How do you feel about "Bullying"?

[Dju]

I always ask myself this question...of course I'm against but (this is when Dju tells about her personal experience and yadda yadda) when I come to think deeper about it, it had a lot of positive effects in my personality.

Two years of 'let's-make-Dju-feel-like-garbage' psychological games were really tough (and painful, too many volleyballs being constantly thrown at my head every five seconds >_>) but when I ask myself if I'd go back and transfer schools I always say no. It's just that with all that experience I learned how much family means and that life doesn't depends on who's around you, but mostly on yourself. I learned to be proud of my style and that having only a few loyal friends is much better that having a bunch of them who you can't share a secret.

Of course I am against all that violence and suffering, I know how awful it is, but...ya know, it's a really weird subject to me. Should it be prohibited? Absolutely, but if it happens...is it...fully bad? It's something I'd really like discussing, because it's one of the parts that I block on my brain and when I come to think of it, I have no opinions about it at all. Thoughts?

[Zieloh]

I completely agree with you, Dju. I had it pretty bad in my middle school life, but I wouldn't go back and change it for the world. I think being bullied, to an extent, can sometimes be a good thing. It teaches a little character and builds you to the person you came to be today, and you learn more out of the experiences that you've been through.

Of course though, bullying has its limits. It's definitely not right for people to get bullied excessively, and some people go way out of line when it comes to bullying. (such as taking out the weapons or fists, or being picked on every day of your life)

It can also cause suicide as we all know... there was a case here a few years back where this person in a school in my state hung himself in the bathroom because he was bullied excessively.

[Komori]

*shrug* Saying good things can come out of bullying... well, the same could be said for just about any bad thing that happens in your life. In fact, most of your life's triumphs will come from making the best out of a bad situation.

I guess it just so happens that bullying is usually the first really bad thing that kids will experience in their life.

So no, I don't really agree that bullying is really any "good" in any stretch of the imagination, any more than a natural disaster or cancer. XD;;;

[Deleted]

I have several objections to this notion. Yes, I have had plenty of personal experience with bullying, I don't know anyone who hasn't at some stage, and yes it has helped me to be a better person, to be stronger, but Komori makes a good point in saying that every bad thing that happens will bring about some good eventually. I know this is a bit of an extreme example, but there were a lot of amazing breakthroughs in science, and especially in medical science during WWII, because Nazi scientists were able to use human test subjects, and were not restricted by ethical issues. No one in their right mind would reason that, just because something good came out of it, that makes it somehow not as bad as it was.

My second objection is somewhat less related to the actual topic but still relevant. It's known (be my and my philosophy friends) as the Judas Dilemma; someone has to take the fall. In other words, someone has to be the bully. Someone has to make stupid, childish mistakes, and then they have to feel guilty for years to come because of what they did in their youth. If you wanted to say that bullying was good, okay, not as bad as people make it out to be, you'd be overlooking the fact that it isn't like that for both parties. In fact, the ones that tend to suffer the most are the bullies.

For clarification, I'm not talking about the really bad bullies who make life hell for everyone around them and probably go on to end up as convicts, I'm talking about the kind of bullying that goes on in every school and to everyone. I know someone who was once a bully, not because he wanted to cause pain, but because he was being led by the pack and wanted to be included. Yes, it's stupid and it's a terrible reason to cause someone else pain, but it's also a mistake we have all made at some stage (it may not be related to bullying, but who hasn't dressed a certain way because that's what's cool, or drunk a bit too much because your friends were all drinking a lot) and it's one for which they must carry the guilt.

I am firmly of the belief that, in a lot of cases, the guilt of one's actions is punishment enough.

Bullying is a terrible thing out of which good things can come, but it isn't the only thing that can bring out those good things in someone. And if you've compassion, there's no way you're going to say "oh, it's okay, just let them beat the crap out of you because it'll make you stronger in the end." To me, that's bonkers. I think I lost track of what I was saying.

[Deleted]

I agree with you, Sarn. I mean, some kids can grow out of being bullied, but it can make some kids feel very depressed and/or scared. It's even worse if people threaten physical violence, because someone can get seriously hurt if the threat is carried out.

I actually think that any form of meanness should be banned from schools and workplaces. It's just...wrong. What I like is the idea of a "bully box", where kids can write down the pain they're experiencing from being bullied and drop it in a mailbox, then teachers can read it, because sometimes kids are scared to tell teachers directly.

A couple years ago, there was a girl who pretended to be my friend. Then, in Drama class, we played a game where we tried to make people smile and the people tried not to. I took off a ring with a fake sapphire and showed it to her. She misinterpreted and thought I was giving it to her. I told her that wasn't the case. She said she wasn't my friend anymore. Then I apologized and everything seemed fine.

Then, in gym class, we were running laps and I was trying to catch up with a friend of mine, but this girl said "Stop, don't follow her, talk to me!" So I did. And she began to ask me uncomfortable questions, like if I had ever kissed a girl and when would I do "it". I felt uncomfortable and tried to run away, but she insisted I keep talking. I only stayed back because I didn't want her to think I was being mean again.

Anyway, she must've lied to some other friend that I'd kissed a girl, because that friend came up to me and said, "You kissed a girl?!" It took some explaining to tell them no, I hadn't, but I had no problem with gay relationships.

I don't know how many days later this was, but then my cell phone went missing. At first my mom was really angry with me and I hid in my room and cried. Then she called my number, and this girl picked up. We brought in the police and everything. Even worse, the girl lied to my geography teacher that she'd turned in the cell phone to the office. The teacher told me to apologize, and I didn't think she was telling the truth so I didn't. The teacher thought I was being cold-hearted. I checked the office, and as I suspected, she hadn't turned anything in.

We did get the cell phone back and she was suspended from school. My teacher also apologized.

That's why I'm against bullying of any kind. I don't want that to happen to anyone else. *hugs Dju* I'm sorry this happened to you, Dju. No one deserves to be treated that way, ever. Including you.

[Avery]

I won't deny that bullying can, as some have said, "build character" or make someone tougher. However, to say something good can come out of bullying is a little overreaching, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, someone who is tormented can eventually rise above it and become a stronger person for it. But that doesn't mean the bullying itself was a good thing-- as Komori said, just because someone overcomes adversity and champions through something, doesn't make it okay in the first place.

I mostly feel this way because yes, while it can make some people better or stronger, this is not always the case. For every kid who is bullied and triumphs over it, there is the kid who doesn't-- meaning, the kid who becomes depressed, who has no self-confidence, who feels unwanted, unloved. In extreme cases, as people have mentioned, this can even lead to suicide. And until it's too late, it may be impossible to tell which kind of kid is being bullied: is it the one who will rise above it, or the one who won't be able to cope and ends up doing something horrible? For this reason, I think calling bullying a good thing in any sense is a bit... strange.

Yeah, in the best case, it can build character. But to the wrong person, it can also lead to tragic consequences. And in either case, someone is getting tormented. I don't know why that could be seen as good, even if in the end the person may come out stronger for it.

[Deleted]

In a perfect world, bullying wouldn't exist. The problem is that you'd never be able to enforce it. ^^; When I was little, I had trouble telling the difference between friendly teasing and nasty bullying. (Inevitably, people took advantage of this.) That made me vulnerable to virtually everything that wasn't sugarcoated, and even that I became wary of--because, hey, what if they're not being honest? Then there's the case of an ex-friend of mine: when she was younger, she was a bully to let out rage from her parents' divorce. And this one guy (also an ex-friend) was nasty to her because he had a bunch of other problems going on. It's...messy.

Anecdotes aside, whether one becomes stronger as a result of bullying or falls into depression varies from person to person. It depends on how thick one's skin is and how serious the bullying is, yeah, plus whatever else they may have going on, but it's very rare for someone to come out completely unscathed.

[Breakingchains]

Yeah, not everyone is made stronger by bullying. A lot of kids feel like they can't turn to their families for support, whether or not it's true - they don't have a proper outlet to work past even standard bullying. And a lot of kids are already fragile, to the point that insults that other kids would shrug off feel to them like a punch in the gut. It doesn't help that the school system itself is shamefully useless at protecting kids from each other, and it definitely doesn't help that parents are either convinced that there's no way their precious little Julia could ever hit someone and call them something unrepeatable, or convinced that bullying is a natural part of life and their sensitive twelve-year-old should man up.

What it comes down to is, there's no way to know how a given kid will react. You don't know whether someone's healthy and can take it, or if their mother just died and they're under massive stress, or if they've been an emotional powder keg all their lives and now they're one slight away from hurting somebody. Bullying is just a massive act of carelessness that parents need to teach their kids not to engage in, and support them when they face it - and that the school system needs to stop ignoring.

And, yes, the bullies have to be considered, too, despite being entirely unpleasant little piranha-beasts. Mistreatment breeds mistreatment, and often bullies themselves are going through severe issues that can't be shrugged off as "kids being kids." There's a whole interconnected system of dysfunction that leads up to it.

(Now, disclaimer: I'm not talking about silly off-the-cuff namecalling, like little kids engage in. At perhaps the age of 7, one of my siblings got our youngest brother to cry by calling him a "pumpernickel". That's more something we look back on and snicker at than some terrible attack on his psyche. I'm talking about physical assault, kids terrifying each other with threats, yelling slurs, etc.)

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2011 8:51:49 GMT -5 Breakingchains said:

Yeah, not everyone is made stronger by bullying. A lot of kids feel like they can't turn to their families for support, whether or not it's true - they don't have a proper outlet to work past even standard bullying. And a lot of kids are already fragile, to the point that insults that other kids would shrug off feel to them like a punch in the gut. It doesn't help that the school system itself is shamefully useless at protecting kids from each other, and it definitely doesn't help that parents are either convinced that there's no way their precious little Julia could ever hit someone and call them something unrepeatable, or convinced that bullying is a natural part of life and their sensitive twelve-year-old should man up.

What it comes down to is, there's no way to know how a given kid will react. You don't know whether someone's healthy and can take it, or if their mother just died and they're under massive stress, or if they've been an emotional powder keg all their lives and now they're one slight away from hurting somebody. Bullying is just a massive act of carelessness that parents need to teach their kids not to engage in, and support them when they face it - and that the school system needs to stop ignoring.

And, yes, the bullies have to be considered, too, despite being entirely unpleasant little piranha-beasts. Mistreatment breeds mistreatment, and often bullies themselves are going through severe issues that can't be shrugged off as "kids being kids." There's a whole interconnected system of dysfunction that leads up to it.

(Now, disclaimer: I'm not talking about silly off-the-cuff namecalling, like little kids engage in. At perhaps the age of 7, one of my siblings got our youngest brother to cry by calling him a "pumpernickel". That's more something we look back on and snicker at than some terrible attack on his psyche. I'm talking about physical assault, kids terrifying each other with threats, yelling slurs, etc.)

That is exactly why from the beginning I'm going to raise my children to be nice. I think my mom has done an excellent job of teaching me morals. Back when I went to preschool and didn't know any better, I once told a boy's twin brother he wasn't my favorite because I would rather sit by his brother on the bus. Then my mom told me that that wasn't really very nice, so I never said it again.

At my daycare there was a good time out system. I once threw a baby doll at a boy due to an upset about who was playing with it. I was put in time out for a while because of that. I never threw things at anyone again because I knew that wasn't nice.

So when I have my kids, I'm going to teach them how to politely introduce themselves, and whenever we go out together and they first say hurtful things not knowing they're hurtful, I will tell them firmly that what they just did wasn't right and leave it at that. Other then telling them what's nice and what's not, they'll be allowed to set their own moral standards (you know, political opinions, religion etc.).

Now, the question I have is, do you think that will be enough? Because my mom has let me go my own way, and the only rules she's set for me are "don't do those things which are mean things to do", which is what I plan on doing. And it's worked for me, so why shouldn't it work for my kids?

Thoughts?

[Pacmanite]

I consider myself a rather lucky person in that I have not experienced bullying. I can maybe recall one or two times my peers were intentionally mean to me... (the earliest I can remember was two kids telling me I couldn't draw) but the instigators of those isolated incidents never repeated their meanness a second time. By coincidence I was already moving school or I just happened to never cross paths with the mean one again or the teacher told them off or whatever. I certainly do not have any memories of extended periods of time when I was made to feel bullied, worthless, pushed around or targeted.

And, um. I think I developed a well rounded and balanced character, if I may say so myself. I love my family and friends, and I understand that people can be mean sometimes and not to let their meanness sink in. I didn't learn this from the experience of bullying because I am not familiar with bullying. I learned this from meeting and knowing people. Not from the trauma of being bullied.

I also think that schools are capable of doing a lot of things to combat bullying. I went to an international school in Singapore, then to an Australian private school for primary and another private school for secondary. Maybe I have a distorted view, or maybe I only hung out with the good crowd, but through pretty much all my school career I never saw any of my peers get bullied either. Importantly, both the private schools I went to had a blatant zero-tolerance policy towards bullying. As a kid, I could always see big colourful posters on the walls saying, "WE HAVE A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARDS BULLYING" with instructions on what to do, how to act, who to talk to if you are bullied or see someone bullied. And every so often there would be classes (Personal Development, I think) devoted to the subject of bullying, we'd do role playing, watch short films about how to stand up to bullies, have open discussions etc.

So I don't think that schools are entirely helpless to stop bullying. Maybe schools can't stop kids from being intentionally or unintentionally mean, at certain times. But bullying and making a target of a particular individual and harassing them over the course of a term or a year, is in my opinion preventable. It just requires there to be a culture where bullying is not acceptable, which is reinforced by regular education on the subject and upheld by the attitudes of the teachers, parents and kids.

[Joker]

Maybe I have a distorted view, or maybe I only hung out with the good crowd, but through pretty much all my school career I never saw any of my peers get bullied either.

You know, I'm glad to hear somebody else say this. Here I was thinking I just happened to intend inordinately nice schools. xD (Although they were all public and ran the gamut from quite reputable to some of the literal worst in the country.) Kids can be mean, no doubt about it, and often unintentionally because they're incredibly selfish little things. I'm not saying I don't believe bullying happens, because that's clearly not that case. I've just never experienced it myself and I've never seen it in action. Sure, I've heard a few mean things being said, and I've ever had a few said to me (which no doubt prompted me to shoot back with a few of my own!). But nothing that would approach the systematic torture of a kid I so often hear described.

All I can say is this: "meanness" is not something that, in my opinion, can or should be somehow banned from school/work/life. It's a pretty natural part of social interaction, and there are occasions that call for it. I don't even know what somebody would grow up like if they'd never heard a mean word in their life! However, anything approaching assault, property damage, racial slurs or physical abuse is obviously not okay in a school setting.

Luckily, nobody likes a mean person, so as you get into high school and above I find those people are just sort of shunted off to the side and have no social power anyway. It makes them very easy to ignore. I don't know, I've always found that nearly everyone is pretty nice if you get to know them under the right circumstances. B)

[Deleted]

It may be hard for most people to believe, but I was actually a bully when I was around 5-8 years old.
Later on I was bullied myself and also know what it feels like to be both verbally and silently bullied. Today, in my line of work, I will not tolerate bullying.

But, you also have to consider it from the bully's point of view. While the bullying itself is bad, and -may- result in character building for the one being bullied, it definitely doesn't build anything but more insecurity and false self-esteem.

Everyone always looks at the victim, but hardly ever at the bully. Why does he/she act the way they do? Usually it's insecurity.
I bullied a boy from my class because he had a crush on me, and I couldn't deal with it. So instead of just letting him know that I wasn't interested, I made fun of him and played cruel pranks on him.

A bully's reasons for acting like that is no excuse, but to only focus on the victim is hardly fair, IMO.

But to answer your question more directly: It's impossible to prohibit, because it's an effect of the bully's state of mind. One must first eliminate the reasons for them to be a bully. And just because you build character from being bullied, doesn't make it right. I got to taste my own medicine and I did not like it at all.
I may have gotten stronger, but underneath it all, there is still the doubts and insecurities caused by constant bullying.

In other words, it's the egg shell theory that I made a while back: The socalled 'character' is the shell and the yolk. The shell is your self-confidence. But if you have not had a chance to move past the bullying, you gotta ask yourself just how much 'yolk' is inside the egg - the self-esteem.

The bully is usually all shell, and hardly any yolk, and tend to drag the victim down with him/her, and an empty egg is only as strong as the shell.

I deal with bullies every day, and I have to remind myself that punishment of the bully is not the right way to deal with it.

[Nimras]

I think bulling is something most kids do by nature, and that most of them grow out of it as they learn to emphasize better as their understanding of the world grows with experience. Everyone has bullied to some extent, even if it's something that seems so innocuous as thinking that everyone thinks just like them and to think about something differently means there is something "wrong" with them. (When I was in elementary school, it was common to bully girls who liked the color pink. Why? I have no idea, but it was very common to mock a girl wearing any pink at all -- to the point of bringing the girl to tears.)

It's not so cut and dried as "bullies" and "victims" as well, as quite often a person who is bullied by one person is in turn bulling someone else.

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2011 11:01:55 GMT -5 Joker said:

All I can say is this: "meanness" is not something that, in my opinion, can or should be somehow banned from school/work/life. It's a pretty natural part of social interaction, and there are occasions that call for it. I don't even know what somebody would grow up like if they'd never heard a mean word in their life! However, anything approaching assault, property damage, racial slurs or physical abuse is obviously not okay in a school setting.

While I agree with you about the property damage, racial slurs and physical abuse thing, I don't think there's any occasion where the only way to get out of it is by being nasty. For instance, if you're caught in a heated debate, there's a perfectly nice way to state your opinion. For example, you could say "Personally, I think that such-and-such should/shouldn't be so because blah blah blah", and it's a much nicer way of saying it than "This is the way it should be and anyone who says otherwise is stupid/delusional/satanic".

Aug 15, 2011 11:35:48 GMT -5 RilahFalco said:

Everyone always looks at the victim, but hardly ever at the bully. Why does he/she act the way they do? Usually it's insecurity.

I agree completely here. Schoolteachers should actually try to make the perpetrators better and not just punish them. They should try to find the problem and then fix it. If it's insecurity or low self-esteem or what you said about another kid making your school life hard for whatever reason, easy. The bully could be introduced to something they figure out they're really good it and focus on that instead of bullying, and if the bully is also being bullied/harassed/annoyed, then the teachers should also talk to that kid and explain (In your case, Leo, they could say that you really weren't interested in him and you were pretty fed up, so you were doing anything you could to get him to stop bothering you). Similar story: my mom once worked in a middle school and once sat in the ISS with two boys, and one of them was very nasty to her and she reached her breaking point and screamed at him to shut up. The other boy told the mean boy he'd been mean enough to my mom (good for him!).

Now, if the cause is something more serious like child abuse, then that DEFINITELY needs immediate attention. Which is why all bullies should be asked why exactly they are doing what they do instead of just being punished. You never know what it is. Because if you just suspend them and leave it at that, then there's always a chance something really bad could end up happening.

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2011 14:09:32 GMT -5 Nimras said:

I think bulling is something most kids do by nature, and that most of them grow out of it as they learn to emphasize better as their understanding of the world grows with experience. Everyone has bullied to some extent, even if it's something that seems so innocuous as thinking that everyone thinks just like them and to think about something differently means there is something "wrong" with them. (When I was in elementary school, it was common to bully girls who liked the color pink. Why? I have no idea, but it was very common to mock a girl wearing any pink at all -- to the point of bringing the girl to tears.)

It's not so cut and dried as "bullies" and "victims" as well, as quite often a person who is bullied by one person is in turn bulling someone else.

If you ask me, there is a difference between the kind of bullying that you are referring to as something most kids go through (which I like to call 'innocent teasing'), and the kind of bullying that is ongoing and seemingly mean.

Yes, kids do have their experimental phases with different social behaviour to gain the right skills. But those kind of phases is usually things like "You're a girl and girls have cooties!" or "You can't be my friend today because you are wearing purple shoes!"

The kind of bullying I am referring to is closer to harrassment and psychological warfare - something girls seem to be a lot better at than guys (who in turn seem to be more on the physical aspect of bullying). Which is not okay. At all.