New York Times article. Sorry if it’s been posted- I skimmed thread and didnt see it. It seems like the mom made a huge effort to protect her. It’s absolutely tragic.
Juvenile apes encounter challenges interacting with each other in the ape clan. Some don’t survive the experience. When I was in school in the 60s, some of my classmates didn’t live through puberty … suicides, O.D.s, preventable accidents, the result of wildly dangerous behavior.
I see this as a form of “survival of the fittest” … the sad truth: these children who can’t survive growing up because of their upbringing and surroundings won’t pass these traits on to their own children, if indeed there are any traits that could be associated with their unfortunate conditions. Blame the parents, blame the society, blame the internet … this has been going on since we’ve been human (and before that) … some of us just can’t cope.
I have nothing but sympathy for the kids parents, I promise. But I have to wonder in situations like this.
Reading the article, she went to the school and complained, took away her kid’s access to media, etc. At what point did she contact the bullies’ parents? Never? I can’t imagine not going to the parents, and if I’m tossed or on my ear, then the police.
Two things bug me (and this is Monday morning quarterbacking of the worst kind). First, although I’m sure she thought she was doing the right thing, why take away her daughter’s privileges? That’s a clear message that she was in trouble, no matter what her mom told her about it, and clearly a guarantee that she would keep it secret in the future. It won’t foster an attitude of we’re in this together and I got your back,
Second, beyond the specific bullying at the school, why go to the school at all? There’s a former friend of my 17 year old daughter who got pregnant last year. She had the baby, and the day’s mother was showing up at the school when it let out, and was yelling at the friend about how’s she’s a whore, etc. Recently on FB, the friend said she got a letter from the mother accusing her of nasty things and again calling her a whore. Where’s the friend’s mother on this? Similarly, if something on this scale happened to one of my children, there would be no question that I would immediately get involved. Not with the school, but with the parents. And if need be, Momma Bear would be happy to start punching. Why the thought that a school would have the resources or even the right to intervene in a situation that happens off school grounds in this way?
I am all for civilization, but at some point, we’re going to run into situations where the corners have been rounded off too much. Bullying, IMO, is one of them - there’s a lot of terrible bullying that would have been solved long ago by a punch to the face.
“Stand up to the bully-Bullies are just cowards at heart, and his friends will have new-found respect for you!” If you really hate your kids give them advice like this.
Well, that’s how I dealt with it as a kid, but it would probably be better to ignore the bullies, or at worst, apply to the authorities and/ or civil legal remedies in an extreme case. Hitting someone over what they say or write will never end well.
There’s a bit of hyperbole in my statement (particularly for girls, as they don’t hit very much) but it’s more about standing up for yourself instead of casting yourself or your kid as a victim. You’re a “person who’s being bullied” not a “victim of bullying”.
I think there’s a lot of psychological strength to be gained there.
The only thing to be gained by taking a swing at someone who thinks they can easily take you on and who is by accompanied by buddies for backup is a beat-down, and by taking that swing you become the aggressor in the eyes of the school and/or the law.
I agree that standing up for yourself is a reasonable response to a bully, depending on circumstances … I disagree that a victim of threats and libel is not a victim. That person may not be responsible in any way for the bullying, but he/ she technically is a victim, and the courts will work in the favor of the victim, hopefully … denying victim status will help how? The word victim is not deprecating, why split that hair?
I guess I see the word victim as denoting a sense of helplessness. I wouldn’t want my children to see themselves as helpless in the face of bad people or bad situations.
How would granting victim status help? In a psychological sense, I’m asking.
You’re asking a 12 year old kid to “empower herself”? Do you realize that’s an Oprah concept for a mature audience? Children don’t have the perspective or experience to cope with such stressors. Lord of the Flies was published in 1954, and because we’ve had 60 years of pop culture exposure to the pack mentality of kids, we’ve no excuse to pretend we aren’t aware that empathy must be taught and experienced to be incorporated and most children aren’t quite so sophisticated. This child was nothing but a victim, full stop.
The problem seems to be your teaching your children that being a victim is wrong. A person who is shot is a victim. A person who is struck by a car is a victim. A person who is robbed is a victim. The only person who is at fault in each of these situation, the only person to place any blame on, is the victimizer.
Bullies are generally bigger, stronger, and attack in packs. And are likely to respond to a punch with more punches.
Why would you expect a kid to do what an adult isn’t expected to? I’m not expected to handle an assault by thugs on my own; that’s what the cops are for. And it’s rather noticeable how school-style physical bullying suddenly vanishes when the victims are old enough that it gets treated like a crime instead of waved off as not mattering.
Huh?
That’s kind of repugnant. And if there are no traits it doesn’t even make sense.
Maybe the mother didn’t go to the authorities, or even the bullies’ parents, because she was afraid something like THIS would happen to the family?
:eek:
Subsequent stories state that the family received a $185,000 settlement from the school district. Because neither person’s name was revealed, it’s unknown how the boy managed to get away with this; he was the same age she was, and 7th grade is not old enough for athletic ability to give someone a free pass (and it shouldn’t at any age, but we all know that’s not the way it is).
Speaking of which, there was another girl who spent all of 7th, 8th, and 9th grades trying to find a way to get me alone with her so she could kill me. What do I do to her? I was on her team in a gym class softball game, and dropped a pop fly. Really. And as you can guess, I was told that had I not dropped that ball, none of this would have happened to me. :smack:
You’re not maintaining total control, you’re discouraging behaviour that you know is unhealthy in excess. There is absolutely no reason for a child to have constant access to the Internet, I don’t care what year this is.
If schools are requiring children to use the Internet, perhaps they should be rethinking their approach. Somehow, kids were learning just fine without the Internet’s help just a few years ago. I know that schools in my area certainly do not make use of the Internet for children.
The Internet is total anarchy, and apparently some people don’t know that. You wouldn’t let your kid watch HBO, well the Internet is potentially much worse. Hence constant supervision being necessary. End of story. If a kid manages to “sneak” on the Internet, well **** happens. As a parent you need to make it hard for them to access the Internet to limit their exposure to it, that’s the best you can do. Saying “well **** it they’ll access anyway, why bother?” is just a **** attitude to have as a parent.
Where is your area? If it’s anywhere in the first world, that sounds extremely odd.
Well, the phrase “survival of the fittest” as first coined by Herbert Spencer, related to Economics as much as to Natural Selection. I’d say in layman’s terms that the tiny percentage of adolescents who have been raised in an environment that predisposes them to be unable to deal with internet bullying sufficiently to survive the experience are frankly being “selected” out of the gene pool, so to speak. Bullies we will always have with us. Victims also. If the traits inherent in the teen have no bearing on the outcome, and the traits of the parents are determined to be similarly irrelevant, the result remains that the victim is still out of the game. As far as I can see, the repugnant player is the bully, not the observer. Are you saying that my interpretation that the teen who can’t survive bullying will not successfully pass on his or her genetic traits to progeny is in error? Or just that noticing it is in bad taste?
Aside from being in poor taste, I think the fundamental point is that you are assuming that being a victim of bullying is associated with any particular genetic traits. You’re making up an evolutionary psychology-type “just so story” with nothing to base it on but a WAG on your part.
This type of tactic could be used to [del]justify[/del] explain away all kinds of horrific things, and not work on making those situations not happen in the first place, since “it’s just evolution in action” (even if it might not really be evolution at all, since you’re only assuming it’s based on genes, and it might not be).
And she was serious? I mean, if it were me, I might’ve left behind a note (just in case) and deliberately isolated myself with her just to get the harassment over and done with, but then, I can’t imagine someone actually being that psychotic.