"jumping off gw bridge sorry." or "We Need To Stop Bullying"

[Seil]

At least the bullies of previous decades had to hold you down before they could spit in your face.

So there was this article (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2024210,00.html) I was reading at work about cyber bullying:

William Lucas, 15 (http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2010/09/indiana-teens-suicide-thought-to-be-result-of-anti-gay-bullying/)
Known as Billy, William was a freshman at Greensburg High. He hanged himself in his families barn. His friends told local reporters he had been bullied repeatedly. On a Facebook tribute page, one friend left this comment: "Everyone made fun of him at school, and he couldn't take it anymore."

Tyler Clementi, 18 (http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/student+alleged+webcam+bullying+commits+suicide/3603103/story.html)
Tyler and his new room-mate at Rutgers didn't get along, and Tyler felt threatened. His room-mate began spying on him electronically and eventually posted a video of Tyler kissing a guy. Tyler posted a final Facebook status update: "jumping off gw bridge sorry."

Asher Brown, 13 (http://www.kidglue.com/2010/09/30/asher-brown-suicide-parents-speak-out-against-bullying-watch/)
Using one of his step-fathers guns, Asher shot himself in the head last month. His parents say he had been bullied about his assumed homosexuality as well as his inability to afford nice clothes.

Seth Walsh, 13 (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20018025-504083.html)
Seth struggled with his sexuality by reading the Bible. Eventually, he admitted to friends and family members that he liked other boys. But he still couldn't fit in. He was bullied relentlessly and hanged himself. His mother found his body and watched him die after he spent more than a week on life support.

...I don't really know what to say. This is just... really, really sad. I don't even like the idea of suicide; there's always other options - someone you can talk to.

I know that there is support in most schools - counsellors, teachers, whatever - people that a kid can talk to if they're hurt or bullied... I just don't know if they're acted on on the student end because of the stigma that they might be labeled a wuss. There's a problem both with the person being bullied, and the bullies. One needs help, and the others need detention. However, the teachers need to know there's a problem, and no kid wants to be a tattle-tail.

I want to try to think up a solution to this, but I'm just really depressed now.

[CABAL49]

After reading through the articles, I noticed that these kids were bullied for their "perceived" homosexuality. I use quotes because only one was an adult who acted on it. To me this seems like a response to society's hatred of gays.

Also let's not forget that most bullies bully in order to overcompensate for something.

[Nikose Tyris]

Also let's not forget that most bullies bully in order to overcompensate for something.

This is a popular misconception. Some people just have special needs. One of those special needs is to be a little dick.

[Azisien]

I don't know about other regions, but schools and teachers (or at least, the policy of teacher education that is producing teachers) not being completely backwards when it comes to using the Internet and so on is probably feeding the cyber-bullying fire.

Another thing is just combating cyber-bullying with proper anti-bullying tactics just like it was any other. The deviousness of cyber-bullying, of course, is how easily it can happen behind the backs of even observant teachers or parents. An open, approachable environment where people can report even minor acts of bullying is necessary. Not to mention a keen eye.

[Token]

...I don't really know what to say. This is just... really, really sad. I don't even like the idea of suicide; there's always other options - someone you can talk to.

It'd be fantastic if this was the case, but sadly, there aren't always options. That's what leads to a lot of suicidal thoughts, the pain someone feels is stronger than the options they have to cope with it. Unfortunately, often when someone is suicidal, talking about it does more harm than good. In cases like this, where some of the pain is caused by bullying due to things the victim literally has no control over, it gets overwhelming far too fast. I can entirely understand why they killed themselves.

[Bob The Mercenary]

How's about we, I don't know, stop telling our kids to seek an adult whenever they're picked on at school? That was the advice I used to get. You know how that went over in front of the other kids, not too fucking well. Every year in middle and high school we had to sit through presentations about bullies and harassment. Know what happened when the movie was over? Everyone went back to class. The bullies kept bullying and the students who were helpless had nowhere to go except telling on them, which led to further and more brutal bullying.

Bullies will always exist no matter what we do, how much education we offer, or how severe we make the punishments for it. So I say we address the victims themselves. From experience I'll just say that the most effective way I've seen to deal with bullies is to just take it. None of this crap about bottled up feelings. If we teach our children to hit things or release their anger in other ways, that is what they will want to do every time they get aggravated.

[bluestarultor]

I got bullied in school for my entire childhood until seventh grade. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it. Teachers don't care, which happened in my case, or they do care but inadvertently make the problem worse, which also happened in my case, or there's nothing they can really do to solve it, which ALSO happened in my case.

Kids can be miserable little monstrosities and it's really not fair to put it all on teachers. A lot of it has to do with what the bullies have at home, and if they're being enabled or even encouraged, jack is going to stop them at school or online.

What needs to be put in place is an actual valid system of handling it first off so that the teachers that give a hoot actually have something to work with. Second, teachers need to be told to use those pathways. There are already legal requirements to report at-home abuse. There needs to be some system where school abuse gets documented by the school staff so the school can make a case, rather than it being shunted off to kids to tell their parents so the family can. In a lot of cases, the kid just doesn't for various reasons. I personally got gang-beat once and never told anyone until later because I was scared shitless. By that time, my family was already threatening legal action against the school for their utter failure to give a shit about my situation, especially when they were considering expelling me for finally lashing out.

So yeah, there needs to be better ways of handling this stuff.



@Bob: I'd argue there are punishments that are harsh enough to curb bullying. Maybe not detention, but out-of-school suspension and expulsion give the parents incentive to rein their kids in. Obviously, you start small, but those things should be considered for the real problem bullies. I'll also say that in the cases where there's a gang leader, taking out the head will help dissolve the rest of the group. It really is a gang mentality in those instances, but that kind of setup requires one kid to have charisma to hold the group together and attract followers.


Edit: PS, also @Bob: I ended up getting physical without being "taught" to do so. I'd taken martial arts, but those are very good about telling you not to use them that way, to the point of demoting or even expelling you if they find out you've misused them. It's just that there weren't very many options available to me. I could curl up and die, waste my time trying to stick around a teacher and hoping they'd pay attention and care enough to do something, or try to discourage them from tormenting me. I did a lot of the first at first, gave up on the second almost immediately, and ended up resorting to the third when I couldn't take it anymore. There are only so many ways you can do that. You kick a dog for long enough, it bites back.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Interfering with bullying is interferying with the free market of thoughts in the playground and will lead to communism.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

From experience I'll just say that the most effective way I've seen to deal with bullies is to just take it.

From my experience this doesn't work at all, because that's what I did. The most effective way to avoid bullying is either to be a barking alpha motherfucker or be boring and dull, with no distinct physical or behavioral features. Alternatively one could be the alpha male's personal Milhouse.

Fun Fact: One time someone set fire to me (e: Well, not the entire me, just my head or rather my hood). Good times. I also got kicked down stairs. That was funny too.

[Yrcrazypa]

I'm pretty much going to teach my kids, assuming I have them, to kick the shit out of bullies. Have them show themselves as alpha examples of their gender, and the bullies will be too scared to do anything. The one time I lashed out against a bully physically was also the singular event that stopped just about every other bully in the school from messing with me. If you tell the school administration, they won't do anything, since I tried that, and that just makes the bullying worse, as does trying to ignore it. Kick the shit out of the little brats, you don't even have to be particularly strong, I sure as hell wasn't, just make it shocking, quick, and sudden. It helped out a lot in increasing my self-esteem for quite a long time afterward, too.

[Loyal]

Interfering with bullying is interferying with the free market of thoughts in the playground and will lead to communism.Not the time or place, Smarty.

In my experience, the "be as boring as possible" option is most successful, but it hardly lends itself to a fulfilling childhood.

[Kim]

How's about we, I don't know, stop telling our kids to seek an adult whenever they're picked on at school?

This is why. (http://jezebel.com/5665032/)

From experience I'll just say that the most effective way I've seen to deal with bullies is to just take it.


Apparently this was just the culmination of a weeks-long campaign of bullying. And here's the saddest part of an already very sad story: "Investigators said the alleged victim [...] admitted he didn't have the courage to complain — fearing retaliation, but when the taunts turned physical the victim finally came forward."


Your most effective way isn't very effective, Bob.

[Bob The Mercenary]

This is why. (http://jezebel.com/5665032/)





Your most effective way isn't very effective, Bob.


Yes, reporting bullying can make it easier for adults to help you, but it's also those adults' job to pay attention and create an environment where any bullying is swiftly and definitively stopped.

...which was not the case with me. The teachers took my sobbing to be a sign of mental weakness and told me to ignore them, in addition to not speaking to the bullies at all. So yes, under some circumstances my way is more effective.

[Kim]

So, because you had shitty teachers, we should discourage students from seeking the help and protection they need?

[Nikose Tyris]

The correct course of action is to encourage your child to take a bat to school, before he can be arrested for assault.[/dontactuallydothis]

The biggest problem is that there is not a uniform correct answer. Bullying is one of those ages back things; anti-queer comments get built right into kids as they grow up, hearing the previous generation calling other kids fag and gay as insulting terms, or watching other kids beating on the smaller ones and saying, "Hey, that's going to work for me!" Stopping Bullying is difficult. Everyone here who's been bullied can see that.

Telling an authority figure, the first step is to get the issue sorted out by 'talking it out', and that step gets repeated over and over. So, the bullies find out you ratted them out, and beat you harder next time for it. If you stand up for yourself, you better hope there is only one or two of them, or you have a good circle of friends at your back.

They didn't let up on picking on me till I fought back; and then I was the one who got suspended and expelled.

There's no easy answer; there's always a counter to each course of action, and there's always going to be another bully. Punishing the victim is easier when there is only one of him, but four or five of the harrassers. Remove the victim and it solves the problem, right?

[bluestarultor]

...which was not the case with me. The teachers took my sobbing to be a sign of mental weakness and told me to ignore them, in addition to not speaking to the bullies at all. So yes, under some circumstances my way is more effective.

So, because you had shitty teachers, we should discourage students from seeking the help and protection they need?

Same happened in my case, only instead of the teachers, it was the principal. The teachers in many cases did the best they could with their hands tied.


That's why I said there needs to be a system in place similar to the home abuse system. My aunt is a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing and she's a "compulsory reporter" or something like that. There needs to be that kind of thing for abuse at school. If you fail to report, you can lose your job and license. I was gifted with several teachers who were great people, but there were also some who didn't give a rip and were the stereotypical "I hate my job and won't even pretend" type.


Kids' parents should not have to resort to the threat of legal action like my mom did, and she threatened it several times. The problems never got "solved," but it did save me from expulsion long enough to move on to junior high in the district, which was a much better establishment, and got put in my file along with alerting the police liaison officer to the reality of the issue, so when I got there, the new staff could call me in and assess me and realize just how much bullshit I got put through and why I'd gotten all the bad stuff written about me.

It wasn't until the same shit started happening to my little brother that God knows what happened and they were finally forced to shape up. And even for him it took three tries.

[Kim]

Yeah, this sort of thing isn't something you can place the burden of on the victim. That's nonsense. It just means the system needs to be fixed, which isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

[Nique]

So, because you had shitty teachers, we should discourage students from seeking the help and protection they need?

Anecdotal Evidence: It is right, becuase I say so.

[Kim]

The problem with anecdotal evidence is actually less that it's anecdotal, and more in how it's used. For example, if I was trying to say something was common, happened a lot, or was a trend, anecdotal evidence would not be valid, since my personal experiences do not indicate a trend. However, if my argument is merely that something happens, and the frequency thereof is irrelevant that, then anecdotal evidence would be valid, assuming it's true.

The problem isn't that Bob is using anecdotal evidence. The problem is that he's using said anecdotal evidence to judge what would be the ideal response to a trend.

Then again, to be perfectly honest, you could probably see a trend of what happened to Bob occurring throughout schools. In which case, the problem is primarily that the response is an invalid one to the problem, where he seems to suggest that the burden of the problem should rest on the shoulders of the victim, specifically because the people whose responsibility it's supposed to be aren't do their job properly. If the teachers aren't doing their job, you don't make the victim solve their own problem. You take action to make the teachers do their job.

[Nique]

If the teachers aren't doing their job, you don't make the victim solve their own problem. You take action to make the teachers do their job.

Basically. The fact is that there is no good or fair solution we have access to for eliminating crappy people whether they are, in this case, bullies or teachers. Since adults are more accountable and, frankly, easier to control, then it seems logical to enforce their behavior too. There is no perfect solution.

[Kim]

Nuklear winter is always a perfect solution.

[Magus]

How's about we, I don't know, stop telling our kids to seek an adult whenever they're picked on at school? That was the advice I used to get. You know how that went over in front of the other kids, not too fucking well. Every year in middle and high school we had to sit through presentations about bullies and harassment. Know what happened when the movie was over? Everyone went back to class. The bullies kept bullying and the students who were helpless had nowhere to go except telling on them, which led to further and more brutal bullying.

Bullies will always exist no matter what we do, how much education we offer, or how severe we make the punishments for it. So I say we address the victims themselves. From experience I'll just say that the most effective way I've seen to deal with bullies is to just take it. None of this crap about bottled up feelings. If we teach our children to hit things or release their anger in other ways, that is what they will want to do every time they get aggravated.

No, they should tell an adult. What then has to happen is for the adult to do something instead of sit on their hands.

I agree they shouldn't be told to retaliate but then again telling your kid to "just ignore it" has been shown to not work either. Standing up to the bully is better than "taking it", if it comes to that. But they should tell an adult and their teachers or parents should actually do something to make the bully stop harassing the student. As someone else mentioned, suspension and threats of expulsion are often enough to get the parents to actually rein in their kid.

What bullies want is to use peer pressure to keep their victims from speaking up. It plays right into their hands. Because bullying is either going to bring the hammer down on them eventually when they are minors (in the form of privileges punishment) or when they are adults (in the form of monetary punishment), unless they can keep their victim properly cowed and make them think they can't change the situation by getting help from someone else. I can tell you now that if this student had, instead of killing himself, sued his roommate in a court of law for harassment and invasion of privacy he would've hit the bully exactly where it hurts: his wallet, with a nice hefty damages reward. Get a restraining order while he's at it and get the RA or other college official to get the roommate reassigned to a different room, even before this final thing happened. There are lots of options for dealing with bullying if people were taught to look for them.

What's sad though is that when you told an adult as a kid you ended up being hung out to dry. That's what's wrong with our society, where bullying is accepted as a fact of life, and even encouraged in some instances. When in fact it is unacceptable behavior in our kids, because it is unacceptable behavior in adults, and parents should be aware that their kids are going to get in trouble with the law when they get older if they aren't taught as kids to respect other people.

On a different note, this entire affair is quite sad, the "suicide note" the most. I tend not to listen to the luddites complaining about technology leading to a lack of communication with each other and those we care about, and the dumbing down it is causing us, but I have to say that the a person's last words being "jumping off gw bridge sorry" as a twitter post is probably one of the saddest things I've ever seen, that that is what he thought was a good enough suicide note, his last words to the world. It just adds to the depression this causes.

Finally, since the original story said he had actually been caught on tape having sex, I find it even sadder that because of our societal pressures, this student thought he had to kill himself just over being caught on tape kissing another man. Whatever our moral beliefs, creating an environment of such shame and hatred that somebody feels they need to kill themselves because they are homosexual, or just perceived to have homosexual tendencies, is atrocious.

EDIT:

Nuklear winter is always a perfect solution.

I don't think we have to go this far NonCon.

Forcefully lobotomizing repeat bullies is more than enough.

[Michie]

Massachusetts now has anti-bullying laws (http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2010/Chapter92) on the books. In January 2010 a 15 year old girl named Phoebe Prince killed herself due to bullying. The school administration knew and did nothing. The six kids involved were expelled and are awaiting trial on felony charges which starts in December.

In April 2009 an 11 year old boy killed himself for the same reason.

What the hell has our society come to that children as young as 11 aren't just thinking about suicide, they're actually committing it.

The city I live in borders the two towns in which these horrible deaths happened and I can't help but be thankful that I know the school they go to wouldn't stand for that crap. Now when they get to middle school... Either way there's an anti-bullying task force throughout Massachusetts that has workshops in the area every few months. Hopefully it does something to help the kids that feel they need to do stuff like this.

[Krylo]

I agree with half of what Bob said.

In the current system, like it or not, telling an adult is the absolute worst thing you can do as a bullied child. Unless you're getting beaten severely enough for police to be involved (edit: In which case I'd be loathe to even call it 'bullying' so much as 'assault') here is what is going to happen when you tell an adult:

OPTION A--Also known as 'the responsible adult'.
1) Adult comforts you.
2) Adult informs principal/dean of punishment/whomever
3) Principal/whomever punishes bully/bullies.
4) You're 'that kid who got those other kids in trouble'.
5) You get bullied more than before.

OPTION B--Also known as 'the irresponsible adult'.
1) Adult tells you to get the fuck over it.
2) Things continue as they were.

What we need to do is one of two things: Either we fix the system, or we tell kids the proper way to handle a bully.

In the case of fixing the system? Well I have no idea how the hell you do that. It's not just the same bully who gets on you when you get someone in trouble. The reason for this is that kids see the world as 'us' vs 'them', wherein us is children/teens and them is adults. Kids want to know that if they break the rules you'll be cool about it, or, even if you aren't, you're not going to tell any adults. Kids want to trust you. Telling an adult when someone did something wrong, EVEN IF IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE BULLIED, means you lose that trust amongst the greater number of your peers.

And honestly? Making punishments harsher? Putting bullies in prison and shit? It's just going to make people who turn them in even more likely to get ostracized.

If we go with option two, that means telling kids to stand up to bullies. You don't need a circle of friends even if there's five of them. You don't need to be the biggest or the strongest.

All you have to do is prove that you respect yourself enough to stand up for yourself. EVEN IF you get your ass beaten, so long as you stand up for yourself and fight back you're going to earn the respect of your peers and see your bullying decrease immensely. You don't need to win, you just need to prove you're worthy of respect.

For the record, I'm not basing this just on my own history (though my own history does mirror this rather well), but rather on the sociology of school, children, and teens. It's like its own tribal culture.



ALSO:[...] cyber-bullying [...] cyber-bullying [...] cyber-bullyingAll those kids were bullied in school and shit too/primarily. I don't think cyber-bullying is as much a problem as people make it out to be, outside of 30 year old mothers taking out multiple accounts and shit to destroy some kid's life.

Edit: And even then I'd argue it's only a real problem because with facebook and shit it tends to flow over into the real world.

Nuklear
LULLLLLLLLLLLLLLZ

[Magus]

If I saw actual steps being taken to punish a bully when I told an adult it would certainly strengthen my resolve to 1. keep telling on them and 2. stand up for myself. I may get picked on more, but whoops, looks like daddy took away the keys to your car as punishment for your bullshit. I think I got you back pretty good. There is something to be said for the satisfaction of seeing some actual stuff get done as a builder of self-esteem, to see people supporting you.

Kids don't take it far enough, really. They tell adults, they get picked on more, so then they quit telling adults instead of having their parents make life a living hell for the bullies and their families until they actually change their shit. If you don't know the kind of stress that threats of being sued causes for parents, you probably haven't been threatened to be sued by some kid's parents.

You seem to be saying that ostracism increases when a kid tells on bullies, but if the kid is getting bullied to the extent they want to kill themselves I can't say how it can get worse than it already is.

Yeah, they should stand up for themselves, but then again, bullies tend to pick on "easy targets" that are already suffering from low self-esteem (either from earlier bullies or other problems). Bullies don't pick on the kind of people likely to stand up for themselves. That is why adults and society need to step in when it happens, and prevent it from happening in the first place by monitoring what is going on in their classrooms and hallways and online with their kids.

When I was in high school, I was picked on by another boy who verbally abused me and then eventually started punching me in the back very, very hard, daily. First I tried to ignore it and pretend it didn't hurt. Guess what, he did not cease punching me in the back, because he knew it hurt. See, it is actually impossible to convince bullies that what they're saying or doing doesn't hurt, either verbally or physically, unless you had some kind of perfect poker face.

I told adults, and they didn't seem to care, so I finally did just punch the guy in the face. That made adults stand up and notice, that this straight-A kid felt so harassed by a bully that he had to resort to punching him in the face, and the teacher gave him a warning. However, further action was not taken by the adults, and I can't really say I ran into less ostracism because I punched the guy. Frankly, I had to work hard as hell not to punch him again because he continued being a giant asshole, and everybody joined in with him. I can say the only thing that didn't happen again was his actually hitting me. But I was ostracized by my peers in spite of retaliating against him, standing up for myself. So, no, unless adults and society are willing to step in and put a stop to the behavior permanently, standing up for yourself will not necessarily stop bullying nor gain you the respect of your peers.

[Krylo]

If I saw actual steps being taken to punish a bully when I told an adult it would certainly strengthen my resolve to 1. keep telling on them and 2. stand up for myself. I may get picked on more, but whoops, looks like daddy took away the keys to your car as punishment for your bullshit. I think I got you back pretty good. There is something to be said for the satisfaction of seeing some actual stuff get done as a builder of self-esteem, to see people supporting you.


OR IN THE REAL WORLD:

I may get picked on more and now my self-esteem isn't increasing and is actually worse because the minor satisfaction from seeing a bully getting punished doesn't begin to make up for the ostracizing and greater amount of teasing/shoving/whatever else I'm now experiencing.

Kids don't take it far enough, really. They tell adults, they get picked on more, so then they quit telling adults instead of having their parents make life a living hell for the bullies and their families until they actually change their shit. If you don't know the kind of stress that threats of being sued causes for parents, you probably haven't been threatened to be sued by some kid's parents.OR IN THE REAL WORLD, you try to start a motion to sue someone and your lawyers tell you you're a moron with no case, and when you try to threaten the other child's parents you end up getting sued for harassment.

There might be a case to be made against the school for not providing a safe environment but there's never been a case in the history of ever where parents were successfully sued for their kids being bullies.

ALSO: Even if you did end up causing legal trouble for the family of the bully? Again, you're fucking up another kid's life by being, what the other kids perceive as, a snake in the grass running to the teachers and not handling your own issues. Even IF you scare off the active bullying you'll be unlikely to find any friends. It's just as easy (and completely unenforceable against) to 'bully' a kid by simply making certain no one ever speaks to them or interacts with them when not absolutely necessary.

You seem to be saying that ostracism increases when a kid tells on bullies, but if the kid is getting bullied to the extent they want to kill themselves I can't say how it can get worse than it already is.It can always get worse.

And the kid wouldn't get that bad if we were, instead of concentrating on punishing bullies, concentrating on building the self-esteem of 'weaker' children and teaching them how to stand up for themselves.

It'd also be a lot better for them in the long run.

Yeah, they should stand up for themselves, but then again, bullies tend to pick on "easy targets" that are already suffering from low self-esteem (either from earlier bullies or other problems). Bullies don't pick on the kind of people likely to stand up for themselves.This is EXACTLY why if we change our focus to making sure that children realize it's okay and proper to stand up for themselves they won't be bullied.



When I was in high school[...] But I was ostracized by my peers in spite of retaliating against him, standing up for myself. So, no, unless adults and society are willing to step in and put a stop to the behavior permanently, standing up for yourself will not necessarily stop bullying nor gain you the respect of your peers.I had this happen once, too. Stood up for myself and some goddamn nosy adult got it in her head to help.

THAT didn't turn out well.

Think back to what kids said, what they whispered amongst each other when they were making shit worse for you.

Were they saying, "Hey, there's the kid that punched Billy in the face, that ass" or were they saying, "There's the kid that hit Billy and then got BILLY in trouble for it"? (For me it was, 'It's that kid that got everyone on the Bus in trouble,' and I really wasn't looking forward to trying to explain to everyone that I had no intention of turning anyone in and kind of just wanted to duke it out but when I tried... but then we moved, within a week. A really shitty week, but nonetheless).

I'd wager my life savings (which isn't much, I'll grant) that it was the latter.

You had more shit not because you punched a kid, but because adults had to stick their noses in.

TO BORROW AN ANALOGY FROM SOMEONE ELSE (POS) school is a lot like prison.

The kids are the prisoners, the adults the guards. You tell a guard every time someone disrespects you and you're targeted as both weak and a threat to the prison society. You are then shanked. If, on the other hand, someone disrespects you and you smash their face into a table and take your week of solitary or whatever for fighting, you get respect and are less likely to be disrespected again.


EDIT: ALSO I don't know if bullying is actually a bigger problem these days than it used to be. I'd bet that it isn't and we just have more media coverage (kind of like how there's fewer murders and shit but the media covers them more so people think we're less safe when we're actually more safe).

HOWEVER, if there is more bullying? I'm willing to be it's because of the very things we do to try and stop it. Tell children to talk to an adult. Tell children that fighting is always wrong no matter what. Try to curb the natural emotional and physical growth of kids into what we perceive as healthier.

Kids more likely to be bullied are also more likely to listen to adults and therefore less likely to stand up for themselves against bullies in meaningful ways when the adults are telling them not to ever hit anyone and putting stricter punishments on fighting and shit.

Kids get into fights. The same way baby lion cubs learn to hunt by fighting. It's part of who and what we are.

[Magus]

You had more shit not because you punched a kid, but because adults had to stick their noses in.

Thank you for informing I didn't grow up in the "real world" Krylo. And no, it was not the teacher's supposed "intervention" which caused the further ostracism. You are just dead wrong about that, because all she did was tell him he "deserved it" and did absolutely nothing else. Which frankly was not the correct course of action, either, as we should have both been sent to the principal's office. I repeat, absolutely nothing negative occurred to him from any adult observer despite a one sentence comment during one class period.

I don't really feel the need to bother doing a point by point analysis of your post, since you are dead wrong just based on this utterly ridiculous statement:

Kids get into fights. The same way baby lion cubs learn to hunt by fighting. It's part of who and what we are.

The entire point of being a parent is to teach your kids not to listen to their instinctual desires to bully, steal, fight, or rape. The end goal of becoming a mature adult (I mean, an absolute minimum) should be to learn not to do these things. Since so many people do not ever learn not to I'd say that your idea that these things should just be allowed to "play themselves out" is at least one reason (among dozens of others, it is true) our country has such a problem with crime: no one gave a shit about the criminals when they were kids. If you think a bully is going to grow up to be an emotionally healthy adult if they don't receive correction, you are wrong.

[Krylo]

The entire point of being a parent is to teach your kids not to listen to their instinctual desires to bully, steal, fight, or rape.I thought the entire point of being a parent was to produce a child who was able to succeed in the world once they no longer had a parent's protection?

Teaching them not to do those things is part of that. Part of it is also teaching them how to defend themselves from people who want to do those things to them when there's not a policeman within shouting distance.

Further, getting into fights is part of how young men move through and learn to deal with their testosterone and their emotions maturely. It's not the best way to do it, and they should be punished for it on average, but the huge stigma we've placed on it only results in shit like what Blues and Nik were saying (OH GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE I USED THEM--on the other hand, it's not surprising they got bullied), wherein you get into a fight defending yourself and end up suspended while the bully walks 'cause he didn't throw the first punch (or just lies more convincingly).

If you think a bully is going to grow up to be an emotionally healthy adult if they don't receive correction, you are wrong.If you think prison, detention, suspension, or taking their keys away is going to correct them, you are also wrong.

Bullies either need love and attention just as much as the kids being bullied (look it up, psychology may be fuzzy science but it's still science), or they need more psychiatry (as opposed to ology) to correct chemical imbalances.

Punishment alone is rarely a fix for anything.

...Unless these bullies are like five or something and just having figured out that punching kids isn't cool, I guess.

[Nique]

instinctual desires to bully, steal, fight, or rape.

I don't want to get in between you and Krylo's tiff here exactly, but this is like saying that people are inherently 'evil' and... I don't know I'd like to see a study or something... but I think we're horrible largely because of how we're socialized and Krylo is not wrong - School is often like a prison, and growing up in a prison breeds sum behavior we do not like, particularly.

I'm not like anti-establishment or anything but maybe part of the problem is institutionalizing large groups of energetic kids and expecting no aberrant behavior.

[Kim]

I think I'm leaning towards the Krylo side of things, though both have points, but when one of the bullies is eighteen, like that article I linked, and beating the shit out of a kid for being gay, then I think a line has been crossed where this is no longer some school bully, and instead is a dangerous adult that needs to face severe legal consequences. One thing we have to recognize is that schoolyard bully can develop into a dangerous adult.

[Magus]

Punishment may not be the best course of action, I said "correction" which may include psychiatric treatment for their behavior. Suing the parents was more of my way of attempting to come up with a way to put pressure on the parents to actually do something about their kids, maybe it's not the best way, but it might work. If you have a better way of getting parents to actually do something about their kids, let's hear it, instead of "parents shouldn't even bother, these kids have to learn for themselves the world is a huge shitburger. We shouldn't bother to try fixing the shitburger, either."

As for the "car keys" thing, it was just one example I was just assuming that for the average bully being punished by their parents was enough to correct their behavior, if they're so messed up that greater means such as psychiatric help need to be taken it's up to their parents or the school or the state to do that for them. That is also part of adults actually doing something about bullying instead of sitting on their hands.

My main point is the impetus is not to be put on the victims to have to get into schoolyard brawls or put up with harassment in order to cope with bullying. If I thought that way I'd have to put the impetus on adult victims of harassment and assault, too, who quite frankly have a lot more channels and power to defend themselves than children.

What you're saying is that these kids should just "sink or swim" in the institution we've set up (you compare schools to prisons and yet don't seem to think that maybe schools being like prisons means there's something wrong with our schools), but instead of sinking or swimming, it's learn to put up with bullying or kill themselves. That doesn't seem like the best way to do things but maybe I'm just crazy.

EDIT: By the way I would like to hear Krylo's definition of the real world. I've been picked on my entire life, grade K-12, for my appearance, it wasn't just the one bully I used for an example of bullying. I'm sure that Krylo's version of the real world is some hellhole school where you are as likely to be stabbed as you are to have your ears flicked, so if he grew up in that and got through it, kudos to him, but lots of people didn't, aren't getting through it currently and I don't think it's "natural" for our schools to be that way.

Basically I'd like to hear Krylo's own experience with bullying and how he went through a shit ton and overcame it via his willpower or whatever, instead of killing himself like all these other pussies.

[Krylo]

If you have a better way of getting parents to actually do something about their kids, let's hear it, "

Alright: If the kid's a bully, the parents have already failed. The child has either been taught by his parents that violence and emotional abuse are THE WAYS TO DEAL WITH SHIT, meaning his parents are either abusive in some way or negligent, most likely.

Therefore, the way to deal with it isn't to put pressure on the parents to help their kid. It's to analyze the kid's home life and, depending on the severity of the issue, either remove the child from it or have some kind of supplementary parenting.

What I'm getting here is that bullies are victims, too. Most of the time. Help them, and you help the victims. Punishing them, getting revenge on them through adults? It doesn't help anyone. The other kids see you as weak and untrustworthy and are going to shank you, while the bully never gets any kind of help dealing with whatever is making them lash out and build their self-esteem through the deriding of others.


What you're saying is that these kids should just "sink or swim" in the institution we've set up (you compare schools to prisons and yet don't seem to think that maybe schools being like prisons means there's something wrong with our schools), but instead of sinking or swimming, it's learn to put up with bullying or kill themselves. That doesn't seem like the best way to do things but maybe I'm just crazy.Actually, what I'm saying is that we're tossing kids into a prison and instead of telling them to carry themselves with respect, and at least have a veneer of self-confidence, and maybe teaching them how to defend themselves in a prison brawl, we teach them to never stand up for themselves and go running to the guards.

It'd be totally awesome and great if we changed the institution, but that requires a greater breadth and depth of changes than just worrying about how to handle bullies. The whole thing needs to be torn apart from the ground up and rebuilt.

Basically, you're misunderstanding my saying that kids are in a shitty situation and they need to be taught how to realistically deal with that shitty situation rather than being given the wrong information with me saying that their situation is fine and we need to back off?

Is that what I'm getting?

ALSO@Nonsie, that's why I pointed out that some severe stuff shouldn't even be considered bullying, but rather assault at the beginning of my first post. I totally agree with what happened with those kids.

Also, the other things you said.

EDIT: EDIT: By the way I would like to hear Krylo's definition of the real world. I've been picked on my entire life, grade K-12, for my appearance, it wasn't just the one bully I used for an example of bullying. I'm sure that Krylo's version of the real world is some hellhole school where you are as likely to be stabbed as you are to have your ears flicked, so if he grew up in that and got through it, kudos to him, but lots of people didn't, aren't getting through it currently and I don't think it's "natural" for our schools to be that way.

Nothing that bad. Moved around a lot. Got picked on for being a 90 pound weakling. Especially on the Bus in one place. Got into a few fights at school which made that back off (always involving breaking my shit, stealing my shit, turns out my shit is a trigger I guess), but never really felt comfortable getting into a brawl on a moving vehicle. Finally got off with a kid and challenged him to a fight, but that was when the adult got involved and never really saw where that went. Went through an angry phase at one point for various reasons and took up defending other kids from bullies just to work off aggression.

Nothing really to tell. I got shit wherever I went, stood up for myself, shit stopped. Despite the 90 pound weakling, thing.

Basically I'd like to hear Krylo's own experience with bullying and how he went through a shit ton and overcame it via his willpower or whatever, instead of killing himself like all these other pussies.I'm not Funka, and not suggesting kids overcome it with willpower.

I'm suggesting we, as adults, give them the RIGHT tools for dealing with it instead of the WRONG ones.

[Aldurin]

Compensation for believed inferiority, delusions of destined to rule, have no sanctuary whatsoever . . . the list goes on for reasons that bullies do shit. And now they can yell at almost anyone in the world and be heard. And then some of those learn to go beyond yelling and hack the victim into oblivion.

Last time I went to my parents about bullies, my dad told me to buck up and stop being a wimp, no compassion, no support. That was 6th grade. I broke down several times in middle school following that, never letting them know what the real problem was. I started recovering in high school once I got people to back off with mentions that I had been taking karate since 4th grade (it never took hold outside of the dojo until high school) and a "push back" attitude to any insults or teases. Since then those type of people don't bother me, probably something about how I hold myself more confidently now, or maybe they sense how I'll fight like a homicidal maniac right up until the homicide part if I get attacked.

And the schools suck at dealing with bullying. They're so paranoid about lawsuits that they try to figure out how the victim was equally at fault.

Point is, the main accepted ways to deal with bullying suck and will mess up kids at best.

[Kim]

Nonsie, that's why I pointed out that some severe stuff shouldn't even be considered bullying, but rather assault at the beginning of my first post. I totally agree with what happened with those kids.

Also, the other things you said.

Ah, I figured, but somehow missed it, so I thought I'd just bring it up.

[Nique]

I'm not Funka, and not suggesting kids overcome it with willpower.

Lolz.

To be fair though you were at least a little douchey with the 'PSHAW WHATEVER BACK IN THE REAL WORLD DOOOD' stuff.

[Krylo]

Lolz.I really hope he reads that when he gets unbanned or I'll feel like a jerk talking about him behind his back.

Also: I present a motion to rename him "Bootstraps Funk". Yay or nay?

To be fair though you were at least a little douchey with the 'PSHAW WHATEVER BACK IN THE REAL WORLD DOOOD' stuff.Well, ok, granted, but I don't think I/didn't mean to give the impression that kids need to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I meant that parents/teachers/whatever should teach them how to handle situations, instead of teaching them the worst possible thing to do in a situation.

Like, my parents always told me that if someone punches you, you hit them back twice as hard. One of my earliest memories is getting bullied by a kid in a sandbox, telling my dad, and him telling me that I shouldn't let people do that and to punch him in the nose. Then I did it.

I felt fantastic.

It didn't turn me into a bully (except, perhaps, of other bullies. I did get a taste for that during my angry phase), but it gave me the tools I needed to work my way through life.

I'm not blaming kids who are told their whole life that defending themselves is wrong for not defending themselves. I'm blaming the institutions that demonize a child defending himself just as much as a child bullying him (edit: actually more so, 'cause throwing a punch is a lot more severe then telling a kid he's a worthless homo every day as far as schools are concerned). I'm blaming the parents that agree with the institution.

Same as I don't blame someone who was never taught astronomy for not knowing where to find Orion in the sky. Or, to stick with bootstraps, I don't blame a kid for walking around with his shoes untied and then stepping on them and falling on his face if he was never taught how to tie them. Someone should have told him how to do that before he got hurt.

[bluestarultor]

I'm just going to drop in that "standing up for yourself" by way of schoolyard brawls doesn't always hold up. It sure as Hell didn't for me. Seeing that I wasn't the fastest kid, it just turned the end of my grade school career into "needle at him until he snaps, then run off laughing your ass off because he can't catch up to you to give you what you deserve."

In fact, then they started telling on ME for chasing them, which was visible enough that it stuck. The one benefit was there was one totally awesome playground monitor who actually knew what was up who conveniently told them that I wouldn't know what to do with them once I caught them, so they should just stop running. One of them was stupid enough to try it and, unfortunately for him, I knew EXACTLY what to do with him when he stopped running, so when he stopped short, he was treated to a full-on running fist to the face and dropped like a brick.

Unfortunately for my part, I wasn't quite done with him and it took two teachers and a classmate to hold me back so I didn't do worse and he ended up just standing there and laughing his smug face off. Keep in mind I was twelve and the smallest boy in my grade, so yeah, those guys were good at pissing me off. After that, I was threatened with expulsion. And shit STILL didn't get better.



So yeah, violence isn't always the answer, either.

[Kim]

Yeah, if you don't have the physical skills to fight for yourself, you're kinda screwed, I think.

[Aldurin]

So yeah, violence isn't always the answer, either.

But it's still an answer.

[Krylo]

Blues:

A) Standing up for yourself doesn't always mean violence. It can mean just telling them to go fuck themselves/attacking them verbally. It can even be more effective a lot of the time. Jumping straight to violence isn't usually a good idea, either, however... knowing how to defend yourself physically is usually useful when you insult them back.

B) I realize it's not perfect. Nothing is. There's always going to be exceptions.

C) You getting in trouble for defending yourself is exactly why I said the way our society is cracking down harder and harder on school yard violence is only helping bullies.

[Kim]

Standing up for yourself doesn't always mean violence.

But it should.

[Nique]

"Bootstraps Funk"

I am so for this I would marry it.

Well, ok, granted, but I don't think I/didn't mean to give the impression that kids need to just pull themselves up. I meant that parents/teachers/whatever should teach them how to, instead of teaching them the worst possible thing to do in a situation.

I hear that. But I think the issue you and Magus are having might highlight another aspect of this problem which is that there is a somewhat fundamental disagreement on how to right a wrong. I'm sure some parents send their kids to school telling them that if someone picks on them they should go run and tell and others telling their kids to stand their ground and throw punches.

Then the school comes in with whatever 'zero tolerance' rules it has about this stuff and suddenly muppet-baby-Krylo is expelled for supposed 'anger' issues b/c he pushed lil'-sweety-Magus in the sand after Magus intentionally stepped on Krylo's toy and both go home with an entirely confusing message.

...

I'm not sure if I'm making sense here.

[Sun-Wukong]

I think we need to bring paddling back, but only for bullies.

Start a fight? That's a paddlin'.

Physical harassment? That's a paddlin'.

Verbal harassment? That's a paddlin'.

Knock their stuff to the floor? A teacher sneaks up on you at some point during the day and knocks your stuff to the floor. With a paddle. /ridiculous part

Basically any punishment for bullying will get you a paddle to the ass. Or worse. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFgR0m-9FmM)

[bluestarultor]

Blues:

A) Standing up for yourself doesn't always mean violence. It can mean just telling them to go fuck themselves/attacking them verbally. It can even be more effective a lot of the time. Jumping straight to violence isn't usually a good idea, either, however... knowing how to defend yourself physically is usually useful when you insult them back.

B) I realize it's not perfect. Nothing is. There's always going to be exceptions.

C) You getting in trouble for defending yourself is exactly why I said the way our society is cracking down harder and harder on school yard violence is only helping bullies.

On A, trust me, I tried that first. I'm not a violent person. It solved all of nothing, just like everything else I did.

Mind you, of some of the worst offenders in the abuse department, three of them ended up in jail for sure and a fourth may have sold out one of the others to avoid it. Apparently, the school I got shuffled into is where they tossed their problem students when they were kicked out of other parts of the district, but I didn't hear about that dirty little secret until I got out of the place.


So in short, I agree on all points.

[Magus]

Basically Krylo's outlook makes perfect sense from his perspective, because he was smaller and being attacked by people bigger than him. From my perspective, it made a lot more sense to avoid physical confrontations because all of my tormentors (who were 99% verbal abusers, something I was not good at doing at the time) were smaller than me and frankly I was afraid I was going to quite literally put them in traction.

The one kid I hated the most was a 1/3 my size (and looking back I know this is why he was a bully, he actually followed around this loner guy about my size like a little dog probably so he'd have somebody to defend him from the bullying he probably received) and if I had taken his little head and pounded it against the wall until his brains fell out, which is what I fantasized about, I am sure I would regret it now. The fact that I wanted to do so to many people and was quite capable of doing it is what terrified me.

In fact every time I lost my temper I regretted it and I feel guilty about it now because one time I pushed one kid who was harassing me and he cracked his head against a window and he literally started crying, which is not something you expect out of a 9th grade "tough guy", and another one I gave a raging headache for a day or more. It still tears me up inside and that is why when Krylo was encouraging physically standing up for yourself I took offense, because in my case it certainly never made anything better and has just led to guilt or embarassment. For someone who is smaller people will probably take their side if they are fighting someone bigger, but every time I physically reacted to bullying, even just to put my hand on someone's face and give them a shove so they fell down, I was made out to be the bad guy by my peers, either because the bully was popular or they were smaller than me. If you didn't react physically it just made you an easy target, if you did people acted like you were a psychopath.

Basically the only path for me was to put up with it or become a bully myself, which is probably how a lot of bullies have gotten started, because it is much easier to make people shut up than it is to sit there and be harassed for 8 hours a day.

And Krylo does have a point about the punishments for fighting, which I didn't want to get and which actually allowed bullies to have freer reign than before in a lot of our schools, because whereas in the past if they said the vile things they did they'd have gotten a punch in the mouth, now there is a stifling effect and they can say whatever they want as long as they are out of earshot of a teacher and you can't do anything about it, especially if you aren't any good at defending yourself verbally.

I just don't think the responsibility can be put on kids to defend themselves verbally because maybe they just aren't any good at it. I wasn't at the time. I applaud Krylo for standing up for his fellow peers who were bullied but I just feel like if everybody had done the same thing instead of ignoring it, including his other classmates and people in the community, it could have been stopped without violence.