Bullying: Stop the complaining.

[Doclector]

Personally, I think parents should teach kids to defend themselves. Most teachers, most people, don't really give a shit as long as it isn't happening to them. Bullies do not need reasons to hurt people. They just do. It's all they do.

Bottom line, if someone treats you with no mercy despite the fact that you haven't done anything to deserve it, then doesn't it make sense that you should have no mercy in dealing with them?

One more thing, I don't want to hear anyone being "shocked" about suicides and people flipping because of bullying anymore. Fact is, these people knew that someone was being pushed too far, and they either ignored it, or were the ones pushing. They must accept part of the blame.

 

[sky14kemea]

You're right. No one DESERVES to be bullied, but it's going to happen. Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it." Also, give me some solutions to said bullying that works. Telling a teacher and ignoring it are two options (that in my life) have NEVER worked.

How about when you're being ganged up on by 4-5 boys in your class, and everyone else is pretty much okay with it or tells you to ignore them?

I told loads of different teachers, and the adults who represented the whole school year. They pretty much did nothing, and being the socially awkward person I am, I couldn't really deal with it on my own >.>.

Plus I was like the weakest girl in school, so I couldn't really fight them either.. :I

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

You know /why/ nobody fights back against bullies anymore OP? It's because schools across the country have zero tolerance policies on fighting that lead to equal punishments for both parties, regardless of who started it or why. The bully usually doesn't give a crap about those punishments. The one getting bullied usually does. It's a vicious cycle.

Of course, what gets me is those same school systems have zero tolerance policies on bullying, but they never seem to do anything about it. The policies on drugs and violence, sure -- kids have been suspended for having aspirin and playing cops and robbers, for Pete's sake -- but bullying? They seem to have an unofficial "Don't ask, don't tell, and as long as I didn't witness it it didn't happen" policy on that one.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

You're right. No one DESERVES to be bullied, but it's going to happen. Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it." Also, give me some solutions to said bullying that works. Telling a teacher and ignoring it are two options (that in my life) have NEVER worked.

How about when you're being ganged up on by 4-5 boys in your class, and everyone else is pretty much okay with it or tells you to ignore them?

I told loads of different teachers, and the adults who represented the whole school year. They pretty much did nothing, and being the socially awkward person I am, I couldn't really deal with it on my own >.>.

Plus I was like the weakest girl in school, so I couldn't really fight them either.. :I

That's not bullying. That assault. ಠ_ಠ

The point is that bullying will happen, so people have to learn how to deal with it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Warning. Wall of text incoming. You have been warned.
---

Dude.

In the past, if you were getting bullied you COULD settle it with fisticuffs since a) kids were in better shape, since they played outside and stuff b) Bullies respected fighting back more and c) if you got into a fight with bullies, the school admins would be more like "Ah, good show young man! You stood up for yourself like a real man!".

Nowadays, most of the kids being picked on are physically weaker, school admins are apt to go "OMG YOU FOUGHT BACK?!?!? NO FIGHTING!!! EXPEL!!! EXPEL!!!!!!!!!!", and unless you fight back and scare the bully away right away, they will not be happy if you try to stand up for yourself once they've gotten used to picking on you and they might resort to more insidious bullying behind your back or they could get a gang of their buddies together to get payback.

Also, not all kids are fighters. I'm a pacifist. I don't like pain. I know it hurts. So I don't like to cause it to others because I know it sucks. It's an inborn thing for me. I'm just not a fighter. Does that mean I deserve to get picked on, since I'm too naturally kindhearted to fight back and hurt others?

And unless you have a bunch of truly loyal friends already, bullies will typically try to isolate you and make it much harder to make any friends and thus gain strength from them. They will try to make the whole school believe you are some loser that no one should care about, and then next thing you know, you'll have no one to watch your back as the bullies and their friends all gang up on you. Not to mention how EASY it is in a high school situation (read, a circus of monkeys) to blacklist someone. The victim is a boy? The bully and all his friends can spread rumors he's gay. The victim is a girl? Spread rumors she's a slut. Spread it wide and insidiously enough and BAM, instant social outcast as now the entire school believes it and the victim is now stuck with a hurtful label they can never get rid of which will make it REALLY easy to pick on them.

And then if the victim finally has enough and finally snaps and fights back, they'll get expelled for fighting, even though the bullies goaded them into doing it.

The worst part is the isolation. Believing the entire school hates you and wants nothing to do with you. I had half the school on my case, and I had guys YOUNGER THAN ME picking on me and spouting the same stupid BS that the main bullies were. It took me 3 years to make TWO friends. And the grand total of 2 friends I had were also major outcasts. One was a former crybaby who turned psycho and everyone was now scared of him, and the other was another "too nice" guy (Who eventually became a douche later on).

Bullying has been getting more and more insidious and nasty over the years, OP. This isn't some jocks shoving nerds around, where the solution is to "man up" (God I hate that phrase) and punch them back. This is full on social warfare and isolation, backed up by threats of violence, where fighting back will either incite more violence, or get the real victim expelled. Unless the school is really cool and will let things slide with just a suspension, and the victim counterattacks hard enough that he sends the message of "fuck with me and YOU WILL GET REALLY FUCKING HURT" (Like the casey incident) fighting back is just going to screw the victim more. And just "standing up four yourself"? Pfft, sure, just as long as nasty rumors haven't already begun to circulate. If that's the case, you are screwed and no amount of "standing up for yourself" will make the school stop thinking you are a loser of some kind.

I was isolated, mocked, shoved around, attacked in gym glass (being tackled when the teacher wasn't looking, getting passed the basketball by having it thrown at the back of my head, etc), shoved into a staircase railing incredibly hard, and a bunch of other shit I have since repressed for five fucking years. And the perpetrators only got any kind of punishment for it in my last year, excepting the main bully, who was the nephew of the VP of discipline and he got off scott free. I still have lingering issues. I have more or less forgiven most of the idiots due to them being...well, idiots. But that main bully? If I saw his grave and no one was watching, I would probably piss on it.

So yes, OP, bullying is s serious issue. I'm glad you found a way out. I didn't. Others can't. Bullying sucks and it needs to be stopped. It is social warfare backed by threats of assault. That shit ain't tolerated in the adult world, why should kids be allowed to do it?

Edit: GOD I hate topics like this. It brings back all the bad memories. I am literally shaking with anger right now.
Edit 2: *plays a round of Unreal to vent his rage*...Aaahh....that's better.

You just said everything I wanted to say but wasn't up to writing out. You can tell who in this topic was bullied, who wasn't, and who was lucky enough to go to school before they started with the zero tolerance fad.

 

[Xan Krieger]

When you can't just deal with it?
"Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it."
http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.html

I myself heavily thought about suicide in high school (I graduated in 2008 and yes I am better now). Sometimes it's far too much to deal with and that's when people die.

 

[Little Woodsman]

You're right. No one DESERVES to be bullied, but it's going to happen. Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it." Also, give me some solutions to said bullying that works. Telling a teacher and ignoring it are two options (that in my life) have NEVER worked.

How about when you're being ganged up on by 4-5 boys in your class, and everyone else is pretty much okay with it or tells you to ignore them?

I told loads of different teachers, and the adults who represented the whole school year. They pretty much did nothing, and being the socially awkward person I am, I couldn't really deal with it on my own >.>.

Plus I was like the weakest girl in school, so I couldn't really fight them either.. :I

Oh, geez....
When I got to the last line of your post and realized you are a girl....I come from
a place and time where boys bullying girls--never mind actually physically assaulting
girls--just wasn't tolerated....by the other boys. Admin/teachers would have gotten
involved to pull the rest of us off of the boys who did it and prevent us from hospitalizing
them. You have my sympathies, and I hope things are better for you now.

 

[sky14kemea]

Oh, geez....
When I got to the last line of your post and realized you are a girl....I come from
a place and time where boys bullying girls--never mind actually physically assaulting
girls--just wasn't tolerated....by the other boys. Admin/teachers would have gotten
involved to pull the rest of us off of the boys who did it and prevent us from hospitalizing
them. You have my sympathies, and I hope things are better for you now.

Yeeeeeah, our school was entirely different. xD

It is better now, since I've left school altogether =P Guess I won't be going to any reunions.

Thanks though!

 

[Xdeser2]

Ya..........no

No matter how you spin it, the person being a dick is still to blame and should stop. And "suck it up" is not always the answer, and many a time teachers (what a shocker here) Dont give a shit.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Its

snip

There is a difference between a mild teasing and bullying. Look calling someone fat is ok as long as its in good fun and you are not doing it repeatedly. If you get called fat every day for 4 years straight your going to be affected as a person. Thats bullying. Thats what the big deal is.

Thanks for the spell check. Appreciate it.

There's a great quote by Nancy Reagan that goes along the lines of "not letting others affect how you feel". I may not be the smartest tool in the shed, but that idea goes a long way.

Oops that wasn't suppose to be there. That just text I didn't delete my bad. I don't do that spell check revising thing.

I agree 100%

Trouble is, that idea only goes so far.

Unless you train yourself (or have someone else train you for years), you simply can't manage your own psyche well enough for that concept to be truly effective.

Sure, consciously, you might manage that... to a degree (how many people do you know that can always perfectly control how they feel about anything?).

But subconsciously? People have no control over that. And it is in the subconscious where all of the bullshit people spout at you is internalized.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it." Also, give me some solutions to said bullying that works. Telling a teacher and ignoring it are two options (that in my life) have NEVER worked.

Telling someone who is being bullied to "just deal with it" is about as helpful as telling someone who has clinical depression to "just cheer up"

For one thing if you've been systematically bullied over a period of years, the chances are you're probably not going to have the confidence necessary to stand up to your bullies so having someone tell you it's as simple as that will probably only make you feel worse.

 

[Tiamattt]

I hardly see how the whole "we can't help the kids because they won't know how to deal with it when they become adults" idea works, at all. See if you're getting your ass kicked as a adult you get help in the form of police and lawyers. Same for if you're getting harassed by people you don't like, unless it's a co-worker then you get help from someone higher up who doesn't want that kind of crap hurting productivity. Or switch jobs if it's that bad, and no on'es willing to help, which sadly enough isn't a real option for schools a lot of the time.

So the question here is: What exactly is letting kids get bullied preparing them for again? Because it certainly isn't adult life.

 

[Lucem712]

While it has the possibility of making you a stronger person, it also has the negative affect of making some kids/teens/adults blow their brains out. The problem is a-lot of teachers/admins have the same view, 'Bullying isn't that big of a deal, just a part of growing up'. So, when a child comes to them complaining to them about frequently bullying, nothing happens. It happens again and again until the kid gets tired of it and reacts with violence individually, en mass, or self.

There will always be bullies, but teachers, administrators, and parents need to be observant and proactive in protecting their student body instead of ignoring it as child's play or seeing it as just a part of growing up.

 

[RubyT]

What the media is talking about isn't bullying in the way that one big jock shoves a nerd into a locker.

It's actually mobbing. It's mostly non-violent, people are being shut out. And with today's social media and the shocking inaptitude of a lot of teenagers to use them appropriately, this sort of mobbing now manifests away from school and some poor kids are being denied any sort of social life.

Also, with those social media around, things are now easily more public, that's why that sort of bullying can get unprecedented public attention when the right people get wind of it.

Finally: people who don't understand this usually have just been lucky enough to never be affected. They think because they stood up to the one Nelson their class had, they know what it's all about. But I've had to see my brother affacted by this. I had to witness how rumor, slander and intrigue ruined his life so much that my parents had to send him to another high school. And the asshole kids at his old high school didn't take long to find out where he went to now and started contacting his new classmates to try to continue their hate campaign. Fortunately for my brother, he found a good peer group in his new high school.

And my parents (or I) couldn't do anything about this, because a lot of parents had the indifferent attitude of "bullying didn't hurt me, so how bad can it be for your child"...

 

[Mr F.]

Bullying has been HUGE in the states of recent years. "HUGE" in the sense that it's been in the media more, not that it hasn't been around.

Growing up, I experienced my fair share of bullying. Ranged from insults, to actual fights. But, I was taught to always stand up to bullies and stick up for others who were being bullied. Disagreements or bullies that took things to far usually ended up in the park, where we settled things with fists. One of us usually got the point after that.

The issue is this. WHY is bullying being presented in such a way today that it seems to make people want to jump off tall building?

Yea, it sucks, I get that. But in life, bullies will always be around. In fact, you can still find them in the grown up world. They just usually come from the back with a knife instead of a punch in the face.

Wouldn't a more apt solution to the bullying problem be to teach kids to stand up for themselves and others? The most common solutions that are being presented today are some of the most asinine things.

1. Telling a teacher
2. Ignoring it
3. ETC.

Most responses to bullies seem to be running away from the problem or shirking off the responsibility of the problem to a third party, RATHER then dealing with the issue yourself.

Maybe I'm old school, but in life, you can't wait for someone else to rescue you from your problems.

TOPIC:

Is the issue of bullying in the states a serious matter as presented in the media? Should kids learn to stand up for themselves? What are your personal experiences of bullying and how you handled them? What do you think of bulling overall?


(bullies, bully's, having a hard time with the English language.)

Thank you.

Normally I would write you a fucking essay explaining why your entire viewpoint is just a bunch of masochistic macho bullshit and how you are projecting yourself onto others and expecting them to have the same capability to deal with bullshit as yourself. But since my girlfriend is here and demanding that I make this brief, however amusing she may find it, I will have to summarise my essential viewpoint thus:

- Not all bullying can be solved with violence. Not all bullying can be solved fullstop. Not everyone can simply ignore things, not everyone can win that fight, not everyone has somewhere to turn and run.

- Bullying comes in grades. Seriously. Someone being called a shithead for their shithead views could be classed as bullying. Someone being viciously followed, stalked, having vicious rumours spread about them, being forced out of their lessons, being forced out of school, being systematically torn to pieces on a daily basis in both emotional and phsyical ways, that is ALSO bullying.

- Violence solves nothing.

Ok, Puppy dog eyes. I have to stop. Seriously.

Fuck anyone who blames the victim.

 

[FEichinger]

"I was bullied and I just fought back, so stop the whining about it already!" ... That's pretty much all I grasped from the OP. And all I can say is, good lord, you were pretty damn lucky.

Slapping someone who tried to pull shit on me got three dear friends of mine at that time beaten up by a quarter of our school, while a half was watching. You know what else it got me? Detention. While that basterd - and everyone who was helping or watching - got away with a slap on the wrist. That was the one instance I was actually capable of fighting back.

Then, I love how you say "one side usually got the point after the fistfight". So, what you're saying is, "If I got beaten up, I sucked it up." - Congratulations, in most cases I witnessed, this made it worse. Not to mention the fact that what you described hardly sounds like bullying to me, but like a disagreement - at least, if it stopped after the fight. Bullying is ongoing harassment for no reason except for the fun the bully takes out of it - and the more you suffer, the more they love it.

Now, to the main point: Yes, bullying gets a weird angle in the media. We report about kids committing suicide, and how bad bullying is, but noone does anything. It usually ends with the same shit as always: "How could this have happened?" "Oh dear, we really need to deal with bullying ASAP!" "Meh, it was the kids fault ... Should've dealt with it." "Bullying is bad, and people should start caring for each other!" "2 soldiers were killed in an assault on the base in Afghanistan!" - And there the media stops caring again. Because, really, nothing changes anyway.

 

[Owlslayer]

snip

Very nicely written. I`m usually quite lazy and don`t bother with long posts, but since this topic hits quite close to home, had to read it. And wise words were written.
Silly thing is, i understand that violence is bad and all, can`t stand it in real life, freaks me out. But some stuff in this thread made me feel like punching the monitor, or something along the lines of that. Just reaaally pisses me off. And brings back bad memories. I ought to just steer clear away from these threads...
But i suppose i ought to say something regarding the thread. Not a lot of stuff you can do to prevent/end bullying. Can`t really fight back well enough if the other side is stronger/larger in numbers.

 

[keiji_Maeda]

Heh. Had a pre-conceived notion of what i was getting into when i read the topic. And i was not dissapointed.

This reminds me of the fine old verbatim that served so well for physical repimanding for so many years

"i was hit by my da' all the time, and it damn well made a man out of me, so what would be wrong with me doing it to my son?"

Heh. In reading the topic i feel i'm going to completely discard the fact that bullying is a multifaceted thing, and it ranges all the way from "being called a stink face by two guys for a year" to "being hunted by a group of fifteen year old boys for years, for doing something so stupid as daring be frank about your sexuality". Now instead of deconstructing the argument because of one persons experiences of bullying doesn't represent all of them. I am slightly intrigued by the idea that OP i stating the educational idea that not emphasizing individual responsibility is to diminish the problem at the root. IE letting the bullied one learn to solve their own problems. But it doesn't trigger the basic educational idea that the thought process has to perpetuate problem solving.

all this is long term educational-plan resolution. A bullied person just wants help. They want it to end. End the bullying, help the person. Then you intervene with the person to help them help themselves. But there is no snowball that there would be enough time for a teacher to do this. That is why as individuals we should try to help people that we see being bullied.

So OP. you don't like the way that individual educational representatives help people, help them yourselves. Start individually and build on it.

 

[Little Woodsman]

Bullying is a complex and difficult issue--we are hearing a lot about it now for
good reasons...people are spreading awareness of it in an effort to find some way
to stop or at least decrease it.
I look back on my bullies from elementary school and I just feel pity for them. I
know that one of them got his issues resolved and turned in to a decent human being
as an adult. One of the others I can look back on and see that his life must have
been utterly miserable--I hope that he eventually found a better outlet. Another,
well in retrospect it's painfully obvious that he was gay, and his constant screaming
at me and efforts to convince everyone that *I* was gay were attempts to keep anyone
from figuring it out.
Bullies from high school were a different story--my friends & I got through it in no
small part because we were a fairly rough & tumble group of guys ourselves and could
always just say--"Hey, anytime you A@@^**#s want to go at it come on!", but we would
never escalate things in to a confrontation ourselves, because we knew that we would
be the ones getting expelled while the bullies would get off scott free.
There were a couple of girls from my high school who committed suicide during the
time I was there--back then we all just thought that they had personal issues they
couldn't deal with. Now I wonder how much bullying might have been involved in those.
Standing up to the bullies is a viable option for some, but not for others.
I have a friend who's mother has been a school administrator for about 20 years.
She has often stated her frustration with trying to deal with bullying, because the
go-to method for kids causing problems now is telling the parents. The problem with
that is that parents now simply *deny that the events ever took place*. Yeah, really.
When schools try to discipline the bullies themselves, they get threatened with
lawsuits from the parents of the bullies.
No easy answers.