the dogs^ name is Steve

You must unlearn this.

You must accept that all people will be annoying at some point or another in their lives, maybe all of their lives, and that this is okay. It is okay for strangers on the bus, it is okay for children in the grocery store, it is okay for people on social media, and it is okay for you.

Bc so many ppl focus on the idea of telling A Trusted Adult, but even a well-meaning individual can fuck up and let abuse fall through the cracks or not know what to do

Whereas if a child tells LOADS of adults AND other kids, there's far less opportunity for an abuser to do damage control

Consistently telling their story and spreading it around disempowers the abuser to control and coerce the flow of information, or to utilise gaps and weaknesses in systems of reporting or welfare to isolate the child

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion doesn’t say “every single Jew is in the Shadowy Cabal That Controls the World”, just that there is a shadowy Jewish-Zionist “Jewish Supremacist” cabal that runs the world.

OG Medieval Blood Libel didn’t need to claim literally every Jew alive directly participated in murdering whatever Christian child had gone missing to get people to pogrom Jews; they just needed to claim the rabbis of the specific nearest Jewish community did.

The Doctor’s Plot libel didn’t need to be directed at all Jews or even only Jewish doctors to create a pretext for the planned anti-Jewish purges.

im going to bring this back

and some people, surprisingly enough, are not going to be good people, and they might say mean stuff to you to make you mad and sad.

don't stream your walk home from school or work

don't share private info about OTHER people in relation to you (younger sibs, parents/partners in unique jobs, YOUR OWN CHILDREN, your neighbors, your coworkers, etc.)

don't give out your full name including middle names and suffixes like "Jr", e.g. things that can legally identify you

and for godssake NO SEXUAL INFO or PICS <<< this goes for minors, but the rest of you aren't suddenly safe from predators and consequences either!

stop giving away all the info that could hurt you to people you have never met and should not trust

"and your mother?"

"dead."

Young kids are also a lot more socially aware than people give them credit for. Young children are perfectly aware that adults don't take them seriously. They know when their parents don't actually like them. They listen and remember when adults talk about them while they're in the room. Kids will develop basic abilities to charm etc. from babyhood and will begin experimenting with social norms and concepts of deception, appropriate information, and acceptable language and attitudes in toddlerhood. By the time a kid is five or six, they have solid social strategies for relating to adults and separate ones fr relating to their peers, that they'll continue to refine for the rest of their lives. They will also say completely off the wall shit because they don't have the context to know what is and isn't considered super fucked up yet.

By the time a kid is eight or nine, their main difference from adults is in experience, interests, and ability for long-term focus. An eight year old can think as intelligently and coherently as a thirty year old, they just have less experience and information to draw from, and are likely interested in very different things. They're also likely still slightly hamstrung by vocabulary and literacy, though much less so than a younger kid.

"I feel dead inside all the time and nothing helps!" - character who does like, regular introspective thinking and is aware of the concept of mental health.

"Leave me the fuck alone I'll be fine once I get over my stupid shit." - repressed character.