How can we help?

if running away is not possible
or if kids go to parents or foster parents
who don't care, that is when suicide enters the picture

Here's the thing:

Shade, you're right... to a point. A little hazing toughens you up. These incidents are part of the natural order. It is a primal instinct that spawns the need to taunt and push others down to rise up and endure. It is heavily present in children because they have not been fully conditioned to supress it. It manifests in various ways as people mature.

It's survival of the fittest. Don't apologise for pointing that out.

The problem is, it is going unchecked and unnoticed to an extent that has become lethal.
Society has a great deal to do with this getting so out of hand. That is why something must be done. Bullying will never be completely snuffed out, but it can be responsibly managed. Children need positive reenforcement and encouragement to survive this level of brutality.
Not just the victims, either.
Kids that bully often do so because they have emotions and insecurities they do not know how to deal with. They lash out and take it out on other children to make themselves feel less damaged. They prey upon the weak because it makes them feel strong.

This ten year old girl felt that she had no other way out.
To be perfectly honest, I know exactly how she felt.
The only reason I am still here today, is because I cared more about hurting my mother than I did about escaping the pain. She came first. Always.
To this day, she is still blissfully unaware of nearly all of my history.

A lot of kids bottle this up and just try to get through each day.
Some days are worse than others.
If we can let them know that there's hope, and they're going to make it through this, maybe we'll read less stories like this. They just need to know it's going to be okay.
If we can reach the kids that bully, and give them more costructive ways to deal with their anger and frustration, they might not be so hard on others. They might not cross the line between aiming below the belt and going for the throat.

There has to be a limit in place. Not just with rules and laws, but in their minds.
These kids are aware that their behaviour is inappropriate.
That's why they're so good at hiding it.
They have to not want to behave this way.

Suicide is a major problem we have up here and part of it is people being told that Kids should be seen but not heard

Ive seen it so many times up here Especially back in the 90s People from the high school go down the hill towards the elementry school just to throw stones at the kids and take over their playground so they can smoke drink and have after school parties through the evening The next day the whole school yard is riddled with everything from discarded clothing garbage Graffiti and the worst of it Climbing bars are bent or broken in half The swings are either wrapped around the very top of the set or missing They piss and shit on the slides Condoms are in almost every nook and cranny often filled with ciggeret butts Bottles of Smirnoff Alcohol Which is illegal to have up here are everywhere Sometimes The windows to the school are broken other times Cardboard boxes are brought over and set on fire near or in the garbage bins and around the doors of the building

Kids who went to school were very afraid that they may not make it back home alive

There were alot of bomb threats aimed at the elementry school means the school must now be evacuated the cops being called in while they have better things to do and parents had to scramble to gather their kids from the old drop in center while they were in meetings and such

Now The highschool kids pass along insults name calling sometimes rock throwing Extortion and getting kids into ciggeretts and booze Make them think they are part of the fun and games and some of those punks carry knives too

A lot of reading...

I was bullied as well through Elementary school to High school. I had a friend who was bullied worse than me... A "hit list" thing happened to him as well, started out as a joke (He was trying to get a date and a friend gave the idea of making a list so he remembered who he had asked out).

As you can imagine someone took what they heard and interpreted in their own fashion. I had defended those allegations for my friend wherever I heard them.

In terms of myself never actually got into a fight, mostly verbal abuse. Few times people started in with me it got stopped either because they weren't going to be the one to throw the first punch or someone intervened.

I did make amend with certain people who messed with me before it got physical called a truce and we just didn't talk to each other. That was normally after they wrongly battered me or threatened me and than I responded with a threat of my own.

But, I'm relatively a non-violent person. Chivalry doesn't just stand for Honor and Respect... Justice plays a big part of it.

I completely agree with the rest here that something should be done regarding bullying and bullies should be shown the errors of their ways.

I wish they would actually teach humility and humanity to Elementary kids, especially if they aren't getting that learning from their Parents.

Even though I am I'm high school, I truly cannot offer very much insight to the subject of bullying. I have myself attracted about five or six bully's. About one or two each year. Being the neutral person I am, I acted indifferently towards them. The first one ended up leaving the school. The second and third actually ended up deflecting to my side, becoming my friends. The fourth was harder to get rid of. About half way through the year, I started splitting his name into 3 syllables. Surprisingly, it annoyed him, and he stopped. He then left the school at the end of the year. The other two just ended up stopping. I'm just too boring to bully.

The Anomaly wrote:

Even though I am I'm high school, I truly cannot offer very much insight to the subject of bullying. I have myself attracted about five or six bully's. About one or two each year. Being the neutral person I am, I acted indifferently towards them. The first one ended up leaving the school. The second and third actually ended up deflecting to my side, becoming my friends. The fourth was harder to get rid of. About half way through the year, I started splitting his name into 3 syllables. Surprisingly, it annoyed him, and he stopped. He then left the school at the end of the year. The other two just ended up stopping. I'm just too boring to bully.

When I was in school, I was at the bottom of the food chain, and I wondered why nobody would stick up for me. I had plenty of "neutral" students in my classes who would do nothing, and I grew a hatred for them that I had for the bullies as well. That hatred no longer exists, but I'm still bitter about the apathy that they showed.


But my case was a bit different, because I was aware that I was being bullied. I would talk to my mother about it, and she would provide comfort, however, her advice was completely inadequate, even to the point where any resistance to bullying resulted in me saying "Stop that, I'm sensitive."


I'm not as sensitive anymore. once I got into second grade I started getting into fist fights with the bullies. I would always lose, but I never gave up. I earned a nickname as the "punching bag" because I could take a beating and ignore pain without being afraid of it. I had nobody to stick up for though. I was the biggest target of bullying, and they didn't seem to let up even when I was holding my own.


Eventually, I got into so much trouble that my mother had to start homeschooling me, and despite that crippling my social experience growing up, it did stop me from becoming a delinquent.

we fight apathy

Bullying sucks and all but parental involvement tends to be an issue with these seemingly extreme cases. The parents are often the ones who fall short. Instead of protecting what they should hold most dear they pay the price for not paying close enough attention. The parents of the child who is the victim as well as those responsible for the agressor should share equal blame.

JohnDoe wrote:

Bullying sucks and all but parental involvement tends to be an issue with these seemingly extreme cases. The parents are often the ones who fall short. Instead of protecting what they should hold most dear they pay the price for not paying close enough attention. The parents of the child who is the victim as well as those responsible for the agressor should share equal blame.

I've tried telling this to parents before, and I've been met with extreme defensive behavior. As if they feel like they shouldn't be held responsible for their mistakes because it's "their" child and nobody else's business.

Double Helix wrote:

JohnDoe wrote:

Bullying sucks and all but parental involvement tends to be an issue with these seemingly extreme cases. The parents are often the ones who fall short. Instead of protecting what they should hold most dear they pay the price for not paying close enough attention. The parents of the child who is the victim as well as those responsible for the agressor should share equal blame.

I've tried telling this to parents before, and I've been met with extreme defensive behavior. As if they feel like they shouldn't be held responsible for their mistakes because it's "their" child and nobody else's business.

Well, of course. Not many can be told they are in the wrong in such a delicate matter and take it well, especially if what's being said rings true.

I think I mentioned it before, but parents are often left out of the loop. Kids work very hard to hide this sort of thing. Humiliation aside, they usually feel like the situation will get worse if they say anything. In some cases, they are right.

In my case, my parents were so busy working their asses off to make ends meet, I did not want to add to their stress. I tried discussing it with some of the teachers, but they made me feel like it was my fault. Like I had done something to cause it. They would ask me why I didn't try harder. Why I didn't make more of an effort to fit in. Why I dressed the way I did, and didn't do my hair up like the other girls. At one point they talked me into joining the cheerleading squad. I had no interest in it, but I had grown tired of being an outcast, and was willing to try anything. Things only got worse, and that was when the hurt turned to rage. I started becoming destructive. To myself. To property. To the people that hated me for no other reason than the fact that I wasn't like them.

The first time I got jumped, I set that monster free. It scared me how much I liked it. I tried to go back to being invisible, but the cycle had started. The next time I got jumped, I tried to walk away, and got stabbed twice with a screwdriver. I don't remember much after that, aside from stepping on the girl's neck and punching her in the face until she stopped trying to get up. Her friends just stared. Had they decided to help, I might not be here. The school knew about the incident. But, because it technically happened off campus, and I walked to and from school, they were not even allowed to mention it to my parents. It boiled down to whether or not they were legally responsible for me. They were not.

The fights continued for months, and then years, until I got tired and started skipping school. My parents were informed that I was ditching. There was no mention of the fights. They quickly realised I was not going to bring it up either, even though they tried to get me to say something during the parent/teacher conference. And, as if this would urge me to speak up, they gave me an ultimatum. I could straighten out and start coming to class, or they were going to transfer me to the alternative education site. Once again, I was treated like the instigator. In my anger, I did not hesitate to agree to be transferred. Sadly, it was the best thing I could have done. The smaller campus was caged off with a chain link fence by the football field. We called it The Zoo. But suddenly I was down to three teachers, 85 students who had been kicked out of the larger school for various things, a half day schedule, and classes that functioned on a contract instead of a standard time table. No more getting scolded for jumping ahead on the coursework.

Made the honour role in less than a month. Funny that it was the so-called bad seeds that treated me like a human being. But the damage was done. My self image has still not recovered to this day. There are people who blame the parents. There are people who blame the schools. Both are right to some degree, but the real problem is not going to be mended by one or the other. It has to be both. We live in a society where the parents are blinded by economical and financial issues, and schools are bound by legality and emphasis on image. These kids are being ignored. The bullies AND the victims. It shouldn't take an outbreak of suicides to wake people up.

So, how do we get their heads out of their asses?

I still think communication is key.