The Holocaust wasn't the first case of ethnic cleansing/mass persecution in history, and it almost certainly won't be the last. Groups of people are generally very easy to manipulate, and there are always going to be a few evil mother****ers around that can goad them into commiting all sorts of atrocities. Most people are capable doing some pretty horrible stuff if they get put in the right set of circumstances and riled up into the right state of mind.

I think if you took a good hard look at history and human nature, you'd see that all the laws and rules and regulations in the world aren't going to stop some people from victimizing others.

You know who put an end to the Holocaust? A bunch of grissled hard-ass American and Russian soldiers. Guys who went straight from high school to the battlefield. Every generation since then has gotten softer and softer. 100 or 200 years from now when the next Hitler comes along, I wonder how effective the US/European response will be? I'm sure little Billy who had mommy and daddy solve all his problems for him through lawsuits will make a good strong soldier/general/politician. We'll sue the pants off those bastards.

I really have no idea on how to respond to this kind of comment. This is exactly what the school system was telling me and my parents when it was going on, basically suck it up and stop complaining. And in response to "part of growing up", this kind of behavior might start as harmless **** but it can and does escalate quickly to the point where someone goes on a rampage or kills themselves. I suffered some horrible stuff in school and tried to get help from someone who was in a position to do something but nothing was done, this kind of treatment is exactly what pushes kids over the edge.

I suspect you watch too much evening news.

dude for me it started when I was like 8. What happened early influenced how things happened later on. At this age no one has a ****ing clue what to do. When the same **** happens daily for 5 years or whatever its gonna get to you, i don't care how you handle it. When I did get into trouble early on(8 or 9 years old) responding to bullying, I remember a phrase from the principal of the school " boys will be boys" ... easy way to avoid dealing with the problem at hand- at a stage where addressing the issue could have made a huge impact.


At least in my school groups/cliques were formed very early, and the popular kids from 5th grade were the same ones in 12th grade, same with those who were outcasts.

This is kind of ridiculous, and the school probably should have done something if things were truely escalating beyond typical school yard stuff. But, maybe you got lucky that they didn't do anything, because any action they might have taken would have probably been ineffective and made things worse on you. Even in the absolute best case scenerio of all the bullies getting kicked out of school, their dislike for you would have been turned into straight up hatred, and maybe they'd come and find you alone somewhere isolated where there were no adults around to stop them. Groups of people (even kids) are pretty damn dangerous to individuals, and school officials/parents/cops can only keep a lid on the situation in a few narrow sets of circumstances. Their ability to protect you doesn't extend to out in the woods or in a dark alley somewhere.

That's pretty crazy

El D, I know you said no insults, and maybe I deserve a El D forum ban,

But I mean, what is it with people telling someone else how to raise her kid? Any of you know how rude that is? And the "bat**** crazy" remark was way out of line, too. Bunch of stinkin' animals, I say.

And Adebisi, insinuating that parents/teachers stopping physical violence at school will result in the next genocide not being stopped because our soldiers will be too soft is probably one of the most insane things I've heard in a while, and I volunteer at a mental health clinic.

And that was so crazy I laughed while typing up what you were saying.

And no, I don't really volunteer at a mental health clinic.

I totally agree.

You really think a kid has the capacity to do this? If they did, I think all the kids ****ed up from divorce, abuse, and a slew of other trauma could just 'get over it'. I really don't perceive intense, prolonged emotional and physical bullying as much different.

Are you kidding me? Wow. Yeah, should have learned his lesson! He really played that one badly! Jesus, I strongly believe that if you had endured what others did in this thread (or had a more evolved level of empathy) you would have a completely different opinion.

Bullying is a difficult topic to tackle. I have been on both sides of the coin. I feel ashamed that I ever bullied anyone now. I have no real excuse for it. I was bored and in the example I'm thinking of despite repeatedly telling this kid not to sit near me he continued to do in spite of my abuse. This was around the age of 16. I don't think I ever bullied anyone physically.

When I was younger I was "bullied" fairly badly for many years. I use the term loosely as I was never really shy about defending myself. There was a short period from 13-14 when some kids had suddenly gone through puberty and were just too physically strong for me to adequately defend myself. But 1 on 1 from the age of 6-13 I was never that worried. I blame myself for being bullied in some respects as I was very arrogant as a child. I also saw complaining or even showing pain as a sign of weakness. I would never admit to being in pain no matter what happened to me, and would do my damndest not to show it.

I only cried once publically in my schooling experience. I was 8, and I remember sitting against a wall and blacking out because three kids were kicking me in the head (I don't think it was American History X type violence, just little kids softly kicking me). It may have only been one of them kicking and the other ones laughing. Anyway, my nose was bleeding and being so young I did not know that our bodies could regenerate blood. I was crying because every day I would end up bleeding. A blood nose was definitely a rarity but I had scabs all over my knees / elbows from wrestling / fighting on grass every day. Of course the scabs would get scraped off and it was a never ending cycle. But yes at that age I was legitametely concerned that I would run out of blood at some point. It seems kind of absurd to think that could be going through the mind of an eight year old.

I think this story paints too dark a picture. In some ways I enjoyed "play" fighting. There was hardly ever any true "fights". I don't know how or why that getting kicked in the face incident happened. I would always be covered in bruises though and hide it from my parents and teachers. Again, I would never complain / mention it to anyone including the kids involved as I would never show what I considered weakness.

I also recieved plenty of verbal abuse but I dished it out, so I don't know if you could call that bullying.

My social and emotional growth was definitely stunted by all of this (though I was somewhat different to most people as a kid anyway, it's tough to quantify). The bullying probably became worse over the years as my personality was growing more and more unusual as a result of what was happening. Rather than becoming withdrawn or beatdown I only really became more arrogant. Of course the depression was always there and became much worse later on.

These days I am very lucky. I'm reasonably good looking, have loads of friends and a good lifestyle. I have also had lots of lovely girlfriends over the last few years that have all aided in getting me to the point where most people see me as a fairly "normal". Sometimes I am amazed when I meet girls and they think I'm some shallow guy who doesn't think about anyone's emotions or anything. So, yeh, these days I feel fairly happy and balanced.

The only time my experiences come back to me is when I get obscenely drunk (25+ standard drinks). I can become very violent / unpredictable at this point. I might not even be violent in a vicious / malevolent kind of way. But I'll "play fight" with my friends and am way too rough, even though when sober I have no interest in that kind of thing anymore. If I get involved in an altercation at a bar in this state I'm pretty much nuts. I lose all rational thought and would fight anyone. I just try to avoid getting blotto so as to avoid this kind of situation.

Yeh I sound like a total nutjob from this post, LOL.

I think it was well executed but no of course I don't think it was called for. The boy probably just had a crush on her she's very cute.

1. By "D.D." I meant that I am/usually always the Mother who drives the kids around, picks up her friends, drops them off at their houses, etc etc.

2. While I try not to "condone" underage drinking, I do allow my daughter to partake in the occasional sip/drink when she's with me. I was raised that way, where my mom and dad would buy us the alcohol, as long as we drank it with them, such as on a camping trip. I'm actually quite lucky that my daughter doesn't like the taste of any alcohol, YET. LOL

3. I really, truly am sensible and did not mean to come across as "ZOMG, I keep her in a cage" but I am also well aware of the dangers out there and am trying my best to make her into a responsible teenager, which would then turn into a responsible adult.

T

And another big part of growing up is learning when and how to let the proper "chain of command" take care of things. Sometimes people need police and lawyers or have to report things to managers. A lot of people don't handle those things all that well either. There aren't simple answers here.

It is definitely important for children to learn to deal with adversity, but at what price? Depending on the extent of bullying, it can cause some serious damage to a child's psyche and development.

Discerning where to draw the line is what we as a society need to learn how to do better. The two extremes ("zero tolerance" on one end, and "no adult intervention, let the children sort it out" on the other end), obviously are not very good policies, as we live in a world where things aren't black and white and easy to sort out, but shades of gray and hard as hell to sort anything out. What's the answer? I don't know, but I do know that it lies somewhere in the middle.

Martial arts lessons and a weapon?

(Like a kubotan)

Not a bad idea - I carried a kubotan in high school, college, and sometimes still do today. I am not sure if kubotans are allowed on campuses these days though - zero tolerance and all.

Local newsstory last month.

My boss's daughter attends the school in question, and apparently the facts in the mother's statement are generally correct, except that the boys weren't planning on videotaping his "death" just his "lesson".

This case is almost too extreme to add much to the discussion, in my opinion, but in this case the school officials failed to act and clearly should have.

More generally, kids should be protected against any physical abuse by other students. Schools should be physically safe, or as safe as adults can make them. Teasing is different, although there are kinds of teasing that would persuade me to pull my kid out of school and arrange for alternative education. And any situation that involves MULTIPLE students ganging up on one person should be treated as an emergency by all concerned. Mob activity is too unpredictable and escalates too quickly.

That's the part for the school administration.

Speaking as a possible future parent, kids can and should be expected to treat each other like human beings at all times. My parents always required that of me and my brother both at home and at school. There was no "letting kids be kids and sort it out". There was only "this is what reasonable people do and we are raising you to be reasonable people".

The one time my brother thought he'd try picking on a kid in his class and my parents learned about it, my mother sent him over to the other boy's house and told his mother that my brother would be doing Bobby's chores that week. If any child of mine shows even the remotest evidence of being a bully he's going to learn quickly that it is NOT in his own best interest.

I wasn't going to butt in, but given Adebisi's posts...

Suicide - second leading cause of preventable death in the nation. Often linked to bullying. The whole "tough it up" mentality is social darwinism.

People in the past didn't "take their lumps," people in the past sunk or swam. A lot of people suffered, killed themselves, etc, and nobody cared. Nobody thought it was a big deal. Things like death just didn't matter as much, especially among the "unimportant" people who tended to be the victims, and that was the difference - it had nothing to do with them being "tougher." Injustice was part of life. Some people mattered, and some didn't, and talk about "equality" didn't change that.

Check out the mental hospitals and asylums and how they were run by the "greatest generation." It's a microcosm of how the weak (and the different) were viewed and treated (then and through most of history). The consequence of Adebisi's position is exactly that - cruelty doesn't matter, who cares about the people who can't handle it. Sometimes we take it too far in the opposite direction, but that doesn't justify anything.

Bullying ruins lives. Bullying has always ruined lives.

Kids are mean, like brutally mean.

It sucks that the fallout of teaching your child to be compassionate and empathetic is that they get picked on for it.

I took my son to a museum last a few days ago. He was excited as it was one of those discovery center type places where you can do all the experiments. One of the exhibits was a virtual reality thing where you step in front of a camera and you're on this snowboard. My son excitedly runs up and joins the line of 4-5 boys (horizontal line in front of the camera), the exhibit is designed to house a bunch of kids at once. Without even looking at my son, this little ****head kid pushes my son and says "GET OUTTA HERE," with his parents right at his side. My son ran off in tears (he's 6). I grab my son by the hand and tell him, "some kids are rude, and their parents don't care, it's nothing to cry about son, we'll go to the playground..." as I glared at his parents who had a vacant expression on their face.

As for me I usually just kept quiet and was never picked on. But my son is really energetic, really compassionate and sweet and is legally blind, so he's a little different than the "average" kid. Kids in groups are deplorable. Every school is a little bit of Lord of the Flies. For that and other reasons my son is in martial arts and has my full blessing to defend himself if and when necessary. If he gets suspended for defending himself we'll just go do something fun. As with most social interactions people can only bully you if you let them.

God, I don't know how you walked out of there without starting some **** with that kid's parents (not that you should have, I prob just lack self control).

I dont see the advantages of knowing how to deal with bullies. This will pretty much never come up later in life. With that said I havent been bullied that much. Just random stabs which I quickly shot down before it escalated.

yeah I agree with goofyballer. No way I am letting that slide.

This is, of course, a good idea, but it often works out the wrong way.

Kids who tease and bully have the advantage of choosing the time and place; they're very good at not getting caught. Then one day the victim has had enough, gets angry, punches the bully, and gets suspended. Many posts in the thread have mentioned this already, but I think it's important, because the adults almost never have enough information to make the right decisions in these cases, imo.

I got bullied quite badly in high school. Verbal abuse sucks badly but whatever. Any sort of physical abuse sickens me.

I probably wouldn't have got bullied if I'd just known how to fight back however. Back then I knew jack **** about fighting and how fights went down. I'd taken some BS Karate classes when I was 8 where they basically said you should just punch to the body the whole time. One of the few fights I ever had, happened in my first year when I stood up to a bully. I just stood in front of him punching him in the chest while he hit me in the face. It's pretty sad that he couldn't even hurt or bruise me in any way when he had me as a sitting duck.

At the risk of sounding like an internet tough guy I think I'd have kicked his ass knowing what I know from watching so much MMA.

If I went back in time and did high school over again I probably wouldn't have got bullied at all. I would always fight back now, since I know some basic strategy and I don't care if I got my ass kicked. At my school the worst that would happen is that you'd get bloodied up a bit. I doubt that anyone would do anything permanent.

If they knew they'd at least get socked hard in the face a few times they'd probably just decide it wasn't worth their trouble any more. There was one freak of nature who you'd never want to fight back against but he was generally a nice guy who just randomly pushed his weight around against everybody.

I had a friend who was bullied a lot in middle/high school, and as a result (I think its cause of this) he's very confrontational, egotistical and insecure. If you insult him/make a joke about him in anyway he'll harbor it for a long time, you know. He's very sensitive about his..."honor", I guess.

Kind of annoying and unfortunate, though understandable.

I also got shot in the face by a .22 by a guy who I was having small fights with, that sure fixed his bullying problems big time so I recommend that bullys shoot people so their parents can kick their ass for the next years or so!