OT -- About bullying

I agree with you, Celine. A friend of mine, with a straight A daughter, is having just this trouble with school officials. She has actually tried your suggestion, but can you believe what they told her about her daughter (who dresses in blacks and has punky pink hair). They said - "At work, you are required to dress in a certain manner. We don't require this at school in order to let the kids express themselves. Perhaps if your daughter dressed more like the other kids, then this wouldn't happen."

They've told her, in the same statement, that all the other kids should be able to express themselves EXCEPT for her daughter. The other thing my friend just can't believe is that they won't stand up for a kid who has such high grades. Shouldn't they be proud of her?

I don't have kids, so I don't know these nuances. Hannah

I never saw the original thread so I don't know the whole story, but I will put my $0.02 worth in. As a society, I think we are getting too overprotective of our children. When I grew up, I was not very athletic or whatever and was bullied constantly. Because of that I can now recognize bullies in the workplace (and since we are in an arena where physical strength does not count for as much as mental agility) and out maneuver them and handle them. I would hate to be 20 years old and never have had to deal with a bully.(and therefore be totally clueless as to what to do). Adults DO tolerate bullies, they just bully in different ways. They still namecall, backbite, form cliques and everything else that goes on in the schoolyard and don't kid yourself. Of course there is a limit to what you and your child can tolerate. We got into a situation with our middle daughter last year that did require our intervention, but day-to-day kidstuff is not really different from day-to-day grownup stuff. It is just on a different scale. If you teach your kid that you will bail them out everytime something happens they don't like, who is going to bail them out when they are grown and you are dead?

How do you propose to teach the bullies not to be bullies? I had a major bully living behind me when I was growing up and his father advocated to him to hit everyone he could as often as he could so no one would push him around (or something). Bullies are bullies because the bullies are taught to be bullies at home. Just as there probably will always be thieves, there will always be bullies and other examples of less than positive behavior. I would rather my kids learn to tell when someone is a thief or a bully at an early age so they can recognize those people quickly enough to deal with them appropriately when they are older. After all, if you learn that certain people will hit you for your lunch money when you are 7, you will automatically know that there are people who will kill you for your money when you are 27. Maybe you can stop one kid from tasking other kids' lunch money, but are you going to end all violence and crime in the world? I don't think so. I would rather my kids were aware that those type people exist and neither Me, nor the government nor God or whoever is not always going to be there to get them out a jam. That is not to say (and I never said or implied this) that I advocate my kids using violence. Avoiding certain situations is just as important as physical self-defense or anything like that. I am not in any way advocating any kind of double standard for children and adults. As I mentioned in my previous post, there are just as many adult bullies as there are children bullies. Their bullying just manifests itself in different ways. Maybe I am more pragmatic than you, but I haven't seen much evidence in 47 years of people becoming nicer to each other. So "Forgive those who trespass upon you, but remember their names" is a motto I operate by, because I am not going to change these people.. The police are not going to change them or probably even catch them, and the politeness squad isn't going to change them either. I don't teach my kids to push other people around and tell them what an awful thing it is for someone to do that. You are putting words in my mouth and I do not appreciate that. If you will read what I wrote, you will see that I want my kids to learn what type of person does push people around and how to avoid them or deal with them when necessary. I do not, and never have, advocate violence in any form, not even the type you are trying to do to me by misreading what I say and then making me look like a bad guy just because I do not agree with you on every level. So basically, I expect an apology.

"Lee S. Billings" wrote in message news:7a52b.1627$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...

snipped-for-privacy@bellsouth.net

I would have worded my comment differently if you had not equated "trying to reduce the incidence of bullying" with "being a bad parent, crippling your child's ability to get along in later life." I've left your original comments intact below, so there will be no mistake about what I'm referring to.

Shoe pinches when it's on the other foot, doesn't it?

Celine

Louis,

No, people are not becoming nicer, in fact quite the opposite. I think things are different now than when we were children. It used to be that the majority of kids were polite and there was a bully here and there with a couple of cohorts tagging along. The bullies in those days tended to be the outcasts. Now bullying is much more mainstream and involves many children picking on just one child. It usually is a more intelligent and sensitive child who is targeted. I don't think the answer is asking for that child to become less sensitive. There should be room for sensitivity in our society.

Bullies are taught to be bullies if there are no negative consequences for their behavior. What Celine is saying is there are no consequences in public schools today. If I walk up to you and push you down, I can be charged with assault. If I so much as touch you without your permission, it could be considered assault. If I harass you every day, you can get an order of protection against me. So the world of school is not mirroring the adult world, as you propose. Our children are vulnerable in a way they would not be as adults.

One of the major contributing factors for acts of school violence such as Columbine, is that the perpetrators have been the target of this kind of bullying over a number of years. So this is far from being just one kid's problem.

As for the girl of the OP, I think her mother should place her in a gifted program, where she will fit in better. I say this having had a similar experience in school.

• TL *

I think you were misunderstood Louis, but I think the post was one of those things that defy saying right.

I think the answer lies in doing both things, exposing children and protecting them.

My mother chose not to interfere with sibling quarrels. I was bullied. I feel she neglected her respponsibility to allow me to feel safe at home.

Tina

There are many ways for a person to deal with a bully other than violence. The life and struggle against bullies that Ghandi did comes to mind. You also seem to have missed the part in my post where I said there is a limit to what you and your child can take. Different people react differently and have different tolerance levels. Also the part where I was NOT commenting on the original poster's problem. And I was making a generalization about society, not anyone's individual situation. And I still think (from being active in the local schools and having a wife and a SIL who teach elementary, plus some things I see on the news) that there are a group of parents who want to butt into situations that their own kids should figure out how to handle. Advice from parents would be great, but when a parent comes into the equation, the power balance shifts. I still believe it can cause someone to think there will always be a "big person" out there (God or the Govt or whatever) who will rescue them. I know people like that, too. The school of hard knocks is a class we must all eventually attend, whether we like it or not. Trying to reduce the incidents of bullying is a nice concept. So are love, peace and justice. We should strive towards that, but be realistic in our expectations. Teaching children (and adults) how to handle a**holes is a valuable approach as well. And there is no reason why you can't do both.

I'd love to see people in many contexts get conscious of this double-standard, which I agree exists in lots of spheres. School being only one of them.

Deirdre

I'm with you on this one.

But I think it is possible to help kids get to be -emotionally- bully-proof, even though they may still be susceptible to physical harassments, which I think requires an official 'zero tolerance' treatment for an environment to be considered safe.

I think even as kids, we can reject the personal devaluation we receive, if we are taught to do so by grownups we respect.

And I think the grownups we learn to respect most are the ones we see behaving with consistent respect toward others. Young or old, thin or fat, black or white, rich or poor, etc.

Deirdre

This is true. Staying out of the clutches of the wicked and malicious folks of the world is something I certainly advocate for everyone, and learning to recognize the behavior that endangers you is a necessary skill in a world where people do exploit and intimidate others.

It's the official turning of a blind eye that needs to be remedied, and finding ways to join forces to thwart the bullies that needs to happen -- not that kids (or adults) should just let themselves be steamrollered by anyone who can.

Deirdre

And also that we, as adults, need to study -how- to deal with bullying without simply echoing its practices.

Not easy. But unless we do it, the process of Might Makes Right just gets more and more deeply entrenched.

Deirdre

Once again, I think this is one of those things that doesn't get talked about much, but probably should be. I believe the real dynamic that allows these cycles to continue is the part where we ("we" as in much of society in general), as witnesses to it, think we can pretend or wish this stuff away by remaining in full out denial of it, or that if we look the other way when someone else is being mistreated perhaps the treatment won't end up directed toward us later.

If more people just stood up and showed a willingness to merely express an appropriate reaction (i.e. outrageous behavior warrants an expression of outrage) it would be a good start. Nothing ever gets dealt with as long as it stays under the rug.

Laura

Yup. We get trapped by fear. I'm not saying that being afraid of people who do harm is senseless ... just that it will never end if it is never confronted. And people -can- team up to protect each other, if they decide to. Bullies -can- be addressed if the people doing the addressing think things through and plan and prepare for the possible backlash.

Deirdre

This is a very good point. Although I do believe that there is a point when adult intervention becomes necessary, teaching kids the skills to help them cope with bullies may, in the long run, leave them better-equipped as adults than trying to eliminate bullying (which isn't possible, since bullying is taught at home, not in the schools).

Celine, I think you owe him an apology too, and more so after this post. He wasn't saying "never protect your kids" (you snipped he part of his post where he talks about adult intervention being necessary) he was talking about how it could be worse for kids to be overprotected... at least, that was how I read his post. And I agree with him.

And I guess my take is that adults all too often turn their backs on vulnerable kids in trouble, without -either- protecting them or offering them resources for self-protection.

The thing that has kept coming up in this discussion is that the folk who are bullied -on a long term basis- are generally *isolated*, and feel there is no help for them anywhere.

Deirdre