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d057
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25 May 2016, 2:24 pm

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges to addressing bullying in schools?

I find that poor parenting and teaching children that it is okay to mistreat people is one of the biggest challenges.

https://dwarren57.wordpress.com/2016/05 ... n-schools/


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BuyerBeware
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25 May 2016, 4:39 pm

The biggest challenge to preventing bullying is teaching people (very young people, with immature brains) not to act like people.

I'm sorry. I am a bullying victim (I am not a bullying survivor, because I never did get over it). I hate saying it, but some things are never gonna change. School, from preschool on up, is a high-pressure status-race. A shit-soaked dogpile where everyone's scared and everyone's stressed and everyone (almost) takes it out on the people u dear them in the pile.

You can do something about it, as a parent. Don't teach your kids to compete for status (i.e., don't model the behavior). Don't model the perception that life is a zero-sum game (it looks that way, and some people make it that way, but it isn't). Don't prize winning, or popularity, or coming out at the top of the heap-- prize effort and improvement and pro social behavior instead. Love unconditionally-- and still correct them when they act like little as*holes.

And that's not a guarantee. DS9 bullied once-- when I was being a sh***y judgmental horrible mother and basically taught him it was appropriate. I'm waiting for DD7 to be the bully-- and I haven't treated her that way. She's just competitive, she likes to win, even if that means putting someone else back. I will come down on her like a ton of bricks when/if that time comes-- no benefit of the doubt for my kids, it's guilty until proven innocent.

Sometimes it's just sh***y old human nature. I thought maybe I got it so bad because of autism...

...but all my friends got it too, because of race or religion or poverty or medical issues or intellectual disability or other factors. My cousin's kids now go to the same sh***y school. Her oldest is handsome and social and precocious, and he didn't get too much crap.

Until his little brother (a late June baby, maybe with some issues and maybe not) got held back in kindergarten. Then suddenly his "friends" are calling HIM names and kids whose houses he used to get invited to aren't allowed to play with him at recess any more.

I'm sure you can imagine the s**t the one who actually has to repeat kindergarten is eating.

Enough to tip his parents' decision to move.

It's just sh***y human nature. Rather than trying to stop bullying, we'd be better served to focus on supporting, teaching, and building resilience in the victims.


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d057
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25 May 2016, 5:19 pm

My small town high school put excessive emphasis on athletics. High school football is especially about winning and coming out at the top of the heap.

BuyerBeware wrote:
The biggest challenge to preventing bullying is teaching people (very young people, with immature brains) not to act like people.

I'm sorry. I am a bullying victim (I am not a bullying survivor, because I never did get over it). I hate saying it, but some things are never gonna change. School, from preschool on up, is a high-pressure status-race. A shit-soaked dogpile where everyone's scared and everyone's stressed and everyone (almost) takes it out on the people u dear them in the pile.

You can do something about it, as a parent. Don't teach your kids to compete for status (i.e., don't model the behavior). Don't model the perception that life is a zero-sum game (it looks that way, and some people make it that way, but it isn't). Don't prize winning, or popularity, or coming out at the top of the heap-- prize effort and improvement and pro social behavior instead. Love unconditionally-- and still correct them when they act like little as*holes.

And that's not a guarantee. DS9 bullied once-- when I was being a sh***y judgmental horrible mother and basically taught him it was appropriate. I'm waiting for DD7 to be the bully-- and I haven't treated her that way. She's just competitive, she likes to win, even if that means putting someone else back. I will come down on her like a ton of bricks when/if that time comes-- no benefit of the doubt for my kids, it's guilty until proven innocent.

Sometimes it's just sh***y old human nature. I thought maybe I got it so bad because of autism...

...but all my friends got it too, because of race or religion or poverty or medical issues or intellectual disability or other factors. My cousin's kids now go to the same sh***y school. Her oldest is handsome and social and precocious, and he didn't get too much crap.

Until his little brother (a late June baby, maybe with some issues and maybe not) got held back in kindergarten. Then suddenly his "friends" are calling HIM names and kids whose houses he used to get invited to aren't allowed to play with him at recess any more.

I'm sure you can imagine the s**t the one who actually has to repeat kindergarten is eating.

Enough to tip his parents' decision to move.

It's just sh***y human nature. Rather than trying to stop bullying, we'd be better served to focus on supporting, teaching, and building resilience in the victims.


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slenkar
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25 May 2016, 7:08 pm

In my school there were different groups based on academic performance, the kids in the absolute lowest level and second were mostly decent,but a couple of kids in the 2nd and 3rd group were bad.
If you are going to put kids in different groups then don't let them mix at all, (we mixed in the mornings in the classroom used for taking attendance)

If you are not Good at school work it's bound to make you feel bad,then you get exposed to kids who are smarter than you who are being successful, it's bound to breed resentment.

Also let kids who are not interested Leave school! It's always the kids who don't want to be there who bully.
Or put all the kids who want to leave together so they don't bother anyone else.

It was always the kids from the lower socioeconomic class who bullied also, keep them away from the middle class kids.



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25 May 2016, 7:30 pm

Yeah, we were tracked in first grade, then pooled again in fourth and divided into "A," "B," and "C" groups based on academic performance from fifth on up.

All my friends but one were in "B" or "C." I was hyperlexic and had the comprehension to go with it, so I tested very well and did well on individual assignments even though I couldn't answer oral questions or speak in class without stuttering, choking, or making an ass of myself. I ended up in the "A" group, alone but for one friend who got shipped off to Christian school in seventh grade (family was Independent Fundamental Baptist, also very poor, hence we were on the same team).

The "A" group kids were definitely the meanest, by far. I caught more s**t from them in a day than I did from the other kids in 9 years. Figures-- they were under the most pressure, the ones whose parents emphasized excelling the hardest. To quote Steinbeck, "You take a real smart guy, he ain't hardly ever a nice fella."

Funny thing-- I keep up with my grade school classmates (my grandma is still living, in the same old sh***y town, and she updates me whether I want updates or not).

Most of the kids from A-For-Assholes group have become alcoholics, have had drug addiction problems, have ended up in jail for real s**t or in court-ordered rehab, are on their second (third, fourth) marriages with custody issues, and have gone through multiple careers.

ALL of my friends from "B" and "C" groups are employed. Two worked their way through the ranks to a BSN. One (who caught a lot of s**t for having severe asthma) is a respiratory therapist. One worked her way up from cashier to deli department to deli manager to assistant manager for the whole grocery store. One manages a WalMart (like, the whole store). A couple are coal miners, a couple are contractors, one's an electrician.

Only two have been divorced-- and one of them is the only one to get stuck in "A For as*holes" with me. Both of those married very young to get out of their parents' houses. One divorced amiably enough to have no issues with custody, the other has no children (currently remarried to a really swell guy and wrestling with infertility).

So-- WHO exactly turned out to be the screw-ups?? Yeah. Gotta push your kids if you want them to achieve!! !!

BS.


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Tiankay
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25 May 2016, 10:41 pm

You cant do anything really. On one shool i used to visit we even had special "anti-bullying classes" once every three months. Guess what? Still got bullied to the point of me losing it completely one day and beating up a classmate in class so hard that he needed to get to a hospital. To face reality, kids are monsters. And they are perfectionists in hiding it from the teachers or make it seem like you are the cause of the problem. Like whispering names to you, throw stuff at you when no teacher is looking, break something and tell the teacher it was you, beating you up on 7AM at the bus station. Guess who didnt got expelled for 2 weeks after that "beatdown" incident. Exactly, the kid that for 3 classes had nothing better to do than to continuously call me psycho, to tick me, to touch me & to throw paper balls at me. I know thats no excuse for what i did, but one can only take a specific amount of s**t before breaking...

To stop this we would need a different society that doesnt put people down for beeing different and teach their kids the same. Sadly thats just utopian...

Peace
TK



d057
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26 May 2016, 1:24 pm

The students who bullied me were actually punished for their actions, but, it happened after contacting the school several times.

I agree that bullying is an issue that will never "go away." However, I have a problem with schools that do not bother to do anything to address the issue after multiple incidents from multiple students and parents have been reported.

Tiankay wrote:
You cant do anything really. On one shool i used to visit we even had special "anti-bullying classes" once every three months. Guess what? Still got bullied to the point of me losing it completely one day and beating up a classmate in class so hard that he needed to get to a hospital. To face reality, kids are monsters. And they are perfectionists in hiding it from the teachers or make it seem like you are the cause of the problem. Like whispering names to you, throw stuff at you when no teacher is looking, break something and tell the teacher it was you, beating you up on 7AM at the bus station. Guess who didnt got expelled for 2 weeks after that "beatdown" incident. Exactly, the kid that for 3 classes had nothing better to do than to continuously call me psycho, to tick me, to touch me & to throw paper balls at me. I know thats no excuse for what i did, but one can only take a specific amount of s**t before breaking...

To stop this we would need a different society that doesnt put people down for beeing different and teach their kids the same. Sadly thats just utopian...

Peace
TK


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26 May 2016, 3:25 pm

Right now in the USA Donald Trump is the biggest obstacle.


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d057
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26 May 2016, 3:32 pm

It is going to get worse as we get closer to election day. No matter who wins, people are always going to be bitter and take it out on those who disagree with them.

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Right now in the USA Donald Trump is the biggest obstacle.


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26 May 2016, 4:02 pm

Parents can unintentionally make a bully. It all starts when they are young. Kids are very literal, they are watching you and they model you. If you are making critical comments like how they shouldn't do things because that is for boys or if you make comments about how skinny someone is or how big they are, the kid is going to learn that is wrong. The kid also learns that it's wrong to like boy things if you are a girl. So to avoid raising a bully, it's important to not be judgmental and critical of people and things they wear and do. That also teaches your kid to be more open minded and accepting because they won't think it's wrong. If you avoid stereotypes and gender ones too, your kid won't think it's wrong. This is only one way to avoid creating one.

After reading this book about bullying (forgetting the title) it made me realize you really can't prevent it because it all starts at home with the parents and schools have punished bullies but it still continues. That is because they are not looking at the big picture like why is the kid being a bully, why is he bullying others, and addressing that issue instead. Some kids act worse when they are punished because they are angry their victim got them into trouble so they act worse to their victim and then the victim is left helpless and don't tell a grown up because they are afraid of making it worse. Sometimes a kid bullies because they have social issues so they don't know how to approach others so they do negative things to get attention so to punish them doesn't make them stop and then the kid acts worse because of low self esteem they have developed from being punished and rejected. The only way to approach them is to help them with their social issues and then the bullying goes away because the kid has been given help and support to fit in.

I see schools do their best about approaching bullying and to stop it. I think the only way to stop it is if everyone stopped being critical and judgmental about others and doing gender stereotypes, if there were no more abusers in the world and all the child abusers stopped being child abusers and they all died off and no one grows up to be an abuser, if there was more support to help kids with behavior disorders and with social issues and if all the kids decided to play with the "mean kid" and bam the kid is cured from their bullying because they wouldn't have to do any negative attention to get it to make friends. I think the small minority of them are actual psychopaths.


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05 Jun 2016, 2:11 pm

I was bullied in school a lot. I learned to fight back - enough to the point where I started bludgeon the same bullies for picking on other people. My wimpy, liberal, limp-wristed spineless union sponsored teachers referred to me as the playground vigilante. But these same wimps wouldn't lift a finger to stop the bullying or my interventions. The biggest challenge in the prevention of bullying is teaching people that ultimately, the best advocate for the bullied is themselves. This means - and yes, I'm sure a number of you will be horrified to read this - learning to fight back and defend oneself. America would not be America if we hadn't fought the British in two wars for bullying us. This is not an easy thing to do. Many are fearful. But, speaking as an autistic combat veteran who made it from the enlisted ranks to the rank of major, courage is not the lack of fear. Courage is the ability to step beyond one's fear to act. Like it or not, humans are predatory animals, and like any other animal, have the natural instinct to prey upon the weak. The only cure to being weak is to make one's self strong. It's what I did. Sure, I was scared. And in war, I experienced sheer terror! But as Tacitus pointed out, "In Valor, There Is Hope". :salut: :salut: :salut: :salut: :salut:


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Mongoose1
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05 Jun 2016, 2:16 pm

d057 wrote:
It is going to get worse as we get closer to election day. No matter who wins, people are always going to be bitter and take it out on those who disagree with them.

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Right now in the USA Donald Trump is the biggest obstacle.


When it comes to Trump the blow-hard, Clinton the witch, and Sanders the bum, I'm only too proud to say that I despise them all. But bullying has been around long before Trump was ever born. Thus, your statement is both non-sequitor and illogical. :roll:


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