Bullying

[kengr]

Over on Facebook a friend shared a post that used this image:

A lot of folks agreed. But a lot disagreed, saying that it amounted to victim blaming.

My comments (plus more I didn't have room for)

The big problem with this sentiment is that it doesn't *work*. Attempting to defend myself from bullies in grade school got me in trouble with the teachers *and* with my mom when I got home. I was pyhsically incapable of outrunning the bullies. And even if I'd known some sort of self-defense 3 on one odds aren't beatable unless you are very good (or using tactics that would get you in *real* trouble.

Two memes that need to die:
"sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me"
Words can cause more lasting damage than a physical beating.

"it takes two to make a fight"
Guess what, if the bully wants a fight all refusing to fight will get you is a beating.

Being taught something about self-defense is good. But it can only help so much. And as noted, it's victim blaming.

Teachers need to quit with the "both parties are equally guilty" with regards to fights. They also need to be *paying attention* during recess so that it *isn't* a case of "we didn't see it so we can't take anyone's word about who started it".

They need to scrap the "I don't care what he said/did that's no justification for hitting him" And remember that what was said/done may not have been the proximate cause, but rather the most recent in an ongoing series of abuses that finally became intolerable.

Yeah, taking your eraser or calling you a name should be a reason to hit him. But if he's been doing that sort of thing several times a day for *weeks*? That's a very different story.

Oh yeah, forbid "keep away". It's not a game for the victim.

One person posted this picture in reponse:


It's better but it still has the "bullying will always be with us" idea. That may be true, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to reduce it as much as possible.

Comments

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"Bullying is always going to be a thing as long as people feel that children should not be taught to be responsible for their actions. As long as 'kids will be kids' is a viable excuse for not teaching kindness and empathy, society will be raising a society of bullies."

[kengr]

Kids should get some slack for lack of info. "I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that" should not be treated as a made up excuse unless you have evidence.

Punishing kids for breaking rules they were never told about is not going to do anything good. Likewise, just because A is an "obvious" corollary to rule B *to you* doesn't mean it's obvious to the kid. Yeah, some kids *do* do that the try to escape punishment. But others really *are* that clueless.

So if the kid didn't know, some slack should be allowed. *once*.

The other biggie when dealing with kids is that they do stupid things.

Lack of judgment should be *expected* of kids. Judgment is based on experience (which kids lack *by definition*) and because those parts of the brain don't finish developing until the early 20s.

So whatever is done for stupid things should be set up to show them *why* it was stupid.

Thus kids shouldn't necessarily be held to the same standards as adults. But if it's something adults wouldn't be allowed to do, we *really* need to consider whether kids should be allowed to do it.

And adults encouraging kids to misbehave need to be dealt with. Encouraging their kids to bully, or trying to make sports more important than anything else, they need to be dealt with.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

I was bullied pretty heavily in high school in the early Seventies. However, that was mostly pranks, rather than assault.

I honestly don't understand how some kids today get away with physically harming other students. Don't the teachers pay attention?!

[kengr]

Yeah, I was there in the early 70s. class of 1973.

I'd been using a beat up old briefcase to hall my books and stuff around. In my junior year, it became a thing to hide it in gym class. Get back from the showers and it'd be gone.

The coaches were no help. They thought I was making too much of a "thing" about it. "It's just a prank".

I wish I'd done what I wanted to and called the cops. That was no prank, it was *theft* even if they gave it back later.

I had PE last period that year. and finally, one day I was distracted and since it wasn't there, I forgot I'd had it with me. I got on the bus for home, then remembered it about a block from school. Got off went back. it wasn't there.

This was in the last week or two of school and I never saw it again. At least the library books in it got returned. But I lost my slide rule, and a bunch of notes and other references that I was never able to replace.

I was going to a different school the next year, so I was never able to follow up. Though I did learn that I didn't have "victim" written on me, as I didn't get bullied at the new school.

I suspect that at the old high school (and the junior high before that) it was a case of once I started getting bullied, it became a habit.

at the new school, I didn't have that history, and things went differently.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

That sounds familiar. I was class of Seventy-Three, and also carried a briefcase. Which kept going missing.

Didn't get bullied at college. Maybe because I quit carrying a briefcase to class. I converted it to haul my RPG stuff around. I was *so* glad when I discovered that...