Bullying

[Nemo2]

There appears to be a virtual epidemic of newspaper/online articles involving 'bullying', where parents, (most often the mother from what I've read), almost exhibit Munchausen by proxy 'delight' in announcing that their special snowflake has been subjected to it........it's almost like "You ain't nobody unless your little darlin' has been (gasp) 'bullied'".

I recounted to DW a personal experience where, at age seven I transferred to a different school, and an older & larger boy would punch me as hard as he could on my upper arm. Not much hope fighting him, so I just looked at him, (contacting a teacher never entered my mind).....this went on for a while until he and one of his friends caught me alone....as usual, the upper arm punch...he then turned to his offsider and said "See, he won't cry"....they then exited and I was never bothered again.

I guess the point here is, "Has anyone at one point or another in their childhood, not been bullied?"

I used to think just about every kid went through that, and got over it, as part of growing up and learning how the world works.

Nowadays, with 'safe spaces' 'helicopter parents' and 'trigger words', it seems to me that adults are doing the young a huge disservice by not allowing them to face and overcome any kind of adversity.........(I note the apparent rise in suicides in the young because someone was 'mean' to them on Facebook, or somesuch.)

Perhaps my experiences were different.

 

[youbet]

How would you handle it if one of your kids came home repeatedly having been bullied? Say, school books and homework assignments repeatedly taken and tossed. Or physically abused (beyond the punch in the upper arm you received).

It's certainly possible for parents to become excessively involved in childrens' predicaments regarding bullying. But I don't think cases where a parent is guilty of "not allowing them to face and overcome ANY kind of adversity" are nearly as common as you are guessing.

 

[Dawg52]

I experienced very little. There was one boy in the 7th grade who bullied kids. He was at least 2 years older(failed a grade or two) and was one most kids avoided. He was much bigger and loved picking on kids. I thought for sure he would end up in jail but later heard he ended being a productive citizen.

 

[braumeister]

When I was little, the consensus was that you could only be bullied if you let yourself be bullied.

I vividly remember an incident when I was 11 years old. I was walking home (about a mile) from a Boy Scout meeting on a Friday evening, talking with another boy. I had just moved to this new neighborhood about a month or two previously. Some kid rode past us on the sidewalk and spit on me. I immediately chased him, threw him off his bicycle and kicked him in the stomach. I was smaller, unknown in the neighborhood, scrawny, and wore thick glasses.

Honestly, I never thought any more about it, it just seemed like a reasonable reaction to me.

But when I went to school the following Monday, the word was out all over that I had kicked *****'s a$$ and I was a force to be reckoned with.

For the rest of my grade school years, nobody ever tried to bully me, although I was one of the smallest, weakest kids around, and usually referred to as "four eyes".

What drives me crazy today is seeing the helicopter parents. Where I live, they drive their kids to the corner where the school bus stops, even if that's only about 100 feet. They either sit in the car with the kid, or walk around while the kid has to sit in the car until the bus comes.

Same thing in the afternoon when the bus drops the kid off 100 feet from their door. It's insane IMHO.

 

[youbet]

When I was little, the consensus was that you could only be bullied if you let yourself be bullied.

I vividly remember an incident when I was 11 years old. I was walking home (about a mile) from a Boy Scout meeting on a Friday evening, talking with another boy. I had just moved to this new neighborhood about a month or two previously. Some kid rode past us on the sidewalk and spit on me. I immediately chased him, threw him off his bicycle and kicked him in the stomach. I was smaller, unknown in the neighborhood, scrawny, and wore thick glasses.

Honestly, I never thought any more about it, it just seemed like a reasonable reaction to me.

But when I went to school the following Monday, the word was out all over that I had kicked *****'s a$$ and I was a force to be reckoned with.

For the rest of my grade school years, nobody ever tried to bully me, although I was one of the smallest, weakest kids around, and usually referred to as "four eyes".

What drives me crazy today is seeing the helicopter parents. Where I live, they drive their kids to the corner where the school bus stops, even if that's only about 100 feet. They either sit in the car with the kid, or walk around while the kid has to sit in the car until the bus comes.

Same thing in the afternoon when the bus drops the kid off 100 feet from their door. It's insane IMHO.

Is the " I immediately chased him, threw him off his bicycle and kicked him in the stomach" story what you tell your kids when a bullying incident comes up?

Here in Chicago, if a kid rode by and spit on you and you chased him into the ally to "kick him in the stomach," you'd probably find he was just luring you into a trap where he and his six buddies would take your lunch money and castrate you.

I appreciate all the current and upcoming stories of "little guys" who stood tough against bullies and won. But I'm not sure it's the same world today, at least in urban environments away from Mayberry, RFD.

I grew up in inner city Chicago and played in the streets daily with no real issues. I still live within a stone's throw from the old 'hood. I don't think I'd repeat now what I did then. Different times. Differrent world.

 

[Sunset]

This happened to me, a girl continually picked on me on my mile walk home from school. My parents figured out what was going on, (I guess she got really rough once).
They talked to the Principal, and it stopped.

We also had a family of boys that liked to pick on fellow kids at school, everyone tried to avoid them, and I learned to run fast

I guess if I had turned into a Serial Killer, I could have used the girl bully example as a reason why it's not my fault but society's fault.

 

[Just_Steve]

I taught my kids not to be aggressors but to answer an aggressive act by others with a 10 fold return. Worked out well as the school bullies chose others after their first encounter with them.

 

[GrayHare]

IMO part of the bullying problem is now kids are punished if they defend themselves. Back in my day routine schoolyard scuffles were allowed to play themselves out. Now bullying victims are told to remain passive, which endures until they become infuriated and resort to guns.

 

[Just_Steve]

IMO part of the bullying problem is now kids are punished if they defend themselves. Back in my day routine schoolyard scuffles were allowed to play themselves out. Now bullying victims are told to remain passive, which endures until they become infuriated and resort to guns.

+100

 

[Nemo2]

But I don't think cases where a parent is guilty of "not allowing them to face and overcome ANY kind of adversity" are nearly as common as you are guessing.

And I freely admit that I am guessing; I don't have any answers, and I don't know to what extent increased media accessibility factors into what appears, (by the sheer volume of reports that were never previously publicized, except perhaps locally in each individual case), to be a growing phenomenon.......which is why I initiated the thread.

I never had kids, and now I have five granddaughters, (the eldest is eleven and the youngest two just turned one), so this topic is, or likely will be, of substantial interest to me.......perhaps my phraseology wasn't as accurate as it should have been, for which I apologize, but my question was genuine.

 

[JPatrick]

And today we have a different kind of bullying--"social media," or is it anti-social media?
My kids grew up in the dark ages, so I am not sure how I would handle that, but I suspect it is tough.

 

[easysurfer]

And today we have a different kind of bullying--"social media," or is it anti-social media?
My kids grew up in the dark ages, so I am not sure how I would handle that, but I suspect it is tough.

+1.

I think part of the reason why online bullying is such a problem is the platforms don't surely aren't helpful in providing many filtering options. I suppose for "freedom of speech" which I think is bogus as the person who is the victim should have at his/her disposal ways to easily screen out all the harassment. People have even ending their own lives not able to take the bullying anymore. How sad.

 

[Aerides]

I was bullied in the school yard as a kid - a girl, by girls. But that's where it ended. Never told teachers or parents, didn't have to worry that it showed up on FB or Insta. There were no pics, no texts, no after-hours taunts coming on my phone. I was 8-9? They grew out of it around 11-12. I still remember their names and faces. Girls are mean.

When I read about kids that age committing suicide over bullying it just breaks my heart.

 

[38Chevy454]

What is hard for me to understand, is a kid that defends himself is still suspended from school due to "zero tolerance" policies. Maybe only 1-2 days, vs the longer term for the aggressor in the scuffle, but this zero tolerance is what makes kids not defend.

 

[Amethyst]

As a little girl, I was chased, taunted, and punched in the gut by boys who were older (I was the youngest in the class, having skipped a couple of grades). Obviously fighting back was not an option. The adults said things like, "oh, that's just how boys show they like you." I knew better. Even at age six I could tell the grown-ups just did n't want to face up to a bad situation. A wonder it didn't put me off boys altogether, but I continued to like normal, decent ones.

 

[John Galt III]

In a way the bullying today is worse since the whole school can look on every day to see what new humiliation has been concocted on facebook, etc, by the sadistic little twerps, for their victim.

 

[athena53]

I definitely believe that the word "bullying" is way over-used these days, but I also have strong feelings about dealing with actual bullies. I was raised in white-bread America in the 1950s/1960s and good little girls were socialized to be peacemakers at any cost. If there's anything I want to teach my granddaughters, it's that if you don't call people on their bad behavior, some of them will walk all over you. It doesn't have to be physical violence, but it can be getting the authorities involved (one wise mother I read about had her daughter diary the incidents and they went to the principal), contacting the other kid's parents, escalating if needed.

Last weekend I was working in the church vegetable garden with kids who are doing community service while they're on probation. I don't ask them what their offenses were, but one young woman was complaining that she had to write an essay on "Why Fighting is Never OK". apparently she had resorted to it in dealing with other young women who got her angry. She was trying to figure out how to fill up 5 pages and I suggested she research alternatives to fighting. I pointed out that someday if she got angry at someone bigger and more violent, she'd need other tactics. We need to teach kids other ways to stand up for themselves.

 

[eytonxav]

I can remember an incident my son had on the school bus, maybe 6th grade, a known bully sucker punched him from behind while he was seated on the bus. I never heard this direct from my son, but one of his friends told me that my son waited till everyone was off the bus before confronting the bully on someones front lawn. He knocked this clown down, got on top of him and pummeled the crap out of him. The other kids were ecstatic that the bully got his due.

 

[Big_Hitter]

I can't stand bullies. I used to intervene whenever I could.

 

[donheff]

Garden variety occasional bullying like you describe is probably unavoidable. Sure, I experienced it a few times as a kid. But it wasn't constant, unrelenting, and isolating. A couple of kids were a little "different" and were treated abominably by many in the class for years. That kind of treatment must be devastating and is exacerbated by social media. I doubt there is much more of it happening these days but those same social media amplify the responses and make it seem like an epidemic. At any rate, I don't buy the kids will ba kids response. Bullies should be disciplined and removed from school if they persist.

 

[Amethyst]

You sound like my husband. He says he was too big to be bullied but he stood up for smaller, weaker boys. He also did n't like it when others were excluded from something, and still does not like it as an adult.

Let's face it, some are noble while some are churls. Bullies and excluders are churls.

I can't stand bullies. I used to intervene whenever I could.

 

[easysurfer]

Usually, I just try to ignore bullies. Not worth the time to deal with them.

But sometimes, you just gotta punch a bully in the nose.

I remember a time (not when I was in grade school but in college). Well, I was out for an afternoon jog when in the distance I saw about 5 kids (probably early high school age) on bicycles. So, I'm jogging and just my sixth sense knows they are going to try and hassle me. They do, so what did I do? No something I feel good about but like I said, sometimes gotta punch a bully in the nose. I saw who the leader was, who was riding no hands on the handle bar. So, I pretended to charge him to knock him off. He turned so white that that thought he saw a ghost.

Well, that worked, after them calling me some names I jogged away to finish my run.

Things were simpler then, as if that was today, I'd probably be killed and posted on social media by them (who knows? no exaggeration).

Though I still try to walk away, but as I said, sometimes you just gotta punch a bully in the nose.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Garden variety occasional bullying like you describe is probably unavoidable. Sure, I experienced it a few times as a kid. But it wasn't constant, unrelenting, and isolating. A couple of kids were a little "different" and were treated abominably by many in the class for years. That kind of treatment must be devastating and is exacerbated by social media. I doubt there is much more of it happening these days but those same social media amplify the responses and make it seem like an epidemic...

This x1000. I was bullied extensively up until 7th grade. I was a small, scrawny little kid with big ears...easy target. But something crazy happened the summer between 6th and 7th grades...my voice sounded funny and I grew up A LOT. I showed up to class in August and was now one of the biggest kids in school, it was quite surreal. The bullying stopped and I did my best to help the smaller kids who were still my friends. Any "real" issues were handled quickly at the end of school under the flag pole. So quick, in fact, that staff usually never knew. Through the HS years, I fought very few times, but when it came down to it, we dealt with it off campus. Today? No way that would fly since it would be posted on every damn social website available. So, if I had kids, I am not really sure how I would deal with it.

 

[Bestwifeever]

DH was popped in the mouth by a high school loser back in the day for dating loser's ex girlfriend, he reports. Looking back he knows loser had a tough childhood and a tougher life after high school. Sad. DS never ran into bullying situations--but even though he and his friends were remarkably easy-going and are still close today, it was amazing how quickly a little physical fight would often break out among them. So there's that. I think girls might have it worse today--the physical bullying isn't really there for the most part, but the media made the "mean girls" a thing that some girls think is cool, and DD ran into that, where a group will just cut a formerly "in" girl out of the group for no reason. Interesting, most of the mean girls went on to develop eating disorders....

 

[Greencheese]

Bullying back in the day must have been vastly different than what I witnessed going through the public school system a few years ago. If there was any physical bullying the bullies always singled out the smaller/weaker kids and fighting back was simply not an option. While I myself was never bullied some of the people who say fight back don't get it. If the equivalent of Muhammad Ali punched you, there's no way you'd throw down with him because you have exactly 0% chance of winning a fight. With social media so prevalent these days the tough crowd has to save face, and the whole school will know who wins the fight. As a result bullies find kids that cannot possibly fight back and zero in on them to assert their toughness. The only times I ever heard fighting back working was if the smaller kid knew how to fight outside of school and that fact was unknown to the aggressor. And even then sometimes the bully would round up some friends and find the opportune time to jump you, doesn't matter how much training you have getting jumped from behind by 5 people bigger than you will rarely ever end in your favor.

The best defense against bullying is to be involved and a part of the social fabric of the school. It ain't cool picking on the track team that many different kids are on, but if its the kid who sits alone in the corner all day everyday and says nothing? Nobody is going to care or stand up for them because they're a total stranger.