School bullying still a problem!

Hi all...I've noticed several posts on eNotalone that talk about bullying...from mothers who are wondering how to protect their kids from it, to kids that are actually experiencing it.

I am concerned because I think bullying can drive some kids to committing suicide, or dropping out of school.

It seems this would be an important topic to discuss here on eNotalone. So anyone that has an opinion on it, please respond. Some possible questions to discuss:

1) If you're picked on at school, are you reluctant to tell a school official or parent about it, and why?

2) Do you feel schools do enough to prevent bullying? What specifically does your school do to prevent bullying?

3) What is the best way to deal with a bully?

4) Is bullying affecting your grades, your social life, your self-esteem?

Thanks to everyone who offers their feedback on this issue.

Hi:

I am going through this right now with my child. He is eight years old and has a learning disability. He is being picked on and hit at school by another boy. The school is turning their heads and blaming my child for instigating it, whcih is crazy, because he is shy and have an autistic spectrum disorder. He is very anti-social. I have gone to the playground and witnessed two other boys, dragging my boy by his collar practically choking him. Their were five aides on the playground, and not one saw it. Luckily I was there to intervene. Our school has a zero tolerance program but as it was explained to me, it is age appropriate, meaning that these kids are too young to bully on purpose, so no action has bene taken. This is crazy, I am beside myself. Bullying can cause suicide and should be taken more seriosly at any age. Children as young as 8 have killed themselves from bullying. My son, never told me what was going on, I had a hunch and followed through.

I have gone to the board of education and scheduled a meeting with the child study team for next week.

Also, bullies have killed other children. It is not to be taken lightly and always investigated.

Our school has not even done an investigation. They have observed my son and the other boys, and informed me that they have not witnessed it for themselves, thereforeeee, they are not willing do do anything.

??????

I was bullied around. My parents didn't want to hear about it. I was the kid that all the neighborhood kids picked on. Teachers, they don't care...in my school they walk down hall. I have also been struck by teachers before and the school ignored it on 3 occasions. 1 was right in front of the principle, and he denied seeing the teacher hit me in the head. I had a teacher that encouraged the other students to bully me, even slammed me into a locker...and yet I go to link removed and everyone idolizes this guy, saying he is the best teacher they ever had. It is not just students that bully kids, it can be teachers and principles as well.

Parents aren't no better. Some neighborhood kids threw sand in my eyes at the park and their mothers just laughed at me. When I was 16 I seen a whole neighborhood egg on a 15 year old kid beating up a 9 year old kid. The 15 year old was bigger then me. The kid getting beat up happened to be my friends younger brother. So naturally I jumped in. All the parents are yelling and telling this 15 year old to beat up the 9 year old. I pushed the kid around and then started egging on the adults that were cheering this on. They all quietly went home. I broke up their party I guess.

Anyway...when I was in 9th grade, I was bullied by this one guy that failed like 3 times. There was no doubt that he could beat me up. I knew I couldnt' win, but it was all about pride. One day in Science we got into, end result I ended up getting my face hit on the corner of the lab table. He stopped, and actually started to show concern. I told him don't worry about it. After that I gained his respect, he actually bailed me out a couple of times when I had some problems a few years later.

Bullying is a part of life...even when we get older there are still bullies out there. It is something that doesn't go away as we get older.

DBL

Back when I was bullied... I actually wrote a 20 pages short story about this but my comp crashed so now it's only in everyone who read it's memory...

Well, my school was really strict. We have 200+ math problems to do every single day, 100 historical "dates" to memorize every week... that's exact dates, not just "in the 1970's" but "on 10/23/1972." The average number of tests we have on any given day was 10... 8 classes total, 1 before school during "study period" and one after school during lunch/nap time. So, with that kind of pressure I ould understand that students needed a way to let out their anger and frustration. I didn't understand it then, that's something I just realized these couple of years.

I was actually not their original target. The original target was this girl with very low grades and a shy personality. I was in the ground leading the class... until they decided to bully her. I thought those people are my friends and will listen to my reasoning, so I asked them to stop bullying her and instead we should all hang out with her... then they all turned on me because I betrayed them and wanted to hang out with a loser.

The school's set up in a way so 43 students stay in the same classroom with the same teacher for 3 years. We have other teachers coming in to teach us math and english and other subjects, but the homeroom teacher's really whom we report to for most occasions. These 43 students are together for 10+ hours a day, from 7am~5 or 6pm, 6 days a week. That makes bullying extremely hard to tolerate... ^^: I won't go into details, but for 2 years that I was in the school I had absolutely no one to talk to. I couldn't talk to my classmates. It's hard enough not being seen or being rediculed. I also had no friends... those 43 people are your friends.

1) I tried talking to my teachers, but unfortunately they didn't want to do anything about it because it adds on to their workload and they just don't care enough. Besides, often teachers respond by going into the class and telling EVERYBODY "Tea told me everyone's abusing her, please stop or I will punish you." ...that really isn't help. If anything my homeroom teacher just made the situation worse because now everyone knows she's not going to do a thing about them and I told on them so I betrayed them AGAIN.

You might ask why I never said anything to my parents. It's also unfortunate that my parents aren't exactly the type to help their children when it doesn't involve money. To them, they paid for my life, and it's my job to get good grades. I remember kneeling for 4 hours because I got 40%. My mom screemed her head off at me and beated me up, but no one asked me if anything was wrong with school. There wasn't a lot of time for family connection either. I leave home by 6:30am, get to school at 7am, leaves school at 5pm, takes a little break and tutoring starts at 6pm, lasts until 10pm because I have 2 of them, then I go home trying to finish homework from both tutors and the school, I usually finish about 3am~4am and sleep. Sleep was so prescious that I didn't really have time to talk to my parents about anything.

2) My school did nothing to prevent bullying I suppose. It's kind of institutionalized and every class has at least one outcast everyone let out anger on. I guess they just don't really care since it's something they can't avoid based on the strict academic system.

3) For myself, at the end, like I said in some other posts, I took a broom and ran after some guy dumping correction fluid powder on my head and screamed my head off + threatened to kill him if he touches me again. I didn't catch him or I would have beaten him to death I suppose. That stopped them from bullying me but they became afraid of me and still wouldn't talk to me.

4) It definitely affected my grades. Most subjects I don't need to try to get a good grade on, however math is something I'm not naturally good at. Without the bullying I can get 95% most of the time, but with the bullying I slided all the way down to 40%. I just couldn't concentrate on anything anymore so if it's not easy enough I don't care. Besides, most of the time I was thinking about how I'm going to kill myself and what ways make it easier for me to suicide with the highest success rate.

I wouldn't say it affected my self-esteem. What did happen is as soon as we emigrated from that place I lost my memory about the past 2 years for the next 4 years. I remember I came from that school and bits and pieces of what happened, but I didn't remember everything until 2nd year in college. That was also when I wrote my short story.

What the whole incident did leave me was a bunch of phobias. I became terrified at any motion that I didn't suspect, anyone who comes closer than 2ft, any loud sound that randomly came off, anyone who touches me, dark, hight, and relationship with friends of intimate relationships.

That's the non-emotional story above. I try not to think about it too much now because I break down if I do think about it.

My case was obviously not unique. There were 33 classes per year and 3 years total, so there were 99 classes in the school with a little bit over 4000 students. If there were at least 1student in every class going through what I went through, there were at least 132 of us during those two years.

Suicide's not unique in the school either. Just my class I knew 5 people who attempted suicide during the 2 years while I was there. Considering I attempted multiple times but no one ever found out, the real number of attempted suicide should be a lot higher. Not everyon succeed though. Most just cut a tiny little small hole and when the pain goes away they keep studying until next time they feel like they have to cut themselves again.

In fact, only one person succeeded. During my 2nd year/8th grade this 9th grade student left his mom a note that says, "Mom, if you want to find me you can look down from 13th floor's balcony." He jumped from the 13th floor and it was instant death.

... I guess this school's an extreme outlier so can't really be counted towards anything.

...all I can say is, if I have kids, they're not going to that school no matter how prestigious it was supposed to be.

Thank you for your responses. I know how hard it is to re-live this stuff. I feel so many emotions reading this...outrage that it's permitted, incredible sadness at the lack of a support system to help with this problem, and just general disgust with school systems that allow such behavior to happen. Clearly, bullying emotionally damages people as well.

I would love to hear some ideas on how this can be stopped. I agree that it has always, always been a part of the school experience. Well, that doesn't mean it can't change. If enough people really made this a cause, it would change.

Why should we pay taxes to support schools that do little or nothing about this problem? School administrators need to be accountable for this. Yes, it would be ideal if parents would be accountable but I think we already know this world has more than enough crappy parents. If a school is going to be responsible for the welfare of our children for a good part of the day, they need to keep our kids safe - physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Itcant be stoopped

Bullying will alwauys be there and until the people learn to stand up for themselves it wont stop

I was bullied by the whole class including girls for 5 or 6 weeks and it was hell....Some how i gained back respect it was har but i did it

If its a guy who has major hackup or is too strong u should hae a go...Its not getting knocked out that matters anymore its if u walk away or not...Sometimes people ask for it and i just smack their faces in although watch who you fight...Some WILL pull out a knife

-XmF

Who we going to tell? After I was verbally abused by the teacher and class, I skipped the rest of the day of school. I was caught...told the vice principle what happened...and the teacher made me pay for it. He made my grades pay for it, and even had some students try to make me pay for it. This was the type of teacher that girls could get good grades providing they took care of them.

Other teachers were aware of what was going on with the BS I put up with. One teacher just told me just to hang in there, that he was aware of what was going on. Another teacher looked out for me to make sure I got out of some trouble he was aware too. Nobody wants to step up.

The day I was slammed into the lockers, the teacher left his class and chased me down. I ducked into an art room, just as the teacher was about to say something to me, she seen him run by, and she just walked away from me, like she knew he wasn't going to just be talking to me. Nobody ever stepped up to the plate for me.

Basically he told me I can tell the principle about this incident and that if I do go, he will make me pay. Another teacher came out of his class because he heard the banging. He just ignored it and went back to teaching. So not only did I have to play games with the teachers, principles, and threats I had to deal with my x's boyfriend, his friends and all the others that she got after me. School was just a damn nightmare.

Ironically since school I have become friends with the pres of the school board(he was pres when I went too), I told him of some of the incidents, but he said what can you do? Their word agaist yours. They don't want to believe these things can happen.

What I think they should do, put cameras in all classrooms and hallways and connect it to a outsourced company not associated with the school system. This way stuff that happened to me and other kids will be made aware of and taken care of.

DBL

Bullying will NEVER be eliminated...My old teacher punched me and smacked a pen of teh table tat almost hit my eye point on... It was sharp aswell and my parents were haplpy they were like why didnt she hit you more

-XmF

Bullying will never be elminated, but school can be made better if there was an eye closer on classrooms and halls. I seen teachers clear desks in their classrooms to let kids fight. Aren't they suppose to be stopping this? Not encouraging this? Ironically the same teacher that slammed me.

Kids are kids, but adults should know better.

DBL

This is something that just goes on and on.

My child was bullied at the beginning of last school year by some kids. He was very frustrated, but I didn't know about it until he started bullying others. See what I mean? I talked to him.. then I went to the school and talked to his teacher. His teacher did something about it and my child didn't have any more problems.

I'm pretty well known at my kids schools because I get involved. I visit the teachers often and check up on my kids. As a parent that's very important. My kids know that if something goes wrong I am there. Whether they did something wrong or if I am not happy with something about the schools.

I'm not one to sit by and hope that things get resolved. It's very important that parents get involved.

I know that kids will be kids and all that, but it's very important that parents speak up too. If one person doesn't help you to your satisfaction, speak to someone higher up. There has to be a solution somewhere.

Bullying will never be stopped and as long as it continues there'll be more school shootings leaving people asking "Why/How did this happen"?

It's wrong but people going through this are tired and they've reached the end of their rope and have taken to the "by any means necessary" school of thought. Again it's harsh but just a reality.

I remember one time back a few years. I was hanging out at my friends store. All of a sudden this little kid flys in asking us to hide him. So we calm him down and ask what was wrong. The other kids came into the store, we threw them out. They were waiting outsdie for the kid to come out. Me and my friend talked to this kid, told him it was time to stand up for himself. I guarenteed that I would let it be a fair fight. The kid told us ok, if he wasn't going to get jumped he would fight the one kid. So they fought, he survived, nobody actually won. Nobody was hurt. What we didn't realize is that we gave this kid confidence. A year later I see him and his friends chasing down a kid to beat up. I guess sometimes my philosphies don't work well with some people. I guess I figured that this kid would just be stronger, didn't think he would become the bully.

DBL

DBL

It's called the revenge factor. Now that ths kid has power he feels that if he can't pay it back (to the ones that bullied him) he'll pay it forward and make others feel the same we he did. Basically punish them for the sins of others. Again it's wrong but have to understand what goes on in the minds of others. Doesn't matter if you're innocent or not. Once you've been treated like that you actually get a "I hate the world" type of attitude and just want to lash out regardless. I know this b/c I've felt that way at times.

That's what tends to happen DBL, if you are constantly the underdog. Getting beat up over and over--you have this anger pent up inside and learn that you can beat others who are weaker. Not everyone does this, but some do.

I got beat up for very stupid reasons when I was a kid, but I never turned into a bully. I'm not that kind of person. I told my mom and she went to the school to talk to the principal.

Once I got beat up because some girls said I was talking about some other girls. All untrue. Another time because the neighbor boy liked me ( I didnt know) and the other neighbor girl liked him. She beat me up --as if beating me up would get him to like her..ugh.. This time we pressed charges because she was 18 and I was 13.

I ran into them years later. I was taller than them ( I'm 5'5) but getting revenge was the last thing on my mind. I saw them as weak, pathetic individuals because they had picked on me and I had done nothing to them.

I used to get bullied in school. It effected my grades a lot. I have several learning disabilities (dyslexia, ADHD). It got so bad durring high school that I ended up switching to an online school. That worked out well for me.

In a regular school, I had my nose broken, glasses broken on my face (I got cut and had an eye patch. That didn't help the bullying at all ). Things were always rough, HS was just the worst of it though. I was in all the lower level classes so people would call me retard, and many other choice names. Just mock me. I know that I am not the smartest. My IQ is high enough, like 150. That isn't bad. I just can not do math for the life of me. I was in like intro-to-pre-intro algebra, in like 11 grade. I just gave up. Got into a lot of trouble. Skipped class a lot.

Really the only thing that helped was the online school. It was a better education than regular school. You get an actual diploma. It is not the same as home schooling. The parents don't have to be involved at all if they don't want to. It is simply distance learning. I had a teacher for every subject. It was nice. They give you a computer, and pay for the internet usage. You can do your work anytime of day or night, so it is nice because you can work days and do your work in the evening.

I don't know why some people bully. My little brother is in 8th grade. He gets picked on so bad. I am trying to convince my mom to let him do the online school. He has a speach problem and ADD. People are so mean to him. He walks from school and last year kids followed him screaming retard and throwing rocks.

Man reading this stuff is getting me so mad. I did get picked on a lot (thankfully it was verbally rather than physical but still) and still sucks to see today kids are still stupid and cruel as ever. Bet you in half these cases if you look at the parents, they're probably (PROFANITY DELETED BY MODERATOR) themselves that were once bullies in high school. Like father like son so to speak. You know I hate to say this but fact of the matter is some people just have what's coming to them in refernce to being retaliated on by those they pick on.

Wlfpack81 what you say makes alot of sense. It seems that this violence is starting at home. Such a shame, your home should be you safe haven . How can we do something about this when the problem seems to start with the parents?

I left an abusive husband because I didn't want my sons to grow up to be abusive. Now they are facing bullies at school who probably come from abusive households. What a problem.

i admitted i can go nuts on a person buti dont usually bully em because im not like that....Its just plain sad although if a person keeps coming back to me for a fight after the first time they got knocked out ill keep doing it till they learn their lesson which is dont ask for second helpings

-XmF

I was bullied for 10 years in both primary school and the first years of high school. It was especially one boy who had the power over a lot of other children in the class and, unfortunately in the neighbourhood.

Yes, it damaged my self-esteem, which started to show as I became a teenager. I became anorexic, and later on, when I conquered the eating disorder, I suffered from a major depression. Well, the cause of this all together is not only the bullying, it certainly has to do with some family-issues as well. It took me 8 years of therapy to finally get where I am now, more or less stable and confident, but I am still in therapy at the moment.

I was one of those children who don't speak about it. My teachers in school just said I should be a big girl (I WAS tall and looked much older than my age, which was also a reason to be picked on in the first place), and ignore them. My parents only found out about this when it happened in front of our home, when I was 14.

I would like to warn all parents for this. My concern goes out for both the children who are the victim and the bullies. Ask the teachers if they have suspicions about your child being a victim or bully, and don't apologize it by saying it is natural and it belongs to their age if they are the bullies. It might be natural to some degree but part of growing up is to learn how to treat others well in society. If they are the victim be very careful with signs of low self-esteem.

I am not a parent myself, and sometimes I wonder if I would even have children, if school is so terrible for them.

And the strangest thing of this all? I am STILL bullied, not by my peers, but by the same sort of boys that used to bully me when I was younger. It still hurts... but I have the advantage of being adult now, one time a group of boys (ooo they are SO 'cool' when they are in a group... ) tried to kick me off my bicycle as I was on my way to training. I stepped off my bicycle, tapped one of them on the shoulder and said to him: 'Oh, it's so good to see you. I have a message for your parents, would you mind to tell them?' He was all flabbergasted and said 'uhm, ok?' So I said: 'Well, just remind her of the fact that she needs to RAISE you next to feed you, she obviously forgot'.

Anyways it still makes me feel like the small girl 20 years ago. Deep in my heart I would like to hurt them back, but I never have.

Ilse.

Maybe teachers need to be trained on handling bully situations.

My godson is a bully, I kept warning him that when you get older, these guys are going to start hitting back. It went over his head like "Everyone is afraid of me, nobody will beat me up". So I took the next step...if you are going to bully anyone, bully the kids that bully the ones that can't defend themselves.

I got beat up by the bully of my grade once in 4th grade. Didn't even see it coming, I just about walked my face into his fists. I just kept walking. A friend of mine down the block ended up beating up the bully that year. The bully stopped picking on everybody.

There was this other kid that used to bully people around, he bullied me for a few years. One day he bullied this real quiet kid, and the quiet whooped him up.

Even when I went to community college someone always had something to say, but by this time...I wasn't walking away from these things.

DBL

I don't think we can stop school bullying. Even with my school that allows corporal punishment and average kids can get at least 10 hits a day from teachers... techinically the teachers can just beat the bullies up and help us out, but they didn't. Techinically my school's those that if you're found with a different colored hair from your natural hair 6 times you get expelled (we're allowed 6 small mistakes and 2 large mistakes), techinically bullying someone is a big one and if they're found twice with it they can get expelled, but schools don't want to risk their reputation so they don't do anything about it.

...besides, I honestly don't think most teachers care. People are just so concerned with themselves that they want limited work and don't want to deal with harder to dealt with students.

...most of the time, parents don't care either... and even when they do care there's nothing they can do to protect their kids.

Well, if I were a teacher and a student of mine's bullied and comes tell me... in a school that allows corporal punishment I'd beat the bullier as many times as he tries bullying others, and I'll make mine hurt more. In schools that don't allow it I'd probably get them a few detentions, talk to their parents and let their parents know eventually I will expel their kids if they dont' get their kids to stop. Education is after all largely the responsibility of parents, not teachers. Parents can't just leave their children at school and pretend that's all there is to raising their kids. If I see another teacher builling kids... I actually don't know what I'd do, but I'd either get the kid into my class with telling their parents or stuff like that, or I'll raise the issue during meetings, "Some teachers have been bullying our students and that's illegal, blah blah blah." If the principle does nothing about it, after a couple of times I'd probably help the kids launch a law suit against both that teacher and the school.

If it's my kids bullied, I wouldn't let them switch school, but I'd take them to learn boxing or aikido, or some form of fighting techinique. I'd give them the tools they can use to beat other kids who are bullying my kids up... and threaten them if I ever find them bullying other kids I will make them kneel in front of the other kids' parents and beg for forgiveness. I'll probably also publicly humuliate them and make them pay if I find them bullying others.

So, it sounds like the schools still do very little to prevent bullying. I find that shocking, after so many school shootings have occurred. I think DBL's suggestion that cameras should be installed is a good one - and yes, monitored by outside security companies.

I also think more teachers aids should be on the playgrounds. Parents should volunteer to patrol bus stops. There should be a firm policy of three strikes, your kid is expelled for good.

I'd like to hear other possible solutions, if anyone has any suggestions.

I know that i was always bullied in middle school, i hated it so much and i took alot of my anger out by going home and doing physical activities such as working out and what not. Anyway i put my anger into that and pumped myself up a little, then when i felt ready i decided to stand up to the next bully who decided to bully me, we ended up getting into a fist fight and i broke his nose, after that i didnt get bothered very much however i got in huge trouble with school and parents but i felt it was worth it

Ive got a sugestion, Im not sure how good it will work and maybe people should read to wut other people reply to this before taking my advice, but I am not bullied at school, and i do not bully, Kids started to make fun of me but i stopped it right away and got respect. I was always alot stronger than most kids in my grade, I have been working out for a long time, and If someone ever gave me a problem, Id say a really clever comeback, that they could nto have a good one back, and they would look stupid, and walk away and not give me a problem and later i would talk to them like they were friends and we became friends, if they got offensive by me making them look stupid, i would let them start up real good then a would scrap them, afer awhile, nobody wanted to fight, so they just gave me respect from then. Im tellin u tho, if u just go out and start beating the piss outta everybody u dont like, u will not get respect, and u will be a bully, Ive never thrown the first punch in a fight, I always let them start it, If you show them ure not afraid of them, u should get respect, think of it like this, (ive been around horses all my life so i kno) If you act scared around a horse, it will detect it, and take advantage of it, so basically push you around and try to scare you, If you go in there calm, friendly but treat it as equal to you, there will be no problem (unless u have a phsyco horse), but it is the same wiht kids, I hoped this helped, And im not saying violence is the answer, Im just saying that you have to give them a reason to give u respect if they r giving u none.

Wow! I can't believe your stories. I too was bullied. And I have bullied others. Many years ago.

But my kid is learning disabled and it's pretty messed up. They tell him to tell, and when he did tell the teacher, they didn't believe him.. What message does this send? Children that are bullied are very likely to grow up into adults that get bullied in relationships and in their jobs.

Anyway, I will not rest. I will sue my district if they do not take the appropriate action. Since Columbine, they are supposed to have zero tolerance policies. Now that I know they don't inforce them, I will fight myself.

I am a single Mom and don't have too much money. But legally, I can call an IEP meeting once a week with the child study team which consists of around 10 staff members that have to legally be present, so at the very least, I will disrupt the school and staff until they hear me.

I also go to school at least 3 mornings per week to follow the bus and see my son on the playground in the morning interacting with the other kids, and I go unannouced once a week and ask the principal to observe my son at recess from the window.

The time I went, no staff at recess for the first 10 minutes. 6 and 8 year olds out unattended for 10 minutes. Kidnappers anyone??? I hid so my son could not see me but other kids did, and one child was hit by another boy and reported it to me. I guess he thought I was an aide. When the playground aide finally came out, I gave her the child's name and teacher(the one who reported it), and I swear this was here response..."I don't know who that kid is", then she walked away. No report, no nothing...

THEY DONT CARE.... these are second graders..... I can't believe what I have seen at my son's elemtary school.. Any parent, child bullied or not, should go and observe their children at school. You can never trust what they say or don't say.

I found out my son was getting hit by this kid since September. Even my son's classmate reported it. And his friends parents knew about, yet the school did not notify me.... WHY??? They can't tell me, they lie, they cover up, they play dumb.

All I can say, is watch your children. Make sure that his/her school knows who you are and what you expect, and that you will be a force to be reckoned with....

I know being bullied is a right of passage, and some may say, that you have to stand up for yourself to get through it, but statistically speaking this is not at all true. Most cases do not turn out positively. I don't want to be dramatic, but it can really mess a kid up into adulthood.

I read a book called THE BULLY,THE BULLIED, and THE BYSTANDER. A great book full. Every parent should read it.

If we don't worry about kids hitting other kids at 8 years old, when do we worry, when the are in High School and bring a gun into school? Or commit suicide? I am beside myself. My son is a target because of his disability, and I witnessed it, but yet, they are telling me nothing is happening at school and my son is safe.

They have not filed any reports or even contacted the other kids parents.

They tell me they are tired of me being so pushy and they feel I am making more out of it then what it really is. They say, kids will be kids and this is what kids do...

WRONG! It 's 2004 and what have we learned?

Sorry to rant. I'm going through a tough time with my son's school. I have my big meeting on Tuesday. I'm nervous and really mad.

Thanks for listening....