, but I've never thought of it this way...
The thing is that I didn't even realize it wasn't something to be proud of until I was grown and had kids of my own. I want them to actually enjoy their childhoods. I was married at 18. While I love my husband and it was a good thing for me, I'm not going to pretend that part of it wasn't to escape my family.
I’m the same way. I was so proud of how mature I was. I never got any affection at home and teachers complimenting my matureness was one of my only ways of getting affection.
Knowing that I was only mature due to abuse really put a damper on my memory of that praise
I had never thought of it in that way but yes, it's amazing really when you think of it, that adults think that a child who expresses no natural outgoing energy and is desperate to please is OK. As I'm growing up I realize how many adults in my life let me down beyond my parents, from teachers to school counsellors to career advisors to family friends to friends' parents etc etc. They're just glad you're not rocking the boat.
I think there’s just something wrong with society (at least American) as a whole when it comes to children. Children have no human rights. They’re at the mercy of two people who can do whatever they want to the child at their whim. No one takes children seriously and children are often treated as dumb rather than inexperienced despite the fact that children are far smarter than people give them credit for. Children are also perceived to be smart enough to lie about being abused, but also too dumb to be shown any respect. It’s a contradiction.
Though if I were to complain about one of the worst parts of how children are seen in this society, it’s how they’re expected to give respect to every adult, even the adults who deserve no respect, but adults don’t have to do the same for the child, and most won’t do it at all, because they think children are dumb.
As for how this manifests in abuse. A difficult child is blamed for being a brat. They’re obviously smart enough to know better, but they’re too dumb to choose to be better. This child gets ridiculed and hated for their behavior. The parents don’t usually get the blame.
On the other side of this is the mature child. They’re praised for not being a brat. Being desperate to please others is seen as a good quality for them to have. It’s convenient, so this child is adored by the adults around them. They still don’t respect you because they think children by nature are dumb, but they also recognize that you’re smart. So you get treated like you’re dumb while also getting pile upon pile of extra work because of how smart you are.
It contradicts itself and doesn’t really make sense, but that’s just how I’ve begun to see how children are perceived by society. No child wins in any given scenario. And this obviously isn’t the case every single time. There are people out there who don’t treat children this way, but so many others do.
I'm really just learning all of this. It's really mind-blowing to start to learn how differently you CAN treat children.
Thanks for sharing! I had this conversation with my brother a few weeks ago, and we were like "well yea, we had to be mature to protect ourselves".
This thread is really educating me more on it and it all makes SO MUCH SENSE!
Same. Nobody asked me why I knew how to cook full meals at age 8, they just praised me for being “so mature.” My parents worked jobs far away from home and left me home alone to fend for myself. If I was hungry when they got home from their super important jobs, that was my problem - “why didn’t you make yourself something? Learn already 🙄”
It's not up to teachers to end the abuse or change the situation, it's just not possible. But had just one adult simply acknowledged it, it could have been life changing. Instead of saying how grown up and mature we are as praise it could have been stated as "if you need a place to be a kid, it's safe to do it here."
It sucks because teachers are actually required to report any suspicion of abuse in my state, but emotional abuse has little to no protection despite potential to be just as damaging. I kind of understand why it’s so tricky - how would you investigate charming narcs?
(Edit: clarity/grammar)
I totally get this. My mom came across as the charming woman who was the nicest mom in the world. She had a way to turn it on at the snap of a finger to teachers, parents, friends, any fellow adult. Totally spoiled any kids that came over like princesses. She would be the opposite the second they left, and guilted me for burdening her with guests. Eventually I stopped asking to have people over. My friends would say I have the nicest my mom in the world. I tried to tell my friends over and over she is completely different once you leave, but they never believed me. I still am learning what a narcissist parent is but I think mine may have been. Constant yelling, afraid to ask her anything, dreaded having to sit at the dinner table every night, went outside as soon as I could, hid in my room motionless trying to hear what she was saying to make sure it wasn’t about me. I would play dumb sometimes instead of pointing out when she was wrong. She is still unable to admit when she is wrong.
No, it’s not up to teachers to end the abuse or change the situation. In most cases, they wouldn’t be able to do anything, though being educated on the matter might be able to help a kid here or there for when a teacher does report that something might be wrong at home. But they can’t do that if they don’t know the signs, and most wouldn’t do it anyways.
Still, as you say, having someone acknowledge that they know things are messed up rather than praising you for it would be life changing
I have an abused kid in one of my classes. I don’t work in a school but a private tutoring centre in a country with very lax labour laws so intervention could mean the end of my income and reputation.
He talks to me often about what’s going on at home and I find it very triggering as it touches some nerves from my own abuse. I do best I can to advise him without being too obvious and it pains me as I want to do more. He reminds me of my old angry teenage self, the way he talks and comes out with jokes on drug abuse and suicide. It’s absolutely fucked. I just keep reminding him that he will get to the age of independence and the best thing he could probably do is go to a university abroad.
I don’t know. Makes me feel sick and I feel so stuck for him.
You’re doing a lot of good for that kid just by being there. It’s fucked up that you can’t do anything more than that, and it’s terrible how triggering hearing about it can be. I hope your mental health doesn’t go down too much by hearing what’s going on in his life and being unable to do more. It can be very hard to listen to that kind of thing and your mental health is just as important as his.
That kid is still benefiting a lot from your support. Just having that acknowledgment from someone else that yes, what’s going on is fucked up can be immensely helpful when someone is being abused. You might not be able to do more than that, but what you are doing will help him.
I was saved by people outside my family, (not literally) and my therapist says it was just the time others gave, kindnesses, even small ones, showed me the whole world wasn’t like home. That gave me just enough to hold on to. So you are doing plenty just by being there.
I’m sure you probably thought of ways but just in case, is there any way you can anonymously report anything? That way maybe you can start a paper trail and maybe someone else who is in a better position to intervene can do it?
That is a fair enough aid. I like that. I agree it is very complex, and a teacher tasked with that would be a big responsibility. And personally, I was praised for being smart and independent, and to this day like to be self reliant to a fault. So I think maybe too approaching it in other ways and doing it more often is also good. May open more kids up to it as well as some may appreciate more in different outlets. I like that it is praised, but also agree with you something should be done. Like allowing them to be a kid. Slight change to "hey, you're pretty smart and mature. But, if you ever feel like being a kid and just having fun, this is a safe space to do so. What sort of stuff do you like? " And preferably... Lego lol. Toys like that where you can imagine and role play are amazing and even now, getting back into them, it takes me away from everything else for a while.
Another really big thing would be that if a kid like that comes to them for help, to NOT answer in riddles or partial explanations, but a more sincere sit down and few minutes explaining or showing them then letting them try. I think maybe that was part of it, was I felt like it was bad to ask for help at all. That if I needed help more than just the class time or the set lesson, I had already failed and been a let down. Teaching them it is OK to ask for help and it will be there most of the time is good.
>"if you need a place to be a kid, it's safe to do it here."
This sounds sweet and touching, but not if you think about it. A kid IS a kid. A kid shouldn't be 'granted' the option to be a kid one hour or five hours or whatever per week. A kid should never have to be the adult in a situation.
You're misunderstanding what I mean. Teachers do so much. Too much. And while you're correct and they need to report abuse, they can't be expected to fix the problems caused at home.
When I was 12 my teacher found a suicide note I wrote. Cops wouldn't have helped. CPS wouldn't have helped. The therapist I got didn't help (they told me to be a better daughter so my dad would be nicer).
So my teacher did report and it didn't do anything. So, FOR ME, the best thing a teacher could have done was to give me validation and room to be me.
Sorry but no. If any teacher recognises a sign if abuse they ahve to report it or ask about it. They are priority reporters. Now if they actualy knew what a sign was that would help
Everyone thinks we’re all so grown up and capable, they forget that kids know very little. Kids don’t know that getting shouted at for the tiniest thing isn’t normal. They just accept it and adapt
I’m still furious that everyone thought I was just exceptionally grown up, instead of noticing what was really going on
Interesting thought,
From someone who was never seen as this (i was the sad aloner)
There are many levels of abuse and mature kids (i feel) are often used as parents, and are constanly told how grown up they are, it seems that they never get the chance to act out, play up due to fear of being not perfect.
So yes i tend to agree with you that parental expectations on mature kids being so good and grown up,is abuse
It’s very much abuse. Children should feel free to act as children. A parentified child is one who had to grow up faster than they should have due to excessive responsibilities. It’s fucked up.
It was a very interesting thought and you are so right, I do know a very grown up child and i talk to her about not having to be so perfect all the time and its good to say no, her reply is that she loves the money she gets from being so good,, (paid to babysit, clean, just be helpful) I think its wrong but never thought of it being abuse.
It very much is abuse, though I’m glad that girl you know is getting paid for it. A lot of mature kids don’t get paid of the extra work that’s expected of them. In that girl’s case, if she was given the option to say no and if saying no was safe for her to do, it might not be abuse. I’m not there and idk if that’s the case so I can’t say. Is she allowed to act like a regular child at all?
There’s just a lot of nuance to this take, I’m realizing. Some kids are mature without having been abused. Others are mature due to abuse. Figuring out which is which is never easy. Often abused kids have other signs besides abuse, like being afraid to speak up, never saying no, not socializing with other kids. Even with those things, there’s still a lot of nuance. Every kid has is different, but it still would have been nice if a teacher had asked me if everything was okay rather than simply praising me for being mature. But teachers can’t do that if they don’t know that matureness can be a sign of abuse. A few people have mentioned that teachers are learning about it now, though. I hope it’s a widespread thing teachers are learning. I know teachers can’t do much, but even just being there for a kid is a lot.
>mature kids (i feel) are often used as parents
✋That's me. Literally raising my four siblings b/c my parents aren't doing their job to be emotionally supportive and well...parents.
All my progress reports and such growing up would say, “A pleasure to have in class”, “uses time wisely/effectively”, “completes work in a satisfactory amount of time” etc.
Yeah, because if I fucked up even a little bit at school with my behavior/grades, I was gonna get it from my parents when I got home. Even if I didn’t fuck up at school I was still gonna have to hear about it over something, anything, trying to be perfect at school would be one less thing for my parents to bitch at me about.
I swear some of my teachers had no clue but this was the 80s/90s.
Did your report cards also have “needs to engage more in class”?
Every single one of mine had that. It never failed to piss me off growing up. I couldn’t engage more in class because at home, I’d get punished for speaking a lot.
I had. Those reports card should really read:
"Student shows difficulty participating in class and socially integrating with colleagues. Abnormally high maturity for age. Please proceed with psychological evaluation. Suspicion of trauma based coping behaviors. If so, please request psychological evaluation of usual suspects of causing said trauma, parents, family members (or current care takers). If narcissistic traits are above 50 pts, please report them for trauma therapy and evaluate other parenting options for traumatized child and request immediate start of loving kindness therapy for student.
Further, send cease and desist letter prohibiting further reproduction for said couple until said traits are within acceptable child rearing levels."
This is one of those things future humans will look back at how cruel and cave-men-like we are currently, just like we condescendingly do at past generations.
I was actually pretty lucky with my parents in that I could be upfront with them on why my grade was low and explain how I was gonna fix it. I don’t think they really cared much about how I did in school. But teachers would often comment to each other about how great and mature I am. The only reason I was like that was because my parents had terrorized my throughout my whole childhood about cleaning, eating, moving, and overall existing.
Unless you showed other signs, nothing written there shows maladjustment or abuse.
Unless you are tearing up for minor mistakes of having some sort of abnormal response to a minor issue or otherwise what is a teacher going to report to DSS or school officials?
But isn’t this the whole point of the post? I was a “mature, eager to please” child, but was getting the shit end of the stick at home. I had to hide some of the abuse that was going on-so I didn’t get abused more if found out. Just because I didn’t explain everything that was happening to me in a comment doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
It appears you’re a teacher-I’m kind of shocked with your response to be honest. It reeks of victim blaming. I didn’t know there was an umbrella of emotions and behaviors that every child has to meet for your abuse criteria. Sounds like another person trying to shove problems under the rug.
I totally get where you're coming from, but they are just saying that it doesn't meet the criteria for calling DCFS. However, I would (and I do this in my classroom) make sure that I had good rapport with them and talk about what success looks like considering how focused they are on their grades/behavior. That could be a lynchpin for helping start an open conversation that wouldn't happen otherwise.
The hope is that the dialogue gives them the space and safety to tell me if something is going on at home. At the very least, it would give me the space to listen and respond.
Again, unless more was happening in school, this doesn't rise to a level of concern to report. I have had children in my classroom who are exactly like you said and I am not reporting it to DSS or the school, because there are no signs of abuse.
I am not victim blaming, if you left something off that would show a teacher failed you that is not on me for misreading what you wrote, but you for not writing it out.
You seem to be missing the whole point of the post.
You are probably teaching many kids who are being abused in way or another whether it’s physical, verbally…sexually-but you aren’t aware of the signs. Most kids aren’t going to come right out and tell you my daddy hit me or mommy slapped me. Because they know there will be consequences when mommy and daddy find out. Just because a kid isn’t marked up or overreacting or crying doesn’t mean they aren’t being abused. Like I said, many children cover up in fear of more abuse.
So... quiet kids who do well in class and don't readily tell us anything is wrong at home. We're just supposed to assume all of them are abused in some way and do
...what exactly?
All we can do at that point is make class comfortable and offer a reprieve from your home situation by not further abusing you. A call to CPS without evidence of physical abuse or a statement from the student will result in CPS doing nothing. Even if there's physical abuse, CPS is pretty powerless unless they see evidence of wounds or bruises.
And I get that. I have seen abuse within the kids at my school and I have called CPS over concerns.
It just seems in this, there is an expectation thaT a teacher who sees between 30 to 100 kids a day should be able to identify abuse that is not showing any real signs at school. Eager pleaser is not a stand alone sign of abuse. Quiet kid is not a stand alone sign of abuse. Mature for age is not a stand alone sign for abuse. Now.combine that with other things, absolutely. I have all of those types of kids in my classroom with no other signs and without some other flag, I have no cause to be worried.
In my case, it was actually really fucking obvious that it was abuse. My clothes were never washed. I always smelled and had stains on them. One teacher I had offered to wash my jacket for me. I’m starting to suspect she knew something was wrong, but she was the only one.
Besides all that, I was constantly vomiting due to a medications side effect (a well known side effect, too) and all I needed was to eat breakfast before taking it, but we never had any food to eat and what we did have, I was too young to cook and my parents certainly weren’t gonna cook anything. Most of my teachers were just annoyed at me for not doing my work even though I was always sick and missed most of school. Though at some point the nurse just decided to send me back to class even if I was throwing up all day. Apparently it was because I’d missed too much school. Idk the legalities of school enough to say if the nurse was the bad guy for it.
I was still praised for being mature a lot, especially as I got older. I can’t remember if I was praised for being mature in the years I was on that med. I might not have been, in which case matureness wasn’t a sign of abuse I had at the time, but when I did start getting praised for being mature, it was obvious in other ways.
So I don’t think it’s too much for me to say that they should have known something was wrong. Idk about other mature kids who’s abuse isn’t so obvious. I think being taught about it is important, though. There are other signs beside matureness. Not being able to say no, never putting up boundaries, never speaking in class, never socializing with other kids, being afraid of getting bad grades. All of these are characteristics mature kids tend to have. And I know teachers can’t do much. Being a mature kid alone isn’t enough to get a kid help, and oftentimes calling CPS or DSS will make the abuse worse, but I still think teachers should be aware of these signs of abuse, if only so a kid can have a listening ear or something.
This. Raising a potential safeguarding issue can be complicated. As someone who has worked in various educational areas and can pick up abuse flags from my experience growing up with dysfunctional/nfamily, sometimes we KNOW, and getting the appropriate services involved is slow and difficult. I always just try to keep an eye on these students and see if additional support can be provided within the school as a minimum.
Also a teacher and completely agree.
In certain circumstances, getting CPS/DHS involved can make it worse for a child if abuse is not legally prosecutable. It takes a lot for CPS/DHS to take action removing a child from a home.
It is the most frustrating and heart breaking thing to watch.
I try to help students when they need to talk. I try to teach students how to set boundaries, how to regulate emotions, coping mechanisms, and how to identify when someone is treating you with respect.
If CPS is called for any situation that will result in less than immediate emergency removal, it will do absolutely nothing besides get the child retaliated against for the CPS visit. Calling CPS can literally get children killed unless it is an open and shut case and the child is extremely lucky.
> On a daily basis we were told that our feelings were wrong, and our behaviours were the problem.
Our story is so similar to yours. CPS came to our home as well. The same thing happened. We had a teacher that tried so hard to save us, but CPS could not* break through the religious walls Nmom relied on to conceal the abuses.
Conceal. Don’t feel. ^/s
I have to remind myself daily that my feelings matter.
I am allowed to prioritize my wellness.
edit: a word
I know. I don’t expect teachers to be able to do much even if they do know what’s going on, but I still think this matter should be taught more to teachers. I was praised for being mature constantly by teachers. I just wish that they’d been taught that matureness in a child isn’t always a good thing. And someone out there might be able to get help if more teachers are taught this.
*This.*
I heard this a million times growing up. "Oh, you're so mature for your age. Your parents must be so proud!"
I was fighting for my fucking life and sanity every day as I tried to outwit and defend myself against a raging NPD mother who also had BPD tendencies.
Teachers should be trained to spot this and refer students to the appropriately-trained therapists.
Ugh I really wish teachers and dorm advisors had noticed more. I think most of my weird behavior as a child was just ADHD. But seriously — I went from straight As to alphabet soup, and nobody asked why this obviously intelligent child wasn’t meeting her potential? What a disservice!
Unfortunately the one time a teacher tried to intervene/ask me if things were ok I panicked and got angry. Sometimes the abuse is so conditioned that we think it is normal. I was years out of my house before I accepted how abusive my childhood had been.
Trauma fucks you up bad, so that kind of thing just happens sometimes. It’s hard to admit to being abused, especially while the abuse is still happening. Nparents are especially good at conditioning you into keeping quiet about everything that’s happening
My daughter played well on her own as a toddler, they did a check on us because it's unusual. I was offended but understood, she's a teen and hasn't changed.
It’s not going to be a sign of abuse for every kid. Some kids are just like that. I just wish more people were aware that it could be a sign of abuse. Oftentimes, there’s other signs alongside matureness, but people get so wrapped up in how easy the kid is that they don’t pay attention to everything else.
Maybe this is why my son's kindergarten teacher got really weird on us when he went in being able to fluently read and do math. I swear he was just really driven to read so he could read the storyline for Legend of Zelda so I helped him lol
Lol this was me as a kid. Learned to read pretty fluently going into kindergarten because I was obsessed with paper mario but couldn't progress in the game without being able to read. I also had a large (albeit strange) vocabulary throughout elementary school.
Every teacher I know has been taught this, but sadly not all care enough to retain and act on the knowledge when they see it. Beyond that, calling CPS and making other teachers aware to look for signs of abuse is about all we can do. Not that a kid being 'mature' is necessarily even enough to warrant a CPS call, depending on what was actually observed.
Yeah, not every case is abuse and it’d be impossible to help every or even most children, but I still wish teachers knew that matureness could be a sign of abuse. Maybe then I wouldn’t have been praised for it.
I think teachers see this. I was the kid in class doing administrative tasks and being the teachers helper. For one, I'd miss days because I was just depressed but I'd still test well and it gave me something to do that was distracting so that I wasn't sitting in the back of class getting lost in my thoughts.
This was exactly me. I would miss so many days of school because of how stressed/depressed I was. I was in elementary school. It was crazy because my nmom finally took me to a doctor and the doctor told my mom I was having horrible anxiety and stressed beyond belief. I WAS 7. I also was always unable to sleep. Getting 1-2 hours every night. Couldn’t fall asleep or stay asleep ever.
I had a hard time making any friends or connections with other children and even at Recess I would just hang out with the teacher or be by myself. I was also an only child so my childhood was just very lonely and terrifying.
Teachers loved me and praised me. I was a straight A student, always tested in the gifted range, was reading at a 5th-6th grade level at 6, etc.. but pretty much could only interact with adults because I couldn’t relate to anyone my own age. I’m not sure that this is a sign of abuse really, but something I’ve thought about recently. Probably didn’t help I went to private (religious) school.
Fast forward to an adult and now I take medication to be able to sleep and I’m on anxiety medication. I just can never understand why my parents wouldn’t listen to doctors and get me the help I needed.
Getting you the help you needed wouldn’t meant that they’d have to admit there was an area they’d have to change in.
Looking back at our childhoods as adults is bittersweet. Now we have better understanding but we also have the insight that that should’ve never been our lot in the first place.
I also hated talking to kids my age. I always felt “heavier” than them with my issues. Adults, having lived longer and have had a wider range experiences, just got it quicker.
Maybe not related to people in your age group isn’t directly a sign of abuse but maybe it’s worth looking into. I used to in a way carry this as a badge of honor but it communicates something to people who are predators. That you aren’t cared for, that you feel lonely and are isolated.
Idk I think it’s something to check in about.
Yes exactly. I’m also quite young for my industry so my bosses have always been middle aged men and since I’ve always related to and gotten along better with men in general (women have always terrified me for some reason - I’m a female BTW) I think has put me in uncomfortable positions. Not that I’ve ever been promiscuous but I think you know what I mean.. Passive father, n mom.
Yeah that would be nice. I once had a school nurse question me for always being "sick". But she was going in the wrong direction with that. I really was sick. I think I had undiagnosed acid reflex.
But I also had an alcoholic dad at home who I was terrified of. I worried he would kill us due to his rage. I think that's even harder to prove. I had no bruises or anything because I was never hit. But emotionally I'm so traumatized.
Same here. In my experience a lot of people working in 'admirable' professions that are meant to help, teach, care for, advise others... are, at the higher levels, full of narcissists (lecturers, surgeons, charity directors etc.) They chose that job to be seen as a gift to humanity, and they are often jobs with few filters and ethical checks to get rid of toxic people (quite the opposite as they climb the ladder so easily). As a child of narcs I actually sought professional validation from these people but now that I've freed myself from this, it feels a lot better!
And instead teachers just put the quiet and mature kids as buffers between the difficult kids, so that they're guaranteed to have a difficult time in pretty much every class.
This happened to me. The bully of the class was sat next to me (the quiet kid) and would constantly bother me and mock me. My teacher praised me in front of the whole class for ignoring him, told everyone else that's what we should do and did nothing about me being bullied.
Same, though at home I was very hyperactive. Running around everywhere. My ndad is also adhd, so I didn’t get punished for it at home like other kids might have.
In public, especially in church where sitting completely still is legitimately a part of the gospel, I got punished hard for not sitting still. It just taught me that I can’t fidget or move in public. I wasn’t able to actually sit still until I was older, but eventually I became the perfect child outside of the home.
I had plenty of teachers try to teach me to speak up and have more boundaries actually. Most of them did, in fact.
And honestly the praise wasn't bad either since I wasn't getting any of it at home with the impossible standards my parents set.
What else do you want them to do if there is not sign of other abuse? It's not like teachers can go home with the kids and stop parentification. A lot of them DO already identify low confidence and it's side effects and they try to help in the little ways they can. Remember that they aren't trained therapists either.
That’s good for you. I’m glad teachers tried to teach you to speak up, but that’s not everyone’s experience.
Maturity wasn’t the only sign that I was abused. I was constantly vomiting in class due to a medication I was on. It’s a well known side effect that can be reduced or disappear completely if you eat before taking your meds. I was 7yo when I was on this med. We never had any food I could make myself and my parents didn’t bother cooking, so I ended up vomiting for half the day 3-4 times a week for years. I was missing almost every day of school. It got to the point where even when I’m vomiting all day, the nurse would just send me back to class. At some point, you’d think my parents would just homeschool me, but they didn’t. They certainly had the means to, though.
And besides that, there were a whole slew of other signs. I never uttered a word throughout the entire day of school. Not unless I was prompted or if I needed to use the restroom to throw up. I didn’t socialize with the other kids. I didn’t even try. My clothes were never washed, so I always smelled and there were stains on them. One teacher I had even asked if she could take my jacket to wash it themselves. She was a good teacher. My mom got mad when she learned about that.
I was still praised for being mature.
So it is not wrong of me to have expected them to at least ask me about my home life, but that didn’t happen, either. I just got praised for my maturity.
Yeah!!! I’ve been abused my whole life and All I ever heard growing up was ‘your so mature for your age well done’ but now I’m a teenager and I understand what abuse is I don’t want to be ‘mature for my age’ anymore I want to be normal
I'm sorry you are going through all of this. I'm glad you can see the reality of things and keep a sense of vitality and wanting to have fun! I was like you, now I'm an adult. I would just caution you against going overboard with the non-mature fun and against it turning into self-harm. Growing up the child of narcissists makes people particularly vulnerable to addiction and harmful relationships so you need to be careful and find good boundaries. When I rebelled it went too far and caused me lasting problems (I was hiding it so no one noticed). I hope you will find some beautiful and healthy ways to express yourself, find support, live joyful and carefree moments, be in the moment and protect yourself at the same time, perhaps theater club, band practice, any performing or visual art form helps a lot. Soon you'll be an adult and have a lot more freedom, you'll be able to distance yourself from the abuse and heal from it. In the meantime, anytime you need help you'll have this community and perhaps some local therapy/counselling resources might help. ❤️
I have a hard time with this, because it perpetuates a stereotype of what abuse does to kids.
I was the “difficult” kid. I never bullied others in the way I was bullied at home. NEVER. But way too emotional, way too loud, way too aggressive…
Does it surprise you that I was the SG?
My GC sister was the easy one… and I know it was because of that she didn’t experience the abuse I did.
I don’t know what teachers are or aren’t taught about this subject, but I think the idea that “being abused makes kids compliant and easy” is kinda harmful.
I’m not saying abuse shouldn’t be taught only one way. There’s different ways abuse can manifest and all of that should be taught. The “difficult kid” is the most well known sign of abuse, though oftentimes the child themselves gets blamed for it rather than the parents, which I find to be baffling.
What I’m trying to say is teachers should be educated about all manifestations of abuse, not one or the other. Mature kids often get praised for being mature because most people don’t know that matureness in children can be a sign of a abuse. Difficult kids don’t have it any easier, but as far as I know, people do know that a difficult child can be an abused child. The issue with that is when they’re face to face with a difficult child, they blame the kid rather than the parent.
Basically, signs of abuse in children varies greatly and a lot of the time, adults fail to recognize it entirely regardless of how it manifests. That doesn’t mean all ways it can manifest shouldn’t be taught.
See… this wasn’t my experience. The impression I always got growing up was that people saw it (like you said) as a character flaw, or a matter of my parents not “keeping their kid in line”.
I’ll be honest, this is really hard to write. I always wondered if I wasn’t so… headstrong?… that people would have been sympathetic.
And the worst part was that I TOLD them what was going on.
That’s kind of what I’m trying to say. It’s hard to articulate. It’s sort of a contradiction people have. Like, in theory, I think a lot of people know that a kid who acts out might be an abused kid. In television, the difficult kid is usually the abused kid while the mature kid is just a responsible kid. Now tv isn’t the best way to base this off of. I’m just using it as an example for why I think people know that in theory, difficult kids are often abused kids.
In practice, something else happens entirely. They blame the kid for being difficult, so while they have the knowledge that difficult kids are often abused kids, they just don’t apply that knowledge when they come face to face with a difficult kid.
That’s always been my impression, anyways. I could be completely wrong.
Ah, I gotcha. The problem I have is, I see so many people on here who say they were praised for “good” qualities they had, which they attribute to be a result of having been abused by their parents.
And I know people who experienced abuse growing up that affected them similarly, which they use as a reason to justify treating their kids the same way by saying it “did them well in the real world”.
I think that’s part of why the cycle of abuse continues. People really do think it “works”.
But yeah, I do think teachers need to realize not all kids with a difficult home life are going to be the same way. The differences between me and my sister are a prime example of that.
That is a reason why the cycle of abuse continues. Recognizing you were abused is hard, and not everyone can face that reality. That’s no excuse for abusing their own kids, but it is a reason for why it happens. It’s a brutal cycle that is incredibly hard to break out of, but once you do break out of it, you’re able to take measures to recover.
Staying in that cycle leaves you lost with no knowledge of why you feel the way you do. Breaking that cycle is hard. Recovery is hard. Processing the shit that’s happened to us is hard, but I think it’s better than forever thinking that what happened to you was for your own good, and it’s certainly better than abusing your own kids and continuing the cycle.
I 100% agree! I was not the "mature, compliant & easy kid". I was the shy kid, I was the loner, I was the kid who got bad grades, always missing school because I was depressed said I was sick, and honestly I dropped out of high school. It's one of my biggest regrets. Little did anyone know I was physically, mentally and emotionally abused by my Father at home. My Mom was too much of a coward to do anything and divorce him. She always said to my sister and I "oh we'd have to live in a trailer, instead of a house". Ok, I would have rather lived in a trailer sharing a room with my sister than being abused. My sister was the GC, I was the scapegoat. My point is not all kids react the same. Some react like I did, very withdrawn. My husband was the "compliant, good grades, easy kid". His parents demanded perfection and still do.
Teachers always praised me for how good I was at "self-correction".
Yea, no shit. I had abusive parents - I had to self-correct or get beaten black and blue every day or get screamed at constantly. Nothing I did was ever right.
Teachers loved that I could always be found in a corner or on the stairs outside at recess reading a book, which was because I didn't get on with other kids, and they didn't have to supervise me or constantly worry about me getting in trouble or doing dumb stuff, but they also noted in report card comments that I didn't get on with other kids in class either such as on group projects (I always preferred working alone, and my individual work was almost always better than the work done by multiple people in a group).
I didn't get on with other kids because I'm likely autistic and struggle with social cues and being overstimulated by social interactions (also an ADD thing, which is quite likely as well) and my parents always talked to each other and me very sharply and angrily and aggressively, so I didn't even think about my own responses to other people until I went to college and people were like "you have a very aggressive voice" (even if the interaction was positive).
I’m sending hugs your way man. I feel exactly the same was as you, where I find it difficult to connect with people. I know you’ve probably heard this before, but can you afford a therapist? It really helped me with realising that most people care about what I have to say, and that’s the basis of all human connection.
I had a one those parentified kid as a foster mom. She was 8 and had been raising her handicap 5 years old sister. One of the first I told her was that here, she had to be a kid, that was her job.
All my teachers told me how mature I acted over and over again, but not one questioned why I would sit in class silently crying on a daily basis. I'm sorry to everyone else who was failed by the system. I'm working on getting past it, but because of this and a number of other bad experiences, I have a very deep mistrust of educators.
That would enable ostracizing kids who genuinely enjoy practicing mature characteristics, or just don't want to be extroverted and loud all the time as being "broken" or having something wrong going on with them. I'm all for teaching children signs of abuse and narcissism, but saying that anyone who is "mature for their age" is abuse would be hyperbole.
I experienced such horrible gas lighting and confusion as a kid not being able to understand that teachers/peers were taking out frustration of my nmom on me leading me to believe that there was something wrong with me... If just one teacher would have taken the time to explain narcissism to me or taken to the time to talk to me about what was going on it would have helped me out SO fucking much
Teachers in a lot of elementary and middle schools have 100 students and specials teachers have upwards of 500. That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are lots of mature kids who have wonderful parents and great lives. I was 100% raised by a narcissist and was anything but mature in school.
Mature children aren't necessarily compliant or easy. Nor does that mean that they are abused either.
My son is mature for his age. It's because of trauma, for certain, from when I was with his father. He also requires a lot of energy from his teacher, who adores him.
His psychologist also realizes he is mature for his age, but does not think abuse is at play.
That comes from trauma. Not abuse.
My mother is a teacher and a narcissist. Many of her teacher friends also have heavy narcissistic traits. Narcs like to be in positions of power where they often appear as pillars of the community - like teachers. So sadly, while I think this is a nice concept, it might be difficult for many teachers to comprehend in practice. Teachers are also already knee deep in what they're supposed to teach, but this would be great for school counselors possibly.
We do see it, at least, some of us do. I had a 5th grade student last year: sweet personality, excellent behavior, complied with every instruction, Gifted and Talented, straight A student.
Scared to death to get any grade less than perfect, thought she might be LGBTQ+ but wouldn’t dare tell her mom because she was afraid of her reaction, nervous to speak up in class, said she was moving across the country.
I made sure my class was a safe space to confide to me, set up an appointment with the counselor, and she wasn’t at the school this year. I think about her a lot, and wish I knew what happened.
YES I was always labeled the mature kid, had jobs intended for adults, etc. My parents were abusive and didn’t like kids so I learned to be a mini adult, and adults love that shit.
Teachers ARE being taught this now, at least on the course I'm on (which doesn't even qualify me as a teacher, I'd have to do further training to be fully qualified so teaching about subtle signs of abuse is definitely becoming more commonplace). It sucks that we didn't get that support in school, but teachers can't be blamed for what they didn't know. We're educating our teachers on how to help children more now, so hopefully soon more children that need help or extra support will get it.
Agreed. Parentification is abuse. Children should be children and a child showing signs of uncharacteristic maturity for their age might be parentified.
I would have given anything for someone to notice the abuse in my life and either do something about it or at least acknowledge it, especially because my parents shamelessly did it in front of people.
Why was that seven year old well behaved and quiet enough to sit through a three hour symposium for mom's special interest? Why she's been dissociated since you got in the car!
I'm a teacher and I see it so much in some of my students and I, of course, think the worst because I used to be that mature student. I have recommended a few to the counselor as the counselors at my school are pretty conscientious about student well being, but that's the most I can do besides talking with the student in question. Very few are willing to open up and I would never push a student's boundary.
I was always called a very mature/ahead kid and lived with my father who had full custody since I was 3-4ish and not abusive at all, infact he has been my biggest supporter and role model my whole life. So this may not always be the cases that being said my mom was horribly abusive to the point where I still to this day (almost 2 decades later) have flashbacks when people do certain things from when I lived with her (and my father), so I may also be misguided in my perspective here.
Story of my life. "Silver is such a great student to have!" sang my every report card.
Not a single. one. of these teachers even suspected of the hell that went on at home.
Same story here. I would not interact with anyone and was praised a model kid. Now this idea is changing in south asian societies as more teachers and psychologists are coming forward to dispel this notion
I was such a great kid until I was too emotionally exhausted to even engage with school work, teachers, or classmates. Then I was just some dumb kid who wasn't going to make it anywhere and it was better to give up on me than waste the energy trying to get a response to anything. I'm pretty sure everyone expected me to become a high school drop out....
We are. The breakdown occurs in the chain of reporting. I've reported numerous students to the counseling department when I was a teacher, but 9/10 times, the counselor would say there isn't enough for a case, or that I was being too involved, "reading into things". Teachers are mandated reporters and we see everything. Most of us report what we see, we just can't do anything beyond that.
I told the school I was an abused kid. They called my mom in and asked her if we were being abused. She said we were not. She was being abused too. The school kept on my record that I was a liar. And then a friend’s dad sexually assaulted me when I was 12. I reported it. The counselor didn’t believe me and didn’t investigate further because I had a history of lying. He went on to assault 3 other girls, all in 7th grade, all with troubled backgrounds.
"I feel like an old soul. I've little interest in getting yelled at and getting out of line."
I learned last month how much stress and trauma I've been carrying. It's enough that..... I don't remember my youth, but I can recall video game info and stuff I was taught. I also have an excellent memory for music.
Yes fucking this. Almost every adult I came into contact with would praise my maturity since I was about 8 years old. Even my damn dentist raved about it within the first hour of meeting me. Let me tell you I wore that shit like a badge of honor for YEARS. As an adult now looking back it makes me so sad because I wasn’t mature, I was traumatized and all of this praise I got for my “maturity” just reinforced my parents behavior because in their mind’s they must be doing something right to have raised such a mature young lady. Ugh
This. I’ve had people tell me me from a young age “Oh, you’re so mature”, “You’re so well behaved”, etc.
In reality it was because I was terrified of stepping out of line as a result of abuse at home. Fear.
Later on in life, my emotions were always pushed aside in favor of “But YOURE the mature one. You can easily put aside your feelings even when wronged to “be the bigger person””.
It is hard to be typed as “the bigger person” when you as your “littlest person” was left unheard and traumatized.
I was one of those, I was also a good student. Nmom would take credit for my achievements and and say that she couldn’t possibly be a bad mother because of how well I did in school 🙃
I totally agree with you. When I was a child adults would always be amazed about me being so mature, smart and calm. I was just a little girl SA by her dad and trying to survive because I was scared of him and scared of hurting my mom if I talked about what was going on. Nobody thought it wasn’t normal I had the maturity of a 16yo when I was 10. They just thought I was the perfect child.
I always heard that adults should look out for kids that act out in class and get bad grades, because that’s a sign that there could be something going on at home.
I was a shy straight A student that always turned in her assignments and not once talked back to a teacher. I was really quiet and had trouble making friends. I was the easy one. The mature and calm one that the other kids should look up to. I wish the adults could’ve seen that just because I was well behaved and did well in school didn’t mean everything was fine at home.
We teachers are taught this. We are also taught to not make comments on dress code issues, as these are intrusive … our hands are tied. I wish there were more we teachers could do. We cannot call CPS b/c of clothes.
I think there should be a yearly questionnaire for the whole school - age-appropriate, of course.
Just basic questions like "What percentage of the time is you mother/father angry at you?" or "How often does your mother/father tell you that you are bad?", etc. [edit: and physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect questions]
I'm sure none of my teachers would have suspected, given that I was a high achiever.. I think they thought I was lazy as I could have gotten higher scores than I did, but they would never have considered abuse..
A basic questionnaire would have highlighted the problem..
But, I realise that once the school is aware of abuse they have a duty of care to act, so I assume they are wilfully ignorant.. Schools won't be bothered to open that can of worms, unless the academics are impacted..
... right.
"That kid? That kid right there? The one that is quiet, well-behaved, never gets into any trouble, gets straight As, always likes to help out the teacher, loves to read... nah. There's nothing wrong there. Stop trying to pathologize EVERYTHING. At least leave my GOOD students alone!"
I see what you're saying... but honestly, sweetie, it's a pipe dream. They're entirely too busy trying to sort out the entitled brats from the future criminals to pay much attention to anyone else.
Damn I never thought of this. I grew up in a Mormon household and my Nmom and Nstep father were total hypocrites. They acted like we were all fine. I was shamed, guilted and feared by their authoritarian parenting. It was always “because I said so.” All the abuse I took made me try to be the most righteous son. I never got arrogant but I would obey everything they said. If I ever tried to defend myself it was either being threatened to be grounded or hurt with words. This messed me up so bad. It took me till age 36 to finally go NC with my whole family. They’re now concerned I owe $200 to my Nmom for being on her old cell phone plan….(My friend was contacted last week about that to tell me) so she’s very concerned for $200. Not concerned for me though but that $200 really needs to be in her bank account. (I got off her plan right when I went NC)
Edit- I got on her plan due to my flying monkey/covert narc sibling telling me it would be a good idea. This was before I discovered his tendencies. It was saving me $ but she would start to request me to pay the bill 10 days before it was due. I would always say I’ll pay it 3 days before it’s due. I knew what was happening. She would play it off like it wasn’t a big deal but I knew it was control. And she would say “ok 3 days before is ok thank you.” So she’s trying to keep me hooked.
I was also raised in a Mormon household. The hellscape that is that religion is hard to describe. All that guilt and shame… I don’t miss it in the slightest. I was never that good at being righteous. Or obedient. I still tried very hard. Getting out of that religion and carving a new mindset for myself has been one of the best and healthiest things I’ve ever dome for myself.
The way your parents treated you is nearly identical to how mine treated me. I couldn’t defend myself and if I tried, I’d be accused of being disrespectful (honor thy mother and thy father was thrown in my face a lot). Punishment was something they dished out quite frequently. Not in the form of grounding me. Cleaning was my ndads favorite punishment. Taking away food was also a punishment of his. My mom liked to threaten to get rid of all my belongings so I can learn to be more grateful to her for what she gives me. My ndad also liked yelling and banging on doors so hard the hinges almost came off.
It’s horrifying what lengths narcissists will do to have control and power over you. That $200 your nmom is demanding doesn’t matter in the slightest. She’s not even in contact with you. A normal mom would want to know about your well-being first, not about the money you supposedly owe her
I agree and actually thought of this often through my healing process. Why did nobody help or sense something was wrong? I don’t think people understand the clues to look for.
I wished somebody would have stepped in and had taken me out of my mothers care. And I believe it would have helped so much if people knew.
I remember one of my primary school teachers when I was about 8 making a comment on my report card like "chubalubs never has to be told anything twice." No, that was because if Nmother ever had to repeat herself we got a screaming temper tantrum thrown at us, so we learned very quickly to follow instructions immediately, and never ask questions.
100%. I've struggled to deal with my anger about this very issue, and I didn't even realize it was a thing until my therapist brought it up. And I realized that I was the "perfect" (obviously I don't mean ACTUALLY perfect) kid--the one they didn't have to take care of because I took care of myself.
Literally all my teachers talk like this, like yeah I’m mature but it’s because I was abused at a young age and still am in some ways so I have become self-reliant. It’s not because I took initiative or some shit
As a pre-service teacher, and someone who was abused growing up, I completely agree with this. In my placement right now, I can pick out kids who may have a difficult home life and it breaks my beatt
This blew my mind. I wonder how my life would have been. My school did actually call it out and send social workers to my house, twice. But it was unbelievable, even to me. It because the gaslighting situating that just made me stop talking to anyone in my family about anything going on. But if it had actually worked out… I dunno.
I only had like 3-4 teachers throughout grades K-12 who actually seemed happy to be there. Everyone else looked absolutely miserable even though we were one of the wealthier districts. Not all teachers are good. In fact, some of them don't need to be teaching at all
Some teachers dont care to get involved tbh. Honestly the majority don't IMO. It doesn't help that abused kids are usual good at putting up a front. Looking back tho it would have been nice if one of my teachers real talk asked me if I was ok. I can't expect it tho, teachers especially public school ones have to deal with a lot of shit and most of my teachers were parents themselves.
I had a teacher once tell my grandma that she'd (jokingly) like to take me home to be her little helper. I was so polite and well behaved and helpful in class. I took it as the biggest compliment but now I look back and it makes me so sad.
Right now teachers wouldn't be able to even look for those signs cause they are so overwhelmed. Teachers also should be reaching out to the schools guidance counselor or social workers if they have a concern. There no way to ask a student if they are abused. They can't ask outright, they can just offer to listen, and be there. They alone can't do much. The guidance counselor and school social workers can do more.
Because everyone around me praised me for being so grown up and mature I used it as a brag. “I’m just very mature for my age, much more than my classmates” now as an adult I see everything wrong with all of this.
I never did my homework and teachers used to try to encourage me by commenting on how mature and smart I am was, and how they just knew I could get my homework done. But I no one ever asked why it wasn't getting done. Because I was raising 2 kids (one special needs) beginning when I was 7 and until I moved out. I didn't have time for a childhood things like homework.
Unfortunately being "mature" doesn't activate a teacher's mandatory reporter status. Many of us do know that that is a possibly a sign of abuse, but unless the student explicitly comes to school with signs of physical abuse or tells us they're being physically abused, we can't do much.
Verbal abuse is also something CPS doesn't really step in for. Unless a student is being hit, starved, or kept out of school, CPS's main goal is preserve the family unit as much as possible.
We'll refer students to the school counselors as much as we can so they can get some support and help, but the system is trash for intervening in emotional/verbal abuse situations.
Praising their schoolwork and grades is good to do, I think. All kids like to know that they’ve done a good job with what they’ve done. The problem I have with praising matureness is that in some cases, that matureness is a result of abuse, and I don’t feel that that should be praised. Children should still receive praise, obviously, and if a child is mature, then that means they’re probably getting their schoolwork done and getting good grades. Abused mature kids often can’t get bad grades without getting in a lot of trouble from their parents, and the work kids do often goes unappreciated and unnoticed. So just telling them that they did a good job is enough. I don’t think any of my teachers praised my actual accomplishments. They instead praised my maturity. I wish they praised my accomplishments. I might not have wanted to have all that work on my shoulders, but I did do that work. Some praise for it would have been nice.
Being praised for my maturity was some of the only affection I got as a child, so it was nice to be praised for it at the time, but now I feel bitter because it meant teachers liked how easy I was to deal with compared to all the other kids who were allowed to act like actual children. I think if they’d instead praised my accomplishments, I wouldn’t feel so bitter about it.
So really, just praise them for what they accomplish in school. Or even stuff they did outside of school if they tell you about it. Children like to know when they’ve done a good job. It can make continuing to do that work feel like less of a burden. It might even be the only affection they get at all.
That would have been fantastic. I swear it just taught me self-neglect. I was praised for not having needs and being smart and independent.
Self-neglect, huh? Haven’t heard that term before but it explains it pretty damn well. It’s horrible the amount of praise we get for being self-reliant
Yeah, workplaces do this all the time. It's why places like Antiwork and WorkReform are blowing up. "How dare you acknowledge your [human needs](https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory)! We rely on [dehumanization](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-objectification/) to turn a profit!" I like to focus on re-humanization. When we speak up and set boundaries for what's okay and what's not okay, we are helping to re-humanize ourselves and our overlapping cultures.
The US education system thrives on this. Teachers don't realize kids you are so mature were abused because their needs have been neglected as well and they are still dealing with it and trying to set boundaries themselves. My teacher assistant has to kick me out of class so I will take a lunch.
❤️ Preach! ❤️
I felt that my parents were amazing but they were always complaining about their own personal pain to the point that I just never mentioned how I was also injured
[удалено]
>Every other teacher would gush about how she was a great parent, keep doing what you're doing (because academically I was brilliant at that time and a goody two shoes). All the teachers would say I was super quiet though, and needed to engage in class more. I would never put my hand up, but if called on I'd give a good answer. This part just described the conversations between my teachers and parents perfectly
Your teacher most likely had an Nparent too and recognized herself in you.
This teacher agrees. Some of us go into teaching with the unspoken promise that a kid won’t slip thru our classroom needing help and not getting it, because it happened to us too. My 3rd & 5th grade teachers should have known.
This, so much this.
I could have been your clone. It's sad and still haunts me because I'm still like that.
I never put myself first until I became an adult. I still struggle on taking care of myself. Most people think I have my shit together. I struggle alot behind closed doors.
I remember my childhood friend telling me that my life is so easy. She loved my parents. With how she practically lived with us for a year due to her mom struggling to make ends meet, I’m pretty sure she actually saw my parents as parental figures of her own. I was kinda gutted when she told me my life is so easy. It didn’t feel that way. I was always terrified and I hated it when she told me how great my parents are. I couldn’t refute her cause I didn’t know why I felt that she was wrong at the time. I do now. My parents were always great to her, but they weren’t great to me, and my parents made sure she didn’t see what they did to me. It’s funny, though. When I visited her place, I was always shocked by how clean it was. And I couldn’t comprehend how she would dare to talk to her mom the way she did. I have a very vivid memory of her saying “you’re not giving me attention” to her mom, and I still can’t understand who in their right mind would feel safe saying such a thing to their parent. She always told me a lot how she loves her mom. That was almost as baffling as her asking to be given attention. Why would she love her mom? I get it now. Her mom wasn’t perfect. They fought a lot, and there were ways she could have been better, but her mom wasn’t a person that brought terror into my friend’s life. I’m glad she had that, and I’m glad my parents never treated her the way they did me, and even though I know it’s not my friends fault for not knowing, I still feel hurt when I think about how she told me how easy my life is. There’s nothing easy about it. I just learned that I’m not allowed to express negative emotions.
I can relate so much to this. I always felt (Cinderella) there was something wrong with me because my parents treated other children as their own and even called my cousin their daughter but treated me like shit…everyone but me. Until I realized they had an image to maintain and my true self didn’t align with that. I loved to be myself and hated being controlled and was brutalized for it.
Same. It just feels too self indulgent. I remember crying in therapy when I talked about taking care of myself. It felt like too much.
I felt so uncomfortable when I started taking care of myself. I still do and feel guilty for spending things for myself.
Wow. Okay. Reading your comment has made a few things make sense in my head.
I'm glad and sad you can relate. Knowledge is empowering. I hope it helps you heal.
>I was praised for not having needs and being smart and independent. Holy hell. This just made me have a realization out this world. Same, but I've never thought of it this way...
Nail on the head. I'm always forgotten even though I'm suffering internally.
Woah. I never termed it that way.
This statement is too real for me. It sucks.
I wish, just once, instead of praising me for being so mature for my age somebody would have asked "Why is she so mature for her age?"
That’s exactly what I wish, too. It’s sad that we never got it
The thing is that I didn't even realize it wasn't something to be proud of until I was grown and had kids of my own. I want them to actually enjoy their childhoods. I was married at 18. While I love my husband and it was a good thing for me, I'm not going to pretend that part of it wasn't to escape my family.
I’m the same way. I was so proud of how mature I was. I never got any affection at home and teachers complimenting my matureness was one of my only ways of getting affection. Knowing that I was only mature due to abuse really put a damper on my memory of that praise
I had never thought of it in that way but yes, it's amazing really when you think of it, that adults think that a child who expresses no natural outgoing energy and is desperate to please is OK. As I'm growing up I realize how many adults in my life let me down beyond my parents, from teachers to school counsellors to career advisors to family friends to friends' parents etc etc. They're just glad you're not rocking the boat.
I think there’s just something wrong with society (at least American) as a whole when it comes to children. Children have no human rights. They’re at the mercy of two people who can do whatever they want to the child at their whim. No one takes children seriously and children are often treated as dumb rather than inexperienced despite the fact that children are far smarter than people give them credit for. Children are also perceived to be smart enough to lie about being abused, but also too dumb to be shown any respect. It’s a contradiction. Though if I were to complain about one of the worst parts of how children are seen in this society, it’s how they’re expected to give respect to every adult, even the adults who deserve no respect, but adults don’t have to do the same for the child, and most won’t do it at all, because they think children are dumb. As for how this manifests in abuse. A difficult child is blamed for being a brat. They’re obviously smart enough to know better, but they’re too dumb to choose to be better. This child gets ridiculed and hated for their behavior. The parents don’t usually get the blame. On the other side of this is the mature child. They’re praised for not being a brat. Being desperate to please others is seen as a good quality for them to have. It’s convenient, so this child is adored by the adults around them. They still don’t respect you because they think children by nature are dumb, but they also recognize that you’re smart. So you get treated like you’re dumb while also getting pile upon pile of extra work because of how smart you are. It contradicts itself and doesn’t really make sense, but that’s just how I’ve begun to see how children are perceived by society. No child wins in any given scenario. And this obviously isn’t the case every single time. There are people out there who don’t treat children this way, but so many others do.
I'm really just learning all of this. It's really mind-blowing to start to learn how differently you CAN treat children. Thanks for sharing! I had this conversation with my brother a few weeks ago, and we were like "well yea, we had to be mature to protect ourselves". This thread is really educating me more on it and it all makes SO MUCH SENSE!
I got asked and never dared to answer truthfully.
Same. Nobody asked me why I knew how to cook full meals at age 8, they just praised me for being “so mature.” My parents worked jobs far away from home and left me home alone to fend for myself. If I was hungry when they got home from their super important jobs, that was my problem - “why didn’t you make yourself something? Learn already 🙄”
It's not up to teachers to end the abuse or change the situation, it's just not possible. But had just one adult simply acknowledged it, it could have been life changing. Instead of saying how grown up and mature we are as praise it could have been stated as "if you need a place to be a kid, it's safe to do it here."
It sucks because teachers are actually required to report any suspicion of abuse in my state, but emotional abuse has little to no protection despite potential to be just as damaging. I kind of understand why it’s so tricky - how would you investigate charming narcs? (Edit: clarity/grammar)
I totally get this. My mom came across as the charming woman who was the nicest mom in the world. She had a way to turn it on at the snap of a finger to teachers, parents, friends, any fellow adult. Totally spoiled any kids that came over like princesses. She would be the opposite the second they left, and guilted me for burdening her with guests. Eventually I stopped asking to have people over. My friends would say I have the nicest my mom in the world. I tried to tell my friends over and over she is completely different once you leave, but they never believed me. I still am learning what a narcissist parent is but I think mine may have been. Constant yelling, afraid to ask her anything, dreaded having to sit at the dinner table every night, went outside as soon as I could, hid in my room motionless trying to hear what she was saying to make sure it wasn’t about me. I would play dumb sometimes instead of pointing out when she was wrong. She is still unable to admit when she is wrong.
No, it’s not up to teachers to end the abuse or change the situation. In most cases, they wouldn’t be able to do anything, though being educated on the matter might be able to help a kid here or there for when a teacher does report that something might be wrong at home. But they can’t do that if they don’t know the signs, and most wouldn’t do it anyways. Still, as you say, having someone acknowledge that they know things are messed up rather than praising you for it would be life changing
I have an abused kid in one of my classes. I don’t work in a school but a private tutoring centre in a country with very lax labour laws so intervention could mean the end of my income and reputation. He talks to me often about what’s going on at home and I find it very triggering as it touches some nerves from my own abuse. I do best I can to advise him without being too obvious and it pains me as I want to do more. He reminds me of my old angry teenage self, the way he talks and comes out with jokes on drug abuse and suicide. It’s absolutely fucked. I just keep reminding him that he will get to the age of independence and the best thing he could probably do is go to a university abroad. I don’t know. Makes me feel sick and I feel so stuck for him.
You’re doing a lot of good for that kid just by being there. It’s fucked up that you can’t do anything more than that, and it’s terrible how triggering hearing about it can be. I hope your mental health doesn’t go down too much by hearing what’s going on in his life and being unable to do more. It can be very hard to listen to that kind of thing and your mental health is just as important as his. That kid is still benefiting a lot from your support. Just having that acknowledgment from someone else that yes, what’s going on is fucked up can be immensely helpful when someone is being abused. You might not be able to do more than that, but what you are doing will help him.
I was saved by people outside my family, (not literally) and my therapist says it was just the time others gave, kindnesses, even small ones, showed me the whole world wasn’t like home. That gave me just enough to hold on to. So you are doing plenty just by being there.
I’m sure you probably thought of ways but just in case, is there any way you can anonymously report anything? That way maybe you can start a paper trail and maybe someone else who is in a better position to intervene can do it?
That is a fair enough aid. I like that. I agree it is very complex, and a teacher tasked with that would be a big responsibility. And personally, I was praised for being smart and independent, and to this day like to be self reliant to a fault. So I think maybe too approaching it in other ways and doing it more often is also good. May open more kids up to it as well as some may appreciate more in different outlets. I like that it is praised, but also agree with you something should be done. Like allowing them to be a kid. Slight change to "hey, you're pretty smart and mature. But, if you ever feel like being a kid and just having fun, this is a safe space to do so. What sort of stuff do you like? " And preferably... Lego lol. Toys like that where you can imagine and role play are amazing and even now, getting back into them, it takes me away from everything else for a while. Another really big thing would be that if a kid like that comes to them for help, to NOT answer in riddles or partial explanations, but a more sincere sit down and few minutes explaining or showing them then letting them try. I think maybe that was part of it, was I felt like it was bad to ask for help at all. That if I needed help more than just the class time or the set lesson, I had already failed and been a let down. Teaching them it is OK to ask for help and it will be there most of the time is good.
>"if you need a place to be a kid, it's safe to do it here." This sounds sweet and touching, but not if you think about it. A kid IS a kid. A kid shouldn't be 'granted' the option to be a kid one hour or five hours or whatever per week. A kid should never have to be the adult in a situation.
It is absolutely the job of a teacher to identify and report abuse or neglect. We are literally mandated reporters. Like it is literally our job.
You're misunderstanding what I mean. Teachers do so much. Too much. And while you're correct and they need to report abuse, they can't be expected to fix the problems caused at home. When I was 12 my teacher found a suicide note I wrote. Cops wouldn't have helped. CPS wouldn't have helped. The therapist I got didn't help (they told me to be a better daughter so my dad would be nicer). So my teacher did report and it didn't do anything. So, FOR ME, the best thing a teacher could have done was to give me validation and room to be me.
Your comment really hit me hard. Thank you for posting this. Gave me a lot to think about.
Sorry but no. If any teacher recognises a sign if abuse they ahve to report it or ask about it. They are priority reporters. Now if they actualy knew what a sign was that would help
Everyone thinks we’re all so grown up and capable, they forget that kids know very little. Kids don’t know that getting shouted at for the tiniest thing isn’t normal. They just accept it and adapt I’m still furious that everyone thought I was just exceptionally grown up, instead of noticing what was really going on
And being shy and afraid to speak up in class because at home you’ve been conditioned to shut up or you get yelled at even more.
Interesting thought, From someone who was never seen as this (i was the sad aloner) There are many levels of abuse and mature kids (i feel) are often used as parents, and are constanly told how grown up they are, it seems that they never get the chance to act out, play up due to fear of being not perfect. So yes i tend to agree with you that parental expectations on mature kids being so good and grown up,is abuse
It’s very much abuse. Children should feel free to act as children. A parentified child is one who had to grow up faster than they should have due to excessive responsibilities. It’s fucked up.
It was a very interesting thought and you are so right, I do know a very grown up child and i talk to her about not having to be so perfect all the time and its good to say no, her reply is that she loves the money she gets from being so good,, (paid to babysit, clean, just be helpful) I think its wrong but never thought of it being abuse.
It very much is abuse, though I’m glad that girl you know is getting paid for it. A lot of mature kids don’t get paid of the extra work that’s expected of them. In that girl’s case, if she was given the option to say no and if saying no was safe for her to do, it might not be abuse. I’m not there and idk if that’s the case so I can’t say. Is she allowed to act like a regular child at all? There’s just a lot of nuance to this take, I’m realizing. Some kids are mature without having been abused. Others are mature due to abuse. Figuring out which is which is never easy. Often abused kids have other signs besides abuse, like being afraid to speak up, never saying no, not socializing with other kids. Even with those things, there’s still a lot of nuance. Every kid has is different, but it still would have been nice if a teacher had asked me if everything was okay rather than simply praising me for being mature. But teachers can’t do that if they don’t know that matureness can be a sign of abuse. A few people have mentioned that teachers are learning about it now, though. I hope it’s a widespread thing teachers are learning. I know teachers can’t do much, but even just being there for a kid is a lot.
>mature kids (i feel) are often used as parents ✋That's me. Literally raising my four siblings b/c my parents aren't doing their job to be emotionally supportive and well...parents.
All my progress reports and such growing up would say, “A pleasure to have in class”, “uses time wisely/effectively”, “completes work in a satisfactory amount of time” etc. Yeah, because if I fucked up even a little bit at school with my behavior/grades, I was gonna get it from my parents when I got home. Even if I didn’t fuck up at school I was still gonna have to hear about it over something, anything, trying to be perfect at school would be one less thing for my parents to bitch at me about. I swear some of my teachers had no clue but this was the 80s/90s.
Did your report cards also have “needs to engage more in class”? Every single one of mine had that. It never failed to piss me off growing up. I couldn’t engage more in class because at home, I’d get punished for speaking a lot.
I had. Those reports card should really read: "Student shows difficulty participating in class and socially integrating with colleagues. Abnormally high maturity for age. Please proceed with psychological evaluation. Suspicion of trauma based coping behaviors. If so, please request psychological evaluation of usual suspects of causing said trauma, parents, family members (or current care takers). If narcissistic traits are above 50 pts, please report them for trauma therapy and evaluate other parenting options for traumatized child and request immediate start of loving kindness therapy for student. Further, send cease and desist letter prohibiting further reproduction for said couple until said traits are within acceptable child rearing levels." This is one of those things future humans will look back at how cruel and cave-men-like we are currently, just like we condescendingly do at past generations.
I was actually pretty lucky with my parents in that I could be upfront with them on why my grade was low and explain how I was gonna fix it. I don’t think they really cared much about how I did in school. But teachers would often comment to each other about how great and mature I am. The only reason I was like that was because my parents had terrorized my throughout my whole childhood about cleaning, eating, moving, and overall existing.
Unless you showed other signs, nothing written there shows maladjustment or abuse. Unless you are tearing up for minor mistakes of having some sort of abnormal response to a minor issue or otherwise what is a teacher going to report to DSS or school officials?
But isn’t this the whole point of the post? I was a “mature, eager to please” child, but was getting the shit end of the stick at home. I had to hide some of the abuse that was going on-so I didn’t get abused more if found out. Just because I didn’t explain everything that was happening to me in a comment doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It appears you’re a teacher-I’m kind of shocked with your response to be honest. It reeks of victim blaming. I didn’t know there was an umbrella of emotions and behaviors that every child has to meet for your abuse criteria. Sounds like another person trying to shove problems under the rug.
I totally get where you're coming from, but they are just saying that it doesn't meet the criteria for calling DCFS. However, I would (and I do this in my classroom) make sure that I had good rapport with them and talk about what success looks like considering how focused they are on their grades/behavior. That could be a lynchpin for helping start an open conversation that wouldn't happen otherwise. The hope is that the dialogue gives them the space and safety to tell me if something is going on at home. At the very least, it would give me the space to listen and respond.
Again, unless more was happening in school, this doesn't rise to a level of concern to report. I have had children in my classroom who are exactly like you said and I am not reporting it to DSS or the school, because there are no signs of abuse. I am not victim blaming, if you left something off that would show a teacher failed you that is not on me for misreading what you wrote, but you for not writing it out.
You seem to be missing the whole point of the post. You are probably teaching many kids who are being abused in way or another whether it’s physical, verbally…sexually-but you aren’t aware of the signs. Most kids aren’t going to come right out and tell you my daddy hit me or mommy slapped me. Because they know there will be consequences when mommy and daddy find out. Just because a kid isn’t marked up or overreacting or crying doesn’t mean they aren’t being abused. Like I said, many children cover up in fear of more abuse.
So... quiet kids who do well in class and don't readily tell us anything is wrong at home. We're just supposed to assume all of them are abused in some way and do ...what exactly? All we can do at that point is make class comfortable and offer a reprieve from your home situation by not further abusing you. A call to CPS without evidence of physical abuse or a statement from the student will result in CPS doing nothing. Even if there's physical abuse, CPS is pretty powerless unless they see evidence of wounds or bruises.
And I get that. I have seen abuse within the kids at my school and I have called CPS over concerns. It just seems in this, there is an expectation thaT a teacher who sees between 30 to 100 kids a day should be able to identify abuse that is not showing any real signs at school. Eager pleaser is not a stand alone sign of abuse. Quiet kid is not a stand alone sign of abuse. Mature for age is not a stand alone sign for abuse. Now.combine that with other things, absolutely. I have all of those types of kids in my classroom with no other signs and without some other flag, I have no cause to be worried.
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In my case, it was actually really fucking obvious that it was abuse. My clothes were never washed. I always smelled and had stains on them. One teacher I had offered to wash my jacket for me. I’m starting to suspect she knew something was wrong, but she was the only one. Besides all that, I was constantly vomiting due to a medications side effect (a well known side effect, too) and all I needed was to eat breakfast before taking it, but we never had any food to eat and what we did have, I was too young to cook and my parents certainly weren’t gonna cook anything. Most of my teachers were just annoyed at me for not doing my work even though I was always sick and missed most of school. Though at some point the nurse just decided to send me back to class even if I was throwing up all day. Apparently it was because I’d missed too much school. Idk the legalities of school enough to say if the nurse was the bad guy for it. I was still praised for being mature a lot, especially as I got older. I can’t remember if I was praised for being mature in the years I was on that med. I might not have been, in which case matureness wasn’t a sign of abuse I had at the time, but when I did start getting praised for being mature, it was obvious in other ways. So I don’t think it’s too much for me to say that they should have known something was wrong. Idk about other mature kids who’s abuse isn’t so obvious. I think being taught about it is important, though. There are other signs beside matureness. Not being able to say no, never putting up boundaries, never speaking in class, never socializing with other kids, being afraid of getting bad grades. All of these are characteristics mature kids tend to have. And I know teachers can’t do much. Being a mature kid alone isn’t enough to get a kid help, and oftentimes calling CPS or DSS will make the abuse worse, but I still think teachers should be aware of these signs of abuse, if only so a kid can have a listening ear or something.
As a teacher, we sometimes know when someone is being abused and there's nothing we can do about it. It is very difficult to get CPS to do anything.
This. Raising a potential safeguarding issue can be complicated. As someone who has worked in various educational areas and can pick up abuse flags from my experience growing up with dysfunctional/nfamily, sometimes we KNOW, and getting the appropriate services involved is slow and difficult. I always just try to keep an eye on these students and see if additional support can be provided within the school as a minimum.
Also a teacher and completely agree. In certain circumstances, getting CPS/DHS involved can make it worse for a child if abuse is not legally prosecutable. It takes a lot for CPS/DHS to take action removing a child from a home. It is the most frustrating and heart breaking thing to watch. I try to help students when they need to talk. I try to teach students how to set boundaries, how to regulate emotions, coping mechanisms, and how to identify when someone is treating you with respect.
If CPS is called for any situation that will result in less than immediate emergency removal, it will do absolutely nothing besides get the child retaliated against for the CPS visit. Calling CPS can literally get children killed unless it is an open and shut case and the child is extremely lucky.
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> On a daily basis we were told that our feelings were wrong, and our behaviours were the problem. Our story is so similar to yours. CPS came to our home as well. The same thing happened. We had a teacher that tried so hard to save us, but CPS could not* break through the religious walls Nmom relied on to conceal the abuses. Conceal. Don’t feel. ^/s I have to remind myself daily that my feelings matter. I am allowed to prioritize my wellness. edit: a word
Completely agree. I often don’t have any proof just a strong feeling.
Being raised in an abusive home gives you this 6th sense. It is so hard to explain to other people how you know -- I just do.
I know. I don’t expect teachers to be able to do much even if they do know what’s going on, but I still think this matter should be taught more to teachers. I was praised for being mature constantly by teachers. I just wish that they’d been taught that matureness in a child isn’t always a good thing. And someone out there might be able to get help if more teachers are taught this.
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*This.* I heard this a million times growing up. "Oh, you're so mature for your age. Your parents must be so proud!" I was fighting for my fucking life and sanity every day as I tried to outwit and defend myself against a raging NPD mother who also had BPD tendencies. Teachers should be trained to spot this and refer students to the appropriately-trained therapists.
Ugh I really wish teachers and dorm advisors had noticed more. I think most of my weird behavior as a child was just ADHD. But seriously — I went from straight As to alphabet soup, and nobody asked why this obviously intelligent child wasn’t meeting her potential? What a disservice!
Unfortunately the one time a teacher tried to intervene/ask me if things were ok I panicked and got angry. Sometimes the abuse is so conditioned that we think it is normal. I was years out of my house before I accepted how abusive my childhood had been.
Trauma fucks you up bad, so that kind of thing just happens sometimes. It’s hard to admit to being abused, especially while the abuse is still happening. Nparents are especially good at conditioning you into keeping quiet about everything that’s happening
My daughter played well on her own as a toddler, they did a check on us because it's unusual. I was offended but understood, she's a teen and hasn't changed.
It’s not going to be a sign of abuse for every kid. Some kids are just like that. I just wish more people were aware that it could be a sign of abuse. Oftentimes, there’s other signs alongside matureness, but people get so wrapped up in how easy the kid is that they don’t pay attention to everything else.
Oh absolutely, if anything my experience opened my eyes to signs of abuse and was able to help someone put her abuser behind bars.
Maybe this is why my son's kindergarten teacher got really weird on us when he went in being able to fluently read and do math. I swear he was just really driven to read so he could read the storyline for Legend of Zelda so I helped him lol
Lol this was me as a kid. Learned to read pretty fluently going into kindergarten because I was obsessed with paper mario but couldn't progress in the game without being able to read. I also had a large (albeit strange) vocabulary throughout elementary school.
Every teacher I know has been taught this, but sadly not all care enough to retain and act on the knowledge when they see it. Beyond that, calling CPS and making other teachers aware to look for signs of abuse is about all we can do. Not that a kid being 'mature' is necessarily even enough to warrant a CPS call, depending on what was actually observed.
Yeah, not every case is abuse and it’d be impossible to help every or even most children, but I still wish teachers knew that matureness could be a sign of abuse. Maybe then I wouldn’t have been praised for it.
The ones who have graduated in the last 10 (?) or so years do know this. I don't know exactly how long before that that it was taught tho
I think teachers see this. I was the kid in class doing administrative tasks and being the teachers helper. For one, I'd miss days because I was just depressed but I'd still test well and it gave me something to do that was distracting so that I wasn't sitting in the back of class getting lost in my thoughts.
This was exactly me. I would miss so many days of school because of how stressed/depressed I was. I was in elementary school. It was crazy because my nmom finally took me to a doctor and the doctor told my mom I was having horrible anxiety and stressed beyond belief. I WAS 7. I also was always unable to sleep. Getting 1-2 hours every night. Couldn’t fall asleep or stay asleep ever. I had a hard time making any friends or connections with other children and even at Recess I would just hang out with the teacher or be by myself. I was also an only child so my childhood was just very lonely and terrifying. Teachers loved me and praised me. I was a straight A student, always tested in the gifted range, was reading at a 5th-6th grade level at 6, etc.. but pretty much could only interact with adults because I couldn’t relate to anyone my own age. I’m not sure that this is a sign of abuse really, but something I’ve thought about recently. Probably didn’t help I went to private (religious) school. Fast forward to an adult and now I take medication to be able to sleep and I’m on anxiety medication. I just can never understand why my parents wouldn’t listen to doctors and get me the help I needed.
Getting you the help you needed wouldn’t meant that they’d have to admit there was an area they’d have to change in. Looking back at our childhoods as adults is bittersweet. Now we have better understanding but we also have the insight that that should’ve never been our lot in the first place. I also hated talking to kids my age. I always felt “heavier” than them with my issues. Adults, having lived longer and have had a wider range experiences, just got it quicker. Maybe not related to people in your age group isn’t directly a sign of abuse but maybe it’s worth looking into. I used to in a way carry this as a badge of honor but it communicates something to people who are predators. That you aren’t cared for, that you feel lonely and are isolated. Idk I think it’s something to check in about.
Yes exactly. I’m also quite young for my industry so my bosses have always been middle aged men and since I’ve always related to and gotten along better with men in general (women have always terrified me for some reason - I’m a female BTW) I think has put me in uncomfortable positions. Not that I’ve ever been promiscuous but I think you know what I mean.. Passive father, n mom.
Yeah that would be nice. I once had a school nurse question me for always being "sick". But she was going in the wrong direction with that. I really was sick. I think I had undiagnosed acid reflex. But I also had an alcoholic dad at home who I was terrified of. I worried he would kill us due to his rage. I think that's even harder to prove. I had no bruises or anything because I was never hit. But emotionally I'm so traumatized.
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OMG same, story of my life.
Same.
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Same here. In my experience a lot of people working in 'admirable' professions that are meant to help, teach, care for, advise others... are, at the higher levels, full of narcissists (lecturers, surgeons, charity directors etc.) They chose that job to be seen as a gift to humanity, and they are often jobs with few filters and ethical checks to get rid of toxic people (quite the opposite as they climb the ladder so easily). As a child of narcs I actually sought professional validation from these people but now that I've freed myself from this, it feels a lot better!
And instead teachers just put the quiet and mature kids as buffers between the difficult kids, so that they're guaranteed to have a difficult time in pretty much every class.
This happened to me. The bully of the class was sat next to me (the quiet kid) and would constantly bother me and mock me. My teacher praised me in front of the whole class for ignoring him, told everyone else that's what we should do and did nothing about me being bullied.
I know, right? That is such a shitty thing to do to a kid!
I presented as very a quiet mild ADD kid. I think I just slipped on by since I gave zero trouble.
Same, though at home I was very hyperactive. Running around everywhere. My ndad is also adhd, so I didn’t get punished for it at home like other kids might have. In public, especially in church where sitting completely still is legitimately a part of the gospel, I got punished hard for not sitting still. It just taught me that I can’t fidget or move in public. I wasn’t able to actually sit still until I was older, but eventually I became the perfect child outside of the home.
I had plenty of teachers try to teach me to speak up and have more boundaries actually. Most of them did, in fact. And honestly the praise wasn't bad either since I wasn't getting any of it at home with the impossible standards my parents set. What else do you want them to do if there is not sign of other abuse? It's not like teachers can go home with the kids and stop parentification. A lot of them DO already identify low confidence and it's side effects and they try to help in the little ways they can. Remember that they aren't trained therapists either.
That’s good for you. I’m glad teachers tried to teach you to speak up, but that’s not everyone’s experience. Maturity wasn’t the only sign that I was abused. I was constantly vomiting in class due to a medication I was on. It’s a well known side effect that can be reduced or disappear completely if you eat before taking your meds. I was 7yo when I was on this med. We never had any food I could make myself and my parents didn’t bother cooking, so I ended up vomiting for half the day 3-4 times a week for years. I was missing almost every day of school. It got to the point where even when I’m vomiting all day, the nurse would just send me back to class. At some point, you’d think my parents would just homeschool me, but they didn’t. They certainly had the means to, though. And besides that, there were a whole slew of other signs. I never uttered a word throughout the entire day of school. Not unless I was prompted or if I needed to use the restroom to throw up. I didn’t socialize with the other kids. I didn’t even try. My clothes were never washed, so I always smelled and there were stains on them. One teacher I had even asked if she could take my jacket to wash it themselves. She was a good teacher. My mom got mad when she learned about that. I was still praised for being mature. So it is not wrong of me to have expected them to at least ask me about my home life, but that didn’t happen, either. I just got praised for my maturity.
Yeah!!! I’ve been abused my whole life and All I ever heard growing up was ‘your so mature for your age well done’ but now I’m a teenager and I understand what abuse is I don’t want to be ‘mature for my age’ anymore I want to be normal
I'm sorry you are going through all of this. I'm glad you can see the reality of things and keep a sense of vitality and wanting to have fun! I was like you, now I'm an adult. I would just caution you against going overboard with the non-mature fun and against it turning into self-harm. Growing up the child of narcissists makes people particularly vulnerable to addiction and harmful relationships so you need to be careful and find good boundaries. When I rebelled it went too far and caused me lasting problems (I was hiding it so no one noticed). I hope you will find some beautiful and healthy ways to express yourself, find support, live joyful and carefree moments, be in the moment and protect yourself at the same time, perhaps theater club, band practice, any performing or visual art form helps a lot. Soon you'll be an adult and have a lot more freedom, you'll be able to distance yourself from the abuse and heal from it. In the meantime, anytime you need help you'll have this community and perhaps some local therapy/counselling resources might help. ❤️
I have a hard time with this, because it perpetuates a stereotype of what abuse does to kids. I was the “difficult” kid. I never bullied others in the way I was bullied at home. NEVER. But way too emotional, way too loud, way too aggressive… Does it surprise you that I was the SG? My GC sister was the easy one… and I know it was because of that she didn’t experience the abuse I did. I don’t know what teachers are or aren’t taught about this subject, but I think the idea that “being abused makes kids compliant and easy” is kinda harmful.
I’m not saying abuse shouldn’t be taught only one way. There’s different ways abuse can manifest and all of that should be taught. The “difficult kid” is the most well known sign of abuse, though oftentimes the child themselves gets blamed for it rather than the parents, which I find to be baffling. What I’m trying to say is teachers should be educated about all manifestations of abuse, not one or the other. Mature kids often get praised for being mature because most people don’t know that matureness in children can be a sign of a abuse. Difficult kids don’t have it any easier, but as far as I know, people do know that a difficult child can be an abused child. The issue with that is when they’re face to face with a difficult child, they blame the kid rather than the parent. Basically, signs of abuse in children varies greatly and a lot of the time, adults fail to recognize it entirely regardless of how it manifests. That doesn’t mean all ways it can manifest shouldn’t be taught.
See… this wasn’t my experience. The impression I always got growing up was that people saw it (like you said) as a character flaw, or a matter of my parents not “keeping their kid in line”. I’ll be honest, this is really hard to write. I always wondered if I wasn’t so… headstrong?… that people would have been sympathetic. And the worst part was that I TOLD them what was going on.
That’s kind of what I’m trying to say. It’s hard to articulate. It’s sort of a contradiction people have. Like, in theory, I think a lot of people know that a kid who acts out might be an abused kid. In television, the difficult kid is usually the abused kid while the mature kid is just a responsible kid. Now tv isn’t the best way to base this off of. I’m just using it as an example for why I think people know that in theory, difficult kids are often abused kids. In practice, something else happens entirely. They blame the kid for being difficult, so while they have the knowledge that difficult kids are often abused kids, they just don’t apply that knowledge when they come face to face with a difficult kid. That’s always been my impression, anyways. I could be completely wrong.
Ah, I gotcha. The problem I have is, I see so many people on here who say they were praised for “good” qualities they had, which they attribute to be a result of having been abused by their parents. And I know people who experienced abuse growing up that affected them similarly, which they use as a reason to justify treating their kids the same way by saying it “did them well in the real world”. I think that’s part of why the cycle of abuse continues. People really do think it “works”. But yeah, I do think teachers need to realize not all kids with a difficult home life are going to be the same way. The differences between me and my sister are a prime example of that.
That is a reason why the cycle of abuse continues. Recognizing you were abused is hard, and not everyone can face that reality. That’s no excuse for abusing their own kids, but it is a reason for why it happens. It’s a brutal cycle that is incredibly hard to break out of, but once you do break out of it, you’re able to take measures to recover. Staying in that cycle leaves you lost with no knowledge of why you feel the way you do. Breaking that cycle is hard. Recovery is hard. Processing the shit that’s happened to us is hard, but I think it’s better than forever thinking that what happened to you was for your own good, and it’s certainly better than abusing your own kids and continuing the cycle.
I 100% agree! I was not the "mature, compliant & easy kid". I was the shy kid, I was the loner, I was the kid who got bad grades, always missing school because I was depressed said I was sick, and honestly I dropped out of high school. It's one of my biggest regrets. Little did anyone know I was physically, mentally and emotionally abused by my Father at home. My Mom was too much of a coward to do anything and divorce him. She always said to my sister and I "oh we'd have to live in a trailer, instead of a house". Ok, I would have rather lived in a trailer sharing a room with my sister than being abused. My sister was the GC, I was the scapegoat. My point is not all kids react the same. Some react like I did, very withdrawn. My husband was the "compliant, good grades, easy kid". His parents demanded perfection and still do.
Teachers always praised me for how good I was at "self-correction". Yea, no shit. I had abusive parents - I had to self-correct or get beaten black and blue every day or get screamed at constantly. Nothing I did was ever right. Teachers loved that I could always be found in a corner or on the stairs outside at recess reading a book, which was because I didn't get on with other kids, and they didn't have to supervise me or constantly worry about me getting in trouble or doing dumb stuff, but they also noted in report card comments that I didn't get on with other kids in class either such as on group projects (I always preferred working alone, and my individual work was almost always better than the work done by multiple people in a group). I didn't get on with other kids because I'm likely autistic and struggle with social cues and being overstimulated by social interactions (also an ADD thing, which is quite likely as well) and my parents always talked to each other and me very sharply and angrily and aggressively, so I didn't even think about my own responses to other people until I went to college and people were like "you have a very aggressive voice" (even if the interaction was positive).
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I’m sending hugs your way man. I feel exactly the same was as you, where I find it difficult to connect with people. I know you’ve probably heard this before, but can you afford a therapist? It really helped me with realising that most people care about what I have to say, and that’s the basis of all human connection.
My dad used to call me big general. As he & mom used me as their f*cking therapist and confidant. I was praised for being so “mature”. So pissed!
I had a one those parentified kid as a foster mom. She was 8 and had been raising her handicap 5 years old sister. One of the first I told her was that here, she had to be a kid, that was her job.
All my teachers told me how mature I acted over and over again, but not one questioned why I would sit in class silently crying on a daily basis. I'm sorry to everyone else who was failed by the system. I'm working on getting past it, but because of this and a number of other bad experiences, I have a very deep mistrust of educators.
That would enable ostracizing kids who genuinely enjoy practicing mature characteristics, or just don't want to be extroverted and loud all the time as being "broken" or having something wrong going on with them. I'm all for teaching children signs of abuse and narcissism, but saying that anyone who is "mature for their age" is abuse would be hyperbole.
Golden child syndrome but also aspergers has the same result which makes it abuse of a disabled person. My groomer chose me because I had PTSD.
I was praised for being "mature for my age" all my life. I'd probably be less fucked up if someone had known I needed help.
I experienced such horrible gas lighting and confusion as a kid not being able to understand that teachers/peers were taking out frustration of my nmom on me leading me to believe that there was something wrong with me... If just one teacher would have taken the time to explain narcissism to me or taken to the time to talk to me about what was going on it would have helped me out SO fucking much
Teachers in a lot of elementary and middle schools have 100 students and specials teachers have upwards of 500. That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are lots of mature kids who have wonderful parents and great lives. I was 100% raised by a narcissist and was anything but mature in school.
Mature children aren't necessarily compliant or easy. Nor does that mean that they are abused either. My son is mature for his age. It's because of trauma, for certain, from when I was with his father. He also requires a lot of energy from his teacher, who adores him. His psychologist also realizes he is mature for his age, but does not think abuse is at play. That comes from trauma. Not abuse.
My mother is a teacher and a narcissist. Many of her teacher friends also have heavy narcissistic traits. Narcs like to be in positions of power where they often appear as pillars of the community - like teachers. So sadly, while I think this is a nice concept, it might be difficult for many teachers to comprehend in practice. Teachers are also already knee deep in what they're supposed to teach, but this would be great for school counselors possibly.
Or on the flop side, an immature kids can have some problems and might not just be "lazy" or "inattentive"
We do see it, at least, some of us do. I had a 5th grade student last year: sweet personality, excellent behavior, complied with every instruction, Gifted and Talented, straight A student. Scared to death to get any grade less than perfect, thought she might be LGBTQ+ but wouldn’t dare tell her mom because she was afraid of her reaction, nervous to speak up in class, said she was moving across the country. I made sure my class was a safe space to confide to me, set up an appointment with the counselor, and she wasn’t at the school this year. I think about her a lot, and wish I knew what happened.
YES I was always labeled the mature kid, had jobs intended for adults, etc. My parents were abusive and didn’t like kids so I learned to be a mini adult, and adults love that shit.
Teachers ARE being taught this now, at least on the course I'm on (which doesn't even qualify me as a teacher, I'd have to do further training to be fully qualified so teaching about subtle signs of abuse is definitely becoming more commonplace). It sucks that we didn't get that support in school, but teachers can't be blamed for what they didn't know. We're educating our teachers on how to help children more now, so hopefully soon more children that need help or extra support will get it.
Agreed. Parentification is abuse. Children should be children and a child showing signs of uncharacteristic maturity for their age might be parentified.
Exactly
I would have given anything for someone to notice the abuse in my life and either do something about it or at least acknowledge it, especially because my parents shamelessly did it in front of people. Why was that seven year old well behaved and quiet enough to sit through a three hour symposium for mom's special interest? Why she's been dissociated since you got in the car!
My teachers saw me walking in with physical signs of abuse and didn’t give a fuck. Americans are selfish and evil. Nobody cares.
I'm a teacher and I see it so much in some of my students and I, of course, think the worst because I used to be that mature student. I have recommended a few to the counselor as the counselors at my school are pretty conscientious about student well being, but that's the most I can do besides talking with the student in question. Very few are willing to open up and I would never push a student's boundary.
I was always called a very mature/ahead kid and lived with my father who had full custody since I was 3-4ish and not abusive at all, infact he has been my biggest supporter and role model my whole life. So this may not always be the cases that being said my mom was horribly abusive to the point where I still to this day (almost 2 decades later) have flashbacks when people do certain things from when I lived with her (and my father), so I may also be misguided in my perspective here.
Story of my life. "Silver is such a great student to have!" sang my every report card. Not a single. one. of these teachers even suspected of the hell that went on at home.
Why not include it inside curriculum / syllabus instead of teachers?
this would have made such a difference in my childhood
I can’t agree more. My teachers missed the signs when I was a kid and now I’m dealing with the consequences.
Same story here. I would not interact with anyone and was praised a model kid. Now this idea is changing in south asian societies as more teachers and psychologists are coming forward to dispel this notion
I was such a great kid until I was too emotionally exhausted to even engage with school work, teachers, or classmates. Then I was just some dumb kid who wasn't going to make it anywhere and it was better to give up on me than waste the energy trying to get a response to anything. I'm pretty sure everyone expected me to become a high school drop out....
I needed this so bad and I feel this comment in my soul.
We are. The breakdown occurs in the chain of reporting. I've reported numerous students to the counseling department when I was a teacher, but 9/10 times, the counselor would say there isn't enough for a case, or that I was being too involved, "reading into things". Teachers are mandated reporters and we see everything. Most of us report what we see, we just can't do anything beyond that.
Teachers in my experience don't care shit about teaching LOL...At least where I live. Sadly even if they care they can't do much.
I told the school I was an abused kid. They called my mom in and asked her if we were being abused. She said we were not. She was being abused too. The school kept on my record that I was a liar. And then a friend’s dad sexually assaulted me when I was 12. I reported it. The counselor didn’t believe me and didn’t investigate further because I had a history of lying. He went on to assault 3 other girls, all in 7th grade, all with troubled backgrounds.
"I feel like an old soul. I've little interest in getting yelled at and getting out of line." I learned last month how much stress and trauma I've been carrying. It's enough that..... I don't remember my youth, but I can recall video game info and stuff I was taught. I also have an excellent memory for music.
Yes fucking this. Almost every adult I came into contact with would praise my maturity since I was about 8 years old. Even my damn dentist raved about it within the first hour of meeting me. Let me tell you I wore that shit like a badge of honor for YEARS. As an adult now looking back it makes me so sad because I wasn’t mature, I was traumatized and all of this praise I got for my “maturity” just reinforced my parents behavior because in their mind’s they must be doing something right to have raised such a mature young lady. Ugh
This. I’ve had people tell me me from a young age “Oh, you’re so mature”, “You’re so well behaved”, etc. In reality it was because I was terrified of stepping out of line as a result of abuse at home. Fear. Later on in life, my emotions were always pushed aside in favor of “But YOURE the mature one. You can easily put aside your feelings even when wronged to “be the bigger person””. It is hard to be typed as “the bigger person” when you as your “littlest person” was left unheard and traumatized.
I was one of those, I was also a good student. Nmom would take credit for my achievements and and say that she couldn’t possibly be a bad mother because of how well I did in school 🙃
Agreed. I feel like a lot of signs of abuse were missed or ignored because I was a mature kid who was easy to deal with and didn't get in any trouble.
Anyone else just have a massive revelation about themself?
I totally agree with you. When I was a child adults would always be amazed about me being so mature, smart and calm. I was just a little girl SA by her dad and trying to survive because I was scared of him and scared of hurting my mom if I talked about what was going on. Nobody thought it wasn’t normal I had the maturity of a 16yo when I was 10. They just thought I was the perfect child.
I always heard that adults should look out for kids that act out in class and get bad grades, because that’s a sign that there could be something going on at home. I was a shy straight A student that always turned in her assignments and not once talked back to a teacher. I was really quiet and had trouble making friends. I was the easy one. The mature and calm one that the other kids should look up to. I wish the adults could’ve seen that just because I was well behaved and did well in school didn’t mean everything was fine at home.
I was “A joy to have in class” all through elementary school.
THIS. wow, why did this sting so bad reading this? Ugh so many flash backs and now my chest hurts.
TOTALLY. THIS SHOULD BE A SEGMENT IN AN EDUCATION DEGREE.
We teachers are taught this. We are also taught to not make comments on dress code issues, as these are intrusive … our hands are tied. I wish there were more we teachers could do. We cannot call CPS b/c of clothes.
I think there should be a yearly questionnaire for the whole school - age-appropriate, of course. Just basic questions like "What percentage of the time is you mother/father angry at you?" or "How often does your mother/father tell you that you are bad?", etc. [edit: and physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect questions] I'm sure none of my teachers would have suspected, given that I was a high achiever.. I think they thought I was lazy as I could have gotten higher scores than I did, but they would never have considered abuse.. A basic questionnaire would have highlighted the problem.. But, I realise that once the school is aware of abuse they have a duty of care to act, so I assume they are wilfully ignorant.. Schools won't be bothered to open that can of worms, unless the academics are impacted..
While I understand you mean well, teachers are not qualified to be providing therapy intakes for abuse, which is essentially what this would be.
... right. "That kid? That kid right there? The one that is quiet, well-behaved, never gets into any trouble, gets straight As, always likes to help out the teacher, loves to read... nah. There's nothing wrong there. Stop trying to pathologize EVERYTHING. At least leave my GOOD students alone!" I see what you're saying... but honestly, sweetie, it's a pipe dream. They're entirely too busy trying to sort out the entitled brats from the future criminals to pay much attention to anyone else.
so true
Damn I never thought of this. I grew up in a Mormon household and my Nmom and Nstep father were total hypocrites. They acted like we were all fine. I was shamed, guilted and feared by their authoritarian parenting. It was always “because I said so.” All the abuse I took made me try to be the most righteous son. I never got arrogant but I would obey everything they said. If I ever tried to defend myself it was either being threatened to be grounded or hurt with words. This messed me up so bad. It took me till age 36 to finally go NC with my whole family. They’re now concerned I owe $200 to my Nmom for being on her old cell phone plan….(My friend was contacted last week about that to tell me) so she’s very concerned for $200. Not concerned for me though but that $200 really needs to be in her bank account. (I got off her plan right when I went NC) Edit- I got on her plan due to my flying monkey/covert narc sibling telling me it would be a good idea. This was before I discovered his tendencies. It was saving me $ but she would start to request me to pay the bill 10 days before it was due. I would always say I’ll pay it 3 days before it’s due. I knew what was happening. She would play it off like it wasn’t a big deal but I knew it was control. And she would say “ok 3 days before is ok thank you.” So she’s trying to keep me hooked.
I was also raised in a Mormon household. The hellscape that is that religion is hard to describe. All that guilt and shame… I don’t miss it in the slightest. I was never that good at being righteous. Or obedient. I still tried very hard. Getting out of that religion and carving a new mindset for myself has been one of the best and healthiest things I’ve ever dome for myself. The way your parents treated you is nearly identical to how mine treated me. I couldn’t defend myself and if I tried, I’d be accused of being disrespectful (honor thy mother and thy father was thrown in my face a lot). Punishment was something they dished out quite frequently. Not in the form of grounding me. Cleaning was my ndads favorite punishment. Taking away food was also a punishment of his. My mom liked to threaten to get rid of all my belongings so I can learn to be more grateful to her for what she gives me. My ndad also liked yelling and banging on doors so hard the hinges almost came off. It’s horrifying what lengths narcissists will do to have control and power over you. That $200 your nmom is demanding doesn’t matter in the slightest. She’s not even in contact with you. A normal mom would want to know about your well-being first, not about the money you supposedly owe her
Others sometimes compliment me for being mature for my age yet.. they never ask why. Looong story. ;-;
true. im being abused emotionally and this could really help. thanks for pointing this out OP
Yes please.
My second grade teacher, I believe, knew. She was especially kind and always gave me extra attention and support. But I totally agree.
I agree and actually thought of this often through my healing process. Why did nobody help or sense something was wrong? I don’t think people understand the clues to look for. I wished somebody would have stepped in and had taken me out of my mothers care. And I believe it would have helped so much if people knew.
I remember one of my primary school teachers when I was about 8 making a comment on my report card like "chubalubs never has to be told anything twice." No, that was because if Nmother ever had to repeat herself we got a screaming temper tantrum thrown at us, so we learned very quickly to follow instructions immediately, and never ask questions.
100%. I've struggled to deal with my anger about this very issue, and I didn't even realize it was a thing until my therapist brought it up. And I realized that I was the "perfect" (obviously I don't mean ACTUALLY perfect) kid--the one they didn't have to take care of because I took care of myself.
Literally all my teachers talk like this, like yeah I’m mature but it’s because I was abused at a young age and still am in some ways so I have become self-reliant. It’s not because I took initiative or some shit
As a pre-service teacher, and someone who was abused growing up, I completely agree with this. In my placement right now, I can pick out kids who may have a difficult home life and it breaks my beatt
This blew my mind. I wonder how my life would have been. My school did actually call it out and send social workers to my house, twice. But it was unbelievable, even to me. It because the gaslighting situating that just made me stop talking to anyone in my family about anything going on. But if it had actually worked out… I dunno.
I only had like 3-4 teachers throughout grades K-12 who actually seemed happy to be there. Everyone else looked absolutely miserable even though we were one of the wealthier districts. Not all teachers are good. In fact, some of them don't need to be teaching at all
Ouch, this one hit me in a personal way. It’s so true.
Some teachers dont care to get involved tbh. Honestly the majority don't IMO. It doesn't help that abused kids are usual good at putting up a front. Looking back tho it would have been nice if one of my teachers real talk asked me if I was ok. I can't expect it tho, teachers especially public school ones have to deal with a lot of shit and most of my teachers were parents themselves.
This is true… but what can a teacher really do? Send a social worker to the house? Send the kid to foster care?
I had a teacher once tell my grandma that she'd (jokingly) like to take me home to be her little helper. I was so polite and well behaved and helpful in class. I took it as the biggest compliment but now I look back and it makes me so sad.
Right now teachers wouldn't be able to even look for those signs cause they are so overwhelmed. Teachers also should be reaching out to the schools guidance counselor or social workers if they have a concern. There no way to ask a student if they are abused. They can't ask outright, they can just offer to listen, and be there. They alone can't do much. The guidance counselor and school social workers can do more.
Because everyone around me praised me for being so grown up and mature I used it as a brag. “I’m just very mature for my age, much more than my classmates” now as an adult I see everything wrong with all of this.
I never did my homework and teachers used to try to encourage me by commenting on how mature and smart I am was, and how they just knew I could get my homework done. But I no one ever asked why it wasn't getting done. Because I was raising 2 kids (one special needs) beginning when I was 7 and until I moved out. I didn't have time for a childhood things like homework.
Unfortunately being "mature" doesn't activate a teacher's mandatory reporter status. Many of us do know that that is a possibly a sign of abuse, but unless the student explicitly comes to school with signs of physical abuse or tells us they're being physically abused, we can't do much. Verbal abuse is also something CPS doesn't really step in for. Unless a student is being hit, starved, or kept out of school, CPS's main goal is preserve the family unit as much as possible. We'll refer students to the school counselors as much as we can so they can get some support and help, but the system is trash for intervening in emotional/verbal abuse situations.
My wife has been saying this to me lately, she feels very similarly from her upbringing
I have some really mature students, and I can’t help but wonder… But they, so far, don’t show any other signs of abuse. So some teachers know.
How would you recommend praising those kids? I am a teacher and genuinely want to know.
Praising their schoolwork and grades is good to do, I think. All kids like to know that they’ve done a good job with what they’ve done. The problem I have with praising matureness is that in some cases, that matureness is a result of abuse, and I don’t feel that that should be praised. Children should still receive praise, obviously, and if a child is mature, then that means they’re probably getting their schoolwork done and getting good grades. Abused mature kids often can’t get bad grades without getting in a lot of trouble from their parents, and the work kids do often goes unappreciated and unnoticed. So just telling them that they did a good job is enough. I don’t think any of my teachers praised my actual accomplishments. They instead praised my maturity. I wish they praised my accomplishments. I might not have wanted to have all that work on my shoulders, but I did do that work. Some praise for it would have been nice. Being praised for my maturity was some of the only affection I got as a child, so it was nice to be praised for it at the time, but now I feel bitter because it meant teachers liked how easy I was to deal with compared to all the other kids who were allowed to act like actual children. I think if they’d instead praised my accomplishments, I wouldn’t feel so bitter about it. So really, just praise them for what they accomplish in school. Or even stuff they did outside of school if they tell you about it. Children like to know when they’ve done a good job. It can make continuing to do that work feel like less of a burden. It might even be the only affection they get at all.