Observations about bullying

[yhelothar]

There it is: You stood up for yourself. Even when I was in school, the teachers and administration always told us to to not fight back because we'd get in trouble. My parents told me to defend myself, and to hell with the school's punishment. I think a lot of kids these days are coddled by parents and teachers and are "protected" by them, never learning to stick up and solve the problems for themselves.

Luckily, I never had any serious bullies, but the ones I did have were usually deterred by a swift punch to the arm and a "knock that shit off".

Yup. I wish I learned this back in the day.

 

[Nik]

I think kids are bullied less today than they were in decades past. However, just like how war wasn't really understood by the general public until the media got their shitty paws all over it (V.N.), the media is exposing the general public to it.

...and then blowing it out of proportion as usual, making a few spineless suicide-committing pussies seem like they're just normal, innocent little kids who DON'T already have a screw loose and were somehow driven to insanity by a little fucking nit picking.

 

[Gooberlx2]

It's because true self-defense, that supplied by a gun, is no longer acceptable

When was bringing a gun to school yard fights ever acceptable?

 

[sdifox]

It isn't part of their life if they don't let it be. They don't have to " practically live online ".

Their Parents are just as responsible as the bullies in these cases.

My son wanted to be an internet addict when he was young, but we would not allow him more than a few hours a day on the internet/computer ( and that time was supervised ). No he didn't like it much and we did have quite a few arguments over it. However he grew up a better person for it in spite of himself. It is an inconvenience for parents to do this and the easiest way is to just let them have it. Easier isn't always the right way.

Of course it's parental unit failure all around, throw in a school administration that doesn't care and you got kids offing themselves left right and centre.

If I create a webpage taunting someone, I can expect to be sued in no time and found guilty. Yet this does not happen with kids. I think it is high time the parents, who are the legal guardians after all, be held (partially) responsible in cases like this. Your kid, your responsibility.

I was dumbfounded when the woman pretending to be a kid taunted a kid to death wasn't even tried. How is that any less of a crime than paedophiles fishing online?

 

[alkemyst]

Kid sucker punched me in front of his dad. I kinda went nuts like ralphie from christmas story. I tackled him to ground started punching him repetitively. When I stopped he turned over and start to crawl away then said something about me being an asshole so I grabbed a fistful of hair and started slamming his face into the ground. At that point his Dad grabbed me slammed me against the wall then a couple teachers grabbed his Dad and pulled him away. We both got suspended, him for 5 days for 'instigating.' Me for 3 days

that was why I put ? after.

that's insanity.

just saying, not really the story i'd be telling others.

There was a kid a few houses down when I was growing up. We both had the biggest homes in the neighborhood. He was a little bitch about it and would get me cornered with a few of his friends and harass me.

I went over knocked on his door one night. I think I had just got done playing Ultima III and was feeling victorious or something, it triggered something.

His mom answered and gave me a scowl, I told her to send her some derogatory kid out...she came back with her husband. I told him the same thing. He laughed and got him.

I could tell the kid didn't want to face me one on one. The dad told him get it over with next door (looking back probably because of insurance reasons).

I cracked him full force right in the mouth as he was running it. I learned early on that if you are going to fight, get to the blows first and talk later.

He started screaming about his teeth and I punched him on the ground a few more times. His dad ran over grabbed him by the legs and dragged him home. Complaining about him "damnit david you told me you already beat him up".

Anyway that ended that, no need to go mental and try to crack his skull open.

 

[alkemyst]

When was bringing a gun to school yard fights ever acceptable?

yeah WTF....too many dudes here are thinking this like an adult situation.

Like Mosh said though, most kids are not prepared any more for anything but success.

Fuck 1 legged gimpy kids have to be able to get on the team as do retards. In my day, they had better made a hell of a try out or their parents would have been severely talked too about putting them in such a situation.

Everyone wins today. A star for everyone.

When shit backfires they can't process it at all.

 

[TraumaRN]

that was why I put ? after.

that's insanity.

just saying, not really the story i'd be telling others.

There was a kid a few houses down when I was growing up. We both had the biggest homes in the neighborhood. He was a little bitch about it and would get me cornered with a few of his friends and harass me.

I went over knocked on his door one night. I think I had just got done playing Ultima III and was feeling victorious or something, it triggered something.

His mom answered and gave me a scowl, I told her to send her some derogatory kid out...she came back with her husband. I told him the same thing. He laughed and got him.

I could tell the kid didn't want to face me one on one. The dad told him get it over with next door (looking back probably because of insurance reasons).

I cracked him full force right in the mouth as he was running it. I learned early on that if you are going to fight, get to the blows first and talk later.

He started screaming about his teeth and I punched him on the ground a few more times. His dad ran over grabbed him by the legs and dragged him home. Complaining about him "damnit david you told me you already beat him up".

Anyway that ended that, no need to go mental and try to crack his skull open.

Yeah, I'm not sure what came over me that day but I had finally had enough and something snapped inside me and wasn't going to take it any longer. I was 14 at the time, but lemme tell you, after that fight no one messed with me/bullied me again at school. So in a way going mental had a perk. My dad always taught me that even if you don't start a fight, to 1.) win the fight, 2.) finish it by any means necessary.

To that end he and my uncle taught me from a young age how to fight/brawl so the kid didn't know what he was getting himself into. And I didn't realize that I would act like that.

We had a neighborhood bully kinda like yours that my cousin took care of in a similar manner to what you did. My cousin just cold-cocked him square in the nose, the kid went down in a heap. He never messed with my cousin again after that

 

[LegendKiller]

I personally think that bullying has become far more personal, far worse, and far too often. As others said, in most cases, bullying would occur in school or right around school or school events but you were somewhat isolated outside of that. Now you get it 24/7 and it's far more public with all of the social networking sites, chat, text, email...etc.

I was bullied a lot in school. Not physical because I was mainly bigger than most kids. However, I was tormented mentally for many reasons. One of the more popular being that I killed my best friend, or that my family were killers. Why?

Because when I was 11 my sister slid on ice and hit and killed a classmate who was walking on a road and not on the snow-covered sidewalk. 3 years later I was bike riding with my best friend and he turned into traffic and was killed.

Kids loved the "killer" one. They'd make up all sorts of things, like saying I killed him for his baseball cards. They would slide pictures of his face, (markered with blood) which was published in remembered in the yearbook, into my locker, with "killer" on top.

When my parents complained to the school, the principal had the other kids' parents in, they all blamed it on "kids being kids" and laughed it off.

This is where the real problem lies. Kids by their very nature lack empathy and capacity to understand their effect on others. They simply cannot morally understand how things they do affect other people. That's because they are young and haven't experienced all sides of tragedy. Thus, parents should be the ones who supply that example. However, most parents aren't willing to punish their kids or help them develop empathy. However, now parents are "friends" or are too busy or don't care about developing their kids properly.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/the_edge/dying-girl-taunted-by-neighbors-in-trenton

This can be developed by kids but it is far more rare and usually those kids have developed with some family adversity themselves. For example, I know many examples of kids who had siblings with down's syndrome. In all of the cases I know (hardly statistically valid) the siblings all seemed to be far more accepting of differences and far more caring towards others.

Add the lack of empathy to the leverage modern technology provides. Not only can people be mentally cruel at school (which is the far more common form of bullying) but they can now be mentally brutal 24/7 across all spectrums of social media. Add this to the fact that the message can not only be delivered more often, but also far more widespread. Whereas prior bullying was localized to a small area of effect, now hundreds, if not thousands, of people can see it in a single post. That has to be humiliating and deeply unsettling.

To the internet toughguys who sit there saying that kids aren't "tough" anymore, I'd love for you to be subject to 24/7 torment by your supposed peers. I'm sure you wouldn't be "tough" for too long.