What Can Be Done About Bullying in Schools?

Great Debates
1

Since I don’t want to hijack this thread on zero tolerance policies, I thought I’d make this a separate question. What can we/society/anyone do about bullying in schools?

Like some others on this board, I was an extreme case. Back in kindergarten, I befriended a girl who lived in my neighborhood who had handicaps. Since my hometown wanted to be Lake Woebegone back then, and still does, this was a bad idea. We were picked on, teased, and occaisionally beat up throughout our careers. As the stronger of the two of us, I was my friends protector and defender until the summer before 11th grade when I was told she had a “nervous breakdown.” I was 14 at the time, and went through 2 more years of, quite literally being unable to walk down a hallway without being insulted. When I confessed in class to a suicide attempt, not only was nothing done, the ridicule increased and someone pulled a knife on me while I was waiting for one of the few friends I had. I was 14, short, and female, although I was pretty tough by that point. In high school, I ate lunch standing up on more than one occaision because no one would let me sit next to them. I rode the bus home standing up, even though in both cases there were empty seats, for the same reason.

I know people who go to that school still, and the bullying persists, as agentfroot will verify. As for me, I present a reasonably normal appearance to the outside world, but I have suffered from severe clinical depression and guilt for not being able to help my friend. I also do not expect people to like me at first meeting, and a direct insult would not be unexpected. It’s what I was conditioned to.

Teasing is not always mild, routine, or part of growing up. It is, as far as I’m concerned, a health hazard. I still go to church in my home town and am involved with the kids there. I can reach them and let them know that bullying is not acceptable, but is that enough? My best friend got bullied in church, and some of the nastiest kids in school went to the “popular” church (yes, there was one), and were members in good standing of their church youth group. I suspect the answer has to come from within society, but I’d like to hear other people’s ideas.

After a couple of years of lurking, I’ve become convinced that some of the finest minds in the world hang out on this board. This is a big problem, but I’m sure you can come up with some good ideas.

Thanks,
CJ
“We could be standing at the top of the world
Instead of sinkin’ further down in the mud.”

2

**

I think the problem really needs to be attacked from three different angles. To start with teachers and administrators need to pay closer attention to what goes on at school. I do appreciate that it can be difficult seeing as how there are so many students and teachers cannot hear everything that is said.

The parents of kids who bully need to get involved. Ultimately their behavior will not change unless their parents get involved for the better. This can be difficult to acomplish though. What if bullying is the standard behavior of the family? The bully might have some emotional problems.
The parents of the kids who are bullied need to get involved. Involved with the school, the parents of the bully, and involved with their own child. And finally, this may prove to be unpopular, the parents of the bullied need to take a serious look at why their child is being singled out. And maybe they need to make sure their kid doesn’t throw out a “pick on me” vibe. And before anyone jumps on my throat I’m not blaming the victim. There was one guy in high school who I think went out of his way to be picked on. I think it might have been his way to get attention.

It isn’t like there’s really any easy answers. I suspect there will always be those who will prey on the weak.

Marc

3

There should be a Peer Court. Assessments and punishment should be determined by a court composed of classmates of the bully / victim. It has a much stronger effect on the bully to be punished by their own cohort than by adults, and the “Don’t be a tattletale” factor is also largely eliminated. Also, such courts tend to hit a good balance (kids can be very strict with each other, yet are unlikely to impose ridiculous standards such as some of the ‘zero-tolerance’ antics of adults).

4

I had a similar, but less severe, experience growing up and going to public school in my white-trash blue-collar redneck hometown (suburb of Portland).

The problem is endemic to the system, and at least partially part of human nature. In any social group there tends to be an outcast or butt of jokes.

I think the biggest step schools could take would be to teach empathy… children are cruel because they don’t know how to put themselves “in the other person’s shoes”.

In retrospect though, being the kid everyone picked on was at least partially a catch-22 situation. My reaction to being picked on encouraged more of the same. EVERY kid gets picked on a little bit, but the ones that give the bullies what they want (believe the insults) are the ones that get picked on continually. Teaching kids at an early age to expect and understand bullying and better means of reacting to it would help too.

Reminds me of something that happened to me in 5th grade: at lunch time I was experiencing the regular shunning of “dont sit next to me”, and one kid said/did something (I forget what) that got the attention of a passing teacher.

The teacher said “Tad, why do you let them walk all over you like that?”
Me, feeling powerless to do anything, pleaded with her “Why don’t you do something?”
She just got a funny look and walked away without saying anything. Real helpful. :frowning:

5

See http://www.bullybusters.org/home/twd/schools/community.html

I’m not a teacher, but I would try to do something to stop the bullies. Maybe I’d give them more homework. I don’t know because teachers must deal with their administrators. I suspect that maybe bully kids have bully parents. I’ve seen workplace bullies who have harmed employees.

6

School bullies, violence and crime are all related on a sliding scale. School bullying has been quite a problem in my town, so we organized a public forum to talk about ways to minimize this obnoxious behavior. Here are some of the ideas that came up:

a. Get all parents involved - this would solve a lot of the school problems. Unfortunately, the parents who really need to be more involved with their kids are exactly the parents who aren’t to be seen. The State Attorney in Jax FL has started a program that tries to work on the lack of parental interest. Parents of students who are having problems [bullying, high absentee rates etc] are offered services to help solve the kid’s problem. Student and parents sign a contract that says what they need to do to get the kid thru school. They are supposed to get counseling as well. Bottomline: your kid continues to mess up and you, the parent, are arrested. It remains to be seen how effective this method is; Jacksonville has a high rate of high school dropouts, high crime rates among teens. This is a fairly new program and there has been alot of debate about its appropriateness and effectiveness.

b. Teach diversity in all schools. There is legislation in FL designed to highlight student dignity and rights including gays and lesbian teenagers, it probably won’t be passed any time soon.

c. Teach conflict resolution in all schools and establish/utilize peer counselors. It seems that immediate mediation works much better that peer courts.

d. Develop teen leaders and get students involved in how the school is run.

Small pilot projects have shown that b, c and d have a positive impact. Unfortunately, a more comprehensive approach is needed with communications going back and forth b/w families, school, community, and police/justice institutions.

7

I would think the obvious solution is to break a finger every time a bully beats someone up. But given that this is unlikely, the first thing to do is increase supervision. Everybody knows kids get bullied at recess, during lunch, and immediately after school. But there are relatively few teachers watching because at these times they’re in their offices grading papers or taking mental health breaks. And I don’t begrudge them. But if there were more adults available, there would be less opportunity for bullying. I don’t think it’s a matter of rearranging the finite schedules of the teachers and staff that exist – schools need to increase staff and make this of prime importance. But as long as we foolishly encourage kids not to "tattle,"which is my experience was an instruction given to us kids by teachers who were too busy or lazy to deal, then children are not going to report abuses, and it’s up to the adults to catch bullies, not wait for them to be reported.

–Cliffy

8

Definitely true.

In addition, many parents give lame-o, destructive advice. Many will tell their kids “Just ignore them” or “Be a good sport and they’ll leave you alone” when their kids are faced with psychological bullying. What they don’t realize is that such advice can be very damaging to their children, and is tantamount to blaming the victim rather than the tormentor. (I mean, really. How easy is it to “just ignore” one’s tormentor when faced with continuous psychological abuse? Like it or not, the pain is going to show, and that will invite further abuse.)

Both parents and teachers need to be taught how to handle bullies, and they need to understand that bullying should NOT be tolerated. They also need to understand that the bullied child is the VICTIM, and should not be blamed for “inviting” abuse.

9

Truth is in my experience that the bullies have problems of self-esteem and so they hunt for someone to pick on, which makes them feel superior (for awhile).

We did not have a middle school so 8th grade went to high school. All of a sudden there were these kids from other areas that seemed to want to pick on me. I was big for my age and came from the best area. Most of those giving me trouble were in the 9th grade. It was a year of hell. Then the next year, there was no problem. Why. Because all of those guys had dropped out of school. As a kid I didn’t understand economics and I thought everyone just kept going thru the 12th grade. To those kids I represented something that they couldn’t have. Once I realized this it helped the feelings of “why me?”, but I too think bullying should be confronted. I also agree with not teaching kids that it is bad to tell on others.

I went to a college that has such a strong “honor code” that one of the discriptions of the school I found on the net made special mention of it. The code wasn’t just about those who were actively involved in offenses, but anyone with a passive knowledge. If the Dean of Men called you in and asked if you knew who did something, you told and nobody questioned that fact. It wasn’t something you heard about, it was something that happened regularly. My point is that such a code can be set up in a way that people respect it and live by it.

10

Thanks, folks. I’m also trying to do some work within my church, and others within the community are also trying to get involved. Among other things, in a few weeks there’s a Ten Commandments hike coming up and, for “Thou shalt do no murder” (your translation may vary), they are planning on suggesting to the kids that severe teasing is a form of murder. It’s an unusual concept, and I’m not sure how well the kids will bear it, but it’s worth a try.

MGibson, earlier you said:

That is a valid point. I admit that I went out of my way to not conform. In my teenage mind, to conform was to agree that being cruel to my best friend was right. I was openly defiant, to a degree which I regret a little. As I said at the time, I had no time to rebel against my parents – I was busy “rebelling against society.” On the other hand, my best friend did try to conform and did try to fit in. Because of her own problems, including a twisted back which meant she had to wear a back brace, and a rather timorous nature, she couldn’t. She also had a face which would never get her called beautiful, and which did make her the brunt of jokes. Female culture in my school valued physical beauty. She had none, and, as a result, very few people bothered to look beneath the surface.

Violet, thanks for the link. The section about the majority of students who are neither bullies nor bullied is particularly important, I think. Standing up for someone who is being picked on is a risk, but surely getting people to do so must be part of the solution. Besides, if enough do it, maybe the risk will be diminished.

Cliffy
I’m afraid, in my experience, simply having more adults around won’t solve the problem unless those adults are willing to act. Also, it’s been my experience that those who are determined to bully others will wait until there’s no one in authority around.

kniz (always a pleasure to see your name, BTW), I agree that bullies are likely to have self-esteem problems. The problem is, they tend to inflict them on others. At 37, I’m only just starting to realize that I have the right not to be insulted without due cause, and I’m still not entirely comfortable with that concept. An Honor Code sounds like a reasonable concept, if you can get the community behind it.

Realistically, I don’t know how much of this problem can be solved. Some communities are worse than others, and the attitudes which foster bullying appear to be rooted within the community. A few years ago, I worked at a small manufacturing plant in my town and saw similar dynamics among the adults. I was still the weird geek who would speak to and befriend anyone, including people of other races (yes, this was shocking), and I did see other adults get picked on. The problem is, as far as I’ve been able to make out, the socio-economics of my town resemble those of Littletown, Colorado, where the shootings at Columbine take place. I spoke to the school board a few years ago, after the school was sued for failing to protect two junior high school girls from a group of particularly nasty bullies. I haven’t been able to find an on-line cite for this, but it was on 20/20 at the time.

I know I haven’t asked an easy question, but it’s an important one to me. I don’t expect to stop cruelty wholesale, but I’ve been tilting at windmills since gradeschool, and I couldn’t resist this one. I could not save my best friend, but maybe, if enough of us try, if we can get enough momentum, I can save someone else.

Respectfully,
CJ

11

I started at pit thread about this just before the old boards went down, but apparently it is gone now. I’ll keep this post clean.

The best way to deal with bullying is to prevent it from occuring in the first place. Let it be known that bullying is totally unacceptable and there will be severe consequences if it happens. I think this is more important with younger children (elementary level), since social cliques haven’t formed yet and younger kids are usually more impressionable. Teaching them social skills like how to deal with bullies and respond proactively is a good idea, too.

Unfortunately, bullies are a fact of life. Sooner or later they are going to appear and there should be some way to mediate conflicts with them. I like kiffa and AHunter3’s peer counselor suggestion. Give the victim a way out, because they are usually caught in a catch-22 situation where they can’t retaliate or tell a teacher.

Lastly, if there are any victims of bullies reading this right now: Please go get help. I know it seems like you have nowhere to go. (I should know, I’ve been there.) You don’t have to live with this crap any longer. Tell a teacher parent, cop, America’s Most Wanted, anybody. Just handle the situation before it gets out of control.

12

I never really bought into that pacifist no-fighting bullshit your mom always tries to teach you. The truth is that there is nothing wrong with fighting to protect yourself. Liberals always seem to believe that every problem can be talked out. That is obviously not the case. You want to protect your kids from bullies? Teach them not to be, for lack of a better term, a pussy.

Expecting someone to constantly protect your kid is not realistic. There are probably 40 kids for every teacher and they cant watch them all day long. Expecting other kids to come to their rescue is also unrealistic. At some point your kid is going to have to face the big bad world by himself. How’s he going to do that if the only thing he knows is relying on others to protect him.

13

  1. Re-educate any teacher that says or believes that, “If I step in and help you then you will never develop social skills. It is really better for you to figure this out yourself.” When a child is being beaten.

  2. Realize this is not always about individual bullies. I was beaten by many students, most of whom never bullied anyone else. I was the new kid and a teacher gave the speech in my first point. She saw children mistreating me and never stepped in. They learned it was acceptable to beat me and they did every chance they got.

  3. Realize that this is not about self esteem. Most of those who hit me felt damn sure they were better than me. Since they were allowed to beat me they got the message loud and clear that they were better than me. I remember children explaining their behavior to horrified substiture teachers. These children really seemed to believe that I was some how worthy of my beatings and they were better for having give them to me.

  4. End zero tolerance bullshit that means that the victim is punished just as severe as the aggressors. When I got to Junior High several students from my first grade school decided to teach me lessons about being so uppity. Each time I was beaten the school punished me as well. Each of the aggressors got punished just once. Since I was involved in multiple “fights.” I had a much worse record than my aggressors. I was also labeled a bully since I was in fights with more than one person. BTW: they admitted to the administrators that they were the aggressors.

  5. Train teachers, especially in the lowest grades to teach fighting and excluding others is wrong. I went to a school for grades 4-6 where the kids were expected to let everyone play, even if they did not like them. The children were a lot better at working with people they did not like without resorting to violence.

  6. Pay attention to your children. Sometimes telling them to stick up for themselves doesn’t work because there are so many aggressors that some can hold him or her down while the others beat and kick. Sometimes telling them just ignore them and they will go away doesn’t work because they know that if you torture someone enough they will crack, and if they don’t then isn’t it cool that you get to torture someone? Remember parents, it really can be that bad. I was beaten and tortured culminating in rape, and there are those out there with worse experiences than mine.

14

What do you mean, “before” it gets out of control. If someone is in such a a situation, then it’s ALREADY out of control!

Tell us what you mean by “I’ve been there”, because I’d like to know if the solutions you tried actually worked. As an overweight and undermuscled kid who got picked on a lot, my parents’ best advice was to fight back. Unfortunately, whenever I tried that, my punches were worse than ineffectual, as it gave them an excuse to punch me a second time. So I learned to take the punch and move on.

Peer court? Made up of the same geeks who get on the Student Council? Is that going to have any impact on the bullys? How?

Tell a teacher? The kids who picked on me were careful to never get caught, like on the schoolbus home, or in the locker room before and after gym, or before the teacher entered the classroom. I suppose more funding for guards might help somewhat, if we can get the fears of a police state to subside.

I think the only real solution is to find a community where a high percentage of the parents and teachers are truly decent people, and hope the kids follow that example. Any ideas where to find such a place?

15

It’s always struck me that bullying is ignored, and almost endorsed, by the educational system because it serves a function. It’s enforcing conformity.

A homogenous group of kids, all of whom have incentive to behave similarly, has to be easier to deal with than a diverse group of unique individuals, each with their own ideas and means of expression and approaches to learning. In an environment where teachers are expected to instruct and ride herd on classes of twenty or thirty kids, the idea of having a whole class of interesting and unique individuals quickly loses its lustre.

The kids who get picked on are the ones who stand out; who act differently, ask strange questions, dress funny, or use other means to express a unique personality. The bullying serves to get them to conform to the social standards of the pack, to stop standing out, to stop asking questions, and to stop, most importantly, thinking for themselves.

Fitting in becomes a survival tactic. In a way, it’s classic pack behavior; the dominant ones harass the different ones until they conform, and harass the weak or injured until they drop out of the pack.

This is, of course, despicable. It’s primitive, animal behavior in a supposedly advanced and intelligent species, and its net effect is to deprive society of unique and interesting individuals. It destroys lives, both by making people feel like victims forever, and by making people feel like bullies. Neither one is an enviable position.

Additionally, it’s pointless. The model of conformity needed to adapt to a violent high school atmosphere is not generally found outside of high schools. In fact, society in general accepts and encourages uniqueness, and idiosyncracies are the norm, not the exception, as people gain distance from the regimented pack structure of high school. People, we come to learn, are weird. Expecting some degree of normalcy out of everyone, even defining normalcy, is an exercise in futility. And yet, most people’s careers in high school are defined, haunted, by the concept of normalcy, enforced brutally by violent conformists.

I don’t see a solution as long as our idea of education is to herd thousands of kids together into classrooms and shovel knowledge into them in a tribute to industrial processing methods. The factory approach fosters a hatred of education, a repression of curiosity, and a disdain for intellectualism that’s hard to overcome, resulting in a society that is defined and advanced by intellectual pursuit, and yet scorns and mocks those working hardest to implement progress.

In prison, they take prisoners who are at risk of this kind of bullying, and put them in solitary. There were times in high school when I would have done anything to have that option; put me in a room with a bunch of books and a project to complete, and keep the other kids away from me, and I might have actually learned something instead of fearing for my life. Maybe that’s a possible approach to the bullying problem; offer isolation for the pack members who receive the brunt of the bullying.

The other possible solution is to change the nature of education to reflect the change in society. The schools are still working on the industrial model, production-line style education. If we apply some of the rules of the information age, give the kids workstations and projects to complete, and the resources needed to do them, maybe we can get better results.

I believe this problem is caused by the very structure of the educational system, and until that structure is examined and changed to accommodate the unique and different students as well as the conformists, we will continue to see bullying. It seems like a necessary component of the school system.

To finish anecdotally, I know a teenager who was a bully. He was in fights all the time, spent his school days in a struggle to stay on top of the pack and fit in with the cool kids, and strayed into drugs and drinking, even in school. He was expelled, and had to go to a charter school. At the school, each student was expected to sit at a computer, work on assigned project packets at their own pace, and complete their high school education. They weren’t allowed to talk to each other while in school, and any sports or outside ativities were closely supervised.

He loved it. He did well. He told me once that it was great to go to school and just learn, instead of all the messing about that went on at his old school. He wanted to learn, and in the old system, he had to put survival before education. Now, with a strict structure imposed socially, but a very loose structure of course materials, he was learning at a pace even he was amazed at.

Maybe that’s what school should be like.

16

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MGibson *
**
The parents of the kids who are bullied need to get involved. Involved with the school, the parents of the bully, and involved with their own child. And finally, this may prove to be unpopular, the parents of the bullied need to take a serious look at why their child is being singled out. And maybe they need to make sure their kid doesn’t throw out a “pick on me” vibe. **

Unfortunately, I believe this is the wrong idea. While I am sure there are occasionally kids who get picked on simply because they are hostile, I don’t think having a policy of what is essentially blaming the victim (though you say otherwise). I simply say so because I was put in this position, and I was told that the best way to not get picked on was simply to become like everyone else. Not only is this not an option for everyone (it wasn’t for me), it breeds the idea that nonconformity deserves a violent response.

Most kids, I think, are well aware that if they made certain friends, and dressed and looked and talked a certain way, that the bullying would stop. However I don’t think we really want to put parents in a position that they have to examine their child to see if they are causing the behavior. Being bullied is never OK and it should not be treated as such. If the kid has a behavioral problem, then it should be dealt with outside the field of bullying.

I simply can’t trust parents to respond objectively to their children. I know one of my parents blamed me for being picked on because I was overweight, and refused to help me. Unfortunately, I don’t think any plan is realistically going to work in our society that requires every parent to be caring, objective, and involved.

I simply think that the problem needs to be taken more seriously. There is a striking difference between how bullies act as children and as adults. Most adults who are overweight, or who are poor, or otherwise can’t conform are not subject to a herd mentality of “prey on the weak and distract attention from yourself”. I don’t think this sort of predatory behavior is natural – I think it’s simply come about because we’ve refused, as a society, to stop it. Harassment and assault are taken very seriously with adults, yet the same behavior is treated as normal when exhibited among kids. This needs to stop, and I think that that responsibility will (unfortunately) have to be taken on by teachers and schools. I doubt that we will really see an end to this until the educational system and its massive problems are taken seriously. Until then we are likely to continue subjecting our children to the dehumanizing daily frustrations of public schools (unless their parents can afford better).

I strongly believe that bullying needs to be treated along with all of the other problems of education. I know that my experience was bad enough that, were I to have had a choice, I would easily have walked away from my education (though I was smart and academic) in order to avoid ongoing emotional, and sometimes physical, torture. The sad thing is that my experience was far from uncommon. Better educational education, more school involvement, less overcrowding, and more options for kids all cost money, and right now education is not a big priority.

17

Well, as unpopular as my recommendation will be I’m going to give it anyway. Make sure that your child knows that there will be NO repercussions at home if he fights back. I was subject to being picked on on the bus. I had one kid try and push me off the seat one day when the bus was full. I elbowed him in the lip and made his mouth bleed. He hit me back and as I didn’t know that you are supposed to keep your mouth closed tightly when you are in a fight I got a chipped tooth, but I was able to sit there. It didn’t eliminate my plight among the bullies at the higher end of the hierarchy but it certainly lessened it from those on the lower end of the spectrum.

Looking back on my bullying one of my biggest regrets was being paralyzed by fear at this one kid who beat me up. I didn’t fight back and he beat me up anyway, and then I realized afterwards that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that I should have just fought back. When I was a kid and I fought back I never lost a fight once. What kids need to realize is that these bullies really aren’t a whole lot tougher than they are and that a show of strength on the side of the kid being picked on will generally calm down the powers that be from picking on him. Sure you do get that odd skinny kid that gets picked on and can’t do much about it because he doesn’t have the strength of the other kids, but there generally aren’t that many of those kids and they are a special case.

Right now there are problems with the way our society views violence among children. This idea perpetuates the bully stereotype because usually it’s the kid who gets pushed that will take it too far rather than the kid who pushes. If the kid fights back early on it doesn’t usually get to that level. We are WAY to obsessed with extreme circumstances to let ourselves admit that sometimes standing up to physical violence with physical violence is the best way to curtail it.

When I was in HS I went to one of the most violent HS’s in the state of New Mexico. People did get hurt there. A couple of people were killed there over the course of a few years while I was growing up. And I can tell you from that experience that kids using knives on each other, and pulling a gun on each other is not nearly as common as the media would have us believe. In fact it’s EXTREMELY rare, however since it is more common than it was in the past we treat it as an epidemic and believe that common sense measures are not good enough. Well back in the fifties where hitting a bully back was more acceptable behavior we didn’t have the same kind of violence that we have now.

Anyhow, that’s my two cents. Flame away.

Erek

18

Well, I must say I, agree with that. It worked for me anyway. In fourth grade I was punched in the face twice in succession in a play wrestling matched turned standoff. I did nothing over fear of what my parents would say. I remeber crying in frustration right after the incident. It happened on a Friday and over the course of the weekend a big mouthed friend of mine relayed the information to my father who sat down and had a talk with me. The following week I found the bully and proceded to beat the shit out of him in front of at least 30 cheering 4th graders. In elementary school most boys are of equal strength and driven by my father’s blessing, pent up frustation and rage I really had no trouble accomplishing this. It really had a fairy tale ending with my dad signing the school citation something like “My son was defending himself from the school bully under my condone”.

I know all bullying situations are not this easy, but a little prevention in elementary school could set a precendent for other would be bullies later on. Of course this tatic is only useful providing the child stays in the same school district and maintains at least some of the same group of peers. And still, this may not be the course someone would want their little girl to take.

19

Well, as unpopular as my recommendation will be I’m going to give it anyway. Make sure that your child knows that there will be NO repercussions at home if he fights back.

I am concerned about the fighting back. Maybe these bullies will result to using weapons, or maybe they get more people involved.

I believe this best solution lies in changing school climate. Educators must emphasize respect, tolerance, empathy, etc… Sometimes I worry that these concepts are ignored or at a minimum, not emphasized, because they are not included in standardized test. Too much emphasis is placed on preparing students for these tests.

Teachers need to establish a classroom culture that has no place for “put-downs” or any other type of bullying. Educators must make their classrooms “safe-havens”. Once this climate is established, amazing things happen.

Parents need to listen to their kids. If your kid talks about being teased, roughed-up, or beat-up, respond immediately by talking to teachers and administrators. Make your kid promise to report any other incidents that occur. My school does not have a “zero tolerance” policy as such. But what can happen is the bully is given an “administrative directive”. If another incident occurs, the student will have harsh consequences. IMHO, kids need to be reminded of their goodness. They are truly good. Sometimes that lose their way. As a long term solution, punishment won’t do it. Eventually we must move beyond policy and begin in the right place…values.

20

Yeah and maybe someone might accidently get their nose bone punched into their brain. Whatever. Someone steps to you, you have to stand your ground. You don’t necessarily have to fight, but you shouldn’t back down from confrontation either. Bullies don’t want a fight. They want someone to beat up (mentally or physically). The kids I remember getting picked on weren’t necessarily physically weak. Mentally, however, they were pretty soft and would fold under the slightest teasing.

Here’s the problem. You cannot change other people. You cannot change the school system or the social climate in any timeframe that’s meaningful for your kid. You can only teach your kid how to stand up for himself and hope that he grows up tough enough that bullies don’t think he’s an easy target.