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Last jan.2010 15 yr old phoebe prince commited suicide due to being harassed by fellow students at south hadley high school in south hadley,mass. Some school teachers & school officials knew about this but did nothing. They should also be criminally charged just like the 9 low life teens. Phoebe recently moved to south hadley,mass from ireland. She was buried in ireland. Im so damn sick & tired of bullys & people in authority that dont stop it. May they all burn in hell & god not have mercy on their loser souls. http://www.boston.com/news/local/bre...g_for_pho.html
I believe the school is covering up things. S. Hadley resource officer todd dineen should be fired. S. Hadley resource officer questioned | WWLP.com (http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/local/s-hadley-resource-officer-questioned - broken link)
Gone are the days when the words "We'll be calling your parents" sent a kid into a deep fear that they trespassed over the line and now they would pay.
How many kids today actually give a $hit with that held over their heads? How do you teach a decent kid to defend himself against 9 plus kids who use dirty tricks and the shield of annonimity by using computers to harass you all while adults look on and ignore? What would your strategy be?
In the corporate world today, kids watch the news to see executives blur the lines of ethics to avoid prosecution and pay high priced lawyers to get away with crimes. I think in some part, kids parrot what's going on in society.
In the end, the school failed this child as it happened on their watch. The school administration is loaded with cowards.
Day in and day out, I see the garbage products of a society that has been severely damaged starting with the 1960's. That there are still people like Skategirl who have the clarvoyance, courage and decency to say it like it is - this in itself is a miracle.
These vacuous "human resources" (this is all they have become) ...are certainly not all professional bullies - but they sure are the creators of a societal breeding ground for such extreme examples to happen - increasingly more of them. I observe them almost daily in the interaction with their children or others and I recongize them right away: self-absorbed, completely oblivious to those around them, all engulfed into their precious boorish brats, completely devoid of any sort of social grace or community spirit...and I feel lonely.
I have sometimes been taken for an "anti-American" simply because I cannot help but point to the overall terrible state of this culture - as it has been shaping in the past half a century. The worst part is that this virus, with 1960's American origins, is rapidly infecting other cultures too.
Every American from the old generation I have ever met - I found to be beyond delightful. Beautiful human beings who had built the America everyone used to be in awe of and dream of. Every time I talk to them I feel humbled. Every time, I was able to connect with these old Americans better than I have ever done with my own co-nationals.
Too bad many old Americans are hard to meet as they seem to live in irrelevance, at the periphery o social life.
Instead I am forced, by nature, to deal every day with Americans my age, parents of young children...and Lord, what a dark place this is.
I find it literally impossible to connect with the vast majority of them.
I see the way they raise their children and the way they (can't) relate to others...and every little step they seem to make clashes severely with my child rearing principles.
As skategirl said, those "mean girls" are nothing but a symptom. No, the type and amount of bullying we witness today has not ALWAYS been around. Far from it, in fact.
Yes, children parrot what is going on in society, except they are doing it in a much less sophisticated way.
It's a tough world, and it will only get tougher as you get older.
Any interest in making it "less tough" and more civilized?...
Or is it better to wallow in untrue truisms and just leave things the way they are.
As someone else here asked, do you have an actual strategy explaining how an excluded child should "defend herself" when attacked by a pack of hyienas hiding behind anonymous devices?
Schools are quick to enforce their "no zero tolerance" policy when it comes to such things as aspirin and what may look like guns but are really water squirt guns, so why can't they add "bullying" right along with this ?
Good point
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cliff Clavin
I'm not a parent, so take this for what it's worth...
but isn't dealing with bullies part of growing up? In addition to education, one of the most important things a kid learns in school is social skills and human interaction. If we start protecting kids from bullies in grade school, how are they going to deal with them later in life? In the corporate world for example?
Dealing with bullying in the adult world is quite a different ballgame. One problem is that school administrators are becoming quick to punish any child who fights back.
Where do you we draw the line? These aren't little playground brawls from decades ago. It hardly justifies the deaths that have occurred around the country. School shootings and college hazing are becoming more frequent. If you ever have the misfortune of being attacked or robbed, don't ask why.
This girl was tormented for 5 months. She did have consensual sex with those 2 waste of flesh boys & thats why they called her a irish ****. Maybe she wanted to feel wanted & those punk boys used her. She had no friends even though some students on camera said she was their friend. NO one in school stuck up for her. My sister in horrible catholic school was picked on cause she was quite. I stuck up for her the best i can. It has affected her life to this day. Kids can be damn cruel but in all fairness so can adults.
I know how it feels to get picked on and ignored. I was picked on for about 6 months and had to take a very bad way out , i decided to stab myself with a pen. Because the Provate School and School Disrect didn't think that there was an issue. After i stabbed myself ,then they separated us by putting him in different classes and on a different bus. Something is wrong with our society, and it needs to be fixed or more kids will die!
I'm not a parent, so take this for what it's worth...
but isn't dealing with bullys part of growing up? In addition to education, one of the most important things a kid learns in school is social skills and human interaction. If we start protecting kids from bullys in grade school, how are they going to deal with them later in life? In the corporate world for example?
We teach our children that it's wrong to steal from others, and they get punished when they do so. So why can't we teach children not to be bullies? Just because the bullying issue isn't covered in the bible and the ten commandments, it's not reason to turn a blind eye to it.
And we also know that kids tend to be bullies, so why pretend that it's a rare occurance? Bullying is a way of testing their power and boundaries, so of course it's the adults's duty to address that issue with the kids under their charge and tell them that their behaviour is wrong. We can't trust kids to sort bullying issues on their own, just as we can't expect them to teach themselves that it's wrong to steal from others. And this is how street gangs and thug mentality starts... by poor parenting and a lack of adult supervision and authority.
This girl was tormented for 5 months. She did have consensual sex with those 2 waste of flesh boys & thats why they called her a irish ****. Maybe she wanted to feel wanted & those punk boys used her. She had no friends even though some students on camera said she was their friend. NO one in school stuck up for her. My sister in horrible catholic school was picked on cause she was quite. I stuck up for her the best i can. It has affected her life to this day. Kids can be damn cruel but in all fairness so can adults.
It usually STARTS with the adults (parents). The parents of bully's are typically ignoring the issue because they probably did the same thing as kids. It's all in the cycle.
My daughter was "attempted" to be bullied in school when she was young and I was present and witnessed the situation at the kindergarten level, believe it or not. She had medical issues so I spent the first couple weeks in the classroom helping the kindergarten teacher with my daughters needs until she was comfortable. I got an eyeful of kids as young as kindergarten age being nothing more than a bully. A bully starts EARLY...they develop, they are usually taught to be that way because they are raised that way by someone that they are witnessing that does the same thing or being encouraged by someone that is not really doing the job of teaching right from wrong. (I am NOT talking about the childhood learning how to be a kid thing here!! I'm talking REAL bullying behaviour here) I taught my daughter the right away to stand up for herself and not allow them to get the upper hand. Squash it early and quick. I didn't advocate violence mind you, just being verbose about what was going on..get loud with them as soon as they try to bully you so it draws attention to the negativity they are pushing. It worked for the most part. Because the attention was on the negativity...it was addressed towards those students and their negative behaviour. That was a good thing. My daughter never formed friendships with those particular students, however all but one of them left the school. The one remaining she was in school with thru high school and while they were never good friends, she knew my daughter was no pushover and they actually could attend events with civility amongst them.
What was even more interesting...after I got to know the parents of the children I spotted as a threat...THEY TOO WERE BULLIES! They were rude, obnoxious and self-centered living in their own world with their head in the clouds looking down their nose to those who they didn't really want to associate with. It was interesting to me to watch and observe. SO, it is my experience that the apple usually doesn't fall far from the tree!
I don't think what my daughter experienced is anywhere as bad as what was happening here...nor as bad as what I have read and know has been going on in schools nationwide today with respect to bullying. And I won't even go into the targeting of students where a bully group will convince a target to go out for some associated group so that they can target HAZE them as a group in schools (Hazing happens! Sanctioned or not..trust me, it happens). That is a story all into itself. The whole thing really just makes me sick to my stomach.
This is a LIFE we are talking about..a human life! We prosecute individuals for cruelty to animals quicker than we hold people accountable for human cruelty. It is just WRONG!!!!
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