Bullying yesterday and today...what's the difference? Comparison and contrast.

[SummerSnow]

Kids have always been bullied. Years ago, kids killing kids over bullying was unheard of . Suicides over bullying was unheard of as well. Today it seems commonplace. Why? How did you handle bullies when you were a kid?

[Warpy]

1. I put one into the hospital when I was ten

It was serious overkill, the first smack with that board with a nail in it would have done the trick so I've always felt a little bad about that, but that kid never picked on me again.

Now, of course, I'd be sent to juvenile detention over it. Back then his mother just looked at how undersized I was, shut her mouth, and went home.

It had taken months of serious provocation to get me to that point. Other bullies just had to be taught that I was willing to get hurt just so I could hurt them. Then they pretty much left me alone.

Look at a bully, see a coward. That's why they were picking on an undersized girl.

[NV Whino]

6. I popped the little bastard in the eye

His dad forced him on the school bus the next morning sporting a black eye. Great entertainment for the rest of the kids, many of whom had witnessed the confrontation. Never underestimate the ire of an undersized girl.

[SummerSnow]

2. I fought this girl in the 6th grade. She was a persistent bully. I pushed her down..

in dog poop. She criec ,ran home. She never bothered me again

[Bluenorthwest]

3. That which is never spoken of is unheard of.

Does not mean it did not happen.

[etherealtruth]

9. Exactly! n/t

[hunter]

12. This.

I never figured out how to deal with bullies. My solution was to abandon high school. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I had a few "wins" against bullies, but my losses were much greater. One of the best decisions of my life was quitting high school for college. I was lucky, the high school and college administrators signed off on it. (This was before GED.) Being a minor in college was weird, but the violence went away. Adult bullies don't physically assault minors, and if they do they go to jail.

[csziggy]

18. I just shut down and limited my interactions with other kids

Kids had to work to make me believe they wanted to be my friend.

I did get revenge on one cadre of bullies years later when they asked me to let them cheat off my world history finals exam. I laughed at them - that was the easiest course that year in high school. Every question in every exam came directly from questions in the text book at the end of each chapter. Learn the answers to those few questions, you got an "A".

I finished with all "A"s in the class - the bullies all flunked the final and had to retake the class over the summer or repeat the grade the next year.

Sweet revenge!

[hunter]

29. I can recall a single moment of Schadenfreude in my life...

...back in my hometown. I'm married with kids. Still am. My life hasn't been a total catastrophe, even at my worst. I have many stories.

I once crossed paths with a guy who had bullied me in high school. I'd had many life adventures by then. But he was trapped as the insecure pretty boy-toy of a wealthy cougar who was holding him tight. He'd graduated from high school, never been much beyond that.

He was sweating, not me. I was nice. Very pleasant. Did not speak of the times he spit on my bicycle seat or tripped me up in the hallways. Not even the times he made fun of my late-blooming high school hairlessness. (I kept growing until I was 25 and gained six inches on him.)

I sometimes wonder if Ms. Cougar kept him or paid him to leave. But I avoid facebook.

Honestly, I hope he found a comfortable life. He sucked in high school because his own life sucked. When I was a public school science teacher I learned first hand how much some kid's lives suck.

My own wretched high school experience was little more than the wrong place at the wrong time. Of all the things that twisted me, this guy was not among the worst.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Years ago, a suicide by a kid (or an adult, for that matter) was often hushed up,

so you didn't hear about it as often. Bullying was tolerated or minimized ("boys will be boys&quot , and the bullied kid was just told to either ignore the bully or hit him back. Teachers, parents and other kids seldom offered any help or understanding, and a bullied kid would have been ashamed and alone (just like now, only maybe even worse). There may have been a lot more bullying-induced suicides that were never known or acknowledged.

[SummerSnow]

17. I totally agree with you

[mainer]

7. The difference is automatic weapons.

Now bullied victims have the option to respond with overwhelming force.

[Downwinder]

8. All of the first, second, third, and fourth grade jumped on the eighth grade

bully. Two room school. The other eighth graders would not let more than two of us on him at one time. Neither he nor anyone else was a bully after that.

[etherealtruth]

10. Aside from disagreeing with the premise ....

... "kids killing kids over bullying was unheard of . Suicides over bullying was unheard of as well."

I think technology makes it almost impossible to escape from "the bully' or "the bullying" ... At 51, when I was young a bully could not post a video of his/her bullying on line. a bully couldn't enter the very personal space of one's home (social media) ... a bully always needs an audience ... when I was young the audience was limited to those that were physically present, the same is not true today.

[RKP5637]

26. I think you hit the nail square on the head, "when I was young a bully could not post a

video of his/her bullying on line. a bully couldn't enter the very personal space of one's home (social media) ..."

[kelliekat44]

11. The biggest difference is that there was less access to guns where I grew up. nt

[LanternWaste]

13. I think that bullies have greater access to a number of new tools which make their actions more effi

All other things being equal, I think that bullies have greater access to a number of new tools which make their actions more efficient and accessible to a greater audience, the latter point a great strength of bullying, i.e., more witnesses to the shaming of the victim... which is ultimately, the bully's goal.

It was unthinkable in my time and in my neighborhood that the bullies I dealt with in 7th and 8th grade would ever be armed in any way, so I fought back, gave as much as I could, and hoped that they'd realize the cost for their fun was more than they wanted to pay. That and the humor I'd use against them/about them for the following week to all my peers usually paid off for me, and they'd leave me alone.

Which really sucks looking back on it... I could take getting beat up, but many of the kids that replaced me as their punching bags couldn't. I didn't know how to define it at the time, but 35 years later I clearly see that I had shamed myself by getting the bullies' attention on other kids instead of me.


ed: spelling

Second edit: I just remembered something relevant--- one of the 7th grade bullies is now a friend of mine on Facebook, wound up studying literature, lives in China, and did the AA thing a few years ago, and is a minor, yet notable writer of non-fiction. Things can be weird often... but just as often, patience wins.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Part of your answer

http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/13848
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/13876
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/13877

And if you want more, PM me, I have tapes from experts.

[RKP5637]

27. K&R!!! Excellent! n/t

[llmart]

15. I am envisioning the scene.....

from the movie "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie finally has enough from Scut Farkas and starts wailing away on him until he bloodies his nose

[distantearlywarning]

16. Cyberbullying

I can't imagine how horrific my school's bullies would have been with access to social media.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. In my high school (early '60s) there was this thing called a "slam book."

It was a spiral notebook; each page had a question and you could write answers, anonymously, of course. Most of the questions (usually written and circulated by the Mean Girls) had to do with what you thought of another kid, and it got pretty spiteful sometimes. But at least the only people who ever read these were those who got ahold of the slam book. Facebook and Twitter and all the other social media outlets have changed all that so now everybody gets to see these nasty libels. Having once been on the receiving end of a snarky slam book item, which was pretty hurtful but eventually faded away, I can't imagine how awful it must be for a kid to be pilloried on Facebook, out there forever to be seen by anybody.

[legcramp]

19. Zero tolerance and "conflict resolution"

I went to school in the 50's and 60's. Most of our "bullying" problems were handled with a little rolling around and a few punches thrown out back of the school.

We also had assistant principals and phy-ed teachers who weren't afraid of being sued if they slammed a trouble maker into the lockers once in a while.

[radicalliberal]

46. I seriously doubt that many mandatory boys' P.E. coaches have been opposed to . . .

. . . nonathletic boys being bullied by more athletic classmates. After all, many of these guys define masculinity solely in terms of athletic prowess and physical strength, which mindset would result in physically weak boys and boys who simply have no interest in sports being viewed as supposedly inferior and not deserving of any respect. (Yeah, I know, it's a badly written, run-on sentence; but I'm in a hurry). It's called machismo. Never mind there have been extremely courageous men who never participated in sports.

[GP6971]

20. I never backed down

I never won a fight, but never lost. I usually broke even and after that, those individuals didn't bother me again

In my time, bullying was in person. With today's social media, it's 24/7. I would not want to be a kid growing up in these times

[socialist_n_TN]

22. Yeah, I didn't back down. At least not too often.......

And a couple of times because I didn't back down, I didn't even have to fight. When I did, it was a couple of wins and a couple of losses. Which was pretty weird because at that time I had no IDEA of how to fight.

[Egnever]

23. In my experience

Most of the bullies dont know how to fight either. I was brought up with two step brothers we were all 6 months apart in age. My father thought we were cute when we fought so he encouraged it. I fought with them on a weekly if not daily basis at times. Knock down drag out wreck furniture types of fights.

On the one hand it was a despicable move on my fathers part. On the other I rarely lost a fight outside of the fights with my step brothers as nearly everyone I fought with had no clue what they were doing.

[GP6971]

30. Me too

I just absolutely refused to be intimidated by those assholes. What helped me was that I was small (still am BTW)......big guys just can't match a small persons speed. We don't pack that much punch, but we can inflict damage. The surprised look on their faces was priceless. But I also learned you didn't linger after the fight.

[RagAss]

24. Society allowed us to fight !!!

Fist fights or wrestling in the dirt. It seems every day after school there were school yard fights. Sometimes you got your butt kicked, sometimes you won....either way you gained respect and life went on. Some of the older kids who started out bullying me became my best friends by the time we were in high school.

Today kids end up in legal trouble or in therapy if they even raise a hand to each other. So guess what....no fights....they get a gun and settle it that way. It's all fucked up !

[William769]

25. I dealt with bullies they way my father taught me.

Speak softly & carry a big stick. Worked every time.

[RKP5637]

28. I often wonder as I age if the bullying will start again. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. I don't have to ask

I know the answer

[RKP5637]

33. I've always been pretty self sufficient, able to somehow keep my head above the water and

I've been lucky to have a pretty good head on my shoulders and good health for the most part. I know one day that will fade, more friends and relationships will be gone, the whole thing ... and god, some horrible debilitating disease.

That, to me, is the worst part, no longer being able to fend for oneself and fighting off the bullies in life we all encounter. Here, there are all sorts of facilities, but most are big $$$$$'s. I often wonder what becomes of those without big support groups and big bucks as life progresses. ... often I think they are just swept under the rug in la la land America.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Well, some just face

some cope, some commit suicide.

That is the reality of this country. Mental health is shitty and we encourage the bullies

[RKP5637]

37. Yep, sadly that is the way. ... I've often thought capitalism encourages bullying as

a road to success ... really, the way the system works here is to bully and climb over your competition. Bullying in America extends far and wide beyond the school playground, of course. ... other countries are similar in their own way ... bullying seems to be endemic to the human psychic and survival instincts ... for some. I'm often amazed at the bullying that goes on with DU, supposedly a bonded group.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Yup

[dem in texas]

32. I guess I am out of step with all of you

I think the parents of the bullies need to be contacted and told to get their kids under control.
Back in the 70's a group of girls were picking on my daughter. My daughter didn't tell me, but I found some muddy clothes in her closet. She didn't want to tell me what happened, but she finally said it was because some girls beat her up and pushed her down in the mud when they got off the school bus. I called the school, they said it was not their problem because it occurred after they got off the school bus.

This was back in the days when everyone's phone number was in the phone book, so I got on the phone and called the parents and spoke to which ever one would come on the phone. My daughter did not tell me their names, but I knew who they were because they lived in our neighborhood. I created a huge brohou and got lots of parents mad. But, the school changed their policy and got involved in stopping the girls bullying and they never bothered my daughter again.

It has always been my policy when dealing with children's misbehavior problems to contact the parent. The parents need to know what their kids are up to. If my kid was bullying or any other type of misbehavior, I would want to know so I could put a stop to it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. That is actually part of the answer

not one encouraged by modern society.

[RKP5637]

36. Exactly! IMO parents are generally the root cause of bullying and should be

confronted with bullying behavior of their offspring. I also think parents should be held legally responsible for the actions of their offspring.

[Nevernose]

39. I believe those parents are the minority

Parents who are horrified, or at least will take action, are in the minority. Kids don't become bullies naturally, nor do they learn it from friends (whom they spend very little time with. They learn it from their parents, and parents who are bullies are not usually receptive to criticism.

For an interesting read, I suggest Queen Bees and Wannabes. I got a lot of insight into female bullies from that when my own daughter was being bullied.

(And for the record, my kid never actually did anything to stop her bullies. She did, however, have a friend who loved her and happened to be totally fearless. When that kid stood up for my kid, the bullying stopped forever, my kid learned how to stick up for herself, and I am forever indebted to that weird little girl from the dysfunctional family that literally saved my daughter's life)

[dem in texas]

40. A little hell raising and conflict are good

A lot of times when you call someone on their bad behavior, they will get mad and you will have a scene, don't let that bother you. After the person goes away, they will think about what happened and know that they have crossed the line. The next time the situation occurs, I will bet that half of them will not act bad.

If I see or hear rude people talking at a play or breaking in line, I speak up. I may not get results at that moment, but I bet the next time the rude people will not try it.

Some people know they are taking advantage of you and that you will not speak out, that is why they do it. Speak up and call them on it! Let them get mad, they'll get over it and maybe act better.

The same for parents who are called on their children's behavior. They may act like they are offended, but I will bet that they will do something about it.

[rrneck]

41. I made it clear that he better grow eyes in the back of his head. nt

[SheilaT]

42. My older son, now 30, was bullied some in grade school

in part because he was small for his age, in part because he looked different (totally bald because of alopecia areata from age 4) and in part because he was very smart when it wasn't cool to be so smart.

We moved him to a private school starting in 7th grade and it made a huge difference for him. Being smart was a good thing there, looking a little different didn't matter, and he eventually grew up to a normal size -- 5'11".

I honestly think that the very biggest difference these days is the Internet. It seems as if that's used as a tool for bullying. I will say that I do not understand why kids being bullied on facebook don't just close that account and totally ignore it. Except that I'm a very old adult, not part of that culture, so I can't possibly understand what it is like for kids these days. I will say that if my kid were being harassed on the internet, I would both close down whatever accounts I could for my kid, and contact the parents of the bullies. When my kid was being bullied, we did contact the parents of the worst offender (and trust me, it was all relatively mild) assuring the parents that we were certain they wouldn't put up with such behavior from their child. They were genuinely shocked that their kid was behaving that way, and their kid stopped picking on our kid.

Again, this was nearly 20 years ago, and things are very different today. It behooves parents to monitor as much of their children's behavior as they possibly can.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

43. fantasy dream sequences in bed about how I would beat the shit out of the bullies

[a la izquierda]

44. I strove to become better than them in every way.

They live in the same shitty little suburb, I got out and saw the world, and have a career.

[HappyMe]

45. When I finally had enough,

I kicked that girl's ass. She never bothered me again.

There was a group of kids that used to pick on me and my friends. We stuck together, defended one another and didn't back down or run away any more. It worked like a charm.