In my case it got harder for me, due to the fact that the school system I was apart of growing up, more often punished the victim more than they did the bully. The line of reasoning they always gave to me was, stop making myself a target, which as I got older I learned meant, stop being so weird and we won't have to worry about any real legal trouble.

Funny, I was thinking about this just this morning. Especially the 2nd question. I have no answer, but I wonder the same thing. Are the bullied actually less likely now than they were before to stand up for themselves? Or does it just seem that way?
*Are* there students who have the guts to stand up and/or fight back, and the Media is mum on the subject? I do notice a strong tendency in the Media to draw attention to people (not just students) who are basically "victimized", or perhaps to portray them as such. :\

As to the trends of bullying you purport, I think the opposite is true. Bullying has gone from pushing and beating to constant harassment offline and online. Bullying has become less savage but a greater part of victim's lives. Violence still occurs, though. The scope of the problem is huge.

Is it harder for victims to stand up for themselves? There is greater help than ever for them. The "It Gets Better" campaign for victims of homophobia. Hotlines, helplines, websites, online communication. A stricter intolerance of bullying among parents and teachers. Communication is still difficult, because bullying is so harmful that many victims are still not getting the help they need.

I am sorry you were a victim of bullying, and while I may have offered a rebuttal of many of your claims, I am in absolute agreement that much more needs to be done to stop bullying and aid victims.

I think it's because parents/adults keep telling kids that fighting back isn't an answer that they need to either walk away or report everything to an adult which really doesn't do jack squat in my opinion. I think a lot of these kids problems would go away if they just stood up for themselves and knocked out whoever was picking on them, I'm not saying do something stupid like shooting up the school or kill anyone but learn to fight so that the next time this person or persons try to instigate crap you can knock them down a peg. Once people learn you're not an easy target they tend to leave you alone.

The biggest new danger in bullying is the easy access of the internet and social media. When I was growing up in the 80's and early 90's, whatever a bully said to me was just verbal and was heard by very few people. With the internet, those words stick and get spread like a virus, even reaching people who may never have met the victim and are only joining in the razing "for the lulz."

This is why kids have felt so lost and powerless. Not only is the internet giving new, more powerful weapons to aggresors, but the very ones who used to be able to put a stop to it -- specifically, teachers and parents -- have lost all their authority over the bullies. When the danger zone spreads well beyond the playground, they are oftentimes completely clueless how to stop it, or even completely ignorant to its potential use as an attack platform.

I think this is why bullying is being taken much more seriously now; simply because, with modern technology, it has the potential to actually BE much more serious. It's no longer limited to namecalling during recess or stealing lunch money. When you have someone's profile being bombarded by hundreds of hate messages from complete strangers, or having their emotions torn by an online "friend" who is secretly a bully behind an alias, the wounds cut MUCH deeper.

I agree there. Technology does make it worse. I remember when I was at St. Brigid's, some of my classmates found out what my phone number was and began prank calling both me AND my parents (on a side note, I was prejudiced by not only NOT being Catholic--I got in under a technicality--but because my mother was American).

In addition, the St Brigid's kids really could be vicious, conniving things when they wanted to be, and in some ways, I found that more unsettling than if it had been physical abuse. God only knows what that could have turned into, had these little monsters had access to cell phones or Facebook.

Bullying from what i've seen and read about has gotten worse over time. Nowadays it seems that the bullies are more likely to work in packs instead of individuals.

Also how these youngsters get to the point of snapping or committing suicide has to do with the length of time that they are bullied, Most are bullied for years and nothing is ever done due to parents and teachers not doing anything when the problem is brought to their attention. Some people will be able to just let the bullying go and shrug it off, others though have trouble doing that and it can cause severe mental and psychologial damage.

Case in point, i was picked on and bullied for years, from 5th grade through junior year at High School. Had very few friends and teachers didnt seem to care, it all finally came to a head 1 day and i snapped at a fellow student who was picking on me telling him if he really wanted to fight that badly he could meet me at the bike racks after school as thats the way i left to go home. All i remember of the fight is him taking the first swing after his friends instigated it, then just seeing him rolling on the ground clutching at his leg screaming while i was restrained by 2 teachers. Come to find out later that i had somehow gotten him on the ground and slid his leg under part of the bike rack and then jumped on it. Needless to say no one bothered me after that day, but it does show that over time bullying can have rather bad consequences if teachers and parents dont take action to prevent it from happening.

I actually used to be bullied my whole life.. through public school and through a majority of high school.. its funny - two years ago I hosted a high school reunion.. and most of the bullies who treated me like shit came up to me - shook my hand - and said they respected me...

...Was quite a shock, to be honest.. at least they matured...

I second that. Of course, by the time I was in high school, I was well respected even by the kids who treated me like shit during my elementary school years. And even today, I am still respected and honoured when my old classmates see me walking around town. They definitely have matured quite a lot in recent years.

I think what the real major outcry is that some kid got bullied about two years ago, and she committed suicide as a direct result of it. This made news and got the attention of everybody. It came to the conclusion that if the person was not bullied in school then there would be no reason for the kid to kill himself. That is why there is such a major focus on bullying in school and cyber-bulling.

You're always told not to fight back, and to go tell a teacher. That doesnt help.

What do the teachers do when you tell them?

They pretty much never did anything. It only gave the bullies more reason to keep their aggro on you, and the adults would end seeing you as the pest, because you keep bothering them with your problems and don't keep quiet like everyone else.

I never had that problem. Granted the teachers at St Brigid's were of very little use, but I could at least rely on my mother to go to the school and light a fire. Once she got involved, that got people moving to resolve issues on the school's end.

Why don't more parents have that kind of network going when their kids have a problem like that?

Be careful what you wish for. My parents were way overprotective of me at that time. After it got so bad that I could not effectively hide my problems from them, they went ballistic, and their actions ended up getting another kid expelled from that school (it was a Catholic school... yay). That didn't exactly endear me to any of the other students there, ah-heh.

If I was able to go back, I think I would have been a lot more proactive (not to mention violent, ahem), but then again, I was much too afraid of the authority both the teachers and my own parents wielded over me. I kinda think that's why I'm rather suspicious and distrusting of anyone in authority now. Well, in real life anyway. My fantasy life sure got a whole lot more interesting, because I spent so much time dwelling on it, haha. Even all the stuff I share here is just a little bit of that; the more "fucked up" and kinky stuff anyway. ^_^

I know what you mean, back then I was afraid of their authority. Not the same now.

Yep, MagicalSlave got it just right.

I know that if such an outlet as YouTube existed back when I was in the 8th grade, I might have used it the same way that kid has. Instead, I became much more introverted and reclusive, and it took me basically my entire lifetime up until a few years ago to finally get myself back out to even attempt to be social again (and I'm glad that I finally tried, ah-heh!). Getting treated like that is not cool and never has been.

So I'm going on record as saying that just because it's "always been this way" doesn't make it right. That's pretty close to appealing to tradition. And there have always been kids with this kind of problem. It's only now that they have the kind of networked social tools at their disposal that it's finally getting the kind of attention it's always deserved, only never got before because it was so easy to dismiss. I would most definitely call this progress.

You know, I can relate to this indefinitely. During the second half of my elementary school years, I was tormented and bullied on an almost constant basis. The reason was that I was unlike the other kids. None of them wanted to accept me for who I am. And it got up to the point where I would just snap. Sometimes I'd get so fueled that I would just attack the person and senselessly hurt them. And in spite of all this, it's mostly me that gets in trouble for it. Of course, since I went to a catholic school, fighting and violence was completely unacceptable, but in those times, I felt that violence was pretty much the only answer to my problems, which made the other kids tease me even more, even when I threw my little fits whenever something blew my top.

Even in my family, I sometimes get picked on and made fun of, and it still irks me a little to this day. It's probably best not to think about it, but I really can't help with who I am. Maybe I just have to deal with it. I dunno.

I think action should be taken against bullying if the person feels physically threatened. Name calling is all hear-say and some students could blow things out of proportion, and in result not learn how to deal with social conflict if action is CONSTANTLY taken for things they can handle themselves. When I was younger, I was bullied severely and physically. We live about a half hour outside of Detroit so you can only guess that most of the students thought they were tough shit and kicked everyone else around- literally. I was not only slammed into lockers, once shoved down a flight of stairs, had large textbooks thrown at my head daily, jumped, punched, kicked, etc.

I developed anxiety at that age to the point of ulcerative colitis, and 4 other stomach disorders. Not to mention daily panic and anxiety attacks. By the age of 17, I had to have 3 colonoscopies and 4 endoscopies to find out why I was constantly doubled over in pain. It was the stress from the physical abuse on top of the verbal abuse I received daily. If it was JUST verbal abuse, I think I could have learned to deal with it. But when physical abuse is put in, and nothing is being done, it's something I COULD NOT handle.

Bullying THEN should have been acted upon. And I regret that it wasn't, because I have a lot of stress issues that have resulted from the trauma I had. And bullying should be acted upon if it's at that level. It's a really touchy subject, but at the same time where there are minor, verbal bullying happening, the parents should teach the kids to stand up for themselves. When it came to the verbal bullying, my mother went to solve all of my issues since she worked at the grade school I attended. And it stunted my ability to be able to stand up for myself and fight my own battles. But I do really wish someone would have stood up for me when the physical abuse happened.

Now another example is my 13 year old cousin. She recently had an incident she shared with me where her friend read a letter she passed to someone who wasn't supposed to see it. They considered THAT (for some reason I can't even imagine) bullying and had a whole counseling session and crap. It boggles me because the whole situation was immature bull crap they should have learned to deal with on their own. But they had the school involved, they probably missed class for it, and it was just a waste of time, imo. X-x;

Dang. What a horrible thing to have to go through! *hugs*

Yeah, it seems to me that a lot of people don't know where bullying begins and where it's gone too far, so they get a little ass backwards in regards to when action needs to be taken and what to do.

*hugs* I'm better because of it, it made me brave. :) But the physical stuff kinda left a mess I gotta clean up with my nerves. Xx;

I think the teachers should be more aware of the social aspects of the classroom. They just 100% focus it seems on the academics and they don't understand that children are growing socially as well and that they have little intricate webs between each other and history with each other. And the fact that children that age are growing and learning socially as well as academically and especially when puberty hits in middle school, it's hell for the people being bullied. \:

I actually told my cousin that her whole situation really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and she doesn't know what real problems are. I hope she realizes what real issues are and gets over her petty crap because this is feeding the school to believe the problems are caused by problems like hers.

Grade school (and by extention, high school) is a waste of time in and of itself, imo.

I've never thought it was a waste of time. I got a lot of mileage out of it, educationally. And socially, it was only those two years in a Catholic Establishment that gave me trouble. When I was in high school, I was actually pretty well liked. But I had just moved to a new home in another country, so I had time to resituate myself and get off to a fresh new start.

I'd say you were lucky, then!

Lucky you, I didn't even go to prom out of bitterness.

It's not. You learn a lot as your brain grows which is during those ages. It's ignorant to believe that it is a waste of time in it's entirety, honestly. I also think that people that are home schooled lose out on developing social backgrounds. Being able to learn how to learn, start with the small stuff and work up, etc. is important. Education is important and always will be, as well as social growth.

I learned not to trust anyone and to keep to myself.

When I finally went to a local community college, I had to start all over again at basic math. (I pretty much started over again with basic everything.) But I found that I loved the environment there so much, that I managed to work my way up to third semester calculus.

So maybe grade school wasn't a waste of time for you. It certainly was for me.

My experience with K-12 schooling in the 1970s and 1980s says that it was not so much education as it was an unforgiving pressure cooker of indoctrination. That I actually learned any of the subject matter being taught was happenstance. Having to care about that shitty Lord of the Flies environment made the task of learning difficult, and I mistakenly considered any sort of education to be a form of punishment. Fortunately I realized that it wasn't the education itself that was the problem, but the hostile work environment. As soon as I was freed from the system, I found that college was actually about learning things.

That said, I think many kids make the same mistake I made regarding education. They need to realize that their school is not the epitome of education, and that learning things is never, ever a liability (especially learning from your own mistakes).

i am a firm believer in the idea that we should re-institute "Trade Schools" some kids are good with their hands and would benefit from this option. i feel it would cut back in the "drop-out" rate as most kids who drop out don't feel they have any reason to go. not everyone is cut out to go to college and that seems to be the ONLY option these days that or go into the military. there needs to be another option for kids other than flipping burgers and other dead end jobs

--Rick

yeah! this.

there is a need for people who are trained for trade. we need welders and such.

besides, get the kids who aren't college bound out of the regular classes, to keep those classrooms not so packed.

Man, I cannot remember the last time when I got bullied. But one time in my sophomore year in high school, on the day of my birthday, I was given these so called "Birthday Socks", and it resulted me in enduring abuse. It was very humiliating, especially when one of those people was a girl I had a crush on... To add insult to injury, it happened on one of the most special days of my life...

Smart money says that bullying is probably about on par now with what it was like when we were growing up, it's just that in today's age of the internet/24 hour news we get to see it more.

Think about it - no Facebook for these victims to perform on and the likelihood of suicide is severely diminished because they no longer get to make a statement to the world with their actions. No 24/7 news channels desperate for stories means that the death (should it even happen) is simply a local tragedy the rest of the country never hears a peep about.

Some of bullies are getting more violent, but that's simply due to the increase in single, welfare mothers producing these children - children raised in a borderline "Lord of the Flies" environment lack the morals and empathy to calm down when they've about to go too far.

Finally, going back to the internet, bullies now have the ability to strike victims anywhere in the world, thus allowing a bully to attack scores more victims then he previously could. Not only can bullying be done from a distance but it can also be done on a national level via sites like ED for instance - it's bad enough for a kid to be name called on a school or neighborhood level but imagine how an emotionally weak individual would react to being name called by the entire internet?

CS raises some good points, and I'd like to add that the attitudes of parents have changed over the years.

40 years ago the parents were more involved with their kids education, and taught their children discipline and manners before they ever went to class.

Now the prevailing attitude is "You're accusing my child of something? HOW DARE YOU HARASS MY LITTLE ANGEL!" or at best apathy towards their kids (mis)behavior.

Parents are expecting TV and the schools to do the child-rearing that used to be done at home, in essence, trusting the government to raise their kids. (Well, Catholic schools will instill a sense of discipline and conformity, but only in the realm of training the kids to blindly obey authority figures) Trusting the government to rais kids is foolish, the only thing governments can raise are armies and taxes.

Some of bullies are getting more violent, but that's simply due to the increase in single, welfare mothers producing these children - children raised in a borderline "Lord of the Flies" environment lack the morals and empathy to calm down when they've about to go too far.
And here we have the perfect example of CS's rampant racism and stereotyping he displays in his personal posts. To hear him talk makes one think that if you get rid of welfare, you'll get rid of bullies. Ain't gonna happen, CS, because the bullies I've always had to contend with came from white, middle-class FAMILIES (that's mother AND father) in comfortable suburban settings, not "welfare mothers" in the ghetto.

In the 1950's and continuing through the 80's, John Calhoun, an American ecologist and research psychologist, carried out a number of research studies on population density and its effects on rodent behavior. His most well-known experiment was the "Mouse Universe," a utopian mouse environment where everything was provided except one thing: the amount of space the mice lived in was fixed.

When the mice were introduced to their new home, things progressed swimmingly -- for a while. The population doubled about every 2 months, until almost the end of the first year. Then something interesting started happening around the 10th month: the population started to decline. There was no shortage of food, water, or nesting materials. There were no predators. Yet the population started to fall. In addition, aberrant behavior was started to be noted in the interactions between the mice: Expulsion of the young before weaning was complete, wounding of young, inability of dominant males to maintain the defense of their territory and females, aggressive behavior of females, passivity of non-dominant males with increased attacks on each other which were not defended against were just some of the problems cited. After 20 months, the population drop continued towards extinction of the colony: many of the females stopped giving birth. Those that did become pregnant exhibited a larger number of spontaneous abortions. Some withdrew from the society, never engaging in courtship or fighting. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits.

There were many who scoffed at Calhoun's conclusions: that when all available space is taken and all social roles filled, competition and the stresses experienced by the individuals results in a total breakdown in complex social behaviors, ultimately resulting in the demise of the population. The critics proclaimed, "Yeah, but they're mice! They're not humans with a brain that thinks." The problem is that a thinking brain can be more confining than any limited amount of space. If you go back and observe the rise and fall of those civilizations that weren't affected by invading hoards, the similarity in the pattern is unmistakeable. The civilizations continue to grow and expand until they reach the limits of their growth, whether physical or mental, and then start breaking down until there are remnants, if anything, left. The greatest example of this effect is the Roman Empire, which was already in decline when neighboring conquerors took it out the rest of the way. To a lesser extent, the British Empire also exhibited this pattern with its colonies covering the world that slowly broke away or were released intentionally when it was no longer viable to maintain them. And, I'm sorry to say, the United States is displaying this pattern today: increased aggressive behavior (bullying, rising crime), lack of defense against the rising aggression or an attempt to isolate against the perceived threat like immigration legislation or erecting border walls, the withdrawing away from social situations through other activities like video gaming -- or using the video games and other factors like social media (cell phones, texting) to create an insular barrier between the person and others.

Are we mice? No, but we are animals, with millions of years of evolution behind us, just like the mice. We're not so different than some might think.

I agree with CS myself. Yeah, bullies come from all backgrounds, but the lack of discipline and the increase of single low-income mothers with lower parenting skills adds to the problem is producing more unruly offspring.

Nice, little pigeon hole explanations for what is a quite complex subject.

Nice, little pigeon hole explanations for what is a quite complex subject.

Nice denial of reality.

Denial of reality is only for those who ignore truth and live in their own little utopian world where everyone is expected to do the best thing for everyone else, and if they don't there must be some simple outside force at work. Except that world doesn't exist. Oh, there are a few such individuals out there that follow the utopian example, exemplified by people like Ghandi or Mother Theresa. And the world is better for their actions. But on the whole, humans are savages. Left on their own the majority will always go for personal enhancement over the good of humanity. That's why we've developed mores, customs, and laws, to control those stronger that would prey on the weak, bullying being one such circumstance.

In earlier times it was the entire community that enforced those mores, customs, and laws. Towns were smaller, people more intimate in knowing their neighbors. As population grew, people became more solitary. Today's society is more insular, taking on attitudes such as "It's not my job to raise your kid." They've taken on the role of Calhoun's "Beautiful ones" that isolated themselves from others. You claim that study doesn't apply because humans occupy so little of the available living space. The truth is, for a thinking brain, "living space" isn't confined to physical reality, but what the brain perceives as its reality. If that brain feels confined, or trapped, it reacts as if it is indeed confined or trapped whether that's the reality of the situation or not.

And here we have the perfect example of CS's rampant racism and stereotyping he displays in his personal posts.

And here we have the perfect example of Akea lying as usual, seeing as there's zero mention of race in my post.

The mouse example is also a terrible example - Americans only live on about 5% of our land, meaning there's plenty of room for us to grow.

Additionally, if space was a consideration then European and Japanese schools should be literal death traps as the average European has about half the living space of an American while Japanese have even less.

It's real simple kid - if a child grows up without having been taught empathy for others and only caring for itself then it will have no empathy for others and no consideration for them.

In a two parent home a child has a better chance of not ending up like that - there will be exceptions of course, but all the studies have proven - eliminate race and only look at single motherhood and you see that crime and poverty rates are the same. These are also the kids who are most prone to such behavior because they did not receive the needed attention and guidance growing up.

Youre' right, I should have said bigotry.

However, I do agree with you about guidance. (Oh the horrors! CS and I agree on something!) But, I'll give some single parent families better marks in that area than those with two parents. and some gay and lesbian couple families exceed heterosexual pairings.

Not sure if it was mentioned, they are now saying "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer" promotes bullying.

It's all those reindeer who laughed, called him names, and wouldn't let him join in any reindeer games!

But since we're looking at it from Rudolph's viewpoint, I would say just the opposite in fact. It shows how hurtful bullying can be...and how the person being bullied can rise above the others who have nothing better to do.

I don't bring this up often at all but I will tell ya. In about grade 4 I believe I did have a split class that year with grade 3's also. There one kid in my class that just hated me for one reason even though I had no reason to. Lucky my house was not that far from the school so I ran pretty much all the way home if I could on the days his mom didn't pick him up. now this bring me high school one person and a few others with him hated me. For two years were hell and I had to share a class with each member of this guys group.

We had this talking locker in the school and one night I had enough. i wrote this 3 page thing that this kind along with his group did to me. Two days later suspend and never returned. I was quite happy about that and I had no problem ever since.

Last thing in about 2002 to 2003 as my grandpa died a few days before Christmas. I was bulled online and off pretty much everywhere I went due to this one thing everyone I know thought i did. I went into this dark place where I thought went to places to end it all and be free from it all. This even happened when i went to check something the day of the funeral. i basically told everyone to go to hell and then vanished from online along with going out anywhere. Stayed around the house for six months and didn't talk to hardly anyone

I keep saying, "Don't legislate the bully, teach the bullied to stick up for themselves!"


"...and use the 'OFF' button."

That's one thing I've argued, albeit tentatively as technology is becoming more and more relied upon....but yeah, things have an off button they can push and walk away from.

Totally.... and I'm lucky TT actually gets it.

But isn't the use of the "OFF" button an acknowledgement that the bully has won? By turning the system off, the bullies are actually keeping you from doing something you might like to do, like talk with friends across town, across the country, even across the world.

Some may think of it that way. I see it as the ultimate "Flip The Bird" statement. "Type all you want, troll. Don't care.' (Goes for the MUTE / IGNORE features too.)

But, I also only see it as needed for someone that doesn't realize the MUTE / IGNORE option is available.... like kids.

I don't think bullying has gotten worse, it's just that the victims are speaking out about it in public now.

My nemesis was a boy four years older than me who was in my grade. He punched me in the face a few times, knocked me over the edge when I was sitting on my porch, smashed our family's windows, punched my sisters, and basically added a random chance of misery every time I left my house until senior high school. Nobody heard anything about it except my parents, because kids had no public outlet for expressing themselves back then.

What did your parents do, though?

When it got really bad in junior high, my dad had passed away and my mom often had bouts with schizophrenia, so we were pretty much on our own.

I used to get singled out a whole lot at school because of my social awkwardness as a result of being born with Asperger's. Things got a little bit better after high school but even since then, I've been alone, depressed, unmotivated, unemployed, and lacking any sort of friends to hang with.

In earlier years, the worst thing was that parents and teachers just didn't give a shit, or maybe they secretly didn't like you and weren't allowed to tell the truth, or... well, anyway, I'm trying to say that those who you were expected to go to were ineffective at stopping things. That was still fairly serious if it evolved into a situation where you wouldn't trust anyone.

Today, I can only imagine the effective tools that bullies have in the form of the internet and mobile phones. Words that once truly vanished after a short time are now indelible as Google indexes them. Sites dedicated primarily to trolling encourage even the most respected people to act like jerks. I'm pretty sure that I would not have survived childhood had I had internet access.

As for making it harder for the bullied to stand up for themselves, if parents and teachers ever suggest to the kid (usually via their actions or lack of action) that they can't be relied on to stop any of the crap, kids are just not going to trust them, and may never have any confidence in them. With some kids, this is a very bad development because with those kids, once the trust is gone, it's gone for good.

On the internet, perhaps the only effective way to "stand up for yourself" is to simply not participate. Cyber-asses can't *force* you to type reactions into your keyboard. Unfortunately, "not giving a shit" is a rather under-taught skill, and the bullied feel they need to do something...

At least technology has an "off" switch. All the "off" switches in the world aren't going to make someone who's been bullied more accepted by others, but it helps. Just try "turning off" a happy slap, or a kick to the head...

VERY well put, Yakko. I applaud you on this.

It also brings to mind something else that I didn't really think of. When we were kids, and someone was picking on us, it was easy to point the kid out and have the necessary action taken place. But in cyberspace, where do you begin? When you have bullies breeding like roaches, all to attack someone, it's hard to single them out, especially when more people and aliases and forums get involved. This gets even stickier if the victim says something to defend themselves but it winds up being used against them.

Yeah off switches do help and when I was newer to the net in like, 1995, it was easy for me to walk away from the computer and go outside if a chat room or message board thread got too heated.

But now, with technology as vital as it is, it's much harder to just turn things off like cell phones.

That being said, cripes. I'm glad I got my childhood out of the way when I did. o.o

Its the internet that is making the bullying problem worse. If you apply the bully's mindset to the internet's ability to hide from almost any responsibility, you basically have a bully who can physically harm a student at school, and then stalk them online via Facebook and the like. This 24/7 bully attack puts an unmeasurable level of stress on an already stressful phase of life.

I got bullied since the very instant I set foot in a school, and it did suck, but I never considered suicide. Not seriously, at least. At one point in my last year of high school it turned out the "don't listen to them" approach worked, and except when they goofed around in class I barely noticed they were there. That said, I really hated them and still do. A friend of mine from back then told me once "they're sorry they treated you badly", and I replied "I'm sorry I met them; we're even".

"Not listening to them" works wonders for me, which is good, because I'm overweight, can't run anywhere near fast, and couldn't land a punch on thin air. Also I (unfortunately) have a huge aversion towards exercise since PE class.

For me, I've been bullied most of my childhood life. Mostly due to the fact that I was a military brat and my speech impedimence add in those factors of the new kid who talks weird. So, I know what it's like to be bullied. Hell, one point of my life I was bullied so bad that I thought about suicide. But, the second after I thought of that. I began to realize that suicide is not the answer and never was. I for one, am against bullying for many reasons. But, with all this anti-bully campaigns that are currenly going around. I felt like people are taking this way too seriously. I mean sure, bullying is bad and we have to teach them that it is. But, the fact is you cannot stop bullying. Even if you managed to stop one, another will come up and be much cruel than the last one. You can even find bullying everwhere. From schools to work to gangs, mobs, and even the government themselves. Bullies are everywhere. The only thing you can do is either occupy yourself with your group of friends to make yourself happy or stand up to them with help.

Though, I do see that bullying has gotten more cruel now in days. From the usual schoolyard bullying and teasing to pretty much trolling on the internet. There are now many crueler ways to bully people that not even going online is safe anymore. And I think the parents and teachers don't help when the victums needed is because they are afraid of the bully's parents. Afraid they might defend them. Saying their kid is not a bully, how dare they accuse their child of being one, and they will sue. That kind of stuff. We're now in a time when kids fend for themselves and the adults can't touch them period to help.

People notice bullying now because the internet makes it impossible to ignore. They're afraid of that newfangled technology, so they're afraid of bullies! The problem is that they've come to associate the internet with bullies, when the reality is that it's only shedding light on behavior that's existed for many years.

I got bullied all through High school....mostly because I was the "runt" in all my classes...I was the shortest and skinniest kid in all my classes...

I also got picked on for being a "nerd" as me and friends would play yu-gi-oh or talk furry in the cafeteria at lunch time

When I was growing up, the answer was fairly simple -- stand up to the bully. It usually took only one confrontation to get left alone.

Today, however, when those in authority catch you in a fight, both sides are punished. Equally. Why? Because they don't want to get into deciding who was at fault. They don't want angry parents coming in telling off the school administration of how their "Wee Precious Little Child would never bully someone, and why wasn't the other child suspended? He was fighting too, wasn't he?"

So, the bully learns that as long as he isn't caught, he gets away with it, and if someone confronts him, bring in the authorities and you break even. It's a win-win for him, and a lose-lose for anyone stopping him.

That said, the biggest anti-bullying claim is that bullying leads to suicide. Bullshit. Those who actually deal with suicidal teens know that bullying is only one factor, and it is a minor factor. Personality is the biggest factor, parents are secondary. Bullying doesn't even rank third.

But what really annoys me about the anti-bullying campaign is all they do is TALK about how bad it is, as if talking about it was the solution. The unspoken desire of these organizers is that if they complain about it enough, someone ELSE will come up with a solution they themselves are unwilling to discover.

And it isn't limited to the anti-bullying campaign. Just about every campaign that has "Awareness" in it's title is basically a bunch of whiners who want someone ELSE to come up with a solution, while they simply accumulate money to do more whining about it.

Honestly, that's what irks me about all these "Awareness" campaigns too. A good example is last year. Facebook had this thing where if you switched your avatar to a childhood character, you were speaking out against bullying and child abuse. I raved against that like you wouldn't believe. Why? Because you had all these idiots following the herd, without stopping to think about how INactive this "message" was. "I swapped my avatar! That makes me AWARE of a problem! I've done my part!" Uh, no. I posted links to suicide hotlines, and homes for abused children where people could take action by donating money or volunteering time. No one wanted to bother and a few yelled at me over it because they figured they had done enough and didn't need someone suggesting they take actual action.

That said, the biggest anti-bullying claim is that bullying leads to suicide. Bullshit. Those who actually deal with suicidal teens know that bullying is only one factor, and it is a minor factor. Personality is the biggest factor, parents are secondary. Bullying doesn't even rank third.

Speaking as someone who _did_ come within a hair's breadth of killing himself a couple of times: BULLSHIT!

It bloody well does lead to suicides and it is a major factor.

So your personal experience means it is true for everyone? I'll go with the experts who say it is not a major factor. I suspect your personality and upbringing were far more influential.

Funny how the published research agrees with me, not you.

To make the claim that bullying is not a major factor, you have to do things like control for depression. Note how that is like saying the car didn't crash because it was pushed over the hill, but because it rolled down the hill.

Funny how the published research agrees with *ME*!

Teensuicidestatistics.com

Oh, you didn't cite a source, did you?

Protip: Check that what you point to actually talks about the point at issue. Note how the site focuses on proximate causes, not underlying ones. (Mind you, even if it did cover the point at issue, that's a piss-poor source.)

Hindujaa & Patchin 2010, Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Suicide, Archives of Suicide Research
Klomek et.al. 2007, Bullying, Depression, and Suicidality in Adolescents, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Klomek et.al. 2008, Childhood Bullying Behaviors as a Risk for Suicide Attempts and Completed Suicides: A Population-Based Birth Cohort Study, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Kim & Leventhal, 2008, Bullying and suicide. A review, International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health

You're coming at it from the wrong side. You want to know the major causes of teen suicide, you look at teen suicide. Someone doing research on bullying will have a bias and look at it incorrectly, drawing the conclusion he wishes since that is the focus of his research. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If you want to look at the relationship between bullying and suicide, you look at the relationship between bullying and suicide. Thus you get papers with titles based around phrases like 'bullying and suicide'.

Your response also shows that you didn't even bother looking up the abstracts.

I didn't look at them PRECISELY because it was about bullying and suicide to the exclusion of all else. It won't deal with other causes of suicide and you will be left with the impression it is the primary cause when it is not.

Translation: Your mind is made up, don't bother you with facts.

Even if it means you have to make wild-ass, (and incorrect), guesses based on nothing more than a title.

To put it another way, personality is like having a car with a weak or absent parking brake. Upbringing is like have owners who neglected to set the brake. If either is present, push on it all you like, the car doesn't roll down the hill.

Dang, Max! That's an awesome analogy, and so true!

Well there's been a lot of excellent comments (not all of which I have read admittedly, there's a LOT already), so I'll try to just add my 2 cents to the pile.

BIOLOGICALLY speaking, I think bullying is two different things. It is a natural process seen in all flock animals which decides where on the ladder an individual will be later in life as physical and mental skills are developed and tested during childhood play and seriousness. It is also a bad thing where several weak individuals find strength in numbers and gang up on a strong individual, which can destroy an otherwise good condition specimen.

SOCIALLY speaking, we as humans are not just animals but more than that. We're sophisticated and have languages and music and know what abstract concepts such as salesmanship and democracy are. Therefore we must also evolve above the animal level in the bullying sense and try to get rid of it. There is no doubt in my mind that people who were not bullied significantly in their childhood feel more confident later in life to flourish into what they want to be.

CULTURALLY speaking, I think I got an answer to your "why now?" question. We humans have evolved into more and more sensitive and kind people. Yes we are still Barbaric in many ways, we're selfish and war, rape, murder and persecution are daily phenomena still. But we're changing. Once it was accepted that everyone who wasn't part of our own group were Barbarians to be slayed. Later it was accepted that those who did not share our culture and faith had to be force-converted and changed so they were like us. Once slavery was accepted as normal. Once women were seen as inferior. Remnants of all this still remain, but it HAS gotten better.

So the answer to your question is: As we have grown more compassionate, tolerant and kind to each other in general, bullying in general seem less and less acceptable. At the same time bullying has gotten more and more serious. No longer are we talking kids stealing each other's shoes or pushing each other down in the dirt after school, we are talking cutting and bone breaking and guns and death. And it has gotten more invasive too; it is no longer confined to school. With social media and mobile phones there is no break from it, you can get text messages at all hours of the day and night. You never get a break not for one hour if they are persistent enough.

TL;DR
Bullying is biologically natural but socially we must rise above it. Culturally we are growing less tolerant of it, it seems more unacceptable now and at the same time it's more invasive.

That was my answer as an anthropologist.

Desmond Morris would love you. :) One of my arguments with the whole "Stop the bullying" campaign is that to TRULY stop it, you might as well start scheduling kids for lobotomies as a prerequisite to starting school. As you mentioned, the playground environment is where kids test their social/mental skills on an almost instinctual level. As such, they're goign to weed out and trump anyone who is not essential to their "pack" as it were.

With technology coming into play as much as it is however, it gives it a nastier edge.

I mentioned how conniving the little shits at St. Brigid's were. However, once I left that school and moved to the States, that book was closed. However, had the internet been involved, I don't think they would have let that book close that easily...nor would I have been able to resituate myself at a new school as successfully as I had.

Well him and I are both anthropologists, so I guess it's only natural that we share certain perspectives.

Yes and isn't that a shame that kids are robbed of that break today? This is the backside to the communication society, too much communication. Just like there is such a thing as too much information. Everything with modesty. Just out of curiousity, where did you live before the States?

When I went to Catholic school in the 80s, I was bullied a lot because I was small, from the country and flat out weird. Mom had a hard and fast rule "Don't you dare throw the first punch, but you better throw the last one or I will beat your butt at home." I was much more scared of my mom than any kid. The last time I got bullied was freshman year of high school, and I had such a choke hold on one of the girls that bugged me for years that she was too frightened to ever bother me again. Mom would come to the school, and remind the teachers that a lady may not fight, but must always defend herself.

I sent my daughter to the same school in the 2000s. Absolutely no physical contact was permitted, so the kids were really, really mean to each other, and sometimes the parents would egg the kids on.Its as if the weaker kids were scabs and everyone had to poke at them until they bled.

Catholic schools are nasty, aren't they? I only went for two years, and the only thing I learned is how to hate. True, they may not allow physical violence. But they also don't allow tolerance or acceptance or diversity. Which is sad, since Christianity is a religion that supposedly welcomes and promotes such things.

personally,(even if i didnt read already the answers before my comment) i can speak for my own experience,since,in my town as well, at that age,little kids are not nearly good cutey puppies anywhere more than in USA/Canada today ...i say ,since i have been mildly bullied in my school not too much time ago, im one of that cases in which,for lightly it was been as bulliyng ,said behaviour left me socially scarred pretty much (but i always been reclusive as a person, and alwasy highly diffident and of course socially awkward since my birth,so this is just MY case, and doesnt apply to other guys) especially during my high school period, where i attended probably the worst-items attended high school in the whole north zone of my City...and for what i had the chance to experience, after a lot of years undergoing that kinda environme4nt, there's just ONE quitely precise answer i can give ,today, with colder and a little more self-aware mind: young generations kids KNOW ,instincutally, RULES ARE OVER...they KNOW ,way more in the past (where you were referring about naming those kida as "little cruel savages") that no matter how strongly stiffen-up rules are,they so damly well know those rules are FAKE (you know..respect each other, tolerance, mutual help towards each other) they just realized teh world is SCREWED UP FROM ROOTS and they dont simply care about makin it better, cos,simply...teh world AHS NEVER BEEN GOOD..and those new kids KNOW IT SO DAMN WELL ,whichl ed them coming up with some sorta "nihilistical" way of seeing teh Life and other people's,of course...its not Parents fault,school's fault,other kids fault,or crew/frends circle/friendship/girlfriend/boyfriend/s fault...its just, they understood its way much easier getting back tho that ,exaggerately troll-like behaviour belonging to that good ol' "jungle law" we ,as humans,were apparently aware to gotten free from, except kids,whose, generation after generation,incrementally, gotten back more and more aware of this underliyn' Truth,which has been,guiltly,never solved and never cleared up from anybody since ages nowadays,and that,ultimately ,is sorting back up through the tiny frail beings we thought kids were untill today

to sum it up in a single axiome: "we, KIds,are the New Trolls on the Block,World is screwin up, and we wanna help it getting DESTROYED as fast and as quick as possible cos its just what Humanity deserves so far"

that of course, givin from granted the rule of Private Property Humanhood applied since a dozen thousands years to today,but thats another story.... (i will extend this discourse if you would like to reply to my comment of ocurse, i dont like Amtrak-lenght-wise comments anymore that much ,yknow)

(oh and sorry if i misused the name of the Boy Band you SURELY would like not to be used that mercilessly)


that said, i know my view sounded radical and not very pleasant, but its just what i experienced ,bearing in mind thsi is MY own opinion

I got it a lot at primary school, and it lasted into most of high school. Usually I was the last picked at PE class. Sometimes I would get picked on for being half-English, or for being someone with a short fuse who didn't have the muscle to match. In later years I refused to engage in fights being instigated by others. By sixth year most of my classmates had matured and some of them I can imagine aren't proud of some of the things they said or did to me. Verbal harassment is what caused me to quit the Scouts as well, again just because I was scrawny and half-English. The consolation was that I did at least have a group of friends that I hung around with in school.

Kids can be like cruel vultures - they seem to get a high whenever acts of violence occur in the school grounds.

Trust me school life for me with regards to bullying wasn't a pleasant one. Most of it mainly with me being overweight. Made me more of a loner and not very social. Didn't do very much for my grades either. I did move to another school which helped me improve on things but still not quite enough. When I see things on bullying today I often wonder why things are much more worse in this generation than my generation and why nothing much is being done about it.

It's happening elsewhere too. Just this passed Sunday in Montreal, they interviewed 3 bullied teens on TV to comment the recent suicide of a teen girl over bullying.

I blame the decrease of discipline over the years and technology like internet.

In elementary school, I was mostly verbally bullied, kids telling me I was a waste of flesh and bone, and that I was using up valuable air that other, more worthy/important people could be using. It was worse when I went to Jr. High, as the Principal's Pet (several steps higher than the Teacher's Pet) made me her target. Verbally attacking me, until eventually she punched me. I didn't have it in me to fight back...Maybe I was a "wuss", but I honestly couldn't come to raising my hand to someone else to defend myself. Even after I reported her to the principal, he was all "Oh, I don't believe you, she would NEVER do that, she's an honour roll star student. Go back to class." It took my dad coming to the school and threatening to call the police on the girl if she ever laid a hand on me again. From then on, the girl was somewhat nicer to me and completely stopped her bullying. Ironically, all of the bullying that happened to me, happened when I went to Roman Catholic school. I *never* experienced bullying when I went to a public high school, but the emotional scars followed me until I was well in Grade 12, leaving me very paranoid and depressed a lot of the times. It took a long time for me to really realize that I can either let those emotions rule me and live the rest of my life like this, or take control of them and be a happy, pleasant person. I chose to not let them rule me :)

Personally, I think it's a mish-mash of many things these days. How it seems/feels like parents can't properly disapline kids for fear that they'll be called child abusers. Teachers either won't interfere, or they'll get told by parents/guardians to bud out and mind their own business, or they just won't care (like in many of the cases in my elementary/jr. high schools). And, as one mentioned above, the internet can play a HUGE part in bullying now-a-days. There was no such thing as the internet when I was growing up (only my brother's Commador Vic 20! LOL!) and with all the social networks out there, it's so much easier for bullies to find allies to help with the bullying (sometimes the cyber bullies haven't even met or even know the person they're bullying...doesn't matter, just as long as they get their bullying on, it's all good to them), or sometimes bullies will just take on alias/anonymous names just to make it appear that there's more people ganging up on the victim, it's so easy to do that. And unless you're a computer whiz (which I'm not) and can find out if all the bullying is coming from one house's IP address, it's hard to really know if it's just one person kicking all the crap around, or if it really is their cronies from other places ganging up on you. Bruises and other phyiscal wounds can heal over time. But words...they can stick with you for life. Some people aren't emotionally strong enough to defeat those words, and unfortunately, in the end, those words get the best of them. They almost got the best of me.

My mom was telling me about something that happened in Ottawa - a girl saw her friend being bullied, so she stepped in to stop it. The bully started bullying that girl, and then started making death threats, saying she was going to bring a knife to school and kill her. Or saying she was going to tie up the girl and get the girl watch as the bully kills her mother, and then she'll kill the girl afterwards. That, in itself, is a HUGE WTF for me because this little bully is only 9 years old O.o; What in the world can possess a 9 year old to not only have those thoughts, but to even go as far as actually bringing a knife to school (they found it in her backpack) to almost carry out the deed? O.o I dunno about anyone else, but when I was 9, I was wondering what kind of My Little Pony I would get for Christmas, or worrying about getting my homework done, or whatever. I dunno. We *never* heard about that kind of stuff when I was a kid.

Bullying isn't just centered around schools. It also happens elsewhere.

About a month ago, I was in a plasma center, waiting to be screened to donate plasma, when a guy randomly started gay bashing me. He called me names, threatened to beat me up everyday, threatened to kill me, made fun of me for hours.

All because of the way my hair looked.

Mind you, I've been out of school for a very long time. I'm 25, and he looked to be around 25-30.

Sexual discrimination.
It happens too often, but not just in schools.

At this point, we move away from teachers and parents, to armed security guards and surrounding people.

But just like in school, they were no help. It was a crowd of about 50-75 people, and many of them laughed and egged him on. If a fight broke out, they would have just put it on YouTube, or jumped in for some fun. The security guard actually walked right by and did nothing. Senile as all hell.

And had he actually threw a punch, and I did fight back, somehow I'd be the one in the wrong, because people keep regarding me as some kind of serial killer and assassin. I "look" wrong, so I must be wrong.


Guess it gets better much later in life, huh?

In elmetry school in the mid 90's I was bullied quite a bit, cause I was the shy quite kid and had few friends. It started in grade 4 (or grade 5 around there). With one girl whos mother use to babysit me and my brother, who for some odd reason one day started telling my classmates at first silly things abit. After that, it got slowly and slowly worse. After this girl had moved (Thankfully) another student came to my school. He was far wrose to me then that other peice of trash was. He (along with some other classmates) used to taunt and mock and belittle me. This got to the point where I cried in the school bathroom a few times. I told the principle what had happned, and she dragged him into her office there and put him in his place. This stopped the bullying for a good 2-3 months, but it went back with a vengence. Always named called and mocked worse then before. I remember asking one of the bullies "What have done to you, for you to hate me so much. I did you no wrong" One of them said "Because you're you.". Not to mention when I would get upset, they would say sorry and I would forgive them, then they go back to mocking me and so forth, and it would repeat everytime. Even my brothers frends also took a few cheap shots at me. Sometimes even in my own home when my dad would step out for a moment to go to the corner, and when I tried to tel my dad what happned, I was condemned as the guilty one. Many years later, when I was at a bookstore, looking for a book and one of them called my name out, when I looked over and saw who it was, I just looked at him wth such disgust, and I could tell by the look on his face he knew I remembered everything he did to me. He came over and wanted to say sorry, I listened to everything he had to say. After what was said, I told him I did not care nor do I believe him, and reminded him of what he did to me, and that I don't ever want to see him or anyone frm school every again. As he left I could see that he seemed hurt by what I had said, but he dissapeared out of my sight a few seconds later.

Aside from that, I think bullies need a goood taste of their own doing, see if they like it. Not to mention I also think bullies do what they do, cause parents tend to encourage that kind of inexcusable behaviour and what not.

To answer the 'why is it worse now?' question, there are three main factors:

First, as has been mentioned, not being at school is no longer a sanctuary . Your choice is often between the abuse and near-total social isolation[1].

More important, however, are a couple of reporting effects.

There is the general bit where you hear about a larger portion of tragic events over a larger area. A few decades ago you wouldn't hear about an event in the next city that you now hear about from the other side of the country.

Most important is the simple fact that people are finally admitting that these things happen. We actually say the kid committed suicide and it was due to bullying, we don't say things like 'he had an accident' or go scraping around to find something 'weird' about the kid to blame, (he played D&D, he read comics, he listened to rock&roll, etc.).


What's the solution? It's not complicated, it's just too much work for many teachers/school administrations/etc.: Pay attention to what's going on, respond to the bullying without needing students reporting it, don't punish the victims.


[1] Saying "just don't go on Facebook" doesn't help when Facebook is the way every social event is organized and how all the invitations are sent out.