Topic : 08/16 Bullies

I beleive you when you say the school has a policy of bullying but wrote your situation off.  Here's goes my aggression again, but if I was you, I would return to that school (even tho you son no longer will attend) and tell that principal to be accountable for his action and ask him to visit your home and chat with your boys on how he was WRONG. I would ask this guy to tell your boys that bullying can not take place anywhere with anyone, that includes at home with family. If he refuses, tell him you are going to complain to the superintendant of the district. 

After this, YOU must commit to a zero tolerance of bullying regarding the boys. What works with my kids, I take away a CD for 1 month if they say "shut up" to the other. So, bullying consequences are way harsher. When my son teased my daughter about her acne, I took the door of his bedroom for 1 month.  These work for me.  

I am an elementary school music teacher...this is my very first year teaching and, even on my first day, I was shocked and appauled at the level of disrespect with which children treat each other.  Because I am in the music room all day and have classes coming and going, I don't see the actual "bullying," per say, that might happen on the playground, in the cafeteria, or on the bus, but the way children, even very young first and second graders, speak to each other in the classroom gives me no doubt that this bullying happens often.   

I agree with some of the other posts that a lot of what these children say comes from home.  It also comes from television shows they shouldn't be watching and "popular" music they shouldn't be listening to.  And I pray that viewers will really take to heart what Jay said on this afternoon's show and teach their children that bystanders who don't take up for victims are just as guilty as bullies...schools can have anti-bullying policies and it might help a little, but parents please help us out and talk to your kids about bullying!!!  As a first-year teacher I can honestly say that all the education classes and college degrees in the world could not have prepared me for the way children treat each other and I often feel inadequate and ill-prepared with how to get kids to stop disrespecting each other.  Seriously, it just makes me sad...if anyone has any ideas for what I can say in my own classroom to help eliminate this huge issue, please share them with me. 

Hi all,I can certainly relate to this topic....I have a 15 year old teen that is musically gifted and  

    talented..in middle school he created music for the plays and lots of times he was told that 

    his music stinks, and that is weird and what in the world is that your playing??he was actually 

    degrated by the music teacher at his elementary school who said that he would never be good 

    right before his performance....my son went on and was brilliant..he is very reluctant to do his 

    music in high school because his self esteem is not really great at all..he says that if the kids 

    knew how talented he is they would call him nerd,gay??  I wish there was a way to build up 

    his self esteem to do his music in high school he is just wonderful. as a single parent with a lot of 

    stuff going on it is hard to consistantly encourage him...any advice   

single parent in queens new york 

I think that it is a great thing that students are being incouraged to stand up for one another. I was bullied through out Middle School, but now with the fact that students are using the internet a lot more (I graduated in 2002 so it hasn't been that long since I was in middle school, but it is still a great testament to the fact that the use of the internet has grown substantially.) the bullying becomes even more impossible to escape. I am 21 and I love to use the internet to blog online,  

chat, and keep in contact with my friends when I am not able to see them on a regular basis. Mostly it is to facilitate constant contact with my friends who live over-seas or in other states. However, my mother made an interesting point that since young people use the internet more and more in our daily lives (with blogs, profiles, IM services) that we are making ourselves sitting ducks. I made the argument that we should be able to take advantage of technology without the fear of someone posting horrible things about us online, hounding us via AIM (and other servers) and getting horrible emails that tell us to commit suicide. I can personally attest to the fact that you can be without a main source of internet and the threat of cyber-bullying is still a problem. I had very limited access to the internet while I was studying abroad this past spring. I still recieved complaints against me that I was cyber-bullying a former friend by posting false websites, and pretending to be other people in order to harass her. Whether or not you have a computer in your home it is still possible to have someone out there victimize you in more ways than one. I believe that my situation is rare, but I don't know who is harassing my former friend. It certaintly isn't me. I subscribe to Dr. Phil's school of thought that I have found my own self-worth and value myself enough to realize that even if this former friend of mine doesn't want to be my friend any more that doesn't give me the right to bully them. There is no excuse for bullying. I have been accused of horrible things by someone I believed to be my friend. Once again I wanted everyone to know that there is always another side to the bullying story. While I don't believe in blaming the victim, you have to watch out for people like my former friend. They will egg-on children and others secretly and torment them in a not-so-public way (in my case they went and told as many of my friends as they could what I was supposedly doing to them) and when we try to defend ourselves we are accused of being the aggressors. There is strength in numbers, but we have to be sure that there isn't something more sinister going on with accusations of bullying. It could be a new, and very twisted form of bullying itself.  

Your story really touched me today. This is the first time I saw this show and I hope that things have gotten better for you since the original show aired. I was bullied all through middle and high school and I just want you to know that things do get better. I know how hard it was for me and I can only imagine how hard it is for you. I was so impressed with how brave you were to stick up for someone else. I don't think I would have been so brave when I was your age. I just want to tell you to never give up. The people that bully you are only blind to all the wonderful things that make you who you are. They are NOT right, they are just blind. I can see how wonderful you are and I only watched you for a moment on TV. Think about how many people you will meet in your life that will see you for who you really are. Think of your life as an adventure and realize that school is such a short time compared to all the time you'll have after. Never stop being brave. Never stop listening and talking to your parents. Believe in yourself and know that there will come a day when you can look back and realize just how strong you were and are. I wish you much joy in your life. I think you're a very sweet and very cute young man. There are a lot of people out there that are rooting for you. I'm only one of them. Stay strong. 

big hugs, 

Heather 

I agree with Heather that the kids who offered their emails, etc., are wonderful!  I would also like to tell everybody that high school does end eventually.  I was miserable as a teenager, and was thrilled when I graduated from high school.  Much to my amazement, it all stopped.  Nobody cared about my clothes or anything once I became an adult. 

I wish I could say more.  It will end, though, I promise.  Lots of kids who were considered nerds when they were teenagers became amazing computer scientists as adults.