How bad is the life of US middle and highschool children ?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Unfortunately for some kids there is no support at home or at school for them when they are bullied.

I remember distinctly being chased home from elementary school on a day my mother was home from work. When I rushed sweaty and crying towards her (she was sitting on the porch waiting for me) she told me I was a baby and sent me to my room.

My father wasn’t so kind. The one day I went to him for help he spanked me for being a baby, diapered me (I was 8 or 9) and invited all the kids in to laugh at me.

The schools weren’t any more supportive. I went to school obviously stoned one day (high school) and it was because my father had given me drugs (made me easier to molest) and the school called him and sent me home.

They also had one of those ‘punish everyone’ policies for bullying and fighting and stuff so if you did take it into your own hands or if you complained that someone was bullying you and the bully said you were lying you got suspended too. I was hoping to go to college one day so all F’s in citizenship wasn’t on my list of things to leave highschool with.

I know my experiences were not typical but this is what I went through.

22

I was just thinking about this subject today. I ran into a friend whose son committed suicide by walking in front of a moving train. This is the FOURTH time someone I know has had to endure this pain. I didn’t see any of these kids as being geeky or bullied. I have to wonder what happened that made life so unbearable for these four boys (all were in their early 20s). It’s a tragedy I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around. Is it pressure to succeed? Fear of disappointing their parents? A sudden realization of the pointlessness of life? I have no idea. But there is definitely something wrong if it is happening with such frequency.

23

I got made fun of in high school for being different. Different meaning I wore Doc Martens and liked the Cure.

These two dumbasses used to follow me around in the halls to make fun of me. I hated every day of high school. I never got beat up or threatened, but it was still very difficult to be ridiculed. Once someone spraypainted obscenities all over my locker.

I never had a date from my actual school. I was relatively popular with some kids from a neighboring town, but the guys in my school didn’t want to date a “freak.”

Funny, after the 10 year reunion, several of these very guys tried to ask me out. Haha. The joke was definitely on them.

24

Junior high/middle school was hellish for me. I could relate totally with the kids who come to school with guns. High school came and most of the problems went away. All of them, even, except I was still so paranoid that I had a chip on my shoulder and missed out on what look like could have been good friendships and relationships with hot classmates.

My college daughter and I try to tell my middle school daughters this and they don’t believe us. They think this will last forever.

25

And has this always been true throughout your 18 years of teaching? I can pretty well remember the shift in attitude that first popped up in remote places and then began to move through society that bullying was the bully’s problem, (and the administration’s responsibility), and not the victim’s. I am very glad that more schools address the issue, now, (some still don’t), but that was not the typical response by school administrations 40 years ago or, I would guess, even 20 years ago.
Regarding the OP, itself, I suspect (purely based on anecdotal observation) that the Straight Dope attracts a higher than average percent of the sort of former geeky kids who would have been picked on. I was usually the second kid from the bottom of the pecking order throughout elementary school and was on the lower rungs of “tolerated” guys in high school. I would agree with the general observation of Muldoon’s Squishiness and Scumpup that certain bad events tend to magnify themselves in our memories, but I also suspect that more Dopers encountered those events than the general public.
(Neither a general tendency for our memories to enlarge negative events nor a greater number of Dopers having encountered smaller negative events should distract from the very real situation that people such as iampunha have encountered. I knew at least two kids as I was growing up who were truly reviled and mistreated. The abuse was both verbal and physical (with a great many “pranks” added to the tally). However, from my perch near the bottom of school society, I could see pretty clearly that most kids were not subjected to that sort of harrassment and that even I, who suffered a sort of daily low-grade contempt for from eight to ten years, was rather rarely abused.)

26

terrible. i was shy (ie, different) so i was a target. so were the fat, the skinny, the tall, the short, etc. like people keep saying anyone different is a target.

it also demoralizing to see women chase after the biggest assholes just becauae they were popular.

when i went to school, there were no resources for bullying. once in a while the teacher would encourage bullying, aside from that they mainly just ignored it. Except in elementary, it wasn’t tolerated there.

27

Junior high was horrible. I was terribly shy and sort of a social misfit. A late bloomer, I guess. Everyone else was interested in dating and the newest music and dressed in very specific ways, and none of those really interested me at age 12 or 13. I wish I could say that I didn’t care, but of course I did. I was never physically harmed, but I was certainly verbally harrassed for those years.

High school was much, much, MUCH better. I had good friends. I had my interests (I was really heavy into the music program and I played tennis). I was able to overcome my shyness and if someone pissed me off, I’d tell them to fuck off.

This reminds me, the little thing about “ignore them, they’ll go away”? Lie, lie, lie. Not that I’m advocating violence, but teach your kids to stand up for themselves.

28

In elementary school I can remember coming home with bruises where one of the boys would pinch me during class (he sat behind me). I was fat, I deserved it.

Middle school was the only time I ever considered suicide, albeit briefly. I’ll never forget that day, December 1991. Half of my 8th grade class (and quite a few of the 7th graders) got together and wrote me a letter about how they all hated me, not even God loved me (I am STILL unlearning this one), I was fat, I sucked, etc. About 50 people signed the letter. It was one of the few times I ever ended up crying, I had to leave the room.

In high school I was generally ignored by the girls and openly mocked, daily, by the boys. Anything I said in class was sure to be twisted around, laughed at, or repeated in a weird voice accompanied by rolling eyes.

The teachers didn’t really do anything. What could they do? These were affluent kids whose parents had roots in the county 100 years deep. I had no father in my life, I was being raised by my mother and grandmother and we were poor.

The “ignore them and they’ll go away” thing IS bullshit. Looking back I should have hauled off and knocked the shit out of one of those boys, but of course I would have been the one punished, not them.

It’s been over 10 years and I can still remember some of the words they said like yesterday. Words may be spoken in just a split second but their echoes can go on for decades.

I’d better shut up, I’m getting angry.

29

Well, I was somewhat harrased by others during middle school and into the beginning of high school, due to my general geekiness, and the fact that no one at the school had a similar interest as I. But in 9th grade I started wearing a black trenchcoat, and started muttering stuff all the time, and from there on people just seemed to leave me alone.

30

Seems there are an awful lot of bad memories here… I wonder if this kind of thing still goes on ? Anyone with kids here ?

As for myself the OP… I was just pretty geeky. Didnt fit in to well being foreigner. Hanged around other geeks. Still didnt feel too good.

As for standing up to others… its hard. Takes a bit of losing shyness with a bit of self esteem. Not much of any… just enough to be able to figure out that life is so much more than what others think of you.

31

Sure. People did not suddenly get enlightenment in the lst few years and kids are still bsically enophobic, advanced apes without the veneer of imposed adult values of etiquette.

Final reports seemed to indicate that Harris and Klebold were driven by their own personal demons, not by actual tormenting by their schoolmates, but as soon as the Columbine shootings happened, the incidence of violence against “Goths” jumped–often eacerbated by the actions of various school administrations.

My son is a bit odd and he is constantly being forcibly excluded by schoolmates. He has not been subjected to direct harrassment (his school is one that has implemented an anti-bully policy), but he is still the object of snickered comments during class and catcalls on hs way to the bus.

32

Let’s see . . .

When I was in sixth grade, I had rocks thrown at me, was pushed down a flight of concrete stairs, tripped twice - once skinning both knees - and pretty much driven into a bout of depression that lasted several months.

Seventh grade was better, because I made friends with an adventurous, strong willed girl, and by association got off a little easier. Eighth grade was worse for most of the year, but finally on one occasion when I broke down crying after being tormented by another girl, my friends took me to the counselor, who with the help of the band director, so thoroughly ripped up my tormentor that she never even looked at me again.

Of course, that’s not counting all the verbal and social abuse I took - being called names, having girls purposefully exclude me, kids that refused to sit by me or talk to me, others that made up stories about me and passed them around. That was as bad as the physical abuse.

I have too many friends and acquaintances who have gone through the same or worse abuse than I did. I lucked out because there was someone - finally - who listened and cared and did something about it. Before that, the vice principal who I went to when I was pushed down the stairs looked more annoyed at me than anything else, and the PE coaches who were there when I was tripped (once flipping over, hitting the wall, and having the breath knocked out of me, and the second time skinning both knees) couldn’t be bothered.

Bullying is endemic in our schools. I’m convinced it’s a result of psychological development and social role-playing without enough adult supervision and guidance - a kind of mini-Lord of the Flies. Kids get away with it because they can. And while most of them grow out of it and feel appropriately ashamed of their behavior, it doesn’t alter the damage that’s done one whit.

As a teacher, I do my very best to squash each and every incident of bullying I witness, but I know that a lot sneaks under my radar. Sometimes, I don’t even realize what was said until several minutes have passed, which makes it very difficult to nail the bully.

I am lucky to work in a school system where I am completely supported by my principal and superintendent, and most of my colleagues believe the same that I do.

Scumpup, please take a second look at your kids. Just because you don’t see the bullying happen right before your eyes, and just because your kids don’t come to you crying about being bullied, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Your attitude that individual experiences don’t add up to a problem and that most people have exaggerated their experiences is exactly the same attitude that lead me to believe no adult would help me. You aren’t much different from the vice principal who gave me a hard time when I wanted to see the school nurse after having been shoved down a ten foot flight of concrete stairs. You didn’t see it, I probably exaggerated it, so it’s not that bad.

33

last and xenophobic

34

No history which I am familiar. I took serious offense and exception to the notion that what i have posted about so many times on this MB, what I have written about in many other places and what I have talked about countless times … was all exaggeration.

I do not contend that my experiences as a teenager is representative of a plurality or majority of teenagers. I do contend that it incorrect to say that I exaggerate when I talk about being suicidal.

I don’t need to. The truth is damning enough for anyone. There is no need to make things up about how my life has been because all I have to do is recount experiences I’ve had to show how awful life can be for a teenager. Exaggerating about my experiences being bullied are not only wholly unnecessary but an insult to those who have suffered as I did (or worse than I did).

I am somewhat curious as to if Muldoon’s Squishiness believes that former (or current) victims themselves are guilty of this exaggeration. As a non-teenager I do not, to my knowledge, exaggerate the experiences I had nor those of others of which I am aware. As I said before, the evidence is damning enough without exaggerating.

35

7th and 8th grades were pretty bad for me. As was 6th. In all three cases, I had to beat the snot out of–or similarly injure–one of my tormentors for it to stop. It stopped in 8th grade when I dropped one of the bastards head first on to the asphalt. He didn’t much care for that. High school was alright, but 7th and 8th grades really messed me up.

And today, I’d probably have been suspended for fighting and monitored for being weird, wearing black, etc.

36

I have to admit, school was great for me. It wasn’t so good for my younger brother.

I, apparently, was one of those people who everyone knew and thought was cool. People would walk by me in the hallways and say, “Hi, David!”, and I’d look at them and say hi and wonder who the hell they were. I hung with various cliques depending on my mood for the day, and was welcomed in all of them. Hell, I even hung out with some of the teachers and administrators in high school…

I thought it was normal, it took my brother telling me about how I was perceived that informed me that it wasn’t.

One story that amazed some classmates when it happened went like this…

I was walking in the front hallway during lunch. The principal saw me and yelled, “YOU!! Get out of my school!!”. He grabbed me by the collar and took me out the front door and said, “Now stay out!!”. Other students stopped where they were to watch.

I promptly walked right back in to the school, grabbed him by the collar and deposited him outside, telling him to stay out. Other students were just standing there dumbfounded. Finally I started to laugh, then the principal started to laugh, then he walked back into the front door, clapped me on the back and walked away, humming. My principal was strange, but cool.

37

I see that he is gone now, so we may never know. I think what he without clarification said can be interpreted two different ways. I didn’t read him as saying that individual victims were exaggerating their experiences. I read him as saying that the overall secondary school experience was not the bully-or-be-bullied war zone, or the be-popular-or die Heatheresque situation, that some make it out to be.

38

It was pretty horrible for me, but I moved from the place I had lived since I was 4 when I was almost 12 and my sister was murdered some months afterwards, and I was probably more of a social outcast than your typical teen because of that.

39

First, since you don’t know me nor have you observed me at work, you don’t know whether I’m like your old vice-principal or not. I’ll thank you to refrain from further baseless comparisons.
Secondly, I am deeply involved with my students and their parents. I know many of them personally and have been at this long enough that I am now teaching children of previous students. I live in the community in which I teach and I am part of it. I think I know better than you do what is going on here.
Thirdly, I am sorry that you were the victim of bullying. However, that doesn’t make you an expert on the subject. All you can tell us about is your personal experience. Your experiences were apparently bad enough that they still remain a central facet of your personality, but however badly you were traumatized, your personal experience does not equal epidemic bullying throughout the educational system.
I suggest that you seek some professional counseling to get over your personal issues, then if you are still convinced that there is a widespread problem you should become an educational administrator (or run for school board) where you will then be in a position to do something about it.

40

I think we have a few different types of school systems represented too.

Scumpup talks of being in his position long enough to have taught the children of former students. He is active in his community and lives where he teaches. I get the feeling his town is smaller and his school system better taken care of by the town.

Where I went to school many of the teachers were laid off at the end of the school year and didn’t know if they would have a job the next year until school started. Paper was rationed two sheets per kid for assignments or tests. Most of the supplies were broken or shared between 4 or 5 kids.

We had to have assemblies to address issues like gangs from rival cities coming to invade the school and do various things. More than once I got to school and was turned away at the gate because there were bomb threats. One day I went to the bathroom during class only to run into the police who were looking for a child loose in the school with a gun. The kid in the locker next to mine in high school had a gun and drugs hanging in his locker. We had a very well publicised at the time hazing incident where the hazed children were supposedly forced to eat pubic hair.

Classes were very large, supplies scarce, and teachers did not get a lot of support from administrators or parents. If the teachers disciplined the children then parents would complain about why their kid was being singled out by the teacher. Detention was a joke since it was virtually unenforceable as parents could mandate that their kid could not be kept after school.

I have a kidney disease I have had since I was a small child. I had my doctors write all my teachers a notice because I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom to pee since they considered me a chronic time waster. (I asked to go to the bathroom too frequently so I must be goofing off) Even with the notes they insisted I was making things up. Even after I had a biopsy done and was mandated not to have to carry my books for 2 weeks (again with doctor notes) not one of my teachers would let me leave class the 5 minutes early or send someone to carry books for me… no crutches obviously no need for help. Instead I did it all myself and the pain was unbelievable! They just belittled my tears. Telling my parents wasn’t really an option as my father didn’t obey the doctor notes either and my second day home from the hospital was spent doing the laundry that accumulated during my week long stay. (up and down basement steps all day)