That probably exactly what he’s suggesting. I say this because he’s posted it before.
What Mark may mean is that there are sometimes things about children that make them stand out to bullies for some reason. If it is something that they have control over, i.e. non-physical, then perhaps they should change it. It may get them picked on less.
I don’t know if I agree, mostly because in my experience, the vast majority of kids picked on were picked on because of physical reasons.
I certainly plan on teaching my children to fight back if attacked, whithin reason. If you are outnumbered, you should really run the hell away.
Since bullies pick on some people and not others there must be a reason why they’ve chosen their targets. When you’re the one being picked on the reasons behind it become very relevant wouldn’t you say? What I’m saying is that there were plenty of geeks, nerds, or unpopular kids that I saw growing up who weren’t bullied. I don’t know exactly why it happens but I suspect that bullies have a knack finding the weakest members of the herd.
Maybe if someone is being picked on habitually they can change to see that this doesn’t happen. Yes I’m aware that this isn’t a viable solution for everyone. But then I don’t see any single solution that would be applicable to every situation.
I went to school in three different US States and for a few years in Germany. In each school if the teachers heard one student verbally harassing another they’d step in. If they saw a physical altercation they were all over it like white on rice. Not that teachers necessarily saw or heard everything that went on.
When I was being picked on, it was usually after school or when there wasn’t a teacher in the room. I never had a teacher look the other way, that I can remember anyhow.
The phrase “Just ignore them and they will stop” was used at my home. However, my parents specified it was only if I was being verbally bullied. And it worked when I applied it, but it took a long time and effort from my part not to cry. Ignoring them, even though it hurted me, was a way of telling them I didn’t care.
Now, if some of them tried to do something as shoving, pushing, or something other than just yelling to me I was a nerd and ugly, I had my parents approval to kick, scratch, spit, etc. at them. Eventually, they also stopped trying to bullying me, and just left me alone. The only downside? I was later seen as the bully, since I fought back harder than their first movement had been, and had little patience with them.
In either case, when I was picked on I don’t remember telling the teachers, or if I did, they ignored the problem. Don’t remember an adult stepping in.
I got bullied at school, both verbally and physically.
I used humour and doing the bully’s homework to get out of it, because those teachers were useless: “learn to stand up for yourself”.
Now I’m a teacher.
Our School has a policy on bullying: debated, written and agreed by the School Pupil Council.
Here’s how it starts:
‘Every member of the School should be aware that everyone is different and should also respect other people’s views, wishes and habits.
Bullying can arise from a lack of respect for others and can occur in a variety of ways. Whether it is physical, emotional or a lack of respect for other people’s property, bullying will not be tolerated within the School community.’
Needless to say I always step in if I suspect bullying. Stay polite, get both sides of the argument, involve colleagues and parents if necessary.
Bring the whole thing into the light - bullying only works when it’s kept secret.
Be aware the bully may be an unhappy pupil with low self-esteem (or a thoughtless thug).
I have strong feelings towards this subject. I’ll leave out the dramatic angst-spill, and get to my point - homeschool your children if at all possible. I plan to have children, and I will love them enough to spare the pains of the stifling society of elementary and middle school. I lived the better part of my early years either in fear of humiliation or in extreme, mind-numbing hatred of the humiliators. Now that I’m in high school, people have matured, and I’m a respected individual by most, but despite all of that, I’m still timid and extremely quiet. I still am uncomfortable around those who seem to ‘blend in’, because the ones who waged war against me were those who defined the ideal of blending in.
I never developed an effective tactic against bullies - I’ve tried being nice and being equally mean to them; I’ve tried ignoring them completely (even to the point of never responding to them if spoken to by them) - I’ve tried everything. Bullies are as different as the colours of the rainbow, and they have differing degress of success at wearing away at my resolve. I can’t give advice - the game’s a stalemate. Neither side has won, but one side has taken more casualities than the other.
Like I said. A pussy. What good is obeying the rules if they don’t offer any protection?
I know plenty of guys who liked picking on people that were either too small or two timid to fight back. A lot of their friends would join in or egg them on. Usually these guys picked someone who would just cower there and do nothing. 90% of the time, if you punched one of them in the face, they would back off real quick.
I guess I can’t understand how a person could be so much of a wimp that they would just let some guys beat him up. Yeah, if you fight back you’ll probably still lose but least you may get a couple of good shots in. And just maybe in the future those guys might find an easier target instead.
I would be willing to bet those type of people grow up to be the same guys working long hours for little pay, asking how high whenever their boss says jump.
I don’t think I could :rolleyes: enough here. “What good is obeying the rules if they don’t offer any protection?” Who’s to say that rules didn’t offer me any protection? I certainly feel I got off a lot better than many others because like I said before I didn’t play the bullies fucking game.
And that last comment about long hours for little pay is the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life. There’s a big difference between not engaging in physical violence and not asserting yourself. The people who work long hours for little pay are the people who never recognize that and after the glory years are done get stuck in a menial job they can never get out of.
For me the teasing started when I moved to a new town in the middle of first grade. I was the first new kid ever in my class. The whole class had been to kindergarten together. The teachers turned a blind eye to the initial teasing of the new kid and when I tried to defend myself the teacher punished me.
The situation quickly deteriorated. The children learned that though they could hurt me they could get away with it, I would be punished for any retaliation. I found that as they grew bolder any attempt to defend myself was futile. They had enough on their side that they could hold me quite well and no teacher would run to my aid if I screamed. The children would deny doing worse than verbal teasing and since I was the only one that said otherwise, I got a reputation of a liar.
In third grade, they held me down while an older boy that had been held back raped me. The crowd cheered him on. The teacher that I reported it to called me a liar and told me that even my mother would not love me anymore if I told that lie again.
This is the saddest and most vile thing that I have read in a long time. You have my sincere sympathies. Feel free to email me if you still need to vent about it.
Much of what I have read in this thread has cemented my resolve to teach any children I will have to fight and quite possibly to make sure they take karate or some other martial art. Bullies need their @sses kicked and kicked hard. By other kids, by adults, by whomever has the time and inclination.
Per what Ferrous said, I will also teach my children organizational skills so as to rally any of the less fortunate kids together and further beat the crap out of any and all bullies. If I have to, I’ll rally the parents to make life Hell for the parents of bullies.
For reference, my family was one of two in the entire school district that were against the war in Vietnam. I was picked on often enough. I just thank goodness I was born rather tall so that I wasn’t too much of a target of opportunity. Once more with feeling;
I’m certainly going to let my daughter know that she will always have my unconditional support if someone else starts physcial intimidation. She will also be in real hot water if she’s the bully, one starting things or one that stood by and let things happen.
It’s been 15 years since I practiced Kenpo karate, but I’m starting up again. When she’s older, I will start taking my daughter to the kids class. When I tought kids classes a long time ago, every new class or two would have some poor kid who started martial arts to stop the bullying. My heart would go out to those kids. We’d always have a one-on-one chat before they started, where I explained that martial arts was not the easy answer, but if they stuck with it that some time down the road they would project the self-confidence that tends to limit victimization and be able to kick ass if they had to. I feel that encouraging my daughter in the martial arts is pretty high up there on the things I want to pass on to her as she grows up.
This is almost identical to what has happened to my son–if he stands there and takes it, other kids join in. If he fights back, he’s always the one caught by the teacher “hitting other kids.” My son is basically honest, so when asked about it, he admits to hitting them, and when the others are asked, well, they didn’t start anything, it was all D*****'s fault. So now he is labeled ED (emotionally disturbed, or something) and is within a hair’s breadth of being kicked out of school, all for defending himself. I wish I knew what to do-I hate for my kid to get picked on, just to get him in trouble, but when he’s right about something, and is being attacked (sometimes physically) for it, should he turn tail and run, especially when the little bleeders will just lie about it anyway? Or should he stand up to them, and pay the consequences at school? I really wish I knew.
What amazes me is that this issue has slipped completely under the radar of the whole modern obsession with school safety.
[li]If someone takes a gun or a knife, even a pocket knife, within a thousand feet of a school, we panic and pass laws and arrest him.[/li]
[li]If someone carries a bag of marijuana within a mile or two of a school, we panic and pass laws and arrest him.[/li]
[li]If someone looks vaguely like a child molestor, we panic and pass laws and arrest him.[/li]
[li]If a kid beats another kid to a bloody pulp day in, day out, we shrug our shoulders and say “boys will be boys!”[/li]There’s something not quite right here.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by tracer * [li]If a kid beats another kid to a bloody pulp day in, day out, we shrug our shoulders and say “boys will be boys!”[/li][/QUOTE]
More likely “children will be children!”
When I was in High School over a decade ago, fights between girls were far more vicious. Hair would be literally flying and there were always lots of scratches from rings and fingernails that bled profusely.
But for your main point, I guess the people responsible for “school safety” ignore possible violence from children to children in favor of over-reacting to possible violence from adults to children.
After all, they’re just children. They’re harmless.
Unless the children inflict their violence by bringing weapons school. In which case they blame the guns, the knives, the video games, the violence on TV, and the obviously Satanic rock music – but not the children.
I wonder why they even assume that the children can
ignore it. Ignoring a bully is very very difficult. I think it takes more emotional maturity than most kids have to ignore teasing.
Just to piss everyone off, I’ll mention a recent study by a Japanese researcher that found children who constantly played video games to be lacking development in their frontal lobes in the precise area that relates to dealing with other people and events.
So, in other words, extensive video game playing inhibits the ability to constructively interact with other individuals. No, it does not make you more violent, it just makes you deficient in your ability to amicably sustain interpersonal relationships.
Some of the best advice I’ve heard on this subject was from–don’t laugh now!–Dr. Laura. Quite simply, she said that parents should complain to the school if the child is bullied, and state in no uncertain terms that if it ever happens again–even as much as a scratch–that they would sue the school for nickel in the city coffers. This is one of the few good things about our lawsuit crazy society–people will do anything to avoid a lawsuit.
Schools can prevent bullying. It requires extra security measures–more playground monitors, forcing teachers to leave the classrooms at recess and watch the kids instead of sitting at their desks and drinking coffee, but it is doable. Unfortunately, school bureaucracies are lazy and complacent. It’s sad that it takes a threat of a lawsuit to shake that complacency, but sometimes that’s all you’ve got.
On a side note, my junior high and high school were both set up very well to avoid bullying. There were very few hallways (actually none in jr high). The high school bathrooms didn’t have doors, but rather had that snaky look you see in airport bathrooms: you look in through the open doorway and you just see another wall. They were also open at both ends too. Classrooms had large glass panel walls so people inside could clearly see what was happening in the adjacent rooms (and few hallways). Plus a few security guards at high school. I noticed very few bullying problems for anyone in all my years there.