Bullying--and those who argue kids need to experience it

[gardenmom5]

my mother: oh, I was bullied - and she'd give details (I couldn't help wondering how that was supposed to be helpful). ignore them. walk away. etc. lots of garbage. I pretty much understand why - my grandmother most likely had a personality disorder, and my mother was an only child. she was a piece of work and even as a child I didn't like her much. (I adored my grandfather, though I thought he was weak for being run over by her) when I was 13, I decided she was a flaming hypocrite and was there-after suspicious of everything she said. (and when she realized it - she was really mad, and took it out on me for not worshipping at her feet.) but she did serious mental and emotional damage, that undermined everyone in the family. I can look back, and as bad as the bullying was (I was suicidal - and still my mother did nothing) - she was worse (partly because my mother put the witch on pedestal to where her opinion was the cat's meow.)

 

I developed a serious distrust/dislike of women. I was fortunate to eventually be able to develop some healthy female relationships that helped overcome that.

 

I reared my children to have more self-esteem than I had, and to my knowledge none of the kids were bullied (at least they've never said anything, and I don't see any signs.). bullies pick victims who appear to be weak. (because at heart, bullies are cowards.)

 

 

eta: I score in the "most likely has aspergers", and I've made a lot of progress since childhood. (my family life likely did make things worse.) I likely had learning disorders. (possibly dyslexia - and it's hereditary as some of the kids have struggled with it) I was very socially awkward and missed many social cues. My aspie has social skills training.

[Joan in GE]

 

My DD's PS had a "program" in place. It was useless and the counseling did nothing to change things. Basically it enabled the bullying while my DD was supposed to politely ask the bully to stop.

 

snip

 

Honestly, I think the "your kids need to be bullied" is just a twist on the socialization topic. They only bring it up because they can't ding us on academics. And it gives people something to make them sound like they are thinking outside the box when in reality, they are just bringing up the same old stuff against homeschooling.

 

 

The program they had wasn't like that - it had the whole class deal with the bully like a jury/council kind of thing. But there's still lots of bullying going on in Switzerland so clearly it hasn't worked in all schools. I think it can depend on the population of the school as well.

 

But that's beside the point really...

 

The bullying argument is now one of the first arguments against homeschooling here...You say because they can't argue about the academics, which could be true but I also think it's partly because it is such a nebulous type of unmeasurable thing.

 

Where are the statistics of bullying?

 

How many schools have it? how many kids are bullied? how do all kids respond? how many kids then really grow up and know how to deal with bullies? but how do you even 'measure' "know how to deal with bullies"?

 

I think many people just learned how to either 'avoid' them or 'be quiet'...Then they do the same in adulthood...Is that what is meant by 'knowing how to deal with bullies'?

 

Bullying also has so many variables that it would be impossible to pin down anything...

 

And to make these sweeping generalizations - like the socialization attack, which has all kinds of undefined aspects with that one word - is just an attacker's easy way out of true discussion.

 

IMHO

Joan

[maize]

For those who were bullied, and I just want to go back in time to protect the little you :(, did you tell your parents? If you did, how did they respond?

 

 

I told very little, when I did mention something the response was along the lines of "oh, that happened to me too. Just ignore them". When my mom gave examples of mean things kids said or did to her they were much milder than what was happening to me, but I had (still have) an inherent dislike for complaining and tended to feel like I was just supposed to deal with things myself. I mostly escaped to live in fantasy worlds--reading and daydreaming. As an adult I have come to realize that my ability to do that--to just withdraw from the situation internally--probably saved my sanity. I did not become depressed or suicidal as I have seen other kids do. I had quite a positive home experience, and a good sense of self-worth; I felt valuable as a person. BUT--I came away from school thinking that other people would never value me. Fortunately I found a much better social situation in college; I feel like I spent my college years healing from the damage that had been done during middle school...

 

That whole experience definitely plays into my choice to homeschool my own children, especially through the middle school/junior high years. I have no more desire to put them in a toxic social environment for hours every day than I do to feed them poisonous, contaminated food every day.

 

I would be interested in resources for teaching children social skills including but not limited to how to deal with bullies.

[maize]

 

 

The bullying argument is now one of the first arguments against homeschooling here...You say because they can't argue about the academics, which could be true but I also think it's partly because it is such a nebulous type of unmeasurable thing.

 

I actually suspect that bullying is an even more ingrained and accepted part of the school experience in some European countries, very much viewed as a rite of passage. You end up with the older generation feeling like the younger generation has to have the experience to "pay their dues" just as their predecessors did. That is a broad generalization so I am sure not applicable in all cases, but bullying was pervasive in France 20 years ago and teachers/school administrators turned a blind eye. There were kids getting beat up in the school yard every day and no-one ever intervened. I have heard similar stories from people who went to school in the UK. Maybe that is changing now?

 

And to make these sweeping generalizations - like the socialization attack, which has all kinds of undefined aspects with that one word - is just an attacker's easy way out of true discussion.

 

 

:iagree:

[Tammyla]

I've experienced a number of adults who value bullying...Now, they will put anti and no-bullying policies into place, but they will over look and minimize what a child is suffering without batting an eye.

[RoundAbout]

I think some of it comes from the loose use of the term bully in our current culture. For example, I found out when I was working at the school that it was considered "bullying" if a child did not want to play with another child. We aren't talking about being mean, just simply one child not wanting to play with another. It was bullying if children disagreed, and we were to step in instead of allowing them solve their differences. Once again, not bullying, but kids not agreeing on what game to play or the rules about something. Instead of allowing them to argue and discuss it, we had to step in with a final decision otherwise the child who didn't "win" the discussion was bullied. Heck, I was recently accused of being a bully because my son did not invite everyone he knows to his birthday party. By not inviting 30+ people I was bullying the poor kids that didn't come (And no, we didn't advertise the party and invited people discreetly, so there was no rubbing it in anyone's faces).

 

 

 

Yes, I'm confused about what is defined as bullying these days. A 9 year-old in my son's gym class started crying "bully" because my barely 6 year-old made an off hand comment about this kid not participating (he wasn't and was being rude to the coach). It certainly wasn't tactful of my son, and both the coach and myself told him to zip it because it wasn't his job to run the class. But the mom wanted to make it a thing and have a big mediation discussion and I totally didn't get why. Sometimes kids don't get along, but they do have to learn to be civil.

 

In any case, this was way different than the relentless targeted teasing and sometimes physical abuse that defined bullying when I was a kid. No kid should have to experience that.

[dirty ethel rackham]

For those who were bullied, and I just want to go back in time to protect the little you :(, did you tell your parents? If you did, how did they respond?

 

 

The bullying I experienced was mental and emotional harrassment ... rarely physical, but that doesn't mean it wasn't painful. I think if it had been physical, I think I could at least have fought back and maybe someone would have taken it seriously. In fact, the one time it became physical, I exploded. A teacher walked in when I was about to go all "ape-s#!t" on a kid, and that was the only time anyone took it seriously.

 

Yes, I did tell my parents. At first they told me to walk away ... "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." and all that bs. As I continued to complain about it, they would say things like "Stand up for yourself" or "It can't be that bad" or "Maybe if you weren't <so sensitive, so awkward, so nice> they would leave you alone" or "Maybe if you hadn't wet the bed until third grade" they wouldn't have started this nonsense." Those last two were the worst because that made it my fault ... like I was defective and deserved to be bullied. After a while, I simply stopped telling my parents about it. I just lived with that sense of powerlessness. Like I mentioned before, this being at a Catholic school made it all the worse because here we were, learning about how God loved us and, yet, the message I was getting was I wasn't lovable - that I deserved the harrassment.

 

Apparently, one time, unbeknownst to me, a teacher caught the perpetrator in the act and he got detention. His mom called my mom asking what I did to get her kid in trouble. I didn't hear about that until I was an adult so, for all I knew, everyone got away with it. The worst thing was the ring leader was the son of my parents' good friends. Our families did lots of things together. Most of the time, even though I couldn't avoid him at school, I could avoid him socially by going to a neighbors house or sleeping over at a friend's house. But, one time, our parents made plans to go to this one family's lake house for the weekend. I didn't want to go, but my parents made me. I was forced to spend an entire weekend with my nemesis and his posse. It took me a long time to forgive my parents for that. Many years later, my mom and I talked about what had happened and she claimed that she didn't know it was as bad as it was. I was incredulous. Really? How on Earth could they not know? That said, my parents were raising 4 teens at the time and this was the height of the sexual revolution and they were worried about life and death issues like drinking and driving. Now, I can understand a little why they were a bit clueless.

 

When I had kids, I have to tell you that when homeschooling came into my radar, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I can't tell you how afraid I was that my kids would be bullied. When my oldest was diagnosed with encopresis, I knew that there was no way I was going to put my child into a school environment with that kind of problem. He was already the kind of kid that would be picked on (very bright, but sometimes socially unaware, very sensitive.) We did experience bullying within our homeschool group and I didn't really know how to deal with it. I felt that same sense of powerlessness that I did as a child. I can't say that I knew any better how to handle it, but we were fortunate that we didn't have to spend a ton of time with those bullies. Having lived through it from the perspective of a parent, I forgave my parents for their inept handling of things, because I can see that they really didn't know what to do. They were just parroting back what they were told.

[Joan in GE]

bullying was pervasive in France 20 years ago and teachers/school administrators turned a blind eye. There were kids getting beat up in the school yard every day and no-one ever intervened. I have heard similar stories from people who went to school in the UK. Maybe that is changing now?

 

You might be interested in some of the pages on this site if you can read French...

 

http://horsdesmurs.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=300:2010-rapport-sivis-sur-les-violences-scolaires&catid=54:rapports&Itemid=97

 

I think there's lots of serious bullying in other European countries too...which is now extending to cyberbullying though I haven't heard of any associated deaths such as in the US...

 

Joan

[Arcadia]

I would be interested in resources for teaching children social skills including but not limited to how to deal with bullies.

Kidpower is commonly used here by the library and First5 as free parenting lessons. The instructor comes from Kidpower.

http://www.kidpower.org/bullying/

Free Kidpower coloring book in english, spanish, german, french, dutch, romanian and vietnamese

[maize]

 

You might be interested in some of the pages on this site if you can read French...

 

http://horsdesmurs.c...ports&Itemid=97

 

I think there's lots of serious bullying in other European countries too...which is now extending to cyberbullying though I haven't heard of any associated deaths such as in the US...

 

Joan

 

Those reports are depressing, but not surprising. :(

 

I took a look at the main site http://horsdesmurs.com/ ; I love the picture of children climbing over the wall, escaping from school for something much better. I really hope there is a bright future for homeschooling throughout Europe.

[maize]

Kidpower is commonly used here by the library and First5 as free parenting lessons. The instructor comes from Kidpower.

http://www.kidpower.org/bullying/

Free Kidpower coloring book in english, spanish, german, french, dutch, romanian and vietnamese

 

Thank you for sharing these.

[Anne in CA]

Considering the cyber bullying that goes on today I cannot imagine allowing a child to stay in school if they even hinted that they were being bullied. Clearly just because most people recover from being bullied does not mean it is not damaging.

 

My dh worked with a man for 4 years who was an awful bully to the women in the office. Dh stood up to him numerous times but when he was nasty he made women cry. One woman who worked for him quit and told him she wasn't giving him two weeks notice. He told her he wouldn't give her a good reference and she responded that she did not want a good reference from him she would not want anyone to think she got along with someone like him. Dh could not believe he did not get fired or that the women under him did not quit sooner than they did. A few months ago the bully got a female boss and he was done.

[musicianmom]

I think there is an underlying belief that bullies can be stopped if the victim develops the proper skills -- grow a thicker skin, outwit the bullies, manipulate them in some way, or fight back physically (if you're uninformed about zero tolerance). So kids are supposed to toughen up emotionally so that bullies won't detect weakness and target them. The bullying I experienced was mild in retrospect, but the blame was always placed squarely on my shoulders - I overreacted, I made myself too vulnerable, I was too grade-conscious, I tried too hard to make people like me, etc.

 

 

[gardenmom5]

I think there is an underlying belief that bullies can be stopped if the victim develops the proper skills -- grow a thicker skin, outwit the bullies, manipulate them in some way, or fight back physically (if you're uninformed about zero tolerance). So kids are supposed to toughen up emotionally so that bullies won't detect weakness and target them. The bullying I experienced was mild in retrospect, but the blame was always placed squarely on my shoulders - I overreacted, I made myself too vulnerable, I was too grade-conscious, I tried too hard to make people like me, etc.

 

because occasionally it works - those are the exceptions. kids who have self-confidence are generally not attractive to bullies - they bully to make themselves feel good. bullies are cowards at heart. (and bullies degrade what confidence a child has.)

 

I can smile at the guy who noticed his bully was afraid of heights. In front of the bullies buddies, he challenged him to a fight - on the roof of the school gym. the bully never bothered him again.

 

I chewed out a couple girls who bullied - but they weren't the diehard vicious offenders. they honestly didn't get what they were doing until I spelled it out for them in terms even they could understand. they never bothered me again either.

[maize]

because occasionally it works - those are the exceptions. kids who have self-confidence are generally not attractive to bullies - they bully to make themselves feel good. bullies are cowards at heart. (and bullies degrade what confidence a child has.)

 

I can smile at the guy who noticed his bully was afraid of heights. In front of the bullies buddies, he challenged him to a fight - on the roof of the school gym. the bully never bothered him again.

 

I chewed out a couple girls who bullied - but they weren't the diehard vicious offenders. they honestly didn't get what they were doing until I spelled it out for them in terms even they could understand. they never bothered me again either.

 

 

In my experience girl bullies worked in groups and often targeted girls who were alone--the bullies reinforced each other, and the victim had no back-up.

[gardenmom5]

In my experience girl bullies worked in groups and often targeted girls who were alone--the bullies reinforced each other, and the victim had no back-up.

girls can also be more vicious than boys even when they're by themselves. My experience is girls there is a definite leader (even if it's just one or two others) - and girls will suck up to her because they don't want to become a victim. but she's the nasty piece of work who is leading the pack. it's how they feel important - by putting others down.

[jelbe5]

 

girls can also be more vicious than boys even when they're by themselves. My experience is girls there is a definite leader (even if it's just one or two others) - and girls will suck up to her because they don't want to become a victim. but she's the nasty piece of work who is leading the pack. it's how they feel important - by putting others down.

 

 

This was exactly the case in my situation. The ringleader was a popular girl and the other girls followed her. From grades 3-7 she lead the girls in bullying me and others who did not fit in. The summer before 8th grade this girl moved away and the bully group fell apart. I spent the last year of elementary school in relative peace.

 

FWIW I found out after she was gone that her father was an active alcoholic - they may have moved because of job loss due to his drinking but I am not sure about that. I was delighted she was gone, but I felt sorry for her when I heard that. It certainly caused me to understand why she may have felt a need to make herself feel better by hurting others.

[AnIslandGirl]

I think that the term "bully" is thrown around way too loosely these days. I wholeheartedly agree that everyone is entitled to a safe environment free from physical and psychological torment. 100% agree. I don't think though that a singular insult is bullying providing there is no other history.

I can not stand hearing the phrase "Don't be a bully." when it is in response to a comment that could be perceived as constructive criticism. And I see this from both adults and children. If I tell you honestly as a friend that that shade of puce really doesn't flatter you, it may just be a constructive criticism comment. Don't tell me to "not be a bully" as I feel that it takes power away from a word that is truly an awful experience.

 

Wile I wholeheartedly believe that no child should experience being bullied, I do promote self defense and role playing as part of the education curriculum. Sometimes it does help to act out a situation so that children are prepared with acceptable responses.

 

In another related issue, I strongly dislike the term "tattle-tale". I have seen way to many instances in which a child is reaching out in a bullying type situation, just to be dismissed with "Don't be a tattle-tale" from what should be a responsible, protective adult authority figure. OK, I'm off my soapbox.

 

Edit: I think this op-ed sums up my feelings... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/opinion/defining-bullying-down.html?_r=0

[MtnMama]

Oh yes, I was fed that line by a few of my relatives; the ones who were bullied so much at school that they are still fractured individuals. Personally, I don't think most people need to venture further than their extended family to experience bullying. I was bullied at school, but the bullying from family was far worse.

 

 

I was bullied at school for being smart. I was always the first one to finish tests and quizzes, and I can remember sitting at my desk pretending to still be writing so I wouldn't be the first person to walk up to the front of the room to turn in the paper. I agree with Rosie though. What I experienced at school was nothing compared to what I went through at the hands of extended family, who would constantly make fun of me. For having a brain. I still don't get it.

[treestarfae]

Why is isolated abuse ok but not gang behavior? Nobody is going to trivialize my kids into antimatter.

[lailasmum]

I do now realise that pretty much everyone who bullied me was pretty messed up themselves. The main bully when at secondary school was a girl who was a competitive swimmer and her parents put an enormous amount of pressure on her to do everything amazingly well. I think the bullying was a rebellion of sorts. She had this huge bitchy personality that other girls were drawn to. She went totally off the rails after school and the last I heard of her she was serving a prison scentence for drug dealing.

[AnIslandGirl]

Why is isolated abuse ok but not gang behavior? Nobody is going to trivialize my kids into antimatter.

 

Isolated abuse is certainly not acceptable, but it also isn't bullying... "The definition of bullying adopted by psychologists is physical or verbal abuse, repeated over time, and involving a power imbalance."

If your child gets called a name or pushed on the playground, this is much different that being harassed by the same individual (or group) over and over again.

It doesn't make it any less important to talk about, but to say, "Oh, my child was bullied today" over a single incident, really minimizes the true definition of the term bully. Or at least that's the way I see it.

[gardenmom5]

I should add - I do know of girls who were by themselves - and were the bully.

[Joan in GE]

Here's an article on the psychological effects of bullying....for both the bullies and the bullied

 

http://www.reuters.c...E91K12K20130221