quote:Originally posted by Mosherette: I've often wondered if I was in fact completely oblivious, but I've talked to a close friend from my schooldays about it and she knows of no bullying in our peer group either, and she stayed in contact with more people and for longer than I did.
That's the key - "in our peer group". You may have been in an isolated group and not one of your immediate friends was being bullied. But it happened around you.
I think that, as Thistles says, when it happens at a young age you don't really understand it. But when you have kids over 10 and you get the "group" bullying - where people get ostracized for no good reason by the cool, popular, and/or wealthy kids - I find it hard not to notice it. Or for that matter, to believe that it did not exist.
Maybe I should have been more clear in what I said, because it was a bit too all-encompassing - but I do blame those who see it and turn away as being part of the problem. I just have a hard time believing that there would be many people who didn't see it.
-------------------- "The fate of *billions* depends on you! Hahahahaha....sorry." Lord Raiden - Mortal Kombat Posts: 1587 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Sara Claus at home: I think there is another explanation, in addition to those put forth, about why those who aren't bullied and who don't bully don't speak up.
Sometimes they don't identify certain behaviors as bullying.
My nephew -- an outsider, at best, at his school -- sat at our table with my son who was in his school's band and unmercifully mocked kids who were in band at his school, simply because they were in band. Band members at his school included some of his circle of friends. But my nephew was absolutely convinced that there was nothing wrong with tormenting band members. Why? Because his school was firmly entrenched in the Culture of Football and the football team mocked the band so that made it ok. He was shocked that anyone might stick up for the band, that there was anything wrong with his attitude. He would never occur to him to identify the behavior towards band members as bullying.
While I don't believe my nephew ever did anything to bully a band member himself, he certainly wouldn't have said anything if someone else did bacause, in his words, "Well, c'mon, it's the band."
That's a lot like when there is one child who is fair game for being picked on -- the Designated Picked On Kid. Every school, if not every grade, has one. Someone who others feel free to say or do anything to because s/he is percieved, for some reason, to not deserve any sort of respect. Maybe s/he's not attractive, or poor, or mildly disabled in some way, or fat, or thin.....there are all sorts of illogical rationales. Few people would identify that behavior as "bullying" because, (as a teacher of mine once said), "After all, it's only Linda."
I agree with this assessment completely. I was the Designated Picked-On Kid everywhere I went, which eventually led to my disillusionment with the Boy Scouts.
[ANECDOTE] During one game of "Hop the Gauntlet" (a game involving hopping on one foot while trying to knock your opponent over), a boy who went to my school knocked me over and deliberately kicked me in the face.
Before anyone suggests otherwise, there was no way it could have been anything other than deliberate. We were both holding our non-hopping foot with a hand to keep from accidentally putting it down.
So what happened? I was punished for trying to attack him in retaliation, while he wasn't even asked to apologize.
Yeah. People talk about the Boy Scouts building community and fellowship, but in reality they're just another clique.
In a seperate incident in a different state, my school was having a choir program wherein the choirs of each grade got up and performed for the rest of the school. After my grade was done, we sat down, and the boy sitting in the chair next to me started punching me for no reason. He got a single detention for punching me, while I got three for crying out. [/ANECDOTE]
A big part of this, as I see it, is that many childhood bullies end up in positions of authority as adults. That's just speculation on my part, but despite all the kid's shows and after-school specials, I've never seen a bully, when questioned about their actions, say "because I felt like it." In my experience, they always come up with some excuse or justification based on their victim's personality or actions.
Unfortunately, (again, in my own experience), the adults who were the authorities of the situation often agreed. No bully I encountered in my childhood ever recieved more than a token punishment for anything they did. This suggests to me that the authorities had also been bullies in their childhood, because they always sympathized with the bully more than the victim.
I think I'll leave it at that for now...I apologize if this post comes off as a whine about my crappy childhood. Bullies and their ilk are a real sore spot for me, not least because of my shame over my (thankfully) brief foray into it.
Posts: 213 | From: Point of Rocks, MD | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Sara Claus at home: Sometimes they don't identify certain behaviors as bullying.
I think that's a big part of the problem.
I also think many kids vastly underestimate the effect of bullying behavior (whether they think it's bullying or not). I think they look on tormenting some other kid as being a bit of harmless fun and are mystified when someone makes a big deal out of it.
I have wondered if this sort of thing is why so many of us had such a hard time getting adult help with bullying as kids. I wonder a lot of the adults carried these attitudes into adulthood and were thinking that we were basically making a big deal out of nothing (AKA, whining), thinking we deserved it (becuase we were a band kid, nerd or whatever) or both.
I had a big problem with adults insisting that I was exaggerating what was happening and that it couldn't possibly be as bad as I said it was. They couldn't seem to understand that it wasn't just a bit of "harmless teasing" that could be easily ignored. That went on until some of my bullies happened to catch up to me in front of my grandmother's house where she heard and saw the whole thing. She dragged the whole story out of me and I remember the vicious glee I felt when I sat there and listened as she called my father (her son) and tore into him about brushing off my bullying problem. (Go grandma!)
Posts: 716 | From: San Antonio, TX | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Dancing Dragon: A big part of this, as I see it, is that many childhood bullies end up in positions of authority as adults. That's just speculation on my part, but despite all the kid's shows and after-school specials, I've never seen a bully, when questioned about their actions, say "because I felt like it." In my experience, they always come up with some excuse or justification based on their victim's personality or actions.
That's very true. The only exception I can think of is a bully who basically said "because I can" when asked why he was picking on me, though he was careful to only say that to me and never to an adult. With adults, it was all how I was just so annoying that he had no choice but to pick on me.
quote:Originally posted by Dancing Dragon: Unfortunately, (again, in my own experience), the adults who were the authorities of the situation often agreed. No bully I encountered in my childhood ever recieved more than a token punishment for anything they did. This suggests to me that the authorities had also been bullies in their childhood, because they always sympathized with the bully more than the victim.
I've often wondered if bullying victims are less likely to go into education than either bullies or the kids who didn't really think of bullying as bullying (like Sara's nephew). That would have the effect of perpetuating the problem because the people most likely to sympathize with the bullied kids aren't going into education where they can have a maximum effect while those who are more likely to ignore the problem or even encourage it are the ones who go into education.
By chance, I discovered that the current superintendent of the school district I attended growing up is man who was the vice-principal and then principal of the middle school when I was there. He was the one most likely to brush me off when I complained of being bullied, the most likely to accuse me of provoking my bullies and the one most likely to claim anyone who might back up my version of events of lying. The only time he would intervene was when it was deemed to be a fight and then every participant was punished equally. Actually figthing back was not a requirement. I once dropped to the ground and curled up in a ball in an effort to avoid a whipping yet got the same whipping the other boy got just the same. I feel very sorry for bullied kids in that district.
Posts: 716 | From: San Antonio, TX | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Dancing Dragon: I've never seen a bully, when questioned about their actions, say "because I felt like it." In my experience, they always come up with some excuse or justification based on their victim's personality or actions.
I have, however, observed this:
Adult: Why did you hit him? Bully: I don't know. {shrug} Adult: Well you must have had some reason. Bully: {pause} I don't know. {shrug}
Because they know if they say "because I felt like it" or "because he wears glasses" it will sound bad. But if he plays dumb, then it's just boys-will-be-boys.
MaxKaladin also brought up a good point about the cumulative effect of bullying. When I was a kid, one of my friends was short and was mocked for it, as kids tend to do. I didn't think it was that bad, and wondered why he had such a Napoleon complex about it. But that's because I only saw part of it; I wasn't around him all day every day to see just how many people were commenting on his height. (BTW, this complex continued on into high school, even after he was of average height.)
-birdman
Posts: 1104 | From: near Cleveland, Ohio | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Mosherette: I've often wondered if I was in fact completely oblivious, but I've talked to a close friend from my schooldays about it and she knows of no bullying in our peer group either, and she stayed in contact with more people and for longer than I did.
That's the key - "in our peer group". You may have been in an isolated group and not one of your immediate friends was being bullied. But it happened around you.
I think that, as Thistles says, when it happens at a young age you don't really understand it. But when you have kids over 10 and you get the "group" bullying - where people get ostracized for no good reason by the cool, popular, and/or wealthy kids - I find it hard not to notice it. Or for that matter, to believe that it did not exist.
Maybe I should have been more clear in what I said, because it was a bit too all-encompassing - but I do blame those who see it and turn away as being part of the problem. I just have a hard time believing that there would be many people who didn't see it.
I never saw hardcore bullying at my school. I saw, particpated in and was the victim of mild teasing [ETA] amongst my group of friends [/ETA] at high school (aged 11-16); I saw one fight between two of the hardest girls in the school and no way was I getting involved in that, thanks, and that's it. Like I said in my first post, because we were kept so much under the thumb at my school I think it was actually very difficult for bullying to take place inside the school, and it generally happened away from the premises, as happened to my sister. So, no, I didn't see it, and if you have a hard time beliving that then there's not much I can do about it.
I agree that those who see it and turn away are part of the problem.
-------------------- Silence should never under any circumstances be construed as agreement. A lot of the time, it's simply a reflection that someone just said something so stupid that no response could possibly do it justice. - Ramblin' Dave Posts: 8528 | From: Nottingham, England | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Mosherette: I've often wondered if I was in fact completely oblivious, but I've talked to a close friend from my schooldays about it and she knows of no bullying in our peer group either, and she stayed in contact with more people and for longer than I did.
That's the key - "in our peer group". You may have been in an isolated group and not one of your immediate friends was being bullied. But it happened around you.
I think that, as Thistles says, when it happens at a young age you don't really understand it. But when you have kids over 10 and you get the "group" bullying - where people get ostracized for no good reason by the cool, popular, and/or wealthy kids - I find it hard not to notice it. Or for that matter, to believe that it did not exist.
Maybe I should have been more clear in what I said, because it was a bit too all-encompassing - but I do blame those who see it and turn away as being part of the problem. I just have a hard time believing that there would be many people who didn't see it.
I'm sure Thistles and Mosh truly didn't have an opportunity to see and object to bullying, as far as they knew. No blame on them. But, what you say, that bystanders can be part of the problem or part of the solution, is certainly believed to be true by some people, at least, because some of the anti bullying programs (and from what I've read, these are the most successful ones) focus a LOT on raising the awareness of it and responsibility for it on the part of the bystanders.
If everyone else who is just watching has been made to realize what is going on and they say to the bully, "hey dude, that is REAL uncool and you need to quit that now," it changes the dynamic considerably from the other two possible scenarios - that of watching in quiet fear that they will be next, or even joining in a little.
When you give these kids the tools to do this, even if they aren't bullied, they feel better, because one reason (as several snopesters have mentioned) that onlookers do nothing is that they are afraid they will become, themselves, the focus of the bullies.
I think one reason nobody ever helped out my son was that he, for some reason I'll never understand, (had to have been his meekness - he was goodlooking, tall, sense of humor, smart. He was just...slow to react, and gentle.) was the designated scapegoat. As long as it was HIM, it wouldn't be someone else, and they were all fine with letting him and not themselves get the pickin' on. It's natural to be afraid and protect one's self in this way - it's not especially evolved, unselfish, brave, or mature - but we can't expect those kinds of characteristics out of the average kid unless we have taken action to help them know how to be those things. Those sorts of characteristics - being able to face up to a bully and say, "hey, that's bogus, stop that crap now cause you aren't really impressing us" are the kind that very rarely, you find a young person who is just that cool and okay with himself and sort of wise beyond his or her years to have. But it doesn't seem to just happen on it's own, without help from adults, terribly often.
-------------------- "Wolves, dragons and vampires, man. Draw the nut-bars like big ol' nut-bar magnets." ~evilrabbit
(snurched because one of my nutbar family members is all about wolves and another one is all about dragons...)(with apologies to surfcitydogdad) Posts: 2397 | From: Texarkana, TX | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
