Bullycide

[MarkCorrigan]

This is a very good example of what I mean by internalizing. My comment said "Why is that PEOPLE intellectionally freeze when emotion gets involved." Last I checked YOU are not PEOPLE. It's obvious I was generalizing. I think I'm tired of trying to convince of you things you are reluctant to see.

Everyone on the planet can freeze intellectually when they get overly emotional about something. I mean please.

You genuinely don't understand how a statement in between two statements directed at someone could be seen as also being directed at them?

Is English your first language?

 

[fuelair]

I think you are reacting to a stereotype that I strongly suspect* is very rare - i.e. that there is a bully and that the very damaging bullying will be physical.



*From what I've read and seen about children who have been driven to extremes by bullying.

Not arguing it is rare, merely that it does (rarely ) occur and it is satirsfying when it happens.

 

[truethat]

You genuinely don't understand how a statement in between two statements directed at someone could be seen as also being directed at them?

Is English your first language?

Please put the two comments you are referring to here.


As for my motivation, the comments I made were actually based on a comment in a thread on another forum called Websleuths. Here is the comment that made me think of the "intellectually freezing when we get overly emotional"

There was an ambulance at my neighbors earlier and my other neighbor says to me "Lucky you're not with them".

How do you react to emergencies? Calmly, too calm, freaked out, totally out your mind screaming?

Personally I go the raving lunatic route. This is not good as my brother tells me. We should act like the British and remain calm. :waitasec: We're no help if we're freaking out.

When my dad died suddenly here at home I was a basket case. I thought it was his sugar. Like he maybe bottomed out. I grabbed the sugar box and just tried shoving sugar down his throat. Not good. He'd had a stroke obviously and couldn't do anything let alone swallow. My mom stayed calm. Even when they took him in the ambulance and he had already passed she went out real calm. So calm that my dear neighbor came to the door and asked if he was going to be O.K. I screamed "No, he's dead" and slammed the door.

Then I called my brother. The answering machine came on and I yelled into it "Daddy is dead". Well it was Christmas morning and the kids hear this. Not good.

My DD has vaso vegal syncope. Put it plain she falls out. Well, she came down the steps one day all excited. She kind of slipped. I was right there. She was fine until she goes "Ma, I am going out". I scream. She quickly turns a color I have never seen on a human being and I am screaming. Calm my mom goes "Call the ambulance". She stayed with her real calm. Meanwhile I'm screaming so much the 911 lady is like "Miss calm down. Calm down". I went outside. I left. I couldn't watch or see her like that.

Not good.

Is anyone real calm and freaked out later?

After this the thread filled with experiences of people either remaining perfectly calm and them bursting into inconsolable tears later, or not being able to function because they got so overly emotional. It occured to me that this is a familiar pattern in human beings.

I think it's really sad that you really think I was talking about a specific poster on this site. Even after I've denied it twice, shown the motivation and explained it.

I mean I just don't get it. Why don't you believe things??????

 

[sgtbaker]

This is a very good example of what I mean by internalizing. My comment said "Why is that PEOPLE intellectionally freeze when emotion gets involved." Last I checked YOU are not PEOPLE. It's obvious I was generalizing. I think I'm tired of trying to convince of you things you are reluctant to see.

Actually you dodge the question, twice.

 

[sgtbaker]

This is a very good example of what I mean by internalizing. My comment said "Why is that PEOPLE intellectionally freeze when emotion gets involved." Last I checked YOU are not PEOPLE. It's obvious I was generalizing. I think I'm tired of trying to convince of you things you are reluctant to see.

Crap! I'm not people? Generalizing what, though? Do you have problems with following a clear path of thought?

Everyone on the planet can freeze intellectually when they get overly emotional about something. I mean please.

Except you, right? It's clearly not possible for you to ever not see things clearly.

However, to use this as a point. If you say I am talking about YOU being intellectually frozen. And I've twice explained that I wasn't. In fact I was shocked that you perceived it that way. I told you again I'm not talking about you. If you continue to believe that this was an "attack aimed at you." you could very well turn around and say I was bullying you. Condenscending attitudes tend to ride on a passive aggressive current. So if say you are very emotionally prickled because of your mother's experience, then getting me to BACK OFF and stop "bullying you" is the wrong approach here.

I hate to interrupt your high-fiving-yourself session but you have very little effect on my state of calm. I enjoy an exchange as much as the next person and it was really great to have someone so committed to responding on my two days of light work but rest assured, my feathers are fine. I didn't mean to sound so much like a victim, I thought I was helping you with your communication skills. However, if you just want to fancy yourself a bully, have at it. I hope you get what you need from it.

Why? Because you are internalizing something in a way that was not intended. Again studies bear out that victims of bullying tend to be overly sensitive compared to their peers.

I don't recall telling any bully horror stories. Are you taking this personal?

In getting me to "back off" of something that was never intended and comforting you for your pain, I would compare that to what I was talking about earlier. In fact it is enabling your delusion. It's "victim speak" because what you perceived isn't what happened but since your feelings are hurt lets go to emotion.

Bullying is not a black and white issue with the bad guys on one side and the victims on the other. In some cases it is. But this comment is really good example of why I also think victims need to be sure to see the reality of what is going on.

I couldn't agree with you more on what I highlighted. As a matter of fact, I think I said that
What is the reality, if not; "You do not deserve to be treated like that and we will take action against your bully to prevent it in the future?"

I have heard examples of people who are paranoid if they hear girls laughing in groups. The victim thinks they are laughing at him. It's got nothing to do with him but that's what he thinks is the reality. People like this need help in a different way. (And I'm not comparing him to you in a subtle way.)

I have no idea what this has to do with anything. Was this just another random thought?

 

[truethat]

Crap! I'm not people? Generalizing what, though? Do you have problems with following a clear path of thought?



Except you, right? It's clearly not possible for you to ever not see things clearly.



I hate to interrupt your high-fiving-yourself session but you have very little effect on my state of calm. I enjoy an exchange as much as the next person and it was really great to have someone so committed to responding on my two days of light work but rest assured, my feathers are fine. I didn't mean to sound so much like a victim, I thought I was helping you with your communication skills. However, if you just want to fancy yourself a bully, have at it. I hope you get what you need from it.



I don't recall telling any bully horror stories. Are you taking this personal?







I couldn't agree with you more on what I highlighted. As a matter of fact, I think I said that
What is the reality, if not; "You do not deserve to be treated like that and we will take action against your bully to prevent it in the future?"



I have no idea what this has to do with anything. Was this just another random thought?

I think what it has to do with things is that you are personalizing something that is general. When I say I was not directing it at you, you insist otherwise. This is a message board exchange. There's no reason for you not to take me at my word unless you think I'm lying? Which makes no sense since the words are there for everyone to see.

Although we're talking about bullies on this thread we're also talking about mentally unstable people. (Please note that I am not calling you mentally unstable) If a person perceives an attack or also feels that he's being ostracized it could be that he's taking it very personally where another person would let it roll of their back.

Example
I say to person A "Oh come on! Don't be an idiot!" This person continues in the conversation and lets it roll of their back.

Person B type will get hurt or enraged that I "called him an idiot" He'll obsess over it and decide that I think he's stupid or was mocking him. These types of personalities can take "MILD" bullying to an extreme by the way they perceive it. It is unrealistic and in my opinion very unhealthy and dangerous. Not just to themselves but to others as well.

If we are discussing people who commit suicide because of bullying without discussing those who commit murder suicide then I think we are remiss in our examination.

 

[sgtbaker]

I think what it has to do with things is that you are personalizing something that is general. When I say I was not directing it at you, you insist otherwise. This is a message board exchange. There's no reason for you not to take me at my word unless you think I'm lying? Which makes no sense since the words are there for everyone to see.

Although we're talking about bullies on this thread we're also talking about mentally unstable people. (Please note that I am not calling you mentally unstable) If a person perceives an attack or also feels that he's being ostracized it could be that he's taking it very personally where another person would let it roll of their back.

Example
I say to person A "Oh come on! Don't be an idiot!" This person continues in the conversation and lets it roll of their back.

Person B type will get hurt or enraged that I "called him an idiot" He'll obsess over it and decide that I think he's stupid or was mocking him. These types of personalities can take "MILD" bullying to an extreme by the way they perceive it. It is unrealistic and in my opinion very unhealthy and dangerous. Not just to themselves but to others as well.

If we are discussing people who commit suicide because of bullying without discussing those who commit murder suicide then I think we are remiss in our examination.

"Don't be an idiot," does not and will not fall into the catagory of bullying. Bullying is a repetative show of physical or social dominance, not one single misinterpreted comment, taken out of context and becoming the trigger to a paranoid meltdown.

 

[sgtbaker]

It's a sensible approach so long as you can convince the victims to actually make the complaints in the first place. A lot of the time this can be difficult to do - although if you can genuinely convince them that action will actually result then it might help.

I am sorry Richard, I completely missed your post. Quite a few years ago, they started putting up bully free school zone, signs. It's cute, but not enough. I don't know exactly when they started the procedure but there was a big introduction. I can say with certainty, that they do not handwave complaints. It's not a perfect solution, I don't think anything will be. I do think that the passive way the schools used to handle bullying situations was completely ineffective.

 

[richardm]

I am sorry Richard, I completely missed your post. Quite a few years ago, they started putting up bully free school zone, signs. It's cute, but not enough. I don't know exactly when they started the procedure but there was a big introduction. I can say with certainty, that they do not handwave complaints. It's not a perfect solution, I don't think anything will be. I do think that the passive way the schools used to handle bullying situations was completely ineffective.

That's good to know. I remember from my schooldays one of the problems with reporting bullying was a) your schoolmates would regard you as a snitch and b) the bully would recover from his caning and come and beat the bejesus out of you.

There's quite a lot of cultural inertia to overcome with the first part of that, and I'm sure there's not a perfect solution. It does sound like a useful first step to overcoming the second part though.

 

[Wildy]

It's a sensible approach so long as you can convince the victims to actually make the complaints in the first place. A lot of the time this can be difficult to do - although if you can genuinely convince them that action will actually result then it might help.

And the longer it goes on without any improvement the harder it gets to get them to make complaints. That's what happened with me, why should I bother making a complaint when I knew that they weren't going to do anything.

 

[Darat]

And the advances (?) in technology has provided a lot more opportunities for the bullies to continue the bullying away from school. Have a read of some of the more extreme stories and you see they'll use facebook, text messages, websites and so on, for some of the victims there is no escape beyond being a hermit.

http://www.bullying.co.uk/index.php/young-people/cyberbullying/facebook-bullying.html

ETA: This was the actual case that I was thinking about: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/21/facebook-bullying-sentence-teenage-girl

 

[whatthebutlersaw]

Ok, so I've read all of it. (Phew)

TT - I can only read your posts just as the other posters have read them. I also do not really see any evidence of a higher level of rationality and logic, than the other posters, in your stance or the way you choose to communicate it. You clearly get very emotional, but your namecalling is more insiduous and therefore you might think people will not pick up on it or you may be honestly believing that this kind of behaviour actually isn't emotional. It is. Yes, facepalming is a very emotional response. And there is nothing wrong with that, this is an emotional subject and you get emotional and irrational too. It's not a character flaw. You may not mean to come off that way. But you do. You may try to be, and think that you are being, kind and helpful. But that's not really how it's coming off. And some of the things you have said to Mark Corrigan - well, that is not what a calm rational, kind and helfpul person says to someone who is hurting. That is for sure.

Your suggestion, as it has been put forward here, has failed Swedish schoolkids for over 40 years and is now under revision. It helped no one and new approaches are now tried.

At 15 there would have been no comfort to me, or Nika, that it would get better. Particularly to Nika since the reason she transferred to our school was the relentless bullying she, and her arm brace, suffered in her first two schools. There was a reason her parents moved from a big city to a small town - they incorrectly believed that a smaller town would have less aggressive and blase kids. It was supposed to get better. It didn't.

There were two girls transferring, one week apart. Linda and Nika. When the teacher introduced Nika, he said: "And I know we have a new girl in the class, and now we have an even newer."

At which point someone from the back of the class, very audibly, said: "...and even uglier." Great start.

Me? I was already on probation for being too intellectual. I cowardly shut up.

Teacher? Didn't bat an eyelid. This is the teacher who once slammed me into a wall for having an implausible excuse for missing a paper, hissing that he "could make life hell for me if I continued to try to surf his class". Telling the new girl she's ugly? AOK! Not sure that counts as getting better.

Well, it was kind of an improvement though, because I was the first friend she ever made in school. (She did not have problems at all finding friends at Judo and other extracurriculars, though. She was kind, corteous and intelligent. Very adept at making friends and charming people. No big help when subjected to the ferrets of grade school and their irrational hatred of arm braces.) I found that out the first time I stood up for her. She had stoically taken all the **** anyonw threw at her for a couple of months when I had enough of it. Not a tear. No tattling. Nothing but a thousand yard stare and an unnaturally straight back.(particularly for someone with scoliosis just out of her back brace)

The day I first picked up a can and threw it back, she started crying so hard she had to go home. She later assured me she didn't wish I hadn't done that and that they were kinda good tears. Nonetheless. It meant that stoic facade was just that. No matter how calm, rational and logical she remained and how much she expected it to some day - though not soon - to get better, she was still hurting like bloody hell. Every. Day. Every day, it didn't get better. Me being there to shield her, didn't make the others not want to hurt her. And the main problem wasn't that the others could hurt her. It was that they wanted to. The backup she had was a peer. All the authorities in her life turned a blind eye. (Except our school librarians, and they could only expel people from the library. And as you know, that haven was later cut off.)

All through grade school cowardly, stupid grown ups kept telling her: "It's not your fault.", "It gets better." Three schools. Dozens of grown ups, with nothing better to offer. All through grade school, she - and I on my front - sat through bullying programs, bullying meetings, bullying sockpuppet shows, bullying special episodes, bullying speakers, bullying articles. All of which addressed what the bullied person should do with themselves. Oh, and that it gets better.

Nowhere. No one. Not one person, up until then, had actually, actively showed that what happened to her was not right and that they weren't going to stand for it. Not a single motherloving person, grown up or otherwise, had anything more substantial than "it gets better" to which Nika's internal response was "and meanwhile, I just have to take it? When does it get better? And who says it will actually get better? How long before it gets better? Will I survive that long?"

Now. The thing about Nika is that she is one of the most rational, logical and mentally strong people I have encountered. She had the wherewithal not to let her studies slide. She had the strength to keep going and not take sickies. She had the capability to make it through with top marks and the courage to not pick the same gymnasium as her only friend, but instead pursue a career as a medical professional despite having to go through being new, with no backup, again. And then, it finally did get better.

After nine years.

Now. I don't know about you. But I'd be hard pressed to do nine years of that and come out unscathed on the other side. And as much as Nika is succesful and has made herself a good life, she is not unscathed. I don't know about you. But I would much rather someone, preferably a grown up to have actually showed that it wasn't right. I only had to do three years of that, and it messed up quite a few of the following years, including keeping at arms length gymnasium (senior high) classmates who really thought I was the dog's bollocks and didn't get why I was so aloof. They really liked me, and I had no clue. Took me years to trust that someone could, just, like me.

And here's the thing: Nika and me - we were not the same. We reacted in different ways and it took as a different amount of time to live it down. And some nights, I still have nightmares about locked library doors. I don't know if she does. And just like happy families are all alike, while unhappy ones suffer their own unique unhappiness - so is every single bullying victim unique in ability and strength and breaking point.

Bullies though. They are more homogenous - not all the same, but certainly more samey than the victims - and that is why it is irrational to focus on how to change the victims instead of how to change the group dynamics, the culture and the layout of a school. It isn't even impossible. It has been done, succesfully. While telling the victims that it's not their fault, although they should somehow change who they are, and that it gets better, has failed miserably for decades. Continuing to do that, would certainly not be the rational approach.

 

[Chaos]

Similar experience here. Claiming that anything you tell the victims is going to make things better is at best naive, and at worst knowingly and willingly enable bullies to continue their bullying.

There are only two things that can end bullying.

The first is to stop the bully - either authority figures, i.e. teachers and parents, force the bully to stop, or the victim, having continuously been betrayed by said authority figures, takes matters into their own hands.

The second is to surrender before the bully - either by moving away, or via suicide.

 

[sgtbaker]

That's good to know. I remember from my schooldays one of the problems with reporting bullying was a) your schoolmates would regard you as a snitch and b) the bully would recover from his caning and come and beat the bejesus out of you.

There's quite a lot of cultural inertia to overcome with the first part of that, and I'm sure there's not a perfect solution. It does sound like a useful first step to overcoming the second part though.

I was not there for the actual introduction but my daughter told me that they focused heavily on looking out for fellow classmates, reporting bullying to authorities, and what bullying actually was. Students were asked to make a pledge to not stand by and let it it happen. The pledge was voluntary, which I thought was interesting.

 

[truethat]

Similar experience here. Claiming that anything you tell the victims is going to make things better is at best naive, and at worst knowingly and willingly enable bullies to continue their bullying.

There are only two things that can end bullying.

The first is to stop the bully - either authority figures, i.e. teachers and parents, force the bully to stop, or the victim, having continuously been betrayed by said authority figures, takes matters into their own hands.

The second is to surrender before the bully - either by moving away, or via suicide.

Wow please stay away from high school teens if you plan to tell them that their only two options in life are to get the bully to stop or to kill themselves or move away.

That's seriously messed up.

It's not naieve to educate kids about bullying and provide support to victims of bullying. Sorry you can't seem to see why.

 

[Cainkane1]

Bullys grow up and they still have issues in old age. Every Friday I keep company with a sick aged ex classmate who used to terrorise my highschool. The only reason he didn't slap the crap out of me is because we had no classes together. He has diabetes so bad now he can barely walk. He has to drink several cups of coffee to stay awake.

I sit with him for no good reason other than morbid curiousity which has caused a strange type of friendship. I mean this guy was tough in his day. He did time in prison for assault and he was a very successful repo man.

So I sit with him week after week year after year for no good reason. The bar has several better educated and more decent patrons but I sit with him anyway.

No good reason.

 

[sgtbaker]

Bullys grow up and they still have issues in old age.

It's irrelavent because there is no way of knowing but I can't help but wonder if his life would have been different, was the bullying was identified as aggressive behavior that needs to be corrected.

 

[truethat]

Ok, so I've read all of it. (Phew)

TT - I can only read your posts just as the other posters have read them. I also do not really see any evidence of a higher level of rationality and logic, than the other posters, in your stance or the way you choose to communicate it. You clearly get very emotional, but your namecalling is more insiduous and therefore you might think people will not pick up on it or you may be honestly believing that this kind of behaviour actually isn't emotional. It is. Yes, facepalming is a very emotional response. And there is nothing wrong with that, this is an emotional subject and you get emotional and irrational too. It's not a character flaw. You may not mean to come off that way. But you do. You may try to be, and think that you are being, kind and helpful. But that's not really how it's coming off. And some of the things you have said to Mark Corrigan - well, that is not what a calm rational, kind and helfpul person says to someone who is hurting. That is for sure.

Your suggestion, as it has been put forward here, has failed Swedish schoolkids for over 40 years and is now under revision. It helped no one and new approaches are now tried.

At 15 there would have been no comfort to me, or Nika, that it would get better. Particularly to Nika since the reason she transferred to our school was the relentless bullying she, and her arm brace, suffered in her first two schools. There was a reason her parents moved from a big city to a small town - they incorrectly believed that a smaller town would have less aggressive and blase kids. It was supposed to get better. It didn't.

There were two girls transferring, one week apart. Linda and Nika. When the teacher introduced Nika, he said: "And I know we have a new girl in the class, and now we have an even newer."

At which point someone from the back of the class, very audibly, said: "...and even uglier." Great start.

Me? I was already on probation for being too intellectual. I cowardly shut up.

Teacher? Didn't bat an eyelid. This is the teacher who once slammed me into a wall for having an implausible excuse for missing a paper, hissing that he "could make life hell for me if I continued to try to surf his class". Telling the new girl she's ugly? AOK! Not sure that counts as getting better.

Well, it was kind of an improvement though, because I was the first friend she ever made in school. (She did not have problems at all finding friends at Judo and other extracurriculars, though. She was kind, corteous and intelligent. Very adept at making friends and charming people. No big help when subjected to the ferrets of grade school and their irrational hatred of arm braces.) I found that out the first time I stood up for her. She had stoically taken all the **** anyonw threw at her for a couple of months when I had enough of it. Not a tear. No tattling. Nothing but a thousand yard stare and an unnaturally straight back.(particularly for someone with scoliosis just out of her back brace)

The day I first picked up a can and threw it back, she started crying so hard she had to go home. She later assured me she didn't wish I hadn't done that and that they were kinda good tears. Nonetheless. It meant that stoic facade was just that. No matter how calm, rational and logical she remained and how much she expected it to some day - though not soon - to get better, she was still hurting like bloody hell. Every. Day. Every day, it didn't get better. Me being there to shield her, didn't make the others not want to hurt her. And the main problem wasn't that the others could hurt her. It was that they wanted to. The backup she had was a peer. All the authorities in her life turned a blind eye. (Except our school librarians, and they could only expel people from the library. And as you know, that haven was later cut off.)

All through grade school cowardly, stupid grown ups kept telling her: "It's not your fault.", "It gets better." Three schools. Dozens of grown ups, with nothing better to offer. All through grade school, she - and I on my front - sat through bullying programs, bullying meetings, bullying sockpuppet shows, bullying special episodes, bullying speakers, bullying articles. All of which addressed what the bullied person should do with themselves. Oh, and that it gets better.

Nowhere. No one. Not one person, up until then, had actually, actively showed that what happened to her was not right and that they weren't going to stand for it. Not a single motherloving person, grown up or otherwise, had anything more substantial than "it gets better" to which Nika's internal response was "and meanwhile, I just have to take it? When does it get better? And who says it will actually get better? How long before it gets better? Will I survive that long?"

Now. The thing about Nika is that she is one of the most rational, logical and mentally strong people I have encountered. She had the wherewithal not to let her studies slide. She had the strength to keep going and not take sickies. She had the capability to make it through with top marks and the courage to not pick the same gymnasium as her only friend, but instead pursue a career as a medical professional despite having to go through being new, with no backup, again. And then, it finally did get better.

After nine years.

Now. I don't know about you. But I'd be hard pressed to do nine years of that and come out unscathed on the other side. And as much as Nika is succesful and has made herself a good life, she is not unscathed. I don't know about you. But I would much rather someone, preferably a grown up to have actually showed that it wasn't right. I only had to do three years of that, and it messed up quite a few of the following years, including keeping at arms length gymnasium (senior high) classmates who really thought I was the dog's bollocks and didn't get why I was so aloof. They really liked me, and I had no clue. Took me years to trust that someone could, just, like me.

And here's the thing: Nika and me - we were not the same. We reacted in different ways and it took as a different amount of time to live it down. And some nights, I still have nightmares about locked library doors. I don't know if she does. And just like happy families are all alike, while unhappy ones suffer their own unique unhappiness - so is every single bullying victim unique in ability and strength and breaking point.

Bullies though. They are more homogenous - not all the same, but certainly more samey than the victims - and that is why it is irrational to focus on how to change the victims instead of how to change the group dynamics, the culture and the layout of a school. It isn't even impossible. It has been done, succesfully. While telling the victims that it's not their fault, although they should somehow change who they are, and that it gets better, has failed miserably for decades. Continuing to do that, would certainly not be the rational approach.

\

Yet another long ranting diatribe by someone who clearly has not read what I have written no matter how many times I stated it over and over and over and over and over again.

Seriously man. Chuckles. Also facepalm as I understand it means covering your face with your hand and sort of sighing into out of frustration. Are you seriously telling me that you perceive a facepalm, as an emotional response and an insult? If I'm misunderstanding a facepalm someone please let me know because I don't consider it an insult at all. Perhaps I'm wrong. To me it's like saying "Sigh...." or "Shakes head in frustration."

This is what a facepalm seems like to me

buy facepalm mugs, tshirts and magnets
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I just posted "Starting over if I may" and clearly outlined exactly what I am suggesting. I think you haven't read it.

It does get frustrating to repeatedly say the same thing over and over again and have people say that "YOU ARE SAYING THIS>>>>>" and me saying "NO I'm saying THIS" spelling it out over and over again and people still replying in the thread that I haven't said that. Only to finally maybe three pages later have the person say "Oh wait, you are saying THIS, why didn't you say that in the first place." Then me posting back what I have said and people going......ohhhhh. I got two apologies so far in the thread and one grudging admission that suddenly I had made clear what I was saying, then you pop up and here we go again.

I have repeated it several times in the thread. The first post on this page has it spelled out.

I'll post it here again.

Please tell me, how this in any way matches the story you have presented to me above?

Starting over if I may.

What I am suggesting is that if we take the stigma away from bullying and turn it into a simple reality that it might encourage students to recognize what is happening and come forward.

For example if we teach about group dynamics and the patterns associated with bullying, we can in a way take the power away from the bully by treating a bully as the one with the problem who needs intervention. Right now it is presented as the victim is the one with the problem who needs help.

If a student is a victim of bullying and understands that "this happens all the time and the way to solve it is XYZ" then the student may be more likely to step forward.

The most common response I've seen to bullying is that the kid doesn't tell their parent because they don't want the parent to make a scene at the school. The kid will get in trouble for bullying and then come after the victim even more, perhaps using covert methods. So most kids don't say anything.

If the approach is more BLASE and not so emotional, then it might create a systematic change. In other words it turns less into an emotional issue and more into a behavior managment issue. By taking the taboo out of bullying and turing it into a typical behavior pattern that happens in all schools across the country with a system and protocol of action, I think it will be easier to handle it.

I think much of the psychological trauma in these situations comes from feelings of shame and embarrasment and fear on the part of the victim.

Let's make it a system of dealing with it. If a student turns in a report even about their friend it's filed and dealt with in a swift and precise manner. In my opinion, over time this will reduce bullying by taking it out of the corners and into the light.

For a friend or family member to step forward on behalf of the victim it would require a sense that there is something that will be done in a system. If the school runs education campaigns that point out the common behavior and dynamics of bullying and takes a zero tolerance policy it will help.

Also what will help is the idea that the student who is doing the bullying is probably reacting in a typical way based on group dynamics. Instead of this fear that the bully is going to get in "trouble" we present it as the bully is going to get "intervention."

In my opinion this is the best solution to the problem.

The other thing I'd like to add is that you are suggesting it wouldn't work because you knew you were being bullied and what was going on etc. I am not saying that we sit you and Nika down and say "Gosh guys sorry you are being bullied, hang in there." I'm saying that you are educated in the school system to see it as a pattern that happens. This was not done to you or anyone that I know here that's complaining it wouldn't work because you KNEW. That is not what I am saying to do.

I'm talking about the entire concepts of group dynamics being part of designing a school system and that the understanding of group dynamics and patterns of behavior are built into the school system with a zero tolerance policy. Turning the situation into something "matter of fact" rather than emotional.

For example of a way that can be done, look at the issue of cutting school. In schools in NYC now there is an automated dialing system that is set up when your kid is absent from school. You get a prerecorded call letting you know that your child was absent from school. This helps stop some cutting because kids know they will get busted automatically. The system is in place and it's a done deed. Some kids don't care but a lot of kids just don't want the trouble.

Now you take the same concept and make it a systematic way of understanding group dynamics and what happens in the pattern of bullying. The repercussions are built into the system in an automatic way. For example, (as I said several pages ago) a report is filed documenting a case of perceived bullying. The accused is brought into the office and the parent is informed (even via an automated phone call) that their child has been accused of bullying. The recourse is that the accused must immediately cease all contact with the accuser. If anyone witnesses him even SPEAKING to the victim, he will immediately be suspended and have BULLYING attached to his school record.

And if we could get away with it I'd like that bullying note not to be sealed. In other words it will be expunged after a year of no incident but otherwise go on the school record that can be viewed by colleges. It is important for colleges to know that these kids are bullies as well.

If the child is traumatized again by a bully in the school, there is now a documented paper trail which will validate services that must be paid for by the school district to help assist the student. This can be pretty standardized.

By educating people to understand that bullying is something that happens and can be dealt with swiftly I think it will change the nature of the beast. As the evidence has shown btw, so you saying that it didn't work in Sweden is strange because it IS working here in the US.


Sorry so long.

 

[Sabrina]

Frustration, as I understand it, IS an emotion (i.e. you FEEL frustrated), and therefore if you view a facepalm as an expression of said frustration, it is in fact an emotional response. Insult? That depends on the circumstances surrounding the response, IMO.

 

[truethat]

Frustration, as I understand it, IS an emotion (i.e. you FEEL frustrated), and therefore if you view a facepalm as an expression of said frustration, it is in fact an emotional response. Insult? That depends on the circumstances surrounding the response, IMO.

Well of course but it's certainly not an insult in this case. I edited this post because I want to stay OT btw.