Ohiofarmgirl'sAdventuresinTheGoodLand-where ya been? whatcha been doin

[Wifezilla]

it used to be that high school was 'the best time of your life.' HA! i hated it.

Ditto!

young children find differences interesting... but as people get older those difference become a stick to hit someone with

Not necessarily. There seem to be some people who are naturally drawn to the new, unique and different and others who try to force conformity at all costs. I was the former...my dad the later.

... i just still cant believe that people - ADULT people - would have time to bash down someone because they think a question is stupid. wow. especially over farm animals but heh heh heh

You should check some of the angel wing threads over on byc. Wanna see me bashed like crazy? LOL

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

ha! WZ i think i've seen some of those!

my favorite reply when someone, usually a stranger in line at the grocery store, has sometime awful to say about another person:

*big midwest smile* Isnt is GREAT that everyone is different?

i love to stop the meanies in their tracks when they want to gather more folks to their hatin' side.

we were behind a woman at Bob Evans who was rippin' the poor clerk a new one because... get this... the green beans were touching her potatoes on her plate. by the time she got cranking the manager was involved. and she was doing the thing where she was looking around as if we were all gonna say "YEAH and another thing..."

as she stormed away of course we said to the manager, LOUDLY so she could hear, oh honey that was the BEST MEAL EVER! and we really enjoyed the service! THANK YOU FOR A FINE MEAL.

honestly it takes 30 seconds to be nice..sheesh!

 

[kcsunshine]

Good going biblio! Great blog. I agree with BB - it's world-wide. I think it kinda goes along with power - the more you have, the more you want. And, you can't legislate against something like that. Laws haven't stopped killing, stealing, drugs, or any of the other problems.

I always try to see a bully as one who has a problem we can't see, and, it is always easier to take it out on others, especially in a forum such as this when no one knows who or where you are.

I once worked at the world's largest bluejeans company as an office manager. We had internal audits every 3 years or so. There was one OM who always got perfect scores and I hated her (not really). Then I found out she had a very unhappy home life. Her husband and 2 sons treated her like she was a nobody - just there to wait on them hand and foot. Her only happiness was at work and she worked like the dickens to be the best she could be. Needless to say - I looked at her in a completely different way after I found that out.

 

[freemotion]

I took a course this summer on brain injury. One thing that stood out...and I got lost trying to find the place and walked in at this point so I don't fully know what the doc was talking about.....is that the brain is not fully developed in a teen/young adult and the part that allows them to say to themselves, "This will get better," is not yet fully working. So they gather what they need and kill themselves. In an adult, they are more likely to stop at some point even while thinking about suicide and remind themselves that it will get better, that the situation is temporary, as bad as it seems at the moment.

This makes it CRITICAL for adults to stop bullying in its tracks, immediately, and help the one being bullied. IMMEDIATELY.

ETA: And we don't always know how old someone is over on byh so it is important to jump in when there is bullying!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

great info, Free. do you think that this lack of ability to see a better future is compounded when kids see things like... their parents snarking at each other? or shows where adults put down each other?

or maybe lack of discipline in the home?

i know several families where its ok for the kids to call the parents names, or talk to the parents in a derogatory way - generally they are just echoing the way the parents talk to each other... but i would think thats pretty confusing???

 

[savingdogs]

Your comment was very interesting to me, Freemotion, regarding teen brains. I have often looked back upon my teenage years (I'm the mother of teens and a grown daughter now) and wondered what was WRONG with me? You described it perfectly.....my brain could not process that things would get better.

I hope I can keep this in mind in finishing parenting my teenage sons. Thank you. (But are we ever finished lol???)
Every now and then someone says something to you that really goes THUNK into the brain and becomes part of the permanent processing unit. Thanks, Free.

 

[lorihadams]

This is another reason that I want my kids homeschooled. Its not that I'm trying to shelter them but that I am trying to teach them right from wrong and not just turn them loose in school and expect them to "get it" from someone else...aka and overstressed, overworked, underpaid, generally ticked off about something teacher.

My children are not allowed to say the word "stupid". EVER. My father will tolerate (mildly) curse words but he will whip your tail if you call someone stupid.

I am always careful to point out to my children that when they say the word hate it hurts other people's feelings. I am also quick to point out "no, you don't HATE your sister, you hate what she DID" theres a difference. You can hate behavior, which can be changed and corrected, but hating a person is a totally different thing altogether.

Kids nowadays are too self absorbed....they have too much on their plates, too little supervision, and too many distractions.

 

[bibliophile birds]

thanks for the thoughts guys. i too just don't understand how people can attack others like they do. great example to kids, sheesh.

i added a little note about slang and hate speech at the end of the post.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Bullying is a sensitive and personal subject for me, and you say it can be stopped. I would really like to know how. the bullying has now followed my son into highschool. Any insight on how to stop it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bibliophile birds]

Bullying is a sensitive and personal subject for me, and you say it can be stopped. I would really like to know how. the bullying has now followed my son into highschool. Any insight on how to stop it would be greatly appreciated.

like i said in the post, a large social change really needs to take place to create a culture where it's not only unacceptable to bully, but it's virtually unheard of because we've taught children (and our fellow adults) to live with tolerance and understanding in their hearts. that is a TALL order, i know, but it's what SHOULD happen.

what can be done in the meantime? schools need to be held accountable for bullying. it is completely unacceptable for a school to be unaware of bullying or to ignore it. i seriously believe that bullying needs to be more aggressively monitored and punished. it wasn't in my high school and i, protector of the abused as i've always been, spent a LOT of time in the principle's office getting reprimanded for telling off *sshole bullies.

i'm not really a proponent of lawsuits, but i do believe that any school that doesn't work extremely hard to eliminate bullying should be sued by students who are targeted. parents should not only demand the school take action, they shouldn't hesitate to pursue legal action against ANY administrator or teacher who ignores bullying.

students also need to ban together. i started a student organization in my high school that pairs incoming freshmen with seniors. the seniors were responsible for mentoring the freshmen, showing them around campus, and helping them settle in. they had to meet at least once a month to talk about how things were going. seniors who participated got credit for community service (and got out of class every now and then for meetings). we had so many people sign up it was amazing. bullying that year (i started it my senior year) dropped significantly- surprisingly, many of the aggressors in our school (football players) signed up and became pretty good mentors. there was virtually NO freshman "hazing" (the favorite had been to shove a freshman behind a door in a corner next to the cafeteria and dump a trashcan over their head).

the program continued for a few years after i left and then people lost interest. bullying statistics went up again. the school had nothing to do with the project, it was all student run, and the school just failed to see it's value and maintain it.

i'm really sorry your son is being targeted. no child deserves that.