I’m sure it’s possible, but I’ve never met any child who spoke this way.
Heck, I don’t know of many teenagers who are able to speak this way in a public setting under teasing and public attention.
You’re wanting the victim, a child, to react to situations like an adult. Yet the bully…?
And I’m sure the child filmore would have been all “You know, I’ve learned something today…”
Ha! You mean, after he’d laughed himself silly at ‘It’s hard enough to go through life like this’?
At least, isn’t that how most adult bullies deal with being told that their comments hurt/to stop it/not appropriate? ‘Ah, come on, I was just joking? Don’t take it so personally!’
During elementary school classmates picked on me quite a lot: I was overweight, sometimes wore glasses (although just as often I had lost them somewhere), and my legs angled inward to a degree that later required surgery. Most the teachers liked me, but they couldn’t really seem to do anything about the bullying. The part that always seemed odd to me was the anonymity of many of the bullies—one guy in particular was a complete asshole to me every time he saw me—but he wasn’t in any of my classes and I don’t remember ever learning his name (although I suppose I probably did).
Thankfully the bullying was not usually physical. One such occasion does stand out as a turning point—in fifth grade, as I crouched on the floor to pick up a pencil that I had dropped, a boy (a neighbor who went to my church, no less) hit me atop the head hard enough to make me dizzy. I’d simply had enough by that point, so I waved the pencil threateningly in his face; he just goaded me on.
So cut him across the face with it. Somehow I ended up with a mere detention, hah, I’m just glad I didn’t blind him or something. From that point on, when someone made fun of me, I often (for example) stabbed him in the hand with a pencil. Or did something else pencil-related. The bullying waned. By the time I started high school I wasn’t really picked on at all, but I was a fucking mildly sociopathic mess.
Long story short: I really do believe that learning to defend oneself does more to mitigate bullying than anything. I don’t necessarily recommend it.
Oh my Christ, you’re right. Everyone who walks away from a fight is going to get they’re ass kicked immediatly. The bully has more energy? Really? That’s the argument you’re going for?
How about when a student walks away from a physical confrontation and goes to tell any of the numerous adults on campus, who are generally stationed for duty, about what’s happening, it gets taken care of?
That the bully can have a non-contact order issued against them? Or be put on probabtion (if this is an ongoing thing) to be sent to Oppurtunity School or involuntarily transferred to another school?
Fights happen, no one is arguing that. Bullying happens, again no argument. But this fucking attitude of ‘I’ll teach my kid to kick some ass’ is so out of touch with reality it’s amazing.
Have you ever seen kids fight? They usually wrestle or slap at each other until someone shows up and gets it under control. Discipline is handle accordingly, especially if we have it on camera.
Someone mentioned upthread about the difference between the adult and child consequences of fighting and that’s something I think alot of people are missing here. If you teach your kid to use violence, they will use violence.
They are not Kane walking the Earth in Kung-Fu here; they are kids who will get a sense of control/power that they are missing by simply being kids and you can turn a bullied kid into a bully.
People need to stop thinking about this in terms of when you went to school; it’s a different age. There are different rules today and many different procedures that we, as teachers, are fully aware of. That’s what I can not stress enough, if you believe your child is being bullied, GO TO THE TEACHER FIRST. There is a chain of command for a reason and starting with the person who sees them 5 plus hours a day is a great place to start.
I remember being a kid. What you just wrote has no relation to that memory.
Ignore taunters - they become more and more obnoxious until they elicit a response.
Run away from bullies to tell an adult - you become a tattletale snitch and someone to target for more abuse.
Defend yourself - bullying you becomes less attractive.
Take martial arts classes - you learn when and how to defend yourself.
I remember three bullies in elementary. One stopped when he tried to hassle me on the bus and was rewarded with several stomping kicks. One stopped when he tried to attack me in the gym and I threw him into a locker. Only one actually did lighten up as a result of adult intervention. I’m fairly sure there were more, but certain memories do begin to dim.
Oh my god, it’s like you didn’t even read the fucking OP. Here, let me refresh your memory.
Yeah, telling the people running the school worked great! Solved that problem perfectly! You’re a fucking genius. We should listen to you about everything.
Actually, it always worked for me. I ignored the people trying to get a rise out of me, which was most of them at one point or another, and they really literally did get bored and move on…usually to the kid who would react immediately, or the one who would *try *to ignore it but not stick it out long enough and end up reacting, for which they were rewarded with escalating attention of the negative sort.
I mean, I know my one anecdote doesn’t mean jack shit in the debate, but if so many people are sharing that their Mad Kung Fu Skillz made the bullies stop, I figure I should add that my Ignore the Asshats strategy made the bullies stop, too - without my risking suspension or expulsion or personal safety.
I won’t claim it will work for every kid in every situation, but to say it won’t ever work isn’t accurate, either.
Absolutely, no argument there. Conversely, claiming that violence begets violence and defending yourself only escalates the problem is also not accurate.
Ok. One last time. And I’ll speak very slowly for you.
Taking it to the Principal, as the OP mentioned: IS NOT THE CORRECT COURSE OF ACTION. How the fuck are you missing that in what I’ve posted? Going right to the principal, who probably doesn’t even know who either of the kids are on a personal level, or at all, will accomplish nothing. That’s a goddam fact and this situation is my fucking cite.
I realize the OP’s kid had been bullied for years and that’s a shitty thing to handle. Especially when it’s an extended period of time, but you have to follow the chain of command in this if you expect anything to be done.
Is that clear yet? Or is your arrogance on this still blinding you’re common fucking sense?
Is your arrogance still blinding your ability to use the correct homophone for the situation? Sources say: yes.
Win.
The approach that teaches kids how to handle taunts and solve social problems on their own is best, in my opinion. There are so many problems with adults trying to police, judge, and render punishment it just doesn’t make any sense.
How exactly? Am I confusing the use of ‘bully’ here? PPlease, use your Magic 8-Ball of Insults to correct my linguistic ineptitude.
It sounds like you’re one of the exceptional teachers like in the story I quoted. I clearly stated that there are some (rare) teachers like you. If most teachers were like you (they’re not), bullying would not be endemic (it is). QED.
I agree that that it would be a great thing if all teachers were like DiosaBellissima, but they are not. I dont think its even a teachers responsibility to handle shit that is the parents responsibility in the first place. This is a family issue period. Education is supposed to do just that. The fucked up society in which we live is what has, unfairly involved primary and secondary educators in policing the behaviors of our kids.
You used “you’re” instead of “your”. Forget about it*. Seems like Shots From Guns is providing us with a real time bullying; whether it’s an example to illustrate his point or he’s just being contrary I leave as an exercise for the reader.
*Or take martial arts lessons and beat him up after class. Your choice. 
Shit, I committed the number one sin of the Dope.
I apologize not only to Guns, but to all of you reading the above material for my egregious offense.
1.) I’m sick of pointing out to this idiot why he’s wrong, so I decided it would probably piss him off more to just mock his grammar.
2.) Mocking someone in the Pit for saying stupid things isn’t being a bully.
3.) I’m not a “he.”
Oh my aching balls.
You haven’t pointed out jack shit yet, other than attempting to make your opinions fact. My entire point to the OP is that the way he handled the issue of bullying with his child was not done in the best way possible.
That by going directly to the Principal, a person that is generally out of the loop in matters on this scale, was not the best option.
I still do not understand how someone of your obvious intelligence and grammatical mastery, could not understand such a simple point from a lowly man such as myself.
My point is that you’re claiming that (a) violence inevitably escalates to ridiculous levels, (b) walking away causes bullying to magically stop, and © talking to people in authority fixes the problem (but apparently only if you talk to the right people in authority, because the people over their heads not only can’t do anything about it, but are too retarded to direct you to the people you should have talked to in the first place, even though they totally exist and would have been able to stop the bullying).
While there are no doubt situations where one or all of these assertions are accurate, they’re not anything remotely approaching universal truths.