If my kid came home with bruises, it is time to involve the Police.
Pressing assault charges against the shit stains will get their fucking attention.
They’ve already done that (and are less likely to do it again if he fights back). And if they pin all the blame on him, so what? That’s preferable to being bullied.
Since when is self-defense something to mock?
Well, yes. That’s entirely possible. Moreover, absolutely nobody in the school’s administration will care that it was self-defense, since it takes two to fight and figuring things out is hard. On the other hand, those problems are easier to deal with if your parents are on your side than the problems that come from just taking it for years and years.
I was actually advised that if you take out the leader, the followers will skulk away. Not sure I’d want to test that theory but it would sure be tempting.
My daughter is being picked on at her school on a daily basis. Not physically, just a lot of niggly button pushing, teasing about her weight (she’s only -><- this much overweight), “let’s she how mad we can make her” kind of stuff. For a twelve year old girl that’s nearly has bad as getting stuffed in a locker. At a time when you just want to get through the day, a group a boys decide they want to make your day as annoying and uncomfortable as possible. And because she prides herself on being different, not being a sheep, the girls don’t back her up at all…not even her twin sister for that matter.
Her teacher told me she didn’t intervene because it looked like she was handling it (she’s 12…she’s not handling anything!) but then all passive-aggressively writes in her final report about how argumentative she is. Well yeah if someone was poking their finger in my belly every day I’d be a cranky bitch too!
The school claims they have zero tolerance for bullying but the reality is they have endless PSE classes about behaviour and address the issue in a group situation without taking specific kids to task for specific behaviour. The teacher got an earful from me at the last parent teacher conference and hey if my kid decides one of these boys needs a shot to the nose to get him out of her face, I’d have a hard time faulting her for that.
The truth is that most administrators talk a good game when it comes to bullying, but in reality don’t really give a shit. The anti-bullying screeds they deliver, like so much else that comes out of their mouths, are little more than empty words designed to make it look like they’re addressing the problem.
And teachers aren’t really much better when it comes to dealing with bullies. Frankly, they just don’t see it as a part of their job. And in a way I can’t really blame them. Judging from what my sister, who teaches elementary school, tells me, they have enough their plates dealing with little shits who may not necessarily be bullies, but are very good at disrupting class and causing headaches. Why involve yourself in more problems, and potentially bring more drama upon yourself, when you don’t have to? I’m not saying that mindset is right, that’s just the way most teachers look at it.
Thus, unless an honest-to-goodness beatdown that they can’t plausibly ignore happens, they’re content to do two things - jack and shit. And jack is usually nowhere to be found.
Ah, example #1 of Terrible Management. Addressing problems in groups never solves anything. Never. You need to address specific problems with the specific people causing them. I can’t decide if it’s worse if the school administrators are just lazy or really so retarded that they think this shit works.
Sometimes it works very well. sometimes it’s counterproductive. It all depends on the prevalent mentality in the current hyena flock, and it’s very hard to tell when hitting back is a good thing without actually trying it out. And if it fails… Well, tough luck.
That’s the classic tactic, especially if the bastards have been spotted once. Keep the conflict level so low that any retaliation would seem like a blatant overreaction, but keep it steady. Works like charm every fucking time. The bastards aren’t stupid when it comes to “how to bully in the most cost-efficient way”.
Ay-men, brother!
I beg to differ. In reality, they just don’t have the balls to really face up and reckognize the problem for what it really is. Let’s just pretend that everybody’s really, really nice people, close your eyes and presto! Can’t see the problem.
It’s not indifference, it’s denial. But that really doesn’t matter for the child. The result is the same.
I don’t doubt at all that a lot of them simply lack the balls, or for that matter the desire to tackle the problem.
But for a lot of administrators, it’s a low priority. They have a lot of other issues to deal with - budgets, test scores, personnel matters as well as all the workaday details involved in running a school - and bullying unfortunately tends to fall through the cracks. I’m sure that a lot of administrators are perfectly content to let it fall through the cracks, all the while giving lip service to addressing the problem.
I’m not sure they don’t give a shit…I’m just not sure they know what else to do. They themselves, if they’re in their 30s and 40s, were raised in the namby pamby feel good self-esteem lovin’ mores of the 70’s, not to mention the last couple of decades of avoidance and passive-aggressiveness.
I mean, how many times on this board to we see people looking for advice on disputes with neighbors, landlords, roommates or coworkers, and the overwhelming majority of replies are “call the cops”, “call HR” or “move”? People are scared to act directly to resolve conflicts for fear of personal safety, fear of being sued, or fear of not being liked. So they avoid the issue and never learn how to do it effectively (since, like all social interaction, it requires practice to get it right.) And if you can’t do it yourself, can’t demonstrate the process so the students can learn from observation, then how do you teach it? You try to get your message across intellectually, in very artificial ways like lecture, role playing and songs.
As for using group teaching instead of individual intervention, it happens in workplaces all the time. Sally leaves her molding leftovers in the fridge for weeks. Everyone knows it’s Sally’s junk cluttering up the fridge, but does anyone talk to Sally? No. Instead, they put a note on the fridge addressed to “All Employees”, or it’s brought up at a company meeting that “there’s been a problem with employees leaving things in the fridge” or an email is circulated to all employees with instructions to name and date everything that goes into the fridge.
It’s not just school administrators who are afraid (physically, legally or ego-relatedly) to address misbehavior directly with the offenders and instead address their interventions to the whole group, it happens to all of us, everyday. Of course, when it happens in a school, it affects kids who have absolutely no tools or knowledge of how to handle conflict one on one, and that adds another layer of suck. But I don’t think it’s a problem exclusive to schools.
I can certainly empathize with you on this, no kid deserves to be bullied. I teach middle school and bullying, this year at least, has risen.
You must follow the chain of command on this if you want anything constructive to be done, going to the Principal will not help matters, unless you are in an exceptionally small school. Go to the teacher, who should go to the counselor if the matter can not be resolved in the room. Open dialouge between you and the teacher is also a must.
If you run to the top right away, I hate to say it, but many people may see it as overreacting or becoming one of ‘those’ parents. I know how that sounds, but it’s the truth.
I have a 5 year old myself and he had a few issues at the start of this year. It killed me and I wanted to go fuck somebody’s cabbage patch up too; but that does nothing. Keep as clear a head as you can and work with the system.
It’s not that we don’t care, I squash all that shit the minute I see it or get wind of it, but it’s in a case of he said/she said, I have to tread lightly.
One final note, in regards to defending yourself or hitting back, at least in my district, that will get your child suspended or expelled as well. It’s a policy that is unfair to a lot of people, but it’s necessary and I would definitely check into your local district’s policy regarding punishment for ANY physical confrontations.
I hate to be cynical here, but do you honestly think the police are going to give a flying fuck about one 9 year old hitting another (unless someone winds up in the hospital over it)?
My wife and I are members of our local PTA council (and, BTW, if you want to make a change in your kids’ school, I’d recommend it: most parents don’t care enough to be on one, so simply showing up at most places will get you a seat on the council) and last night my wife went to an anti-bullying task force group. Basically, this is what’s going on. School administrators have to deal with about a million things, most of which affect every single kid in the school. So from a utilitarian standpoint alone, things which don’t effect every kid in the school are going to be subsidiary to subjects like budget, state testing, buses, school maintenance, staff salaries, lunches, etc. etc.
I think the other thing, based on my own experiences as a bullied kid, is simply this: there is no blanket policy that’s going to stop kids from bullying other kids. The root causes of bullying are something that schools just aren’t equipped to handle–nor should they be. Schools really only have one tool to deal with bullies: expulsion. Everything else, the bully can get around. Yes, you can have an “anti-bullying atmosphere”, whatever that is, but schools simply cannot monitor every student 24/7, and even the dumbest bully is going to quickly figure out how to do stuff when nobody’s looking. I’ve heard parents say, “Well, you punish the bully, then it will stop.” One of the kids who bullied me got suspended for 10 days, and on day 11 came right back and acted exactly the same to me. I don’t think any punishment short of prison or expulsion would have stopped him. So either you expel every bully in the school, or you’re going to have bullying.
Truthfully, I’d love to hear what these bullying solutions that “uncaring” administrators are not implementing. It seems to me that the bullier-bullied mentality is endemic to kids in general, and short of assigning someone to monitor every conversation, physical action, or minute with every student, I haven’t heard a good solution. And, believe me, as a parent and advisor to our school district, I want to hear one.
One of my favorite memories of childhood was when a father of a bullied boy went to the father of the bullying boy to talk things out. The story went that the bullying boys parent took the above attitude…so the bullied boys father preceeded to beat the shit out of the bullying boys father.
I knew both the boys involved and the bullied boys father was ‘away’ for awhile and the bullied boys father looked pretty beat up for a few weeks.
It was fond memories because the bullying boy was an asshole. Guess what…he grew up to be an asshole to.
How is it “necessary” to punish a child who is defending themselve physically from an attack? For adults, we absolutely recognize that “self defense” is a legitimate motivation for violence against another person–why are kids exempt from this?
This is why when a kid fights back, they should do it in a very public place, and go cat-dropped-in-a-bathtub-crazy when they do so. E.g. cafeteria, recess, classroom, crowded hallway. The short-term reprimands for doing so are far outweighed by the benefit of showing that you are not a victim. You don’t have to, and probably won’t, “win” the fight, but you will no longer be seen as an easy victim.
Me: 4th grade after 2 years of hardcore bullying, at recess I rabbit-punched the bully from behind and screamed like a maniac while wailing on him with a tether-ball. When he crawled out of tether ball range I chased him throwing handfulls of barkdust, tackled him, and was chewing on his belly when I was eventually dragged off.
Sure, I got in trouble (suspended for a week) but the documented complaints and bullying history prior made it only an administrative slap on the wrist.
This could be my story, except it wasn’t so much crazy as the fact that I’d hit my growth spurt early and demolished the kid. One-punch knockout, then kicked him to roll into a mud puddle.
The best part–I got in no trouble. The bully couldn’t afford the loss of face that admitting getting beat would have entailed, no teachers saw it, and no one believed that sweet innocent #1 in the class nerd boy went all Tyson vs. Douglas on that Haag kid.
Speaking as a bullied kid: My teachers never gave a shit about helping me. I had to fight for myself. I never ended up punching anyone because they’d never actually hit me. Well, there was the rock throwing incident but I never identified who the thrower was. That didn’t matter, though, because I still felt like school was hell. I still feared going there every day and I loved coming home. There were suicidal thoughts at the time and emotional scars that lasted for years. I just wish someone had reached out and helped me.
Speaking as an educator: It’s damn near impossible to stop it. Kids will tell me that so-and-so is picking on them or that they’re saying mean things, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. I can’t really punish the kid because I didn’t see it, and they’ve always got a different version of the story where they’re the innocent one. So I’m just left with my suspicions and I vaguely tell them to knock it off. Now what happens when a pattern develops, where one kid starts to seem more and more like a victim and the other kid is more and more like a bully? Well, again, there’s only so much I can do. I can keep the kids separated, but that’s not possible 100% of the time. I can ramp up the punishment for the bully, but that’s not always going to deter them anyway. I can get the parents involved, but I can’t force them to do anything about it, especially when there isn’t a concrete I-saw-it-with-my-own-eyes event I can point to.
In conclusion, I know it sucks for the victim because I’ve been there, first hand. And I’m sure that somewhere out there, there’s a teacher that really doesn’t care and just wants the problem to go away. But for the most part, that’s not the case. Bullying is just hard to combat. Even though I’m the teacher, I can’t mind-control the kids and I’m not omniscient. A teacher stopping bullying is like the US stopping terrorism; all the power in the world only gets you so far.
Sounds familar. I was bullyed 7th - 8th grade (but not in the first six grades strangely enough) until I finally snapped. Weirdly enough it was by a guy that had never bullied me before and I thought of as a decent guy.
I went so apeshit I put him in the hospital, was nearly institutionalized and was forced to see a shrink for 3 years.
The bullying (except for one noteable exception in high school) stopped permanently. I was then ‘that crazy kid you better not mess with’…which was fine by me.
2square4u, how would you like situation to be handled?