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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101008/ap_on_re_us/us_bullying_one_town
You would think after the first one there would be a major crackdown on bulling.
Know as a victim of bullying my whole grade and jr. high career i can speak from experiance teachers and faculty do NOTHING. They do that because they think there is nothing. I think there is plenty. I know that alot of bullies get away with because they are important to the school or some bs like that. I think that is wrong.
I think anyone who is caught bulling should be expelled from the school district altogether. But the problem is if you teaah your kids to stand up the bullies could become the bullied in the schools eyes.

We appear to be raising some pretty fragile kids these days.

Somehow i should have known this would turn into someone saying kids are to soft.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:We appear to be raising some pretty fragile kids these days.

Killing them off, more like.

sorry I had to be that guy. but there it is.

Suicide is a pretty clear indicator of mental illness, at least at most legal/medical levels. There are plenty of environmental triggers (such as bullying) that can make those conditions worse, but bullying is probably not the root cause of these kids suicides. Reading the article, three were suicides and one was an accidental drug overdose (of anti-depressents), which I think changes things a bit.

Add in that one of the kids also lost two siblings to suicide or overdose, and you start seeing a much more complex picture than "School allowed kids to be bullied to death!"

Now, schools seldom take serious steps to curb bullying. They should be proactive in stopping that behavior. On the other hand, reading those stories, maybe trying to conform a little bit could have saved these kids some trouble, you know? Dressing all in pink and bringing your plush toy monkey to class isn't exactly behavior to exhibit if you want to avoid bullying.

Nobody gets to be who they really are in high school. We pretty much all got through by trying to be as normal as possible and waiting to get the hell out.

The bullying of the croatian girl is just bizarre to me. I went to a pretty multi-ethnic, immigrant heavy high school, and while we cheerfully called people "boaters" or "yugos", everybody generally got along.

Uhh. *looks at Combine.*
*scratches head*
You know that every kid in America has this problem? Except me. Because I basically give the person the finger And I walk away.

But yes this is a tragic story. Damn you bullies! *pulls out a chaingun* I will own you!

AbaddonFidelis wrote:sorry I had to be that guy. but there it is.

You didn't have to be that guy. You could have held your tongue. Suppose some relative of these girls are members of this site? You simply have no consideration for other people.

garret wrote:I think anyone who is caught bulling should be expelled from the school district altogether. But the problem is if you teaah your kids to stand up the bullies could become the bullied in the schools eyes.

That is going way overboard. Especially since I'd be willing to beat that at some point everyone has engaged in behavior that could be classified as bullying.

Assuming that school administrators aren't either incredibly lazy or outright cruel (It's a big assumption but work with me here), I think that bullying is a very tough issue to sort out. You have the inherent nature of children "kids will be kids" as well as the educational goal of teaching children to solve their own problems and develop into adults. On the flip side, when you have more sensitive or vulnerable students, the level of behavior they can tolerate easily goes down. I think when you combine allowing too much bullying with more susceptible victims is when you have a problem.

I live near mentor, and it's a pretty white bread, ultra-conformist upper middle class exurb. that's part of it. I know some friends that teach in tonier school districts, and they've said that there is an awareness of which students' parents are important, and you don't lean too heavily on them. Basically the high school hells that get portrayed in media, where highly stratified cultures exist based on economics and/or athletic ability really do exist.

In cases where bullying is perpetrated by the children of the elite parents, the motivation of the school to counter it will naturally be reduced.

Which is my advice for bullied teens and there parents would focus less on trying to change an entrenched system that has no incentive to change and instead focus on surviving and getting the hell out. As TV's greatest father, Homer Simpson once said, "just be the girl everybody wants you to be"

interestingly enough, at least two of those deaths in Mentor happened after the student in question left the High School, which I think raises even further questions about their organic mental disorders.

I still don't understand bullying. Just make friends with everyone. That's what I do. Never had a bully in my life.

I know it isn't that easy for some people, but how could you let it go that far? Suicide? I would've shot the bully in the face before killing myself....What does a bully do to make a person kill himself? I can't even fathom it.


ing bullies are morons....

Samus_aran115 wrote:

I still don't understand bullying. Just make friends with everyone. That's what I do. Never had a bully in my life.

I know it isn't that easy for some people, but how could you let it go that far? Suicide? I would've shot the bully in the face before killing myself....What does a bully do to make a person kill himself? I can't even fathom it.


ing bullies are morons....

Wow your lucky. Everyone in my Gaming club was bullied for like 2 years. I had the worst of it because i'm an Aussie.

But yeah its kind a wierd that one of girls that left was killed afterwards. Which means they might of had an disorder.

Seriously? There was a bullying thread a while back and I noticed that most of you guys said you were the bullied, but really?

I guess it helps that I just act chill around everyone. I've noticed bullying often results from segregating a person to be alone, which I don't do....I could easily go hang out with the jocks, or the spanish people, or the ghetto people, or the nerds...Everyone, really. More than once I've gone to a 'Go-Go' with some of my ghetto friends...I dunno. Maybe a white guy keeps the police away or something.

Define "Bully", please.

As in, What defines "Bullying"? What defines a person as a Bully?

helgrenze wrote:Define "Bully", please.

As in, What defines "Bullying"? What defines a person as a Bully?

Being a jerk to others, getting in peoples face, sextexting, abuse of power, use of force on the innocent.

helgrenze wrote:Define "Bully", please.

As in, What defines "Bullying"? What defines a person as a Bully?

A big dude who smokes cigarettes and wears a 'borrowed' leather jacket? I have no idea!

Being slammed into lockers for wearing a collared shirt and slacks? Isn't that why people get bullied? For wearing dorky clothes?

If you look at the article, one of the kids was Bosnian.

I'd imagine that the average Bosnian is fairly "tough." Also, even if she's Americanized, her parents are thoroughly Bosnian, which suggests to be that this isn't really an issue of America raising soft kids.

It certainly is tempting to think so, given everything we see going on with helicopter parents, sensitivity training and the like, but it doesn't really add up.

In fact, another suicide you hear some about in the news, Phoebie Prince, was also an immigrant. So, these aren't soft American kids.

My feeling is that kids have always killed themselves, and only lately have we started trying to figure out a systemic cause for it. Ultimately I think the sensationlistic hand-wringing diagnosis is a product of our "soft" society, but the suicides are actually caused by mental health issues, and problems more complex and difficult than "if only the kids were nicer to each other."

Asherian Command wrote:

helgrenze wrote:Define "Bully", please.

As in, What defines "Bullying"? What defines a person as a Bully?

Being a jerk to others, getting in peoples face, sextexting, abuse of power, use of force on the innocent.

Agree, except for for the bolded part How is sexting a bully-some activity?

"If you don't send me naked pictures of you, I'm gonna beat you up!" I laugh, but I'm sure it's happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bully
http://www.yourdictionary.com/bully
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Bullying/Pages/Bullyingfacts.aspx
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bullying

Polonius wrote: Basically the high school hells that get portrayed in media, where highly stratified cultures exist based on economics and/or athletic ability really do exist.

Yep, but it should also be said that academic ability plays a role in some places. My high school contained about 600 kids, and the average PSAE (No Child Left Behind test) was a 22 ACT equivalent. The 5 kids that regularly earned perfect scores on the PSAE (36 ACT equivalent) would show up 2-3 periods late, and receive no consequences.

Bullying is a form of abuse. It comprises repeated acts over time that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power with the more powerful individual or group abusing those who are less powerful.

1.a person who hurts, frightens, or tyrannizes over those who are smaller or weaker

Behaviour by an individual or group, usually repeated over time, that intentionally hurts another individual or group, either physically or emotionally.”

So technically, based on the information provided by Kilkrazy, I would have been considered a "Bully" because I used my intelligence, reading skills and high retention levels to keep my classmates from achieving grade that would have kept them on whichever sports team they played on due to the teacher grading on the curve. The effect being that my actions (scoring 100s on tests, etc...) would have caused "emotional harm" to those individuals. Of course "Intent" would have to be proved, but, in some cases I did intentionally answer all the questions correctly.

It made me a powerful influence in the school because if I chose to, I could, by my grades, keep players off the team. I even made one girl cry.... Because of my grade on something she got her first ever "B" (in her entire school career)... in her senior year.

Bullying victims tend to go down two routes. Either they lash out and become opressors themselves, they keep their willpower but lose their humanity. the otyherse internallise and try to minimise opportunities for opression they become moral people but lose their willpower.

In my experience of bullying, in the long term it goes one of five ways.

1. The Person Ignores the taunting, the bullies give up, and the bullying stops (only occurs if the person has good self-control)

2. The school intervenes, the bullies are chastised/suspended/expelled, and the bullying stops (only occurs if the school is proactive)

3. The victim reacts badly, or loses control after the last straw, and is effectively punished for being bullied, because the bullies cover each other, and the bullying continues (only occurs if the school's punitive system is flawed)

4. The victim reacts badly, or loses control after the last straw, the school notices that the bullies have been giving him a hard time, and the bullying stops (only occurs if the school is fair and open-minded in regards to altercations, or special circumstances)

5. The victim reacts badly, or loses control after the last straw, scares the bejeezus out of the bullies by almost snapping someone's leg with a pool cue, and the bullying stops through sheer terror of it happening again.


Guess which one I was (bearing in mind I'm a 6'2 Rower)

I am amazed people still bully in the US.

Surely the bullies know that one day the bullied WILL snap and M16 their face into bonemeal right?

Right?

Or are US bullies that dim?

Goliath wrote:5. The victim reacts badly, or loses control after the last straw, scares the bejeezus out of the bullies by almost snapping someone's leg with a pool cue, and the bullying stops through sheer terror of it happening again.

At no point did I lose control. I meant to break his nose.

in my experience, ignoring it sometimes dosent help...
the real problem isnt the school but the school community, see's it as a cowardly thing to do...

.

I have never seen or personally experienced ignoring a bully accomplish anything but convince them they can do it more and you won't do anything in retaliation.

The only time I've seen bullying truly stop was when person being bullied in some way became a threat to the bully. Either through getting a parent/teacher involved, which brings its own social stigma, or through becoming a physical threat to the bully to the point where they stop for fear of getting their ass beat. That's it. That is my own personal experience of course but it's what I've seen.

Turn the other cheek just gets the other one punched too.