Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am watching on TV and they had a grown man who is 48 years old crying on TV and saying he has been in therapy since he was 10 because of bullying
I think this bill is completely unnecessary and a big waste of money.
How do you jump to the conclusion that since someone has been in therapy since ten, that this whole bullying thing is just a big waste of time?
What if you were bullied by your sibblings, daily?
What if you were bullied by your classmates as well?
What if you were also bullied by your step-father?
What if you were also bullied by your piano teacher?
Once you've established that all of these people have indeed bullied you, now you have to determine to what extent you've been bullied.
Did they just call you names and verbally abuse you on solely a psychological level?
Did they not only call you names, but also physically abuse you as well?
Was there any sexual abuse involved?
Adults can be very methodical, insidious, and profoundly injurious, when they actually intend to bully someone, especially a child?
A child can be made to think of themselves quite negatively for years until, one day, perhaps as many as twenty years later, they have an epiphany. They determine that the only reason that they've also avoided others and sought not to go to college, or enter into the military, sought, marry, and have children, was because they felt as though they weren't good enough.
A person's life can be permanently affected by low self-esteem.
To jump to conclusions without detailed information is to be remiss.
No laws needed. Teach your kid how to stand up for himself/herself. Problem solved.
What if you never learned how to stand up for yourself?
Then how could you ever teach your kid?
Sometimes when reacting defensively, kids don't know their limitations?
Example:
A kid is teased and bullied for almost an entire school year. Just before summer, he begins to think about how much he has endured throughout the year. He then begins to think of the coming school year after the summer break. He begins to ferment anger. Finally reaching his boiling point, he asks his dad, who's both the role model and authority figure in his life, what to do about his situation. His dad tells him to "take care of business" and not to let idiots terrorize him. He's got to stand up and be a man for himself. He furthermore, tells him that he shouldn't have to ask him, "What should he do?", because he should already know what to do!
The next day, the son goes to the kitchen drawer and gets a butcher's knife. He promptly walks up to his assailants and stabs them all repeatedly, almost without relent. All three adolescent bullies are now dead.
Add.... teach your kid to respect others.
Bring it back home!
Teaching your kid to be violent within a school setting is not respectful to the school, the other students, or your reflection as a parent.
I would offer an alternative solution.
How about you as the parent visiting the school and proposing a meeting between all parties involved?
Have a meeting with school administrators, first. Next, meet with the school administrators and the parents of the "bullies".
Next. Have the students themselves, discuss a possible resolution to the bullying problem. Insist that the bullies apologize and if they don't, sue the school and the parents of the bullies and transfer your child to either another school or have your child home schooled.
There's a time and a place for everything. Violence should be the last step to a solution. It most certainly should not be offerred as a viable solution to a kid.
Bullying would cease to be an issue if people stood up and chose to stop being victims. Before you all jump down my throat about blaming the victim, think about this for a minute.
What do bullies look for? Bullies look for differences whether it's height, weight, color, speech impediment, glasses, etc. They then use that difference against the person in the hopes of receiving a reaction. It is the reaction that the bullies prey on. They want their target to get upset, they want them to run to the teacher. It's all about intimidation and it has existed since the dawn of time. Something tells me that at least one Neanderthal cave drawing said, "Ugh Ugh is a fat ugly douche."
How then do you stop bullying? You take away the target. Teach your child to embrace the things that make them different and to be confident in themselves. Teach them that it's OK to defend their person with physical means if necessary. If they aren't capable of that, get them lessons to learn. Once the bully doesn't get the reaction they want and realizes that the insults won't matter and the target is willing to defend themselves, then they will leave them alone.
Teaching our kids to rely on a support system of parents, adults, teachers, administrators, etc. to resolve their disputes and defend them only reinforces the fact that they are incapable of defending themselves and plays right back into the bullies hand.
For that reason any system designed around preventing bullying cannot be accomplished through vigilance on the part of schools or punishing bullies for their actions. You can only prevent bullying by preventing people from becoming victims. After all "victim" is nothing more than a state of mind.
So then what?
A kid gets his friend to help retaliate when he gets the worse end of it, or perhaps he carries a weapon to school to finally settle things once and for all. Yeah, right!
What you're precribing here is an a proliferation of violence and you're reinforcing an entire culture of violence. This is almost 2011 and were still talking about clubbing our neighbors. Furthermore, we're advising it as a resolution for our kids problems.
Remember:
Violence should always be used as a last resort. Violence can very easily lead to murder. Human beings are actually very fragile.
Of course, you might disagree with me if you're a UFC of MMA fan...
Teaching your kid to be violent within a school setting is not respectful to the school, the other students, or your reflection as a parent.
I would offer an alternative solution.
How about you as the parent visiting the school and proposing a meeting between all parties involved?
Have a meeting with school administrators, first. Next, meet with the school administrators and the parents of the "bullies".
Next. Have the students themselves, discuss a possible resolution to the bullying problem. Insist that the bullies apologize and if they don't, sue the school and the parents of the bullies and transfer your child to either another school or have your child home schooled.
There's a time and a place for everything. Violence should be the last step to a solution. It most certainly should not be offerred as a viable solution to a kid.
Have A Nice Day!
This is the exact type of attitude that is ruining this country.
Respect to "the school, the other students, and reflections on my parenting" comes WAY AFTER the importance for my son to defend himself against all forms of attack. I don't give a damn whether it takes place in a school, a restaurant, or a church. There are people content with allowing themselves, their families and friends, and their property to be attacked. Clearly, you fall into this category. I do not.
Sueing the school or the parents is a ridiculously grotesque non-solution. In most cases, the schools have no power to prevent these situations, as you can't punish or expel a potential "bully" unless caught in the act. The parents might have no clue what their child is up to, and while that is shameful, it isn't tantamount to them conspiring against you or your child themselves.
Here's where you go wrong: Violence should be the last possible option for one to INITIATE, but physical force must always be the response to physical force.
Anyway, we're not going to agree. I simply can't identify with something so dishonorably, morally flimsy as not responding to a physical assault with a physical defense.
This is the exact type of attitude that is ruining this country.
Respect to "the school, the other students, and reflections on my parenting" comes WAY AFTER the importance for my son to defend himself against all forms of attack. I don't give a damn whether it takes place in a school, a restaurant, or a church. There are people content with allowing themselves, their families and friends, and their property to be attacked. Clearly, you fall into this category. I do not.
Sueing the school or the parents is a ridiculously grotesque non-solution. In most cases, the schools have no power to prevent these situations, as you can't punish or expel a potential "bully" unless caught in the act. The parents might have no clue what their child is up to, and while that is shameful, it isn't tantamount to them conspiring against you or your child themselves.
Here's where you go wrong: Violence should be the last possible option for one to INITIATE, but physical force must always be the response to physical force.
Anyway, we're not going to agree. I simply can't identify with something so dishonorably, morally flimsy as not responding to a physical assault with a physical defense.
A kid gets his friend to help retaliate when he gets the worse end of it, or perhaps he carries a weapon to school to finally settle things once and for all. Yeah, right!
What you're precribing here is an a proliferation of violence and you're reinforcing an entire culture of violence. This is almost 2011 and were still talking about clubbing our neighbors. Furthermore, we're advising it as a resolution for our kids problems.
Remember:
Violence should always be used as a last resort. Violence can very easily lead to murder. Human beings are actually very fragile.
Of course, you might disagree with me if you're a UFC of MMA fan...
Have A Nice Day!
My original post and the one quoted referred to physical defense as being a means of last resort. My initial point which was glossed over was about teaching your children to be self confident and embrace the things that make them different. If you take away the reaction to the insult, you remove the power of the insult. Part of gaining self confidence is knowing that they are empowered to and are capable of defending themselves.
Again, people are taking the extreme and using to that to prove their point. How often do bullying encounters really escalate to the point of extreme violence or suicide? My guess is that not very often at all when compated to the more common name calling and school yard pushing, yet those are the cases we focus on. The cases that do end up heading that way are often the result of long standing issues that have broken down the victim over time leading them to resort to the extreme. In this case, it is the victim who often ends up perpetrating the extreme, not the bullies. What if our future school gunman had been taught how to stand up for themself and be confident in themself from day one? What if when that first bully called them a nasty name or pushed them on the playground they responded in kind and let them know they weren't the one to mess with? My guess is we wouldn't be sitting around discussing the school gunman, because they would not have been driven to that point.
This is a bit OT, but reminds me of the time I killed the snake. First, I'm deathly afraid of snakes. But one day I came almost eye-to-eye with a rattler, in my kitchen It was sidewinding, going towards my then 8-year old son. Ds was paralyzed with fear, could barely grunt out ma...ma...ma...
I got in front of ds and the snake and told ds to run to the garage and get the shovel. That damned thing and I squared off eye-to-eye, ds brought the shovel, I made snake jelly out of it. I swear, I stared that thing down, it knew I was not afraid of it and would fight it to the death.
What's my point? When you stand up to something trying to bully you, its amazing the strength you have and how it will back down. Just treat all snakes like bullies,and all bullies like snakes!
This is the exact type of attitude that is ruining this country.
Respect to "the school, the other students, and reflections on my parenting" comes WAY AFTER the importance for my son to defend himself against all forms of attack. I don't give a damn whether it takes place in a school, a restaurant, or a church. There are people content with allowing themselves, their families and friends, and their property to be attacked. Clearly, you fall into this category. I do not.
Sueing the school or the parents is a ridiculously grotesque non-solution. In most cases, the schools have no power to prevent these situations, as you can't punish or expel a potential "bully" unless caught in the act. The parents might have no clue what their child is up to, and while that is shameful, it isn't tantamount to them conspiring against you or your child themselves.
Here's where you go wrong: Violence should be the last possible option for one to INITIATE, but physical force must always be the response to physical force.
Anyway, we're not going to agree. I simply can't identify with something so dishonorably, morally flimsy as not responding to a physical assault with a physical defense.
To say that this attitude is ruining the country is almost comical!
However, just let me say this:
I've taught my kids self-defense. They have all taken Tae-Kwon-Do for at least three years. When we would horse play, I would always sharpen there punching and kicking skills. I have had to go to my son's middle school twice due to his defending himself. I've never told him not to defend himself. However, he knows that he will never become in name-calling or horseplay at school. Rule #1. He knows that he will never associate with trouble-makers and instigators. Rule #2. He knows that if any boy (he has been taught not to hit girls) physically attacks him, he is too physically restrain the kid, take them to the office, and file a report. If the kid can match his skills, he may have to do more than restrain. He knows that I will back him, if he had no other option. I have taught him to always deflate a potentially violent event and to immediately report it to the authorities.
We as parents and role models for our children should never say, "Just kick his butt!" , without qualifiers. You must state as a last resort. Let them know that you will handle it. Of course, there are situations where your kid may have to immediately defend themselves, but that's the extreme case. Usually, it involves one kid pushing another kid out of the way or brushing some kid as they walk down the hallway. If it comes down to some kid saying, "Ok meet behind the school at 3:30!". This is something that can be reported and appropriate intervention can take place.
Again, violence (especially on school grounds or school-related) should always be avoided, if possible.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Right!
