Bully-ing

[TroutBum]

I hate to admit it, but I was both bullied and mainly a bully myself. I look back with disgust at some of my actions and realize that I'll never be able to right some of the wrongs. There are people who probably haven't thought about it for one second after it happened, but I imagine that there are people who remember me as the douchebag who did this/that to them. It really is something that I think about often, and it really makes me ill. That being said, a lot of good has come from it. I know I can't take things back, but I can do my best to change the lives of others in positive ways. If not for being a bully, I probably wouldn't be the way I am today. Not that I'm some awesome dude, but I am satisfied with my life and have no regrets. (except for that one threesome -- too old)

Anyhow, bullying will never end. Hopefully people learn from it, and use it as a springboard into bigger and better things. FWIW, my daughters will be taking Kick Boxing and BJJ lessons as soon as humanly possible (still trying to talk wife into it) so when the inevitable bullying occurs, they'll be able to throw on a flying triangle choke and put the jackwagon bully in his/her place.

 

[One Brow]

Overt racism has not ended, but it has been socially ostracized. Sexism is on the way there. We can do the same for bullying, making it rare and unacceptable.

 

[babe]

Overt racism has not ended, but it has been socially ostracized. Sexism is on the way there. We can do the same for bullying, making it rare and unacceptable.

Ah, the dreamy musings of a serious social engineer. . . . .

Ostracizing a fundamental human choice, then another, and another. Just can't teach humans without these displays of hate, huh? Maybe sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, when you can't raise the level of discussion to an abstract ideal, oh, say like religions sometimes do.

Let's take the whole "Whites Only" sort of business that used to thrive on the commonplace ignorance and fear. A lot of businesses feared that whites would ostracize them if they did let the "different" folks in. Nobody had the courage to break with the establishment in place. So of course you had to have northern liberals and Republicans pass federal laws and send in the federal jackbooted troops. You couldn't win this one by discussing American ideals, right? If it was only the jackbooted cops/soldiers who could secure inviolate human rights, why did Martin Luther King gain impressive audiences?

The blacks did not have it as bad as another "minority" I can think of. The blacks were obviously valuable workers, with no way to escape, and sometimes they were kept alive. The indians were "savages" that just needed to be killed. Even Abraham Lincoln just thought they should all be killed. We raised armies to do that, and when they couldn't just finish the job, we gave them pitiful little reservations and posted soldiers nearby to make sure they couldn't roam out to hunt. Some of the plains indians were so troublesome we had to have US Grant and our Congress give out free guns and ammo, and free rides on trains across the plains with the express mandate to wipe out the buffalo herds.

This to people who had lived and traded with the trappers for decades.

Government force is always the preferred tool of progressives, right.

 

[babe]

So here's what can happen sometimes when a kid is being ostracized, picked on, roughed up. . . . from a personal perspective. The situation will be different in every case, perhaps, on some point or another. In my case I stood up to the bullies and took the beating and gave back the best I could. The bully herd began to thin out, and even the worst bullies just lost interest.

Then I became a sympathetic "liberal" who befriended all the miserable cowards who wouldn't/couldn't stand up for themselves.

That was not the way it began, but there was one day in my life I remember pretty well. Until then it only got worse and worse, and I did consider running away somewhere or killing myself. Some smug smartass ignoramues will just mock my story I know. It was the first day I prayed, and told God what I was thinking and why. While I was doing that, I experienced an entirely new thought. It was exactly this: "If you can endure this, you can endure anything." true story. I went into that little clump of pomegranite bushes a coward, and I came out a man. Amazing how fast it all ended after that.

If I was on a schoolground today, and I saw some stupid bully strutting his stuff, and if I was a free man in a free country, I'd be kicking someone's butt in about five seconds. Then I'd be trying to address some higher order of reasoning. I saw an example of this in "Second-hand Lion".

No bones would be broken, no lasting effects but some cogent, lucid thoughts impressively made significant to an idiot.

Maybe a bit more direct than a raft of counselors and administrators would prefer, but effective.

 

[LogGrad98]

Read "Ender's Game" to see the best way to handle bullies.

 

[Surely]

There is a family that moved into our neighborhood last year from England. I just learned last Sunday that their only daughter (10 year old 5th grader) was getting bullied at school. Apparently some little bitch doesn't like her accent and has taken it upon herself to make her life here hell. The girl from England is very petite and small for her age so roughing up the bully isn't an option. Two weeks ago the bully took her and cut her bangs (spelling?) down to her scalp and cut the back of her hair also. The whole neighborhood is doing all we can to let these nice people know that this kind of **** is not tolerated in our school.

 

[LogGrad98]

There is a family that moved into our neighborhood last year from England. I just learned last Sunday that their only daughter (10 year old 5th grader) was getting bullied at school. Apparently some little bitch doesn't like her accent and has taken it upon herself to make her life here hell. The girl from England is very petite and small for her age so roughing up the bully isn't an option. Two weeks ago the bully took her and cut her bangs (spelling?) down to her scalp and cut the back of her hair also. The whole neighborhood is doing all we can to let these nice people know that this kind of **** is not tolerated in our school.

That bully needs to go down.

 

[bigb]

My oldest daughter (7 years old, 2nd grader) complained one day to us about a boy in school that was being mean. He had pushed her around a little and one day pushed her into a doorway hard enough to leave a bruise. The next day was parent teacher conferences. My wife brought it up to the teacher, who immediately walked them down to the principles office. They documented it, took some pictures, and talked to the boy about it. The next day, my daughter brought home a handwritten apology note from this boy. We continue to ask her about it frequently and she says the boy has bothered her again.
Unfortunately, bullying is something that will probably always exist. It sucks. Can it get to the point where it is looked upon with as much disdain as things like racism or sexism? One can hope.

 

[DutchJazzer]

There is a family that moved into our neighborhood last year from England. I just learned last Sunday that their only daughter (10 year old 5th grader) was getting bullied at school. Apparently some little bitch doesn't like her accent and has taken it upon herself to make her life here hell. The girl from England is very petite and small for her age so roughing up the bully isn't an option. Two weeks ago the bully took her and cut her bangs (spelling?) down to her scalp and cut the back of her hair also. The whole neighborhood is doing all we can to let these nice people know that this kind of **** is not tolerated in our school.

thats horrible that is clearly taking it to far.
back in the day parents of the victim could take on the bully. but nowadays it's a crime to punish other peoples children.
i remember this story of a friend who got bullied his father came
and said who bullied you and he said 1 guy and his 2 friends but they where a few grades higher. so he told him lets get two frineds of yours. so they got 2 friends.
the guys knew where the bullies hanged
so the father drove them over.
he stepped out of the car. went to sit on the hood. told his son go ahead beat them up.
so 3 little guys beat up the bullies. the bullies dare not do something back. because an adult was standing there. the bullies never ever dared do something again.

but nowadays this kind of justice is in someway "morally wrong" and illegal. kids(bullies) now it lost all respect to adults.

in my experience and those from personal friends is jsut to take on the bullies head on.
i have/had kinda pointy ears over the years they rounded out a bit. i was called spock/captain spock. got teased to hell and back but i never let it bother me. people made jokes like you where a baby your parents didn't have towels so after a bath they had to hang you by your ears(pretty funny) but i never let it bother me. till someday in the schoolbus one boy decided to take it to another level and pull my ears, well i kicked the **** out of him. never ever did he opr others bother me again about my ears(sure behind my back they did it).

 

[DutchJazzer]

That is an argument you can make, but I don't think she is better off for having been bullied. She wishes it had never happened. It is a dark spot on her childhood that she has to live with now for the rest of her life. I believe that these experiences can and do make people stronger, or at least more cynical and less trusting, which is often mistaken for "strength". She may turn it to her benefit in the long run, but I do not by any stretch believe she is any better of a person, or will have any better of a life, than she would have been had she never had to endure that.

I mean that argument can go pretty far down a dark path. Is a rape victim stronger because of the assault? Does it make it ok then, or even good that it happened? I don't think anyone would argue that, but the two experiences are cut from the same cloth, a case of one person exercising control and power over another. If we are going to have that discussion, where do we draw that blurry line?

you are right in some way kinda still disagree since raping and bullying are worlds apart.
but bullying teaches kids either to just
1.Ignore it(sometimes hard and it worked for me till one bully decided to take it to the next level and make it physcical)
2. or to deal with it eg fight back.

not to knock on the way you bring up your children but i could tell anything to my parents.
even bad stuff we did there was some kind of amnesty clause. after some time you can just talk at the dinner table about all of the bad stuff you did a while ago. without punishment.
in other words maybe try to let your daughter be more open to you. it might be harder than you think.

also society nowadays it's all about "looks", instead of inner beauty.

also it's not bullying who changed got worse. it's society, in a way society gave bullies more power.

 

[freakazoid]

Two weeks ago the bully took her and cut her bangs (spelling?) down to her scalp and cut the back of her hair also.

Now that's just evil.

Sometimes I think it's the girls who can be the most ruthless little **** wads.

 

[moevillini]

I will say this, girls tend to be more devious. Boys tend to resort to more name calling and physical bullying. I think both use "exclusion" as a form of bullying pretty equally.


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