Bullycide

[truethat]

And yet you still seem to have all the answers. How ironic.

I don't have any answers. As I have stated I am asking QUESTIONS. Though I do have to apologize for my lack of question marks I think it's pretty obvious.

 

[Wudang]

I must concur with Chaos. Darat has made the Retard of the Day list with his/her/its implication that defensive violence against bullies is not a good response to bullies' violence. It's only bad advice to a bullied individual, if said individual is not competent to pull it off.

Cpl Ferro

I believe Darat's point is that it's not a good life lesson to teach children that violence can be a valid solution to a problem, even when that problem is itself violence. This is a rather more nuanced position than the one you seem to be arguing against though it is one I have heard before. "That makes you as bad as them" versus "they started it" which are both wrong IMHO.
But yes those who have assumed the duty of educating children should ensure that this lesson is one that they learn properly rather than in an ad hoc manner curled up in the school playground.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I know of course people are going to rage against me saying that but that's how I see it. I see far too much "victim speak" in this country that perpetuates the idea that a person doesn't have control of their life and their choices.

By continuing this line of thinking we create more vicitims. I would prefer for people to get out of their emotional abyss and look at things rationally and logically. Of course I am realizing that most people are much more emotional than I am.

You are asking questions now, whereas you have previously provided answers. Spare me.

 

[3point14]

I don't have any answers. As I have stated I am asking QUESTIONS. Though I do have to apologize for my lack of question marks I think it's pretty obvious.

I really, really think the question marks would help, you know.

 

[Wudang]

I really, really think the question marks would help, you know.

Yes, it's rather an emotional subject and many people quickly skim and react to the first trigger word, phrase, concept they see. People being people and all that.

 

[truethat]

. But as a sort of curious question. I'm not stating it outright. I'm not saying you deserved to be bullied. But rather if a person has an odd personality does it sort of touch on the more animalistic part of the group and make you a target. If that is the case isn't it more realistic to recognize that you have an odd personality and that's part of what is causing it. Then understanding that it's not YOU that is the problem, and that the group is responding in a typical manner. Instead of snapping because of the stress and confusion and hurt, learning to distance yourself from it and not taking it to heart. Not treating it as a truth but a pattern.

snip

My question is, can we educate the victim to understand better the dynamics of the situation and not take it to heart to the point that they commit suicide.

snip

snip

To me, (perhaps I'm wrong) this is what drives students to commit suicide. I am wondering if it is possible to create awareness campaigns that DO teach the student not to internalize it and take it personally. In doing so it would help avoid suicide. That is my goal with this approach.

Yet I see much more enabling behavior on the part of women in domestic abuse situations. I see much more "psychological" issues in the Western culture than in other parts of the world. I do wonder if this is a path that we have been going down so long it seems "real" when it is simply a creation of malaise in society. I pretty much feel the same way about religion.


My question, not answer, is are we taking the wrong approach? Are we perpetuating victimhood instead of intelligence and strength? Is it possible to change the flow of behavior by changing the perspective? Can a change of perspective eliminate the psychological drama.

In my personal experience coaching people through trauma, it has seemed very effective. But is it possible to do this long term and across a generalized board.

Adding another question

Why do you feel the need to say that phrase that way? What purpose does it serve for you in the conversation except to try to project some sense of callousness of the heart on my part?

I ask this because what I see in many situations with women is a vicious cycle of "but he's not that bad, he didn't mean it and I love him! etc etc."

What purpose does it serve to consider the situation from an emotional perspective when you understand that the emotional perspective is the perspective MOST LIKELY to contribute to the woman staying in the relationship?

I really, really think the question marks would help, you know.

Well considering nearly every time I said "my question is...." or "I wonder....."

I think it's clear. But from now on I'll use more questionmarks.

 

[3point14]

Well considering nearly every time I said "my question is...." or "I wonder....."

I think it's clear. But from now on I'll use more questionmarks.

Without the question marks it comes across as rhetoric, not question.

Thank you.

 

[sgtbaker]

These is exactly what I am talking about with emotional pleading. You quite obviously are not stupid and can read. So you know that is not what I am saying. In addition I clearly stated there are psychologically damaged men and bullies that can not be rehabilitated. But most are not the norm. I was specific in pointing out that this does occur.

In my opinion your response and the attitudes like it that say it is black or white are what is part of the problem. It is emotional, dramatic and extreme.

It's not an emotional appeal it's anecdotal evidence. I just figured I would counter your anecdote with my own. If you don't agree with anecdotes, don't use them.

In my opinion your response and the attitudes like it that say it is black or white are what is part of the problem. It is emotional, dramatic and extreme.

Can you show me where I am being black and white? I don't feel that I am the one simplifying the issue by making it something the victim should deal with, rather than correcting the problem of the offender.

Far more common than the wife that is beaten senseslessly for leaving, or the teen that commits suicide, is the reality of the regularity of situations like this.

No one is arguing how common it is. That doesn't mean that anyone who feels that more needs to be done than teaching the victim to deal should be handwaved away as being dramatic.

By educating women and teens in a responsible intelligent manner, it helps circumvent the emotion that arises and corrupts the reality. Before a situation has reached such a point, there were very likely, many opportunities along the way for escape and understanding.

Am I reading you correctly? Are you saying it makes more sense to educate potential victims how to deal with their abuser than it is to figure out how to deal with the abuser?

Your mother's husband may have started out like this from day one, but I find that very unlikely. If he did then why in the world did your mother marry him? Or even date him in the first place? Probably because of her emotional response to him rather than her reasonable response.

Many women continue in relationships with abusive men even though the signs were there very early that this person was not a good choice. Yet she married him.

I am not quite sure what this has to do with anything other than it sort of sounds like you are blaming my mother for marrying an abuser. According to my mother, he was a completely different person, until they got married. He didn't get abusive until she disagreed with him. Their marriage lasted a total of two months.

If you want to continue pleading emotion and drama and victim speak that is pretty typical and I accept it. But personally I have no use for any of it because absolutely nothing to solve the problem In my opinion it simply perpetuates it.

Okay, and you are free to continue blaming the victim.

 

[sgtbaker]

I don't think you can draw too many comparisons between women in abusive relationships and bullied schoolchildren. Hard as it is, the former can leave. The latter cannot.

The comparison is that both are forms of bullying. They are both forms of asserting power over their victim.

 

[Chaos]

I believe Darat's point is that it's not a good life lesson to teach children that violence can be a valid solution to a problem, even when that problem is itself violence. This is a rather more nuanced position than the one you seem to be arguing against though it is one I have heard before. "That makes you as bad as them" versus "they started it" which are both wrong IMHO.
But yes those who have assumed the duty of educating children should ensure that this lesson is one that they learn properly rather than in an ad hoc manner curled up in the school playground.

My point is, when people do the "frowned upon" thing because they victims of bullies and because authorities have thoroughly and repeatedly refused to do their duty, the bad lesson learned is not "violence can solve problems" but "worthless authority figures enable bullies to torment their victims".

Yet I hardly see more than a few half-hearted gestures towards perhaps possibly at some point in the figure trying a mite harder to persuade bullies not to be so mean, in the midst of much handwringing over how bad it is that victims do not resign to their fate quietly.

 

[Sabrina]

As I understood the OP, LibraryLady was asking for possible solutions to mitigate the problem of bullying, which exists worldwide from what I can tell. Thus far, the only reasonable solution I have seen proposed in this thread is "education", although the type is not specified, and requiring the teachers/caregivers to own up to their responsibilities in caring for the children that are under their care for the period that they are in school. I agree with both of these, and would like to take this a step farther, if I may.

I'm not about to get into the whole discussion regarding what bullying is and how the victims should respond; I managed to get through school despite being bullied due to being more intellectual than the others around me (I wasn't the smartest person in my high school class, but I wasn't far from it) largely because I learned to not care what others thought about me, but that took time and a lot of therapy to accomplish, and I fully admit that I still have some issues stemming from that time in my life. However, I have given the problem some thought and would like to present my perspective on it. Given that I am from the US, my comments will apply largely to that culture, but the solutions I'd like to propose could very well apply worldwide.

Basically, I see the main problem as being a sense of entitlement. Children of this generation (I'll call them Millenials; picked up that term yesterday at an off-site with my company) grew up in an age of technology, when having the latest gadget was not only possible but often easy, depending upon your socioeconomic background, of course. Most teenagers these days quite frankly piss me off, because of this sense I get from them that they expect everything to be handed to them without their having to work for it, and they therefore look down on those who don't have what they have. They make fun of the poorer people, and don't have to work for their educations the way people in my generation did, because we didn't have smartphones that could look up the answer in the blink of an eye with very little effort. I see shows like "My Super Sweet 16" on MTV and the selfishness of those little punks just infuriates me. I realize that is a very small subset of the teenage culture, but when I see a sixteen year old young adult throwing an absolute tantrum because they weren't given exactly the right kind of car on their birthday it utterly pisses me off. My parents gave me a car on my 16th birthday, yes, along with a credit card and helped me set up a checking account, but the car in question was used, and I was responsible for getting the money to pay for gas, car repairs, and to pay the credit card bills. The end result of that? I am fiscally responsible, paying only for those things I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I can afford, and I have very little debt to my name. The likelihood that any of today's Millenials would be in my situation when they're my age is, as far as I am aware, pretty damn miniscule, and all because of that sense of entitlement and selfishness I spoke about before.

So, education. What kind? Well as I see it, it's going to have to be delivered in several different ways. First and foremost; parents need to be held responsible for their children's behavior, which might spark a movement of actually training their kids for the real world as opposed to the world that exists only in the confines of school. One suggestion for that would be to require parents to attend some sort of family counseling after the second strike for the child for a mandatory period, although I'm not sure that's legally possible; however I am providing what I view as a potential ideal solution here, not what is necessarily likely to happen. I'm of the opinion that if parents are made aware of what their indulgent attitudes toward their precious darlings will do to said darlings, they might actually wake up and start being legitimate caregivers, although I'm perhaps hoping for too much in some cases; regardless, it remains a suggestion.

Secondly, schools should disallow the use of any kind of technology excepting what is absolutely necessary to carry out the basic functions of the class in question. In other words, cell phones, PDAs, cameras; everything should either be locked in an individual locker upon entering school buildings or should be left at home or in the car, assuming said student is capable of driving. Any student caught violating this rule should be put on probation and punished appropriately. Exceptions could be made for certain functions, such as if the class is photography or is doing some sort of special function that a student wants to photograph or otherwise record, but otherwise the student should only be allowed pens/pencils, paper, a basic (or graph, in the case of advanced mathematics classes) calculator, and their books. I didn't need much more than that in order to pass my classes, so why they should be allowed to bring their cell phones or whatever to class is utterly beyond me; it potentially promotes cheating if the teacher is not hypervigilant, and contributes nothing to a student's education. This is a possible solution because, if no student has their little bits of technology with them at school, they have less to hold over students who may not possess the latest gadget. What's the point of bragging about your gadgets if you don't have them to show them off? And what's the point of needling someone if you can't flaunt your good fortune in their face?

Thirdly, and I feel perhaps most importantly, students from about age 10 on up need to be educated about what they will face in the real world. There should be life classes given to the students starting at about age 10 where they are presented real world scenarios and asked to study how people can react to them. For example; if students are shown the example of someone who loses everything they owned due to mismanagement or some other means, they might realize that their individual circumstances can change in an instant if they aren't careful. Beginning at age 14 and leading up to graduation from high school, I believe students should be required to spend at least two years, five hours a week, involved in some sort of volunteer service program that is outside of school. This can include volunteering at soup kitchens, joining Greenpeace or the Peace Corps, volunteering at hospitals, homeless shelters, shadowing somone in a position of service, and actually being confronted with what it's like in the real world. This can be for school credit, and lets face it, that sort of thing looks GREAT on college applications. It forces the student to confront the fact that just because they're the **** in school, in the real world, they're just another person starting from the bottom and working their way up.

Lastly, as others have suggested, holding the students that are bullying responsible for their actions is key and paramount to mitigating their behavior. This is going to require change on the part of teachers and administrators moreso than the students themselves, but if there are negative consequences for behavior, generally speaking people learn not to repeat said behavior.

It may not be the only motivation for why bullies act the way they do; I'm sure a good part of it is that we are psychologically inclined to pick at those who are different from us, but I'm of the opinion that applying some or all of the above solutions might mitigate to a great extent the bullying issue. I offer up my solutions to the thread; please feel free to discuss, question, pick apart, whatever you wish. I just wanted to offer some more detailed possibilities for correcting the behavior than have thus far been offered, IMO.

 

[Darat]

I must concur with Chaos.

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed personal remarks

Defensive violence against bullies is not a good response to bullies' violence. It's only bad advice to a bullied individual, if said individual is not competent to pull it off.

Cpl Ferro

Sorry but I disagree - teaching a child that violence is the right answer is wrong. (That does not of course equate to saying that someone should not defend themselves from violence.)

 

[Darat]

I believe Darat's point is that it's not a good life lesson to teach children that violence can be a valid solution to a problem, even when that problem is itself violence. This is a rather more nuanced position than the one you seem to be arguing against though it is one I have heard before. "That makes you as bad as them" versus "they started it" which are both wrong IMHO.
But yes those who have assumed the duty of educating children should ensure that this lesson is one that they learn properly rather than in an ad hoc manner curled up in the school playground.

Violence in self defence I don't think is wrong, what I don't agree with is Chaos's and CplFerro apparent view that if you are more physically able than someone else you can bully them. Unlike them I am against bullying no matter who is doing it.

 

[Sabrina]

I agree with Darat; violence in response to violence is never the right answer. Teaching a child defensive measures is absolutely acceptable, but in addition to this the child should be taught that their only objective should be to disable their abuser, never to deliberately injure them.

 

[Darat]

Then HOW THE **** ELSE ARE THE VICTIMS SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH IT?

Everything else they can do has already failed, and the spinless appeasers and enablers who are supposed to be authority figures are too busy decrying self-defense as "frowned upon" and "illegal" to do anything to help the victims.

Your approach would leave someone like whatthebutlersaw's friend with no recourse but to put up with being bullied - I think that is an appalling and I would say adopting that attitude is one of the reasons the problem of bullying has not yet properly been addressed.

 

[kmortis]

All,
I understand that this topic can invoke strong emotions in people, but please keep them in check while composing your posts.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: kmortis

 

[Dancing David]

Bully behaviors are complex and have no single solution, due to anxiety and deperssion, I was incapable of fighting back. It would have been very hard to do.

Now when the panic attacks abated at the age of 16 I was much more willing to fight back. But it was crappy advise up until that point. It also approves of violenve, which is the problem.

The causes of bully behavior are multivariate, the effective ones at school require a buy in from all the staff, which is a real problem. then there are the parents and segments of sociaty that find it to be entertainment.

But when people start slapping platitudes around we need to remember the violence is spectrum, it starts with hard looks and ends in murder.

The REAL issue is that when bully behavior occurs it invariably means that sexual harrasment is also there. It is just a sexualized form of bully behavior.

The problem is not always one thing or the other, it takes changing cultures to stop the behavior.

 

[Dancing David]

My point is, when people do the "frowned upon" thing because they victims of bullies and because authorities have thoroughly and repeatedly refused to do their duty, the bad lesson learned is not "violence can solve problems" but "worthless authority figures enable bullies to torment their victims".

Yet I hardly see more than a few half-hearted gestures towards perhaps possibly at some point in the figure trying a mite harder to persuade bullies not to be so mean, in the midst of much handwringing over how bad it is that victims do not resign to their fate quietly.

Not all authority figures act that way. Threats of violence or violence are Level II in my schools districts, suspension is the usual recourse.

But I agree that telling kids to fight back says that the environment tolerates violence.

In my school district self defense is allowed, but once the other person styops swinging or is restrained, no more punches may be thrown.

And do to the difficulty of determining the start of the fight usually both will receive consequences, dependant upon witness testimony. In grade schools it is usually a little more cut and dried.

Too many fights start because of the generational stupidity of families.

 

[bookitty]

Oh geez. Another thread about bullying turns into quibbling over the definition of "victim."

In schoolyard bullying, there is an aggressor or an aggressive group who target an individual. The aggressor is in a position of power (stronger, more popular, or a better manipulator of adults) If they were not, there would be no aggressive action or the aggressive action could be immediately dealt with by the target. So using the word "victim" to define the person who the object of this aggression is applicable.

And yet, the word itself always seems to bring out a knee-jerk reaction. Don't call them victims! We're making everyone a victim! There are no victims! Just people who won't take responsibility for their own choices, you know like battered adult women!

If we're talking about middle-school or high school, this imbalance of power is localized. It is only within that specific social dynamic that the aggressor has any control. If the social dynamic is changed, the aggressor loses the edge. One way to do this is suspensions for bullying. Especially in cases where there are aggressive groups of children. Like any repeat offense, multiple suspensions for bullying lead to expulsion.

An adult stepping in to take the targeted child's side corrects the imbalance of power. Taking the targeted child aside and explaining to them that this is really just a natural, socially accepted response to that which is "other" and they should suck it up, does not address the imbalance of power. Yes, it explains it but it does not give the targeted child any specific strengths or tools.

 

[Chaos]

Your approach would leave someone like whatthebutlersaw's friend with no recourse but to put up with being bullied - I think that is an appalling and I would say adopting that attitude is one of the reasons the problem of bullying has not yet properly been addressed.

Oh no, you´re not going to get away with that sort of logical contortionism.

YOU, who is demonstrably more appalled by people defending themselves than by people being victimized, and other like you, are one of the reasons bullying has not yet been adressed.

I´ll say it again: BULLYING NEEDS TO STOP. Unless the authority figures whose *********** JOB it is to do that get off their ass, I refuse to condemn victims for trying to defend themselves in whatever way they find works.

If my parents or the bullies´ parents or the teachers or the headmaster had done a single *********** thing to actually try and stop the bullying, rather than just doing a lot of *********** things to get me to shut up already about being bullied, I would never have been in a situation in which I had the choice between punching someone in the face and continuing to suffer silently as I had for years.


I´ll tell you another story, also true. One of those poor suffering victimized bullies I am not supposed to defend myself against had been bullying me and others, again and again and again, until he finally one day pulled a knife on me and demanded my money. If the teacher hadn´t more or less accidentally been close enough to see this and stop him, the poor helpless victimized kid might have STABBED me, just because spineless hypocrites like you can´t seem to get off their asses to do anything so that kids like I was one do not HAVE to do things that are "frowned upon", until a traged happens.