My daughter was so bullied, we had to pull her out of public school and put her in online school. The school did virtually nothing about it no matter how much we pleaded with them. Even when a girl doxxed her and started prank calling her the school gave both her and my daughter a talking to as if it was my daughter’s fault and that was it.
She’s still not great, but it’s only been a couple of weeks. She needs time to heal. She’s not going back to a public school until next year at the earliest, and not that school. Unfortunately, I had to quit my job to help her with her online classes, but we’ll manage.
My bully flicked an ink refill at my face, went into my eyes, and right in front of the teacher. I punched him, was taken to the principal and he made me APOLOGISE TO THE BULLY, and shake hands with him. The whole education system is broken.
She doesn’t even fight back. She doesn’t like to do that. I’ve tried to tell her to do it and she just doesn’t have the self-esteem. It’s been bullied out of her. I wish I had taken her out sooner. I feel pretty guilty about that. But I didn’t really accept that it was a situation that would not be resolved until Halloween, where she wore a really cool anime cat girl costume which looked exactly like a character she loves- I don’t remember the name- that my wife made for her. I’m not big on anime, but it was like high-end cosplay level when it came to a costume. My wife is really talented. She was so excited that she wouldn’t even take it off all day after my wife finished it. She wore it to school and basically the entire school told her she was a furry and her costume was terrible and made fun of her the entire day. She got up the next day and broke down and said she couldn’t go to school anymore and we realized that was something that is not fixable.
This might be a long shot, but ask her if she’d be interested in learning martial arts. She doesn’t need to “learn how to fight” for it to give her more confidence. It worked for me
While it’s generally good to avoid confrontations and walk away, it’s a good idea to know atleast basic self-defense. School was a terrible experience for me as people with low self-confidence tend to make easy targets for bullies. I hope your daughter gets through school without much trouble. Please do support her. Sometimes it’s not easy for kids to tell people cuz of ego or just the general distrust for adults. Also whoever thought putting a bunch of puberty riddled kids into one room was an idiot.
You might have had bad teachers and bad admin, true - but more likely, the school can’t do anything.
I’m a teacher, and I cannot tell you how incredibly frustrated I am at how tied my hands are. The admin can’t do much, either.
My options: talk sternly to the student. Talk sternly to the parent/guardians. And… that’s it.
Send them to the office? Sure. The principal also has those two options, for the most part. Suspending students is something we only do in very rare circumstances, but they really, really try to avoid it, because so often, kids are acting out because of stuff at home, so suspending them only makes the behaviour worse.
We can’t do detentions after school or on weekends - we can’t force parents to bring their kids in then. Lunch hour detentions, we can’t afford dedicated staff to run them, especially since we’d also need them to chase the students down, because it’s not like they’ll go just because they were told to. We can’t fail students any more.
Our district has also even gotten rid of prizes for achievements - no more honor roll, no awards, nothing. Apparently this makes the low performers feel bad, and we couldn’t have that.
And talking to the parents? Most parents are honestly great, but also, I never talk to them, because the kids with the great parents, I never need to call home. The asshole kids? Their parents are almost always a nightmare. And it’s a waste of time to talk to them.
One kid last year, went after another kid’s field trip paperwork with a pair of scissors. Ripped into her like no one’s business. Sent an email home describing the situation. I was pretty sure, based on her history, she wasn’t really going to destroy his stuff, she was trying to get a rise out of him, so I said something like, “while I believe she was only intending to annoy him, not actually destroy property, it is critical for her to understand that this is absolutely unacceptable behaviour” or something like that.
So rather than telling her kid off, mom goes to the principal to try to get me in trouble for calling her kid annoying.
In application? Doesn’t matter what the teachers or even admin want to do. The district, province/state, and country have taken away practically every carrot and stick, when it comes to students with extreme behavior.
Send them to the office? Sure. The principal also has those two options, for the most part. Suspending students is something we only do in very rare circumstances, but they really, really try to avoid it, because so often, kids are acting out because of stuff at home, so suspending them only makes the behaviour worse.
As someone who was bullied all the way until the start of high school, I would probably look the other way if my hypothetical children seriously hurt someone over repeated bullying. I think any alternative is better than that for everyone involved.
I had an unusual lesson from my parents regarding bullies. They told me, that if they found out that the I didn’t even try defending myself from bullies and found out, I’d still get whooped at home. It seems kinda cruel at surface level. But when the time ultimately came, dam straight I fought back tooth and nail. And no, they were not abusive in any way. Even reflecting back as an almost 40yr old adult. They were both prison guards/swat people. So they had a very different perspective of bullying I guess.
I can understand all of that, but when one kid doxxes another and starts making prank calls, which we provided evidence of- we had logs and voicemails- and the administration admonishes both kids, that’s on them, not on anyone else. They didn’t have to lecture my daughter about bullying the other girl when she was the one being attacked.
In that case, yeah, you’ve got an admin problem. I’m sorry - that really sucks. The entire system desperately needs an overhaul. The education system in Canada is a dumpster fire, and the US is even worse. Dealing with behavioral issues is one of many major problems…
If your daughter was doxxed, can't you file a criminal complaint directly with the police? At least where I live, it would be grounds for a criminal investigation.
That can be true, but it varies a lot. As a teacher, I can guess at a lot but have proof of very little. So I can do things, but maybe you wouldn’t even notice them most of the time. You’re looking for a suspension, and that only happens in very specific circumstances.
Of course everything varies by school and district.
Bro, I was the biggest bully in grade school. It made me popular with the girls and that’s why I mostly did it. And I was tall, so it just made things easier.
it’s interesting that everyone here is a victim. why isn’t anyone owning up to being the bully? the ratio is highly suspect.
personally, I was mostly the victim. but I can think of a small number of times where I punched down the pecking order because that’s how I poorly dealt with the abuse by the real bullies.
I wish I had been encouraged to fight back by my parents. unfortunately the emotional abuse at home fully contributed to the lack of self esteem required to do so.
Do you think your bullies would spend time on Lemmy? Much less admit they were bullies on a thread like this? I think there might be a bias at play here.
Well, speak of the devil. I was both. When one suffers, it is the way of life to spread suffering.
What would you like a person like me to say? That I was wrong? Sure. Do I still want to beat the everloving shit out of the people that perpetuated that against me first? Sure. Would I understand the guy that I was bullying to do it to me? 100%.
I suppose it would make it even. Regardless, the meme is applicable. Teachers knew and ignored the fact that I was bullied, but fuck me if I ever stood up for myself.
I’ve been in education for a few years and can tell you that a lot (most?) of teachers are cheering on the inside when they see a bully get his ass beat. These school policies aren’t being set by teachers.
The reason zero tolerance policies get so often implemented is because kids tend to be much smarter in how they go about being dicks to one another than in how they do their schoolwork, or, in how they do almost anything else. If you implement one-sided policies that favor the bullied, it’s then in the bully’s best interest to instead appear bullied, which can end up being a pretty common tactic anyways. There’s also more circumstances under which bullying can take place than just physical. Verbal bullying is much harder to prove and do anything about, and the worst is probably when some random kid gets dogpiled for being different, there’s not much teachers can do about that even if it’s relatively obvious. Which is also resting on the assumption that the teacher isn’t also taking part in the bullying as a way to be seen as “cool” by their students, which is unfortunately something that’s not uncommon. There’s also mutual bullying in which kids can egg each other on until one goes too far, and then maybe zero-tolerance policies end up making some sense, as the group’s behavior as a whole is what really needed to stop.
I think taking a more top-down view of the problem, it would seem to me that there’s a similar problem going on to when reagan defunded all of the mental institutions, or whatever metaphor you’d wanna use here. There’s a lot of attempts to make things right by removing things, rather than adding things. It’s bad to lower a student’s grade as a result of their malicious behavior, rather than their output, and usually bullies have bad grades anyways. Can’t impose on the parents at all because the parents of bullies tend to either be nutso helicopter parents, or tend to be bullies to their children. And then sending kids to other school districts usually just ends up condemning then to a boiling pot of other kids who are maybe worse, or will exacerbate their behavior as it isolates them more, and in extreme cases it can lead them to criminality. Results are going to be kind of mixed on student counseling, if you have a therapist or psychiatrist on campus that’s extremely lucky and can also have mixed results, and there’s really not anything else you can offer kids other than that, for a variety of reasons. It’s relatively hard to get people to stop being self-destructive in the best of times, as an institution, and it’s much harder when those people are kids, and when you’re inevitably going to be some underfunded institution, since schools funded by the rich, and their property taxes, tend to have children that will engage in less bullying, even if those kids are subject to other psychologically unhealthy pressures.
We could probably solve a good amount of this by just funding schools federally on an equal basis, or with voucher programs based on student population, but nobody wants to fund/expand those programs because schools tend to be underfunded and give bad results already, and we unfortunately have a tendency in this country to give something less money when it performs poorly, as some sort of sacrifice to the free market.
Growing up weird and poor in a very conservative and arrogant part of the prairies, I was bullied relentlessly. The teachers never did anything unless it was me fighting back, to which it was suspension and I was a bad kid.
As high school came along, I grew more and more violent to the point I wasn’t a loser or a tough guy, but a snap case. The other kids thought I was edgy, the parents thought I was bound for prison, and the teachers probably had a beer when I dropped out.
My mom didn’t know what to do. And this was in a time where if your kid was in therapy, it’s was your failure as a parent. Combined with my disgust at the idea that I was what was broken, it was off the table. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I went for psychological help.
By then, I was so suicidal and gone that I wouldn’t be near ok until my late thirties. In my mid forties now, I look back and see myself as the potential shooter. I’m holding back my emotions right now, thinking of it. Fortunately, there were no guns at my disposal back, back then is how I feel looking back. I don’t know if I’d be able to hurt anyone like that, but I’d fuck myself up.
I lay a lot of blame on a system that allowed it to happen. In a community where open racism and homophobic views were the norm at the time, teachers were as judgmental as the students in some situations. Now maybe if I were white, it’d be easier, but even the broke white kids didn’t get any breaks. Especially from the teachers.
Look at me go, a meme has me fucked up thinking back and dumping online. But yeah, there it is.
I’d like to close by saying the town I grew up in is a far different place now. I’ve moved back and feel good here. I see teachers and bullies who don’t make eye contact, will not recognize me at all (which is my favorite) and the occasional happy to see you moments. I don’t communicate well in public these days, so it makes it ultra awkward, much like being in high school, talking to students you barely know.
I can relate somewhat though probably not to the same degree, I think sometimes people are just assholes. Which is why I do my best to just let my actions speak by just doing my best to help out.
Even if I get angry with my words, I’m usually very direct about what I’m upset about, what bothers me is the degree to which people are often passive aggressive in a way that forces you to respond differently from how you normally would to begin with.
“Zero tolerance” policies in my district are so fucked up and easily metagamed by the actual bullies that I had to outright break the rules and feign ignorance to even let kids take a stand and fight back against the bullies. I hated it.
Can any Americans confirm or refute whether US schools actually punish you for getting beaten up regardless of whether you tried to defend yourself? It sounds way too stupid to be true yet I hear about it again and again.
Also what the hell happened to Stand Your Ground that the US is so infamous for? That doesn’t apply to children who are victims of assault and battery?
They used to beat him up a lot. He was smaller and shyer. And they’d wait until I was out of sight so they could get a few licks in before I could run up to them and kick the bully in the fucking kidneys; whatever. Then it was on.
Yes. I got 3 days in alternative school for getting punched because “I was in a fight”. The next time I made it worth it and fought back instead of just trying to avoid being hit.
Yep, I pretty quickly learned I should just respond in kind as I’d get punished either way. Generally more severe punishments when it was one sided as well…
Children are abused left and right in this country. Our schools are dogshit. You’re lucky if your public school provides a decent education, because its almost certainly not going to provide anything else.
My schools had a zero tolerance policy for anyone involved in a fight for any reason. I saw a few kids suspended for clearly defending themselves. My father gave me regular talks to let me know that so long as the other person attacked first he’d fully support me defending myself however I needed.
Yep, got suspended once for thrusting my rolling back pack at a kids face. He then punched and knocked a lense out of my glasses.
In 11th grade i snapped at one of my bullies and just went white with rage. Next thing I know I’m on top of him choking him. I got board suspended for a week for that. Fuck the US school system.
One time in middle school a kid who had been messing with me jumped me on the way out the gates at the end of the day. Neither of us was seriously hurt, but both of us were taken to the office and suspended. When I told them he had attacked me, they responded with “Yes but what did you do to de-escalate the situation?” And it’s like, motherfucker my introduction to the situation was a foot in the back!
That was one of the first times even my parents, who I had struggled with as well, took my side against some school bullshit.
“Yes but what did you do to de-escalate the situation?”
Reading this and all these other comments I wonder if at least part of it is just petty bullshit by the school administration, like “How dare the two of you create more work for us at our jobs for which we have licenses! You both need to be punished for that!”
In some situations, unfortunately yes. Some schools will take the stupid “zero tolerance” stance so broadly. I do remember a few times growing up that the bullied kid would still get suspended(if they were lucky, at reduced length vs the bully, if enough evidence was available).
Often times (as should be) you’re better off fighting back cuz both are gonna get in trouble.
One of the most common types of bullying in the US is the use of zero tolerance anti bullying rules as a mechanism for bullying.
Example: kid A punches kid B. Then immediately kid A reports kid B for bullying him because kid A knows how the bullying rules work (because they are a bully). Then kid B gets in trouble for getting bullied.
Typically kid A’s parents will enthusiastically back then too because their kid “gets bullied all the time” while kid Bs parents aren’t experienced with the policies and aren’t positive that their kid didn’t do something wrong (because they are normal parents), so they don’t fight it too hard and just want it to go away.
Ask any teacher in the US and they will tell you that they see this all the time and most every kid that supposedly “gets bullied all the time” is doing exactly this.
I learned it the semi hard way to not fight back. I did it once and imediatly got “fucked” by the teacher. That I had complained to the teacher and even the principal didn’t bother them. So instead of fighting back I let all the bad things I experienced burn into me to a point where I just wanted to kill myself. Holidays temporarily restored my will to live but it wasn’t until 8th or 9th grade that stopped thinking about killing myself, since most bullies either dropped out or changed schools.
I’m not saying you’re lying I’m saying that in the majority of cases, bullying isn’t solved by kicking a random kid in the groin.
in some cases it might actually make things worse, as people might be out for revenge, or cause you to become a social pariah, or even get into trouble with the police.
I got physically attacked on the playground pretty much every day for years in elementary school. I feared my parents more than the attackers, so I took my lumps and never fought back. The teachers didn’t care. One day I had enough. Grabbed the kid punching me, threw him to the ground, and kicked him a couple dozen times. He had bruises on his arms, legs, and torso and probably a few bruised ribs. The principal told me that fighting is never ok, but she didn’t see it so couldn’t say if there was a fight or not and warned me against getting into any fights in the future because she’d probably see those… First time any staff stood up for me. No problem though, every one of those kids left me alone and never bothered me again.
I currently work part-time as a bus driver and I just wanna say that it's incredibly hard to determine who is right or wrong when you didn't see what happened and you're just going by what each kid says. If you only see the tail end of a fight, you might wrongfully think the kid retaliating is the bully. 99% of the time it's easier to just separate the kids and/or punish them both equally since it's impossible to determine who the victim and the perpetrator is. It sucks, it feels really bad, but that's the reality of the situation.
Most of the time teachers don’t care when kid is bullied, i mean long time ago, when i was in school teachers ignored bullies, saying that they’re just playing, when quiet kids got beat up, but when quiet kids retaliate, just like in the meme) teachers come to help) i kinda get it that teachers don’t want trouble and when quiet kids endures, teacher won’t intervene even if quiet kids gonna ask the teacher, but bully won’t gonna endure and gonna screech all over when getting beat up, so i kinda understand why teachers side with bully most of the time, p.s i was quiet kid)
The thing is that if someone is bothering you, then you need to go to the teacher. If you set a precedent that one kid is bothering you, then the teacher is more likely to believe you if you ever snap and hit your bully they'll be more understanding. But if you never say anything and then suddenly snap, then obviously it looks from the outside like you're the bully.
If you tell then you’re a narc and everyone will think less of you anyway. The only thing that works is standing up for yourself which, thanks to zero-tolerance policies, is no longer an option.
It didn’t felt like that, it was like that, coming from personal experience, I’ve finished college and enrolled to university and soon will be getting diploma, and I’ve tried to go to school and college where i was, and you know what, it’s rarely in your whole life that you can see such rude people, they called me alot of slurs, implied that I’m couldn’t make it (as they always told me) and praised bullies that was studiying with me in college and school and dropped out of university
This may have been the unfortunate reality 20 years ago. But security cameras are cheap and ubiquitous. If it’s on school property (including school busses), then this should be simple. Separate the kids, review the footage, and punish the kid who started it. The one who didn’t start it gets an apology and assurances that they’re safe and it won’t happen again. The whole “punish them both equally” is insane and sociopathic.
do you think the schools have the resources to “launch an investigation” every time there’s a fight? you may end up with one side of the story anyways, that’s ridiculous. don’t ask from a school stuff with what the justice system struggles.
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