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Has anyone been watching the CNN reports on TV about the problem with bullies in schools? Interesting!
One thing they reported that hit me was the fact that in many school districts it is against the rules to defend yourself if someone assults you in school. According to the twisted logic of modern school administrators if a school yard bully attacks a kid on campus the person being attacked is wrong if they fight back! They will get in as much trouble as the kid who did the inital attack if they fight back and defend themselves. Is this crazy or not?
1. It isn't "twisted logic" that if you fight back, you are fighting, and fighting is against school rules.
2. If there is bullying taking place in school or on school grounds, at my school (for example), there were over 80 adults at the school who could be asked for help.
3. Fighting back may make the bully stop bullying you, but then the bully just finds another victim.
4. If you're the victim of a bully and you fight back, the odds are better than half that you'll lose that fight. And then your situation is even worse than before.
This is discussed regularly in the Parenting forum. Those of us who have dealt with this personally are mocked by those who believe that their children haven't been bullied because somehow the bullies know their kids will fight back. Their posts reflect the attitudes of the parents of the bullies we have encountered.
Bullies know that a child that will defend themselves will be in equal or more significant trouble than themselves. It takes a lot of work to get around the privacy laws that protect the bullies in school. Those same laws do not protect the victims.
Last year, for instance, my daughter was attacked, viciously and repeatedly by a boy in her class. After several months of being told that my daughter was exaggerating the problem, he attacked her in front of a large group of students and several teachers. When we got to the school, some of the other children who had witnessed the attack, approached us in the office while we were waiting for our daughter and were telling us what happened. At that point, I discovered that the paper trail the teacher had been assuring me she was making, did not exist. Luckily for my daughter, I had kept the few emails we had shared (the rest was in person and on the phone). I pulled my daughter out of school and emailed the superintendent, principal and teacher, letting them know I would be disenrolling my daughter. It's a long story, a long battle, over the course of 24 hours. (With after effects for months), but I did get him removed from the classroom and someone was hired to follow him around the school at all times THAT DAY, for the remainder of the school year. But the school report on the subject reads that the woman was hired to protect the child from ME. It turned out the child's mother was on the school board and the father is a teacher in the district. The child had violently attacked other children in the other two years, but those children were moved to another school - an option they gave me, but I refused, right away. I felt the attacker should bear the weight, not his victim.
I also learned another valuable lesson - don't give the schools a chance to "handle things". If you get a call, letting you know that your child has been attacked or your child tells you a story about being attacked, call the police and file a report. Then follow up at the school. Insist. YOU are your child's advocate - no matter what the teacher and principal say, they may NOT be handling it in a way that is beneficial for YOUR child.
BTW, my daughter was 7 last year. This was second grade. He hurled heavy books at her head, whipped her with zippered jacket in front of a PE teacher and the final time, he jumped on her back while she was standing in line and began beating her, another surprise attack, she never had a chance to do more than protect herself. The last happened less than 2 feet away from SEVERAL staff members - one of whom had SWORN in an email that she would keep the boy away from my child and that I needed to trust that she loved my daughter and would protect her. Before checking to see if she was okay, they left her lying on the ground for more than 15 minutes while they attempted to catch the boy on the playground.
The parents of the boy refused to meet with us. I found out his identity through my child. The parent's last name was very common. It was months later that I discovered his parent's positions in the school. Their response? Well, after fighting the school (and losing, thanks to me and my threats of lawsuits - not just against the school but individually to each staff member who knew anything about her attacks and the previous years' attacks, plus a very successful email campaign) the "learning challenged" label and being removed from the typical classroom environment, they learned that if I dropped the charges, he could return to the classroom. Through the principal, they sent a message offering to buy my daughter a teddy bear, if I would just back down and realize that their child was "just a little boy".
Sick, sick people. The parents of his victim in his first grade class not only moved schools, but received a 'significant' cash settlement when they signed a piece of paper saying their daughter made the whole thing up. I wonder what lesson those parents taught their children. My daughter learned that I will "go the mattresses" for her, and will not back down, no matter what.
Good post.
Yes, if bullying is serious, a police report is wise. It also improves the chances that the school will take the situation seriously.
Another suggestion I have (which works in situations well beyond bullying) -- when you deal with the school and they are not solving issues -- put everything in writing. If you have an unsatisfactory parent conference -- write a summary memo, give it to the principal, and -- if there is no satisfaction -- to the principal's superior. I say this as a former principal.
In my school (where I was principal) I had to get after teachers continuously. It wasn't that they were afraid of bullies, it was they took the attitude that "boys will be boys" or "girls will be girls". So they just tended to overlook bullying situations...although to be honest, an awfully lot of bullying is not obvious at all (I say that as one who was bullied in junior high).
1. It isn't "twisted logic" that if you fight back, you are fighting, and fighting is against school rules.
So then the bullying victim is supposed to just stand there and get beaten up?
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2. If there is bullying taking place in school or on school grounds, at my school (for example), there were over 80 adults at the school who could be asked for help.
The premise of this thread is that these 80 adults do nothing about the bullying. They either say "There is nothing I can do" or "I didn't see it" or "Stay away from him" or "Life isn't fair". So, when the victim does not get any help from these 80 adults, what should he/she do?
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3. Fighting back may make the bully stop bullying you, but then the bully just finds another victim.
That is probably true, and it is why schools need to find a more effective way of handling bullying.
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4. If you're the victim of a bully and you fight back, the odds are better than half that you'll lose that fight. And then your situation is even worse than before.
That, unfortunately, is true.
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
Good post.
I say this as a former principal.
So that explains your blatant bias against bullying victims.
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
In my school (where I was principal) I had to get after teachers continuously. It wasn't that they were afraid of bullies, it was they took the attitude that "boys will be boys" or "girls will be girls". So they just tended to overlook bullying situations...although to be honest, an awfully lot of bullying is not obvious at all (I say that as one who was bullied in junior high).
You may have been bullied in junior high, but, unfortunately, it seems that your loyalty has completely shifted to the bullies and to the administration. People like you are why bullying is so rampant.
1. It isn't "twisted logic" that if you fight back, you are fighting, and fighting is against school rules.
2. If there is bullying taking place in school or on school grounds, at my school (for example), there were over 80 adults at the school who could be asked for help....
4. If you're the victim of a bully and you fight back, the odds are better than half that you'll lose that fight. And then your situation is even worse than before.
I tried just that tack for second through seventh grade, with baleful results. The results were that the mistreatment (primarily mimicking my voice, sometimes even in class, regular exclusions from recess games, and frequent phony phone calls strained my relations with my parents and others in the community. Sometimes it was bad enough that I came home in tears.
On a couple of occasions my parents received calls from the school relating to alleged offenses of mine that simply didn't happen. One accused me of biting another student. Another accused me of giving solid punches to two people on their backs, as they were attending to their school lockers. Neither happened but I was in a boatload of trouble nonetheless. Finally the school took an interest; when I pinned a kid named Donald to the ground on hot day at the end of eighth grade, and punched him multiple times. So phetaroi, I don't know what happened in "your school" but in "my school" a passive approach was useless. Telling one of the many adults was "tattling" and one of the reports home actually referred to it as such.
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
3. Fighting back may make the bully stop bullying you, but then the bully just finds another victim.
Fist of all, not the victim's problem. Second of all it helps establish a patter so that for once the victim is not the only person out there with a complaint.
I tried just that tack for second through seventh grade, with baleful results. The results were that the mistreatment (primarily mimicking my voice, sometimes even in class, regular exclusions from recess games, and frequent phony phone calls strained my relations with my parents and others in the community. Sometimes it was bad enough that I came home in tears.
On a couple of occasions my parents received calls from the school relating to alleged offenses of mine that simply didn't happen. One accused me of biting another student. Another accused me of giving solid punches to two people on their backs, as they were attending to their school lockers. Neither happened but I was in a boatload of trouble nonetheless. Finally the school took an interest; when I pinned a kid named Donald to the ground on hot day at the end of eighth grade, and punched him multiple times. So phetaroi, I don't know what happened in "your school" but in "my school" a passive approach was useless. Telling one of the many adults was "tattling" and one of the reports home actually referred to it as such.
Thank you!! I am glad I'm not the only person who experienced firsthand that telling adults about being bullied accomplishes nothing.
Like you said, accusing the victim of "tattling" is another example of a useless response that adults give. The most extreme example was when I was in 3rd grade, and we had a bully's mother as a substitute teacher. Her only rule was "no tattling". A bully pulled a chair out from under a girl and hurt her. The girl was written up for "tattling", but the bully who pulled the chair out from under her was not written up at all. Luckily, our regular teacher had the sense not to punish the girl.
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Fist of all, not the victim's problem. Second of all it helps establish a patter so that for once the victim is not the only person out there with a complaint.
That is a good point, since in many cases, the bullies are popular, and the teachers who encourage and enable bullying is popular.
Thank you!! I am glad I'm not the only person who experienced firsthand that telling adults about being bullied accomplishes nothing.
I caution that I've posted that sometimes it accomplishes a lot. That's about 1/5 of the time, at best.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
Like you said, accusing the victim of "tattling" is another example of a useless response that adults give. The most extreme example was when I was in 3rd grade, and we had a bully's mother as a substitute teacher. Her only rule was "no tattling". A bully pulled a chair out from under a girl and hurt her. The girl was written up for "tattling", but the bully who pulled the chair out from under her was not written up at all. Luckily, our regular teacher had the sense not to punish the girl.
There is a somewhat fine line here. Taken to its extreme tattling can result in an entire class being taken up with "he started it," no, "he started it" or "what he did is worse than what I did," etc. But often disparagement of tattling is a way to muzzle legitimate complaints.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
That is a good point, since in many cases, the bullies are popular, and the teachers who encourage and enable bullying is popular.
A later version didn't make bullies popular but it had the same impact. A kid kept putting chewing gum in my hair in Spanish class. When I turned around to ask him to stop and to get the gum out of my hair I was told I was being disruptive. Later, I was told, "you have to understand, his parents are going through a divorce." Either way the teacher is spared the hard work of disciplining what is likely to be an incorrigible delinquent.
There is a somewhat fine line here. Taken to its extreme tattling can result in an entire class being taken up with "he started it," no, "he started it" or "what he did is worse than what I did," etc. But often disparagement of tattling is a way to muzzle legitimate complaints.
That is a very good point. It is somewhat of a judgment call, which, unfortunately, teachers seem to be very poor at making. In the case of the substitute teacher that I mentioned, it was very clear that her "no tattling" rule was intended to muzzle legitimate complaints, since her son was a bully, she very likely raised him to be a bully (I still feel that behind every child bully is an adult who encourages or enables it), so it was very clear that she wanted to encourage bullying. Luckily, our usual teacher had the common sense not to punish that girl even though she was written up.
That same day, I whispered to the kid sitting next to me (I admit it was a bad idea, since he was the teacher's pet type) that "[name of substitute] is mean". He then raised his hand to tattle on me. Yet he didn't get written up for "tattling"! I was going to be written up for my comment, but she changed her mind before the end of the day.
So that explains your blatant bias against bullying victims.
You may have been bullied in junior high, but, unfortunately, it seems that your loyalty has completely shifted to the bullies and to the administration. People like you are why bullying is so rampant.
Thank you for the insults. Perhaps you're a bully.
When I became principal, I fully realized we had a bullying problem in my school. We began an education program for our teachers, and another for our students, and another for our parents. I was even selected by my school system to do a video on our program and for bullying issues, which was later sold to other school systems in the U.S.
Further, what bias against victims??? As an elementary school and junior high victim of 2 bullies, I am hardly biased against victims.
1. It isn't "twisted logic" that if you fight back, you are fighting, and fighting is against school rules.
2. If there is bullying taking place in school or on school grounds, at my school (for example), there were over 80 adults at the school who could be asked for help.
3. Fighting back may make the bully stop bullying you, but then the bully just finds another victim.
4. If you're the victim of a bully and you fight back, the odds are better than half that you'll lose that fight. And then your situation is even worse than before.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
In my school (where I was principal) I had to get after teachers continuously. It wasn't that they were afraid of bullies, it was they took the attitude that "boys will be boys" or "girls will be girls". So they just tended to overlook bullying situations...although to be honest, an awfully lot of bullying is not obvious at all (I say that as one who was bullied in junior high).
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Thank you for the insults. Perhaps you're a bully.
When I became principal, I fully realized we had a bullying problem in my school. We began an education program for our teachers, and another for our students, and another for our parents. I was even selected by my school system to do a video on our program and for bullying issues, which was later sold to other school systems in the U.S.
Further, what bias against victims??? As an elementary school and junior high victim of 2 bullies, I am hardly biased against victims.
Soon as I read these, I didn't even know what to say. This "hide behind the rules" and "teachers will prevent it" belief is half the cause of the problem. Ok, you're a principal. Well, here are a bunch of parents, and students here right now telling you that school policies are not working. The bullies are there. Teachers know it and they ignore it. And you see here in this thread the continuing frustration of parents that school officials are in denial and will not listen to us.
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