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1 A Mom Anon  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 12:22:47pm

Sigh. I wish I knew what the answer is. My son is finally out of high school,it was so hard for him. He came out of it with no friends,no one could be bothered to befriend the different kid,the autistic one. He was harassed and bullied for being perceived as gay,because he chooses to wear his hair long in a school full of jocks,rednecks and "perfect" people with perfect hair and faces. I blame the adults,this is learned behavior and the consequences for being a bully simply don't exist. It is quite often the"good"kids,the athlete,the cheerleader,the class president,that bullies and the adults simply can't believe those kids would do such things. If there were no social rewards for being a bully it would make a dent in things,but with social media being so important to teens I have no clue if there's a way to deal with it now.

2 thecommodore  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 12:29:31pm

One factor in all of this is that parents and teachers often have the same mentality of high school kids. Especially teachers, many of whom want to be liked by the popular students, so they go along with whatever meme they're following, and they either look the other way towards bullying, or are active participants.

Ditto the parents. Part of the keep up with the Joneses mentality so prevalent in the burbs.

3 thecommodore  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 12:30:44pm

I don't have kids, but when I hear stories like this, I want to go down whatever school was involved and slap some teachers and/or administrators silly..,verbally of course, using Biden vs Ryan as a model. lol

4 cinesimon  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 1:55:16pm

What's totally, totally fucked up - beyond the situation before her suicide - is the atrocious, monstrous bullying going on in the comments pages of her videos at Youtube. There's a lot of extremely sick kids. I've never seen anything quite so frightening.
These kids are celebrating her death on so many levels, and encouraging anyone who's different to do the same. It's really, really freaky. Just piles and piles of monstrous bile.
In my opinion, this s what happens when a large politico-religious movements such as the right wing tell their kids that it's OK to hate express hatred towards those who're different - they encourage it. They seem to think it's righteous, and glorifying god.
I totally blame the right wing for this. Their celebrities behave this way, their politicians behave this way, their parents behave this way. And duh - their kids behave this way. I won't be surprised if most of the online bullies are from the states and Europe.

5 cinesimon  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 2:06:49pm

re: #2 thecommodore

You have go to be joking. The teachers? Sure they're imperfect, but most their inaction is a direct result of orders and policy from management - nothing to do with their own attitudes. No way do 99.9999% of teachers allow bullying simply to be liked. That's utter, utter nonsense. And remember, this is Canada - not America. Teachers are able to combat bullying far more than American teachers are, who in many states are restricted because of 'religious freedom' and the pro-conformity attitudes of the community. It's very different in Canada.
No way can teachers be even slightly blamed. This is about parents, and about society. For example, the right wing have been aggressively reacting to anti-bullying programs by telling their kids that they should be doing it, and by carving out religious exemptions. Apparently it's just another way to glorify 'god'.
But teachers?
Sheesh!
That seems more a gut reaction than an informed one, I must say.

Sorry if I seem to aggressive, but I'm so sick and tired of this anti-teacher culture which is primarily based on the lies of corporations profiting from 'reform', the manipulation of the population by right wing politicians, and parents who think that they have no responsibility for the behavior and education of their kids. The aggressive and very effective demonization of teachers is disgusting. And built entirely on lies and greed.

6 dragonfire1981  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 2:17:58pm

I went through hellish bullying in Grade 8, but one of the few defenders I had was my homeroom teacher. God bless her wherever she is. She was a big help to a shy kid when he really needed it.

My vice principal on the other hand, was completely useless and did nothing to stop the abuse I was receiving.

7 Mostly sane, most of the time.  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 2:36:48pm

My daughter thinks I'm horrible to read her facebook stuff.

Sorry, not going to not read it. If there is a problem I want to know.

8 Sheila Broflovski  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 3:16:48pm

When I was being bullied in 5th grade, I went to my teachers. They told me "When they laugh at you LAUGH WITH THEM."

That sucked so hard.

9 Tiny Alien Kitties are Watching You  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 3:18:37pm

re: #7 Mostly sane, most of the time.

My daughter thinks I'm horrible to read her facebook stuff.

Sorry, not going to not read it. If there is a problem I want to know.

You might just find something like this...

[Link: www.facebook.com...]

Yep, they are still at it, even after her death.
Please click on the "gear thing" at the page and report it to Facebook as harassment, maybe they will wake up and shut the page down.

10 Decatur Deb  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 3:21:50pm

re: #7 Mostly sane, most of the time.

My daughter thinks I'm horrible to read her facebook stuff.

Sorry, not going to not read it. If there is a problem I want to know.

If you read it and you're wrong, she'll get over it by age 30. If you don't read it and you're wrong, she might not make 20.

Let her know you don't sneak.

11 thecommodore  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 3:35:45pm

re: #5 cinesimon

You have go to be joking. The teachers? Sure they're imperfect, but most their inaction is a direct result of orders and policy from management - nothing to do with their own attitudes. No way do 99.9999% of teachers allow bullying simply to be liked.

I'm going on my own experience. When I was in junior high school, I was bullied pretty bad. Not as bad as Amanda Todd, but it was a living hell, and the only time teachers intervened to stop anything were the two times I actually fought back, and that was only to break up the fight. The assistant principal had no interest on why I was in a fight, even though I had no record of disciplinary problems and the kids I was fighting did. He only cared that it didn't happen again.

Other times, I would be bullied, or teased, or tormented in some way, and the perps would actually complain to the teacher saying I was bothering them, and the teacher believed them. And yes, it was jocks, or some other "popular" segment of the school caste system responsible.

It finally stopped for me by the time I was in high school, but I was witness to acts just as bad if not worse than I wen through, and I saw teachers in a position to stop it simply do nothing, or try to laugh it off.

Granted, this was 30 years ago, and there is more consciousness about bullying now than there was then, but all too often, "popular" kids got away with infractions large and small simply because of who they were...including bullying.

12 Aligarr  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 3:37:06pm

I'm glad this shit wasn't around when my kids were growing up , but I've got three boys . Surely there must be a way to hunt down this P.O.S . who propagated her photo .What a heartless s.o.b. ! As for kids in general , you bet their vicious . My youngest was bullied at the bus stop every morning and the punk doing it threatened top call the cops if I touched him . A week later he pulled a small pen knife on my son . I confronted this kid the next day , and asked if that is what he truly did .He answered yea what are you gonna do ? I grabbed him by the back of the neck went into his pocket and grabbed the knife , gave him a kick in the ass and told him to go call whoever he wanted to call .Embarrassed totally he left the bus stop never to return ......dont know how he got to school after that and didn't care .Kids are cruel and get away with it , due to non-existent or simply bad parenting . I made it quite clear to all my boys if they ever engaged in bullying they'd have me to answer to . Never had a problem with them . If that is not taught and emphasized , kids will give in to peer pressure . Ya gotta teach' em .

13 lostlakehiker  Mon, Oct 15, 2012 5:01:13pm

Somebody should have told her flat out, loud and clear that she is valuable, loved and cherished. That if she did something wrong, she wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last, and she had company, namely, the whole world. That-hell-these sorts of talks have to be personal, from the heart, and topical and pertinent. There isn't any boilerplate. There are just main ideas. Been there and said that to a suicidal person I knew well enough to be the one they opened up to. [No details---it's nonnayabidness]


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