Bullying: Stop the complaining.

[Montezuma's Lawyer]

Bullying has been HUGE in the states of recent years. "HUGE" in the sense that it's been in the media more, not that it hasn't been around.

Growing up, I experienced my fair share of bullying. Ranged from insults, to actual fights. But, I was taught to always stand up to bullies and stick up for others who were being bullied. Disagreements or bullies that took things to far usually ended up in the park, where we settled things with fists. One of us usually got the point after that.

The issue is this. WHY is bullying being presented in such a way today that it seems to make people want to jump off tall building?

Yea, it sucks, I get that. But in life, bullies will always be around. In fact, you can still find them in the grown up world. They just usually come from the back with a knife instead of a punch in the face.

Wouldn't a more apt solution to the bullying problem be to teach kids to stand up for themselves and others? The most common solutions that are being presented today are some of the most asinine things.

1. Telling a teacher
2. Ignoring it
3. ETC.

Most responses to bullies seem to be running away from the problem or shirking off the responsibility of the problem to a third party, RATHER then dealing with the issue yourself.

Maybe I'm old school, but in life, you can't wait for someone else to rescue you from your problems.

TOPIC:

Is the issue of bullying in the states a serious matter as presented in the media? Should kids learn to stand up for themselves? What are your personal experiences of bullying and how you handled them? What do you think of bulling overall?


(bullies, bully's, having a hard time with the English language.)

Thank you.

I can only assume you're a straight white male with no visible deformities or physical problems.

 

[Vegosiux]

I have no idea how you thought this would go down well on a site so chock full of militant liberals.

"Militant"?

All these anti bullying campaigns are a waste of time, kids should be told to stand up for themselves more like I had to.

Define "standing up for oneself" please. Because "reporting a perpetrator of a malicious act to the proper authorities" is well within the definition of "standing up for oneself" to me.

Some people just enjoy being cruel, and no amount of anti bullying policies can correct them.

Well we do tend to lock those people up, and not tell the society "suck it up", you know...but hey, don't let me tell you you should go to the cops if someone assaults you or rapes your girlfriend, if you want to deal with it yourself, just make sure you stay within the bounds of the law.

And I wouldn't be so testy if the tone of your post wasn't such condescending holier-than-thou nonsense.

 

[Montezuma's Lawyer]

You're right. No one DESERVES to be bullied, but it's going to happen. Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it." Also, give me some solutions to said bullying that works. Telling a teacher and ignoring it are two options (that in my life) have NEVER worked.

How about when you're being ganged up on by 4-5 boys in your class, and everyone else is pretty much okay with it or tells you to ignore them?

I told loads of different teachers, and the adults who represented the whole school year. They pretty much did nothing, and being the socially awkward person I am, I couldn't really deal with it on my own >.>.

Plus I was like the weakest girl in school, so I couldn't really fight them either.. :I

That's not bullying. That assault. ಠ_ಠ

The point is that bullying will happen, so people have to learn how to deal with it.

NO NO NO FUCKING NO

You're making the statement that all the good people of the world have to bend to the will of those who would do them harm, No thank you sir.

We do not stand for this behavior anymore.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

...a site so chock full of militant liberals.

People who commit suicide because of this sort of thing annoy me, little shits should do what I did, GROW A FUCKING SPINE.

...bleeding heart teachers...

Here comes the kicker...

Not everyone is mature enough to accept your opinion whilst disagreeing with it, it seems.

It certainly seems like being respectful towards people you disagree with is a priority for you.

I think the "all life's problems can be solved by kicking them in the face" approach to the problem has been thoroughly discussed enough that I don't really need to dive into it. I wish you luck with that, though.

 

[samahain]

I worked with teenagers in a few jobs. Rule of thumb: "Is it okay for an adult to act like this?"

If you go up to a co-worker/commuter and shove them, what is it called?
If you talk trash to someone every day as a kid, it's called bullying, but what's it called when you grow up?

There.

Thing is, with kids, neglect can come from all directions. Not just from the parents.
And it's touchy because many parents refuse to act and won't allow anyone to do so.
At the end of any bullying situation there is going to be someone learning life lessons.
Those lessons are never positive if the victim feels isolated.

It's just a norm that bullies grow up to be terrible humman beings unless they hit a wall at some point.

 

[Roofstone]

Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it."

I am of Korean descent and mute, so I did recieve my fair share of bullying. Seeing as I required a translator in some classes, and a notepad to write on in other classes where that wasn't something I could be provided. (Doesn't apply first year, had to learn to write first. >.<)

The problem with being tiny and korean is that it isn't easy to just beat up the bullies. Telling teachers did nothing but egg them on. As they just had a small discussion where they forced them to apologize for bullying me, and forced me to apologize for trying to hit back.

And as such, I couldn't "Just deal with it". So it continued and continued for near 12 years. And after about six years of being told I was a freak, useless and not worth the ground I walked on. After six years of being beat up til you vomit blood and break your ribs.
After six years of that. Half my life! After half my life, which was pain nearly every day.
After that, I believed them, and as such I started welcoming the abuse. Because I agreed, I believed I was shit. That I was a freak and useless, and that I should be beat up.

I'll not go further into detail on that, but the point I am trying to make is that after enough abuse, just dealing with it, is not an option anymore. Once you are given so much pain that pain becomes the norm just dealing with it will not work.

My case is one of the more extreme, but the same thing stands for most who are bullied;
just dealing with it is not always so simple. Even if it was for you.

PS: If you do wonder, I am perfectly healthy today, though it did take four years of psychotherapy for me to reach this stages, and there are still nights I have bad dreams. And days I can't even get enough energy to eat, just out of depression. But overall, I am a happy person.

 

[Substitute Troll]

Bullying, most of the time, has a reason. The validity of the reason may be questionable, but there's almost always a reason. If little Timmy gets bullied because of his clown costume, it's because that particular group of people doesn't resonate well with clown costumes. Bullying, atleast I think, has a function. It teaches us about social interaction.

Now, bullying is a very brute-force way of getting your point across. It's not acceptable and should be punished. It will never go away though. We should keep in mind that there are different kinds of bullying. There is the disgusting kind, that which intrudes a person's human rights. An example would be if little Timmy is gay, and his peers bully him for it. That's just not acceptable, and should be met with a bullet to the knees of the bullies. The other kind of bullying is the "social unacceptability". This is when the bullies brute-force their views on someone's unacceptable social behavior. The example is if little Timmy doesn't shower at all, he's gonna get bullied for it. In this case the better option is to tell the kid to take a shower. The bullies are being overly dramatic about it, yes, but atleast they have a somewhat valid reason for giving him, albeit brute, critique.

The point I'm trying to get across is that the "victim" isn't always a victim just because "they're all assholes". There's usually an underlying reason that goes back to the victim himself being socially akward. Bullying is a bad way, but still a way, to get someone to conform. "But I'm a pretty, unique little butterfly!" No, you're just a boring as everyone else, get over it.

 

[Catrixa]

...I didn't read the whole thread, because it is quite long, so I'm sorry if this has been posted by someone far more eloquent than me already (or at least succinct... I ramble and I know it).

When I was a kid, if I was bullied, I knew it ended when I got home. If I was made fun of or tormented by my friends, I could just go home and play computer games and forget everyone who was a jerk. I could escape to any of my happy places and no one could bother me there. Today's kids are now helpfully followed to their happy places by everyone who hates them. With the glorious internet, now everyone can be constantly reminded of just how worthless they are with everything they do. Want to play some games? Well, unless they're single player and have no DRM or aren't on a console attached to the internet (unlikely unless you mess with cable or don't already have internet), you're pretty much screwed. Is your happy place connecting with friends on Facebook? You can see where this is going.

Punching people gets you expelled, and you can't punch people over the internet anyway (yet). With constant connectivity comes constant harassment. We either push to stop the harassment, or live with young people killing themselves. I'm pretty sure we won't stop the complaining or the internet.

 

[Substitute Troll]

Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it."

snip

Your post is an example of where bullying is completely unacceptable, but you still had a way out of it. You could have called the cops? There are always ways out, you just have to be creative. I agree that telling a teacher is a pretty bad idea, mainly because they're incompetent. If you're being beat up to the point where they draw blood, you absolutely have the right to get those mother fuckers away from you in some way.

 

[Seydaman]

Do not tell someone to just deal with it.

It's insensitive and frankly, makes you look like an asshole. Coping mechanisms to deal with trauma are not taught in public schools, I only learned them when I was hospitalized. So most people simply can't deal with it, and are afraid to tell anyone.

 

[rob_simple]

Anyone who thinks that talking to someone about it or trying to get the bullies in trouble has never been bullied, themselves.

The problem with trying to get any sort of authority figure involved is that a lot of these kids just don't give a fuck. They've learned early on that life's not got a lot to offer them, but making others miserable is one thing they can do better than anyone else.

When I was in school I was terrified of getting in a fight because I didn't want to get suspended and let my parents down. I put up with years of shit and there were several days I gave real, genuine consideration to taking a knife into school and stabbing the first person who spat on me for having long hair or called me a '****' just for existing.

To make matters worse, I started taking out my frustration on other more vulnerable people at my school that I knew I could give shit to because they'd never give it back. It's still something I'm ashamed of. The difference between me and the proper bullies, though, was that as soon as I got pulled up by the deputy head I packed it in. These other kids, though, what do they care if they get suspended, they don't care if they get sent to juvenile hall because honestly what difference does it make to their shitty lives?

I've grown up and moved away from the town I grew up in, but whenever I go back for Christmas I see these guys and they've never grown out of that mentality: they've just swapped schoolyard bullying for getting drunk in pubs and starting fights; getting suspended from school for spending a few days in a cell.

There are some people who will always be nothing but trouble (it's not necessarily their fault; just how the dice is rolled) and the only way you can deal with them when they hit you is to hit back twice as hard.

 

[Atmos Duality]

- Violence solves nothing.

Speaking from experience, it was the only action that got results with certain "touched" individuals.
Even if my so-called "guardians" at school did not approve.

Violence isn't an ideal solution, but for some of us, it was the only realistic solution available.

Fuck anyone who blames the victim.

Like the school system that punishes actions of self-defense?
Indeed, fuck those idiots and their "guilty for being dragged into shit" mentality.

And fuck the idiots who insist that it's every bit the victim's fault as it is the perpetrators.
It's the same backwards logic some employ to "justify" rape and domestic abuse.

 

[Luna]

lol at you for trying to deny that there are bullies in the world, and/or that standing up to them can be the right thing to do sometimes.


At least in a workplace perspective, telling on them is the best thing to do, sure. But on a non professional level, you can't tell on somebody for being mean to you, (unless they harass you to the point where you can get an actual restraining order).

See the bit I emphasized? I actually don't disagree.

I'm not gonna say that you should NEVER stand up for yourself or that it never works. Because sometimes it does. If there's only one bully or a small number, and they're just doing it for fun (or they're grade school bullies), then it'll work. There was one jerk in grade school that stopped picking on me after I dodged a punch that made him split his knuckles on the fence, and I told him to get lost since his aim was pathetic. SO yeah, I'm not saying it never works

But when you have a bully (and his friends) who only gets MORE nasty when you try to stand up for yourself, or when the ENTIRE SCHOOL thinks you're "a little pussyfag who jerks off in class and deserves to get mocked all day every day" due to stupid false rumors being spread all over the place, how the hell do you "Stand up for yourself" short of showing up with a sledgehammer and breaking someone's arm with it or doing some other giant display of "FUCK WITH ME AND DIE"? Which some of us are incapable of doing unless we snap and go psycho, and go against everything that makes us who we are?

I'm not saying that we can (or should) restrict kids from teasing or doing some light roughhousing and stuff. THAT you can't kill off, it's too prevalent and basically natural. And it's not that bad anyway. THAT, kids can grow from and get over. But full on social warfare and isolation, or getting beat up constantly? That shit doesn't fly in the adult world, why allow kids to do it? It messes up a kid's psyche and can scar them for the rest of their lives.

I don't disagree with anything you said.

 

[talker]

Give me an example of where you can't just "deal with it."

when you're being ganged up on, there's nobody around to help, and they've got you cornered. the best you can make of it then is trying to run between them and find someone who WILL do something. I always preferred fighting though, so in those cases going for the leader sometimes works, but not every time. the trick is going to a teacher who is good at giving punishments and will probably call the offender's parents if it goes on to long. I had a problem so big once, that the leader of the bullies was an item in the teacher's meetings all by himself. that's when you know it's gonna get better

 

[AngloDoom]

Bullying, most of the time, has a reason. The validity of the reason may be questionable, but there's almost always a reason. If little Timmy gets bullied because of his clown costume, it's because that particular group of people doesn't resonate well with clown costumes. Bullying, atleast I think, has a function. It teaches us about social interaction.

While I agree this is true in a broad sense, some people are bullied for ethnicity or sexuality - there's not really much they can do about that. Hell, when I was bullied it stemmed from two things - the fact that I wore glasses and the fact that I used to live in Germany. There really wasn't much I could do about that for a while.

I got rid of the glasses when I turned sixteen and was old enough to get contact lenses and, by then, everyone had forgotten I lived in Germany so the bullying dwindled and eventually died. At the same time, a friend of mine was rumoured to be gay and was bullied relentlessly until he left school. The reason he was presumed to be gay? Because he dropped his towel in the changing-rooms after a swimming lesson and accidentally revealed that he had a large penis, so everyone said he was getting aroused in the changing rooms and was perving on everyone.

I mean, what the fuck can you do about that? The guy was bullied because he had a large penis. It's mental.

 

[Luna]

The OP is right. lol at the strawman arguments in response to OP, 'no one deserves to be bullied'. Nice try.

Care to elaborate on how the OP is right? Is it the victim blaming? Or the inferred cowardice of putting pressure on the victim rather then confronting the bully? I mentioned this earlier already, but if your strong enough to stand up for yourself, what's stopping you from standing up for others?

lmao. the first thing I do in my initial post is criticize the strawmen arguments in response to OP. and then the person that challenges me uses a strawman argument. 'hur dur, he thinks it must be the victim's fault because he thinks standing up to bullies can sometimes be the right thing to do'

Apart from having no backbone of course.

what's stopping me from standing up from others is that sometimes they're in... oh i don't know... a different location to myself.

The irony of the OPs position is that his "logic" equates to bullying anyway. He assumes that the act of bullying stems from a fault in the victim and is merely exploited by the bully. That the victim has an inherent flaw and it's their responsibility to sort out. He forgets that bullying can in fact induce this flaw. A bully can whittle down a persons will until they become incapable of standing up for themselves, which in turn, emboldens the bullies actions.

The irony of your position is that you criticize OP for bullying and challenge him, making you the bully.


^I seriously think calling you a bully is ridiculous, but is equally ridiculous as your assertion that he is a bully. Anyway...

What's more he forgets that bullies are RARELY individual threats, but instead a group of peers who derive pleasure from tormenting an individual. These are bullies that initiate and incessantly pursue aggressive/oppressive actions towards the victim. But we also have another sort, the ones who sit on the sides and let it happen, feeling some smug satisfaction or sense of superiority over the victim.

You, and the OP, are the latter.

Boy, you don't know a thing about me. So don't pretend you do. I've probably done things that you wouldn't have the courage to.

This logic makes him (quite blatantly) unsympathetic to victims of bullying and ultimately belittles the struggles of said victims. Given the right situation, I wouldn't be surprised if he would harass someone or physically intimidate them himself, whether that person is deserving of it or not. You see, he has already convinced himself that the bully is not the problem, but the person with no courage to rebel against the bully is. So he would think all he's doing is giving the poor sod a taste of real life, rather then being completely objective about it and seeing that he's just being a fucking dick.

don't call the OP a fucking dick, please. I don't appreciate this bullying behavior.

What you said is basically a strawman argument anyway so I'll quickly say that you're a manipulative over assuming individual who believes what he wants to believe.

As I said earlier. If you actively promote opposing bullies, then why the fuck don't you act as you preach? Are bullies only a bully if they are bullying you? No. Then why not stand up to bullies on principle?

Oh yeah, the aforementioned absence of a backbone might be why.

who says I don't? You might as well go stand in a field and scare off crows because this man of straw is overwhelming.

People should not be left to stand on their own. Yes it should be a trait we strive for, but we exist as a social creature for a reason. The strong should cover the weak. People who can take a hit should take the hits of people who can't. People with power to intervene should do so for people with no power of their own. That's all I'm trying to say.

Forgive me for skim reading your post. It was rather an essay of sorts. I'll just address the last paragraph as I feel it covers the crux of what you're saying.


Maybe people would sometimes benefit to be left to stand on their own. I don't think this issue is a yes or no answer, rather a spectrum, with a dog eat dog world on one side, and a totalitarian world where remarks that could be taken negatively are over reacted to and prevent people from solving a problem independently. Sometimes intervention is a good thing. The strong should cover the weak to an extent. If people can't take the hits, and they have no power to address the problem, then sometimes it's because the problem is vastly difficult. Other times they need to learn to be assertive and stop being weak.


If someone is giving someone else a hard time for no good reason and they look visibly strained then I might say something. But if they continue to be quiet and constantly look for help in the smallest of situations then I can't help but feel a little disgusted.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I think OP had it like me.
The bullies in my school were pussies. I never felt threatened by them.
Sure they would get annoying sometimes but then you put a boot in their ass, or crazy glue them to something, and they leave you alone.
Some kids don't have it that easy and some kids have emotional problems to begin with; the latter being something that would probably attract bullies.

I'm glad people are making a big deal of it now but yea there is no one solution to all bullies. Some kids just need to stand up for themselves but some kids need a little help.

Also we have to stop telling people to stop the complaining before we've heard their full story.

 

[tsb247]

I remember dealing with bullies back in gradeschool and to a small extent back in highschool. I gradeschool, we usually settled things on the playground. I shed a little blood from one bully's nose, and *bam* he shut up for the rest of my life. Needless to say, I spent a fair amount of time in the principal's office in my youth. On the plus side, many of the kids I got into fights with later became my friends. Odd, right?

However, that only works for children - some of the time. In the end, violence is usually the most risky option because the consequences get more dire with age. In highschool, I resorted to witty retorts that were on-par with Norm McDonald one-liners that made everyone else in the room laugh while the bully just stood there, dumbfounded. It was safer than getting in heaps of trouble for fighting.

At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the victim to stand up for themselves. However, there is nothing shameful in seeking help from others if the situation is beyond their control.

 

[Tiger King]

a lot of very sad experiences on here
lot of people focusing on bullying at schools though i can say bullying in the work place is just as bad.

i personally think one of the worst aspects of bullying is when a lot of people can see what is happening but nobody steps forward to help, or worse these people get influenced and turn on the victim.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

Well I think of it like this if someone's making jokes its fine when they start to hurt feel free to have a few comebacks but if it starts to get nasty and they are the ones that throw the first punch or do anything threatening physically like pushing you, I feel like your well within your rights to knock them on their ass so they know where the line is. But that doesn't mean you can just start beating people that annoy you or your friends but it's mostly personal judgement you should know when to stand up for yourself or someone else and also know when a teacher or authority is needed because it's gotten real serious real fast.

It's a pain to explain without sounding like I'm advocating people solving problems with a golfclub.