I agree with Scott until a certain point, then I disagree. Yes, kids are cruel to each other, you can't force kids to not bully anyone ever, and kids have to learn to be strong. The problem is that a lot of kids have their self confidence broken already before they begin at school, and have never been given the tools to deal with bullies. To me it feels so wrong to say about those kids that they are stupid if they let themselves be affected by the bullying.
An example: I changed classes at the age of 12, and in my new class there was a kid who came from a broken home with drunken parents. He had harelip, thick glasses and a really bad case of dyslexia (he could barely write his own name). He had really no self esteem, and for good reasons that he himself could not be blamed. The bullies in our class were at him at every opportunity (i.e. no teacher in sight) calling him a looser, over and over again. He exploded in rage several times, throwing chairs around the classroom and so on. He later told me that he had been on the verge of suicide at that time. He tried to fit in by being funny, the clown of the class, but the bullies didn't let him succeed. I don't see how he could have resolved the problems on his own.
I do take some credit for helping him. I pitied him and helped him with some school work, and was sometimes hanging with him at recesses. I was one of the smartest kids in the class and somewhat immune to bullying, and I think the association with me helped him a great deal. We also got a new gym teacher who quickly picked up the low esteem problem and often mentioned to the class that the 'looser' guy was in excellent physical condition (which he actually was). Gradually the bullying wore off.
I'm certain that what saved him was the help of others. I remember from my previous class that there were several 'stop the bullying' campaigns, and they actually worked somewhat. My point is: There are kids in situations where they can not help themselves, and teaching school kids that bullying is bad and compassion is good, work well enough that it is worth spending energy on it.
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The point that schools in the US are so scared of being sued that they don' t dare let kids play or interfere with bullying, seems strange to me, and I guess to other non US citizens also. The Norwegian law system doesn't encourage sueing, and parents can't preasure the schools much. A fairly new strategic plan for public schools dictates that a large part of the education shall be done outdoors, preferably in the nature. This means kids will learn things like how far they can fall before it's dangerous - with adults present. I really like that. :-) We have a lot of other problems with our schools, but that's a different story.
Yes, I agree. Some people can get into situations where without some sort of outside help they will fail. I think that teachers and other people are obligated to help kids in this sort of situation. I already said that you can't punish the bullies, unless they cross the line (which they often do). But that doesn't mean you can't do anything at all. If there is strictly verbal bullying you can still talk to the bullies and do other things to discourage them from acting in this way. When I changed my attitude in high school some former bullies became almost friends. There are ways to deal with the situation without limiting freedom. All of those avenues should be explored.
Scott, I don' t think you have addressed how to deal with girl bullying. Girls have the tendency to be underhanded in their bullying. I'm sure boys have done similar underhanded things but it's more prevalent with girls. They would say nasty things about you behind your back and its generally untrue. The result would leave you ostracized or your stuff would be vandalised.
'Girl-bullying' (as I think that amethisttomoe is referring to) is kind of... a non-issue. Maybe it's because I go to an single-sex school, so I'm use to all my friends talking about my other friends behind their backs; but it's not bullying. People talking about you behind your back doesn't really affect you, but spreading rumours that are offensive is shit, and whatever, but there's not really anything you can do about it. It's not bullying, because bullying is like stealing your lunch money, or hanging voodoo dolls of you everywhere (okay, maybe that's a bit obscure). I don't think that the term 'bullying' should really be applied to what we call 'bitching' (I don't know if you Americans call it that), because when you're old enough to bitch and be bitched at, you should be old enough to deal with it. And when the bitching causes you to become ostrasized and your stuff to be vandalised, that's called the rumour mill and the mob mentality.
Did I ever say that my points were male-specific? I think you're assuming that because all of our examples involved only boy->boy bullying. Everything I said applies to girl->girl bullying as well as boy->girl ang girl->boy bullying.
I agree that the methods of bullying are different when different genders are involved. Girls tend not to steal lunch money from each other, but do other vicious girly things. Girls tend to be a lot more concious of physical apperance, so they will be picked on over slight flaws. Boys care a lot less about this, so they will only go after you on that if you are really fat, or if you have an obvious deformity. Also, the psychology of males and females is very different. That means teachers and others have to know that a girl bullying situation needs to be handled differently than a boy bullying situation.
Other than that, I do not think the school policy, or law, should say anything about gender. If a girl hits a girl they should face the same consequences as if a boy hits a boy. If a girl picks on a guy and remains within her rights to free speech, you can't punish her. All you can do is remain within your rights to free speech and convince her to stop. Boy or girl, gay or straight, black, white or green the fundamental principle is the same.
Scott, I agree that your comments apply to both sexes and both sexes should be treated the same. Though how would you deal with situations like this?
I would be playing with a friend and one of the bullies would walk over to my friend. The bully would whisper something to my friend and afterwards my friend would stop playing with me and stop being my friend from that point on. I would ask the bully what she had said but she would never tell me. My "friend" wouldn't tell me either. Both of them exercised their freedom of speech and association so they can't get into any trouble. These kind of situations suck when you have so few friends to begin with. This also happened to me more than once. ...
Outside of moving to another school, I don't know how else to deal with that situation at that particular school.
I came in late to this thread but I do have a comment or two:
Kids will be cruel for any number of reasons. When I was a kid, I was smart and I stuttered. I was teased terribly in elementary school but had no control over either of the reasons that I was picked on.
Back in my day, (the late 60s and early 70s), society taught you that if you ignored the bullies, and did not fight back, they would leave you alone. I actually bought into that BS. I was an idiot. The teasing stopped the day I fought back and beat the snot out of one of the baddest dudes in 5th grade.
I don't stutter now. As an adult, I also know that words only hurt you if you let them. It was a different story when I was a kid though. Yes, I'm for free speech, but hurtful speech to a kid is not right and should not be tolerated.
All I can say is that if someone stops playing with you because someone whispered something to them, then that is a shitty person you don't want to be your friend.
Sometimes it's difficult for geeky kids to make friends simply because there aren't any other geeky kids in the school. When you aren't a normal MTV watching, peer-pressure influenced kid there might not always be someone to be friends with. If you have a small school in a small town, it can be especially bad.
At any given time I only had a handful of friends in school. Even in high school, most of the classes I took didn't have any of my friends in them. I made up for it because I had friends who lived on my street. I had friends from summer camps. I had friends from extracurricular activities like sports and youth groups.
Your school only has a limited number of people, and if they decide they don't like you, why would you want to be friends with them? I think this is one good thing my mom did. She recognized that I didn't have a glut of friends, so she kept exposing me to new groups of kids where I could meet people who liked the same things.
I'm still kind of surprised at how few kids go to summer camp. As a camp counselor, I can't tell you how many kids I knew that had problems in school, but rocked the house at camp. If I have kids they are going to summer camp at the earliest age possible. The best thing about summer camp is that if one of them is loaded with bullies, you can try a different one the next year. I specifically remember hearing at least two conversations between my campers about their bad experiences at other camps, not all of which were because of bullies, and how the current camp was so much more awesome.
Yeah, I think that would've been the best way to deal with that situation, Scott. No wait, it is true, cause once I moved schools I got a pack of friends whom I still see regularly today. And when I moved to college, I got a huge glut of friends, which surprised the crap out of me.
Of all the people I knew in high school, I only currently know three of them (my old D&D group).
Seems just about everyone else I knew as a "friend" was more a friend of expedience than anything else. They were just the people I shared a physical public space with, the "best available" at the time. We didn't have many common interests or anything to tie us together, and I never really cared what happened to them once I left.
At RIT, I fell in with the crew as we know it today: actual friends, chosen for reasons other than convenience. The high percentage of geeks at RIT certainly made that easier ;^)
The only real advice I have for kids being picked on is to deal with it as best you can, don't let it bother you, and realize that once you go to college and make real friends, none of what's happening now will matter. Don't worry about being a loner in high school or in your hometown: you didn't get to pick either of those places and you're stuck with the people there. Once you become an adult, you can just leave for wherever your people are.
Yeah, college was the golden ticket for me. I realized in 10th grade that I could graduate a year early if I was willing to take on a few more classes, so that is what I did. Sure, I was a smart kid, but it was the motivation to get the hell away from the kids who physically, verbally, and socially abused me that spurred my decision to leave a year early.
Oh, and the camp thing is right on the money. I was ready to slit my wrists in 7th grade (which one of my friends actually did....) and my parents got be involved in CTY (Center for Talented Youth- a program for bright kids to take a college course over the summer with other kids their age complete with whacky activities and socialization). This summer experience and the theatrical productions I was involved in outside of school really made life so much easier, because I could look at it and see that I was accepted and befriended- it was only at school, in that one environment that I was treated that shittily.
You know, involving kids in extracurricular activities that are outside of their school may be the solution... just a new mix of people.
Taking martial arts isn't necessary, just knowing how to take a beating can be all you need to make an example. I know for a fact is that if you just continue to smile as people beat on you, then when they tire out and walk away, run after one of them and cut their face with the broken bottle they just broke over your head... they will not mess with you anymore.
On a somewhat related note, if your kid is getting picked on for being fat or some such thing, take the time and evaluate if yoru kid might actually be fat, stinky, dirty, slutty, etc. and if they are HELP them fix it. A good friend of mine in school lost 85 lbs over the summer between 8th and 9th grade and everyone stopped teasing her because they all wanted to date her.
Amen to that cartoon! I work at Yahoo! and it is filled with geeks and people who were labeled "misfits" by "normal" kids. I'm sure the same is true at Google and other such places.
Finding extra curricular activities outside of school is key. So is finding some kind of hobby or interest. I was an only child and there weren't always other kids around. I discovered books, comic books and the joy of writing. I went to my first Con at 15 and things took off from there as I found other kids with the same interests.
Rym is correct. Once you are an adult you can choose where you live. Choose your close friends carefully and you will do well.
To all of you yelling freespeech, I believe this is what is freespeech and what is harrasment. You can say whatever you want to someone but they can also walk away. If you however follow him then it is harrasment.
It depends. In a purely public place, it is not illegal to follow someone or bother them. It becomes illegal if threats are made, if one follows into a non-public area, or if another law (breach of the peace, noise ordinance, etc...) is broken.
Rym is correct. This is why restraining orders exist. Under normal circumstances you are free to go anywhere you wish. You need a special order from a court to limit someone's freedom to come near you.
Unfortunately, restraining orders are often not worth the paper they are printed on.
I volunteer with child abuse victims, the vast majority of which are abused by family members or close family friends. Many local police departments lack the manpower to enforce restraining orders. Some departments who do try to enforce them consider the orders to be a very low priority. In many cases, the person who files the restraining order gets hurt, sometimes even killed, by the very person they filed the restraining order against.
While I'm against big brother using technology to infringe upon the rights of civilians, I think there is a technological solution to the restraining order problem. It's ok, since there is nothing wrong with infringing upon the rights of criminals. Once you're arrested they read you your rights, once you're found guilty you can forget about it.
What we could do is put unremovable wrist/leg bands on the people who need to be restrained. Then we give a pendant to the person being protected. If the restrained person breaks the restraining order not only will it electonically alert the police of their current location, but will also shock them into a stupor. Think of it like the invisible fence for criminals.
Anyone think this is a bad idea? Keep in mind I'm only suggesting doing it to people who have had restraining orders place on them in court. It's not big brother, it isn't cruel. It's just enforcing the existing law.
That'd be an awesome weapon for the person taking the order out to get some revenge. Just keep chasing your ex until they go limp from all the shocks. While hi-larious, that very reason is probably more than enough to keep this idea from ever being enacted.
That's a good idea, except for the problem that I don't know if they actually designed a leg band that can't be removed. I don't think it really infringes upon the rights of the person being restrained, because they have already lost their right to be around that person.
There's also a horde of minor challenges that you would face with all non-lethal tactics, such as shocking somebody into a heart attack or something.
The only problem I could see, is that it does sometimes happen that the person could be trying to respect the restraining order, while the person who placed it could just try to abuse this to enact their own revenge.
Also, IANAL, but I don't believe a restraining order is a guilty verdict, It is simply a type of injunction. It can be given out by a judge without a jury just for safety, while evidence is gathered for a real trial against the person. I am not sure but it might also be possible to get a restraining order in a case where they don't have enough evidence to convict, but they know what is going on and need to keep the people apart. This is probably fairly common in the domestic violence arena.
The mental image is priceless, though. Big tough abusive boyfriend running down the street yelping from the shocks being chased by a 120 pound girlfriend wearing a blinking pendant and screaming obscinities.
Believe it or not, there are a growing number of women who abuse men. Social Science experts can't pinpoint the number though as most men won't report the abuse. According to a speaker at a seminar I recently attended, they estimate it to be around 10%.
Women's shelters in California, where I live, actually turn male abuse victims away. The theory is that the shelter is for the safety of women and children. To me it shows that they aren't 100% seroius about helping abuse victims. Shelters for abused men aren't exactly a priority either. I'm now preparing myself for the onslaught of jokes about to be posted here.
No jokes about that, it's true and sad. There are also plenty of men that are raped, but nothing comes of it most of the time. The worst is when an 18 year old guy goes out with a 16 year old girl and gets busted, but when 17 year old girls go out with 15 year old guys, the guy gets busted. Yeah, double standards.
The whole issue is remeniscent of the animal savers who only save cute animals. It's all a result of people applying bias and feelings to their moral code rather than logic and reason. When something is morally wrong you have to ask "why is this wrong?" The answer to that question is what really counts.
Comments
An example: I changed classes at the age of 12, and in my new class there was a kid who came from a broken home with drunken parents. He had harelip, thick glasses and a really bad case of dyslexia (he could barely write his own name). He had really no self esteem, and for good reasons that he himself could not be blamed. The bullies in our class were at him at every opportunity (i.e. no teacher in sight) calling him a looser, over and over again. He exploded in rage several times, throwing chairs around the classroom and so on. He later told me that he had been on the verge of suicide at that time. He tried to fit in by being funny, the clown of the class, but the bullies didn't let him succeed. I don't see how he could have resolved the problems on his own.
I do take some credit for helping him. I pitied him and helped him with some school work, and was sometimes hanging with him at recesses. I was one of the smartest kids in the class and somewhat immune to bullying, and I think the association with me helped him a great deal. We also got a new gym teacher who quickly picked up the low esteem problem and often mentioned to the class that the 'looser' guy was in excellent physical condition (which he actually was). Gradually the bullying wore off.
I'm certain that what saved him was the help of others. I remember from my previous class that there were several 'stop the bullying' campaigns, and they actually worked somewhat. My point is: There are kids in situations where they can not help themselves, and teaching school kids that bullying is bad and compassion is good, work well enough that it is worth spending energy on it.
---
The point that schools in the US are so scared of being sued that they don' t dare let kids play or interfere with bullying, seems strange to me, and I guess to other non US citizens also. The Norwegian law system doesn't encourage sueing, and parents can't preasure the schools much. A fairly new strategic plan for public schools dictates that a large part of the education shall be done outdoors, preferably in the nature. This means kids will learn things like how far they can fall before it's dangerous - with adults present. I really like that. :-) We have a lot of other problems with our schools, but that's a different story.
I agree that the methods of bullying are different when different genders are involved. Girls tend not to steal lunch money from each other, but do other vicious girly things. Girls tend to be a lot more concious of physical apperance, so they will be picked on over slight flaws. Boys care a lot less about this, so they will only go after you on that if you are really fat, or if you have an obvious deformity. Also, the psychology of males and females is very different. That means teachers and others have to know that a girl bullying situation needs to be handled differently than a boy bullying situation.
Other than that, I do not think the school policy, or law, should say anything about gender. If a girl hits a girl they should face the same consequences as if a boy hits a boy. If a girl picks on a guy and remains within her rights to free speech, you can't punish her. All you can do is remain within your rights to free speech and convince her to stop. Boy or girl, gay or straight, black, white or green the fundamental principle is the same.
Scott, I agree that your comments apply to both sexes and both sexes should be treated the same. Though how would you deal with situations like this?
I would be playing with a friend and one of the bullies would walk over to my friend. The bully would whisper something to my friend and afterwards my friend would stop playing with me and stop being my friend from that point on. I would ask the bully what she had said but she would never tell me. My "friend" wouldn't tell me either. Both of them exercised their freedom of speech and association so they can't get into any trouble. These kind of situations suck when you have so few friends to begin with. This also happened to me more than once. ...
Outside of moving to another school, I don't know how else to deal with that situation at that particular school.
Kids will be cruel for any number of reasons. When I was a kid, I was smart and I stuttered. I was teased terribly in elementary school but had no control over either of the reasons that I was picked on.
Back in my day, (the late 60s and early 70s), society taught you that if you ignored the bullies, and did not fight back, they would leave you alone. I actually bought into that BS. I was an idiot. The teasing stopped the day I fought back and beat the snot out of one of the baddest dudes in 5th grade.
I don't stutter now. As an adult, I also know that words only hurt you if you let them. It was a different story when I was a kid though. Yes, I'm for free speech, but hurtful speech to a kid is not right and should not be tolerated.
Sometimes it's difficult for geeky kids to make friends simply because there aren't any other geeky kids in the school. When you aren't a normal MTV watching, peer-pressure influenced kid there might not always be someone to be friends with. If you have a small school in a small town, it can be especially bad.
At any given time I only had a handful of friends in school. Even in high school, most of the classes I took didn't have any of my friends in them. I made up for it because I had friends who lived on my street. I had friends from summer camps. I had friends from extracurricular activities like sports and youth groups.
Your school only has a limited number of people, and if they decide they don't like you, why would you want to be friends with them? I think this is one good thing my mom did. She recognized that I didn't have a glut of friends, so she kept exposing me to new groups of kids where I could meet people who liked the same things.
I'm still kind of surprised at how few kids go to summer camp. As a camp counselor, I can't tell you how many kids I knew that had problems in school, but rocked the house at camp. If I have kids they are going to summer camp at the earliest age possible. The best thing about summer camp is that if one of them is loaded with bullies, you can try a different one the next year. I specifically remember hearing at least two conversations between my campers about their bad experiences at other camps, not all of which were because of bullies, and how the current camp was so much more awesome.
Seems just about everyone else I knew as a "friend" was more a friend of expedience than anything else. They were just the people I shared a physical public space with, the "best available" at the time. We didn't have many common interests or anything to tie us together, and I never really cared what happened to them once I left.
At RIT, I fell in with the crew as we know it today: actual friends, chosen for reasons other than convenience. The high percentage of geeks at RIT certainly made that easier ;^)
The only real advice I have for kids being picked on is to deal with it as best you can, don't let it bother you, and realize that once you go to college and make real friends, none of what's happening now will matter. Don't worry about being a loner in high school or in your hometown: you didn't get to pick either of those places and you're stuck with the people there. Once you become an adult, you can just leave for wherever your people are.
Oh, and the camp thing is right on the money. I was ready to slit my wrists in 7th grade (which one of my friends actually did....) and my parents got be involved in CTY (Center for Talented Youth- a program for bright kids to take a college course over the summer with other kids their age complete with whacky activities and socialization). This summer experience and the theatrical productions I was involved in outside of school really made life so much easier, because I could look at it and see that I was accepted and befriended- it was only at school, in that one environment that I was treated that shittily.
You know, involving kids in extracurricular activities that are outside of their school may be the solution... just a new mix of people.
Taking martial arts isn't necessary, just knowing how to take a beating can be all you need to make an example. I know for a fact is that if you just continue to smile as people beat on you, then when they tire out and walk away, run after one of them and cut their face with the broken bottle they just broke over your head... they will not mess with you anymore.
On a somewhat related note, if your kid is getting picked on for being fat or some such thing, take the time and evaluate if yoru kid might actually be fat, stinky, dirty, slutty, etc. and if they are HELP them fix it. A good friend of mine in school lost 85 lbs over the summer between 8th and 9th grade and everyone stopped teasing her because they all wanted to date her.
Finding extra curricular activities outside of school is key. So is finding some kind of hobby or interest. I was an only child and there weren't always other kids around. I discovered books, comic books and the joy of writing. I went to my first Con at 15 and things took off from there as I found other kids with the same interests.
Rym is correct. Once you are an adult you can choose where you live. Choose your close friends carefully and you will do well.
I volunteer with child abuse victims, the vast majority of which are abused by family members or close family friends. Many local police departments lack the manpower to enforce restraining orders. Some departments who do try to enforce them consider the orders to be a very low priority. In many cases, the person who files the restraining order gets hurt, sometimes even killed, by the very person they filed the restraining order against.
What we could do is put unremovable wrist/leg bands on the people who need to be restrained. Then we give a pendant to the person being protected. If the restrained person breaks the restraining order not only will it electonically alert the police of their current location, but will also shock them into a stupor. Think of it like the invisible fence for criminals.
Anyone think this is a bad idea? Keep in mind I'm only suggesting doing it to people who have had restraining orders place on them in court. It's not big brother, it isn't cruel. It's just enforcing the existing law.
There's also a horde of minor challenges that you would face with all non-lethal tactics, such as shocking somebody into a heart attack or something.
Also, IANAL, but I don't believe a restraining order is a guilty verdict, It is simply a type of injunction. It can be given out by a judge without a jury just for safety, while evidence is gathered for a real trial against the person. I am not sure but it might also be possible to get a restraining order in a case where they don't have enough evidence to convict, but they know what is going on and need to keep the people apart. This is probably fairly common in the domestic violence arena.
Yeah... perhaps notifying the authorities without any shocking going on might be better. :P
Women's shelters in California, where I live, actually turn male abuse victims away. The theory is that the shelter is for the safety of women and children. To me it shows that they aren't 100% seroius about helping abuse victims. Shelters for abused men aren't exactly a priority either. I'm now preparing myself for the onslaught of jokes about to be posted here.
The whole issue is remeniscent of the animal savers who only save cute animals. It's all a result of people applying bias and feelings to their moral code rather than logic and reason. When something is morally wrong you have to ask "why is this wrong?" The answer to that question is what really counts.