'Mean Girls' - Style Bullying Happening in Kindergarten

[In_The_Wind]

Last edited Sun Jan 19, 2014, 06:57 AM - Edit history (1)

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/girls-style-bullying-happening-kindergarten-21569806

Edit because the original video was pulled from youtube.

[enlightenment]

1. Right. Sheyl Sandberg is now an expert on

raising decent humans.

gah.

[RainDog]

2. I call b.s. that this has anything to do with empowering girls

to be able to see themselves outside of traditional gender roles. This sort of crap happened to me from ages 9-12. I thought it would stop when the bullies went to a separate school, but they continued to call and harass me on the phone, etc.

I think the reason they stopped is that they realized they would be total assholes to continue to do so after my mother died.

It was all about power on the playground. Some people start early. They were assholes later in life, too, fwiw.

[In_The_Wind]

3. I was the new kid in school.

It wasn't fun. There was one time an older girl stepped in to stop me from getting beat up by a group of three of my classmates.

[RainDog]

4. we were in an "experimental" program

that was part of the public school/local private teaching college...thing. lol. I wonder if they were testing out the "magnet school" concept - the program ran from 4th-6th.

anyway, we had a lot of freedom in the classroom and those numbnuts decided to use it to bully. at one point they stood up in front of the class and told those who wanted to hate me to move their desks to one side of the room. I was appalled, of course, but luckily they didn't get a lot of takers. The only people who would go along were other girls, and a minority of them, too.

It was a formative experience.

That, combined with my mother's death, made me not give a shit about what people thought.

[In_The_Wind]

5. Sorry you went through that. The adults should have supervised with a bit of kindness.

Children need love and guidance.

I've very glad most of the kids didn't move.


I lived with my aunt until she passed away when I was 9.
I grew up very quickly after that.

[RainDog]

6. that happened when the teach was out of the room

we were given lots of unsupervised time to do work - it was sort of Montessori-inspired - she was a big influence... using her methods in a public school.

anyway, my mother told me to "hate" them back and I remember crying, saying, "I can't do that... it's not nice..." so then she said I just had to ignore them. What I did, tho, was get involved in sports. I ran in city sports events as a kid, so that gave me something to occupy my time. Sports are great ways to teach girls confidence and teamwork.

The funny thing is they were the rich kids - they had so many more opportunities than a lot of us in the class. But I also remember being able to feel, on the back of my neck, when they were about to start another round of bullying.

It sounds like you had some tough times.

Yes. children need love and guidance and they need to know the future will be better than the present sometimes.