Are Our Kids Too Safe to Succeed?

I’ve been running Summer Camps over the last few years. The first year, when I didn’t realise how much chhildhood had changed, for the lunch break I just threw the kids out with loads to outside stuff to play with – balls, hula hoops, skipping ropes etc. They looked at me blankly, ‘What are you going to play with us?’ I was puzzled – this was the lunch break, they had supervised games all day, this was the time to kick back and do whatever. I’ve since learnt that kids very often haven’t the capacity to play on their own unless they are given motivational speeches prior to the event!

Has anyone else noticed the shift in usage- indeed, in the part of speech- of the word “bully”? It used to be a noun that meant “that one nasty kid who’d pick on anyone and try to make one or two kids’ lives miserable.” Now it’s a verb that means “to pick on or mistreat any peers.” i’m in no way saying that picking on other kids is okay, of course!

The “friend” / cousin incident sounded familiar…

Ah yes, it was mentioned by commenter BL, here – https://www.freerangekids.com/kids-allowed-to-engage-in-unsupervised-risky-play-develop-skills-that-help-later-in-making-smart-decisions-about-sex-and-drugs/#comment-376350

Buffy: according to citations quoted by the OED, the word “bully” has been used as a verb in this sense – to intimidate, mistreat, etc – since the 1700s. The word was used as a noun earlier, but seems to shifted in meaning from a term of endearment (!) in the late 1500s and early 1600s towards an abusive or intimidating person from the late 1600s / early 1700s.

So the answer seem to be that “bully” has been used in the modern sense as a noun and a verb for about 300 years!

(And a person can try to bully someone who is not a child – particularly if the victim is vulnerable in some way, and so not able to stand up to the bully.)

@Andrew, @Katie
In my childhood the noun form was by far the most common application, with the verb form making a rare appearance. Now (at least among adult discussions) the verb form does seem more common.
I had figured this was a matter of immediacy. We aren’t in the school yard anymore worrying about avoiding bullies, and passing along the info that so-and-so is a bully. So removed from that environment we have a more general concern with making sure our kids are not getting bullied.

If the game is organized by an adult, and there is a kid constantly ‘cheating’ then what does the adult do? They exclude them. Which is actually much closer to bullying since the adult is considered to have power over the children.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bully
“A person who uses strength or influence to harm or intimidate those who are weaker:
he is a ranting, domineering bully”

I hate this exclusion is bulling mentality. My kid always manages to get in a group with a completely unpleasant child that makes everyone else miserable, but nobody is willing to cast her out of the group due to this idea that we have to include everyone so my daughter gets stuck interacting with this unpleasant child in order to play with her real friends. It is infuriating.

Not really on topic, but I do have a kudos for my local police. Today I had to be in court before camp started so I gave my child the choice of staying home, going home with grandma (who spent the night at our house last night) or walking to camp by herself (about a mile away). She chose to walk. Apparently there were “several calls” reporting her. The cop went to camp and talked to her. He then called me to express his concerns. When I shot down his concerns, he said nothing other than it was my choice to allow her to walk and left it at that. I am sure that I will hear about it from the camp, but at least I am not in jail.

A couple weeks ago my daughter told me that something I said to her was racist. (I was not even thinking about race or skin color when I said it; it involved chocolate milk.) She had recently attended a culture camp for internationally adopted kids. I guess they taught the kids that anything anybody says that refers to their skin color could be racist. I wouldn’t mind it if it were coming from their own observations, but I would rather people not school my kids in a victim mentality. The fact is that their skin is brown. There is nothing wrong with brown skin; there’s nothing wrong with seeing it, or even mentioning it. Why teach kids they need to be defensive about their skin color? Even with their own mother?

Anna – I was thinking the same thing. When I was in school (the 60s) this was dealt with after school. A quick scuffle, maybe a torn shirt, & a scrape or two. Done. Usually not a problem after that.

It’s not that exclusion IS bullying, but bullying can be done by exclusion. Anyone who’s ever interacted with a group of 12-year-old girls should know what I’m referring to.

About Bullying: what Warren said. It’s now the catch-all for “anything someone doesn’t like or that hurts anyone’s widdle feewings (even secondhand).” It’s become meaningless noise.

And that’s a good deal of the problem with the lack of unsupervised play: anything kids have to do on their own, they can no longer figure out, so it’s just meaningless noise.

Is it any wonder that kids today cannot cope with bullies, at ANY level including just “I don’t want to play with you right now”??

Used to be eventually the bullied kid would have enough, would explode all over the bully, and the bullying would stop. Now they run crying “mommy fix!” which does nothing but mark them out as a target for further bullying.

“Used to be eventually the bullied kid would have enough, would explode all over the bully, and the bullying would stop.”
There has never been a time when fighting with a bully made the bully stop being a bully. All it does is (usually, not always) make the bully seek a different victim.

“That’s more than direct adult intervention and anti-bullying seminars are going to achieve.”
That’s a tad defeatist.

“Isn’t teaching kids not to be bullied the point here?”
Is it?

“Whether the bullies themselves can be changed is a different issue.”
Teaching kids not to be bullies… a challenge. Most bullies eventually learn not to be bullies (although some take it into adulthood).

“There has never been a time when fighting with a bully made the bully stop being a bully. All it does is (usually, not always) make the bully seek a different victim.”

This is short-term thinking, and that’s one of the big problems. If a child bully gets whipped enough times, they often learn that it not such a good idea to be a bully, and eventually become a responsible adult. If not, they end up in prison. Not fighting back against a bully means everyone must be a defenseless victim, and deprives the bully of a much need education!

And recently I’ve seen in the media where a transgender teen is complaining about the fact that boys don’t want to flirt with / date her. Like maybe we should force people to date people they aren’t attracted to, just to make sure nobody gets left out?

“BECAUSE BULLIES PARTICULARLY LOVE TO GO AFTER FRIGHTENED CHILDREN.”

So as parents, we need to bully-proof our children vs. trying to eliminate bullies from existence. I can’t control the actions of others, I can only control how I react. Same for what I teach my children. If we teach them to address the bad behavior directly and firmly and move on, they will at the very least have made an attempt to develop executive function and good social skills. If we teach them to always report it to an adult, we are raising a generation of Chicken Littles who cannot function without adult supervision.

Well James I hate to burst your bubble but knocking a bully on his butt works more often than it doesn’t. I never did like bullies, and made it known I wouldn’t stand for it. I stepped in for many smaller students throughout school, and have stood up for adults who need it.

If more people would stand up for others, there would be less bullies.

“”There has never been a time when fighting with a bully made the bully stop being a bully. All it does is (usually, not always) make the bully seek a different victim.”

This is short-term thinking”
Actually, it’s critical of of short-term thinking. Specifically, it is critical of “well, it’s not MY problem any more” type short-term thinking. In particular, critical of the selfishness that says “I don’t care if this bully bothers other people, so long as they leave me alone.”

“If a child bully gets whipped enough times, they often learn that it not such a good idea to be a bully”
That’s not how it works. That’s never been how it works, and, I’m going to go out on a limb here, that’s never going to be how it works.
What stops a bully from being a bully is they finally grow up, and learn empathy. This cannot be beaten into somebody, it must come from within (though, of course, proper modeling is a key to mastery). There will always be children who are too small, too weak, or too outnumbered to fight back, which is why bullying is a problem that will never go away… all we can do is take steps to reduce the size and scope of the problem.

“Not fighting back against a bully means everyone must be a defenseless victim”
You’ve badly mistaken my position on this matter, if you got “don’t fight back”.

Nice article, Lenore. Every time you write about this, more people will get your message and hopefully make some changes in their thinking.

The photo at the top of the page with your article on Politico brings to mind something I have always wondered: WHY do many woman choose to run on heavily traveled streets? I don’t get it. It’s the equivalent of saying – Here I am. Look at me. Follow me home. I’m looking for attention.

Then there’s the line in the article that says:

“And then of course there’s the rise in childhood obesity, diabetes and depression.”

I wish you hadn’t used these arguments which to me are somewhat questionable, I know they get repeated everywhere.

I don’t buy the obesity thing because a few years ago, during the Clinton presidency, the numbers describing obesity were lowered so more people – who just the day before were NOT obese are now obese – makes me wonder what the obesity numbers today would be if we went back to those old numbers. I can’t help but think the change to enlarge the obese population was politically motivated. More obese people equals more reason to fund and fight obesity with your tax dollars.

Regarding depression: who knows who’s depressed and who’s not. Nobody asked me. And I’ll bet nobody asked you. The big thing is this. Over the past 20-30+ years, big pharma has been churning out pills they call antidepressants and marketing them everywhere, and asking “are you depressed?” on TV, the net, radio, magazines, you name it. The power of suggestion is a powerful force. (Google “The Nocebo effect). The pill companies and the medical establishment also pushes “getting treatment.” (which usually means taking meds)

Everybody gets depressed sometime, and some stay more depressed than others. What most people don’t know is that antidepressants (and other forms of meds) can actually “Make You depressed,” or make you More depressed. Psychiatrist and patient rights crusader, Peter Breggin discovered:

“From my FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) inquiries to the FDA, I had found that initial drafts of the Prozac label had listed “depression” and “abnormal thoughts” as two of the three most commonly reported adverse reactions to the drug. In these drafts, the company in effect admitted that its own principal investigators–the scientists conducting the clinical trials–were reporting that their patients frequently became more depressed on Prozac…”

That part of the Prozac label was eliminated before the drug was put on the market.

The word is getting out, but since drug companies are always in marketing mode, they do their best to counter this kind of information because they don’t want their products to stop selling.

In Irving Kirsch’s book, “The Emperor’s New drugs,” besides discussing scientific studies that proved antidepressants are no better than placebo, Kirsch tells us on pg. 170 of studies that will be new and welcome information to most people, especially those wanting a natural alternative to antidepressants. If you want to take charge of yourself, you’ll like this alternative. Physical exercise works better than antidepressants. That’s right. Physical exercise works better than antidepressants. Apparently getting as little as 20 minutes of exercise, such as walking, 3 days a week is the answer.

So, Lenore, perhaps the next time you write about “why” kids need regular exercise, you could site Irving Kirsch’s findings showing that regular exercise works to keep depression away. Just a suggestion.

——————————

Lenore said:

” Last year, four Rhode Island legislators proposed a bill that would make it illegal for a school bus to let off any children under 7th grade—that’s age 11—unless there was an adult waiting there to walk them home from the bus stop. Naturally this was presented as just another new measure to keep kids safe.”

Good illustration, as are all the ones you used.

From a different perspective, I would add what I’ve mentioned before on this blog:

David Farragut, the future admiral of the U.S. Navy, began his career as a midshipman when he was 9 years old. That’s right, nine.

When he was 12 years old, ( in the eyes of the Rhode Island legislators, just old enough to get off a school bus by himself ) Farragut, during the War of 1812, was given the assignment to bring a ship captured by the Essex safely to port. And no, this was NOT a tiny plastic enemy boat in the kiddie pool in his family’s fenced backyard.

We told our kids (mostly boys) that they shouldn’t be the ones to start a physical fight. But, if someone starts with them, they should feel free to hit back.The school might have “zero tolerance” rules and they might get in trouble for hitting back. But we, their parents, would support them. Including if the school suspended them. It helped minimize the problem, of course. Telling adults occasionally helps, but often does not.

The main problem with teaching “fight back” as the primary defense against bullying is that not everybody can do it. Sometimes the bully has a substantial advantage in size and strength. This makes use of a weapon the only way to win a physical altercation, and I am reluctant to advocate for this amongst children. The only other alternative is a united front… the way adults solve the problem.

So, you need anti-bullying curriculum, so that bullying behaviors are detected when they’re relatively minor, and you need effective community action to check bullying behaviors that are ongoing, and even when these are at their best functioning, all they’ll do is cut down the frequency and severity a little bit.

James: “The main problem with teaching “fight back” as the primary defense against bullying is that not everybody can do it. Sometimes the bully has a substantial advantage in size and strength. This makes use of a weapon the only way to win a physical altercation, and I am reluctant to advocate for this amongst children.”

Not really. Someone who bullies much smaller children is a coward. He is that much more likely to run away blubbering if a small kid reaches up and punches his nose.

This happened when my brother was in KG. He was very small for his age, wearing size 3 toddler clothes. He was being bullied by a large, overweight sixth-grader. My mom was called to the office because “a fight” had occurred. The 6th grader came to the office crying that [Name Surname] had punched him in the nose. The office people weren’t familiar with my brother’s name, so they became outraged and went off to find that terrible bully. They had to fight back the chuckles when this tiny little boy came in, declaring “he was bullying me so I punched him in the nose.” They were wondering how he even reached his fist up that high. They counseled him not to hit people any more and sent him on his way. My brother always remained small for his age, but wasn’t bullied after that.

I still maintain that exclusion is NOT always a form of bullying – anyone with me? If my child is having a birthday party, I’m going to let her invite the kids she wants to invite. We’re not inviting the whole class; we are going to invite the 6 kids that she likes and considers friends. It is NOT bullying not to invite the whole class or not to invite the kids she doesn’t like.

If she wants to invite a friend over on a Saturday afternoon, I will allow her to invite a friend who she likes spending time with. Sorry if that’s bullying, but why should she spend time with a kid she can’t stand. As long as she is kind to that person in everyday life, I don’t believe she has to be a good friend.

If there’s a kid without friends, who seems to always be alone, I would encourage her to engage with that kid and see how it goes. But I am not going to require her to continually play with and invite kids over who do not warm up to or have anything in common with eachother.
I’m annoyed that that’s considered bullying in our society today.

Buffy,

I am with you.

As an adult I do not have to socialize with people I don’t like, for example James. Sorry couldn’t help it.

Now in business I have to deal with some real morons and pains, but I am getting paid very well to do so. Big difference.

Quote: “Or you can do what my buddy did when his son was being picked on by a much larger boy. He went to the home of the kid, knocked on the door, and when the dad answered, he broke his nose. With the warning of,”Everytime your kid bothers my kid, I am coming over.”

Worked pretty well”

@Warren….well now I don’t know about that Warren…..LOL. The only thing it probably got him was a police record for assault and battery and maybe even some jail time followed by a hefty law suit!

Buffy: “I still maintain that exclusion is NOT always a form of bullying — anyone with me?”

Yes. Exclusion of the “don’t play with him if he won’t play fair” type is not called bullying, it’s called natural consequences. We should probably teach our kids how to articulate this in case they are ever accused of bullying when they decide to exclude a bad actor.

Once or twice my kid complained that a certain girl or two wouldn’t play with her at recess. I told her that people don’t have to be your friend and you don’t have to be theirs. Surely there are other things to do on the playground besides play with the queen bee of the day.

When I was a kid, I hated recess (and gym too) because of the social dynamics at play. I was the one who tended to hang off to the side and hope no well-meaning teacher forced me to join a game. Some of the boys were just too aggressive and impulsive and I don’t see why I should have had to play with them. At least don’t call that “my free time.” As for finding my own things to do, there weren’t as many options at that time and place – we didn’t have play structures, weren’t allowed to climb the wall or fence, weren’t allowed to leave the grounds, weren’t allowed to use rocks to write on the pavement, weren’t allowed to get our dresses dirty or bend over the wrong way (forget cartwheels and handstands) … the limited equipment available (mainly kickballs) were quickly snatched up by those aggressive boys I mentioned. And I didn’t have any interest in discussing how “cute” the latest androgynous rock idol was. So I guess I was a recess dropout. Oh well. 😛

Yes, exclusion CAN be a form of bullying to the extent that one person gets an entire group to exclude a certain child for no real reason – well the original person may have a reason, but the rest of the group is just following along. However, exclusion is not bullying when a person, or even a whole group, doesn’t want to play with a particular kid because the kid is unpleasant.

John.
Actually no it did not. You see not all of us go running to the police or other agencies to settle things. Sometimes we just handle it ourselves.

As for your Brock Lesner example, does not matter. I don’t care how big, or muscled or trained they are. You stand up to them. And I have never seen a knee that was indestructible.

SKL: That’s an anti-bullying curriculum I could get behind. Well, except item 2, which I think communicates weakness; but I guess as long as the kids realize (2) is just CYO and not meant seriously, it shouldn’t do too much harm.

As someone who was excluded alot after the 3rd grade, I don’t think of it as bullying. I was also shoved, insulted, kicked and other things that are real bullying. It didn’t help that we were dirt poor or that my dad was a ptsd viet war vet who was vary nonconfrontational and didn’t want any conflict (Lord knows, I didn’t even feel as if he could teach me to defend myself).

By the time I was in the sixth grade, I only had two friends that I could invite over. By eighth grade, that was down to one. By 12th, I was alone. I never have been able to make friends easily.

Anyway, my point is that exclusion while not bullying exactly, is extremely painful for the excluded. Without well-meaning people, it can become habit to be excluded. It becomes expected and eventually it’s hard to even try to be included.

When you see someone excluded, you should try to figure out why. Is it a racial thing? Or economic status? Personality quirks? Hygiene? Or is just because it’s someone new?

There are lots of reasons this happens, but only a few are impassable.

One more point. I’m not saying that we should force our kids to associate with someone they don’t like. There’s only so much time and too much of it spread over too many people can weaken the quality of the experiences. However, parents and teachers should explore the reasons someone is left out and either teach kids to overcome the reasons for exclusion or, if it’s something the kid excluded can work on, help them change.

My Two Cents,

David

Dhewco: That’s all quite true. I was never an “in kid” myself, though I also wasn’t the kid everybody else whispered about and pointedly ran away from. At my school that certainly happened; the girls were often quite explicit about it: “Hey, so-and-so’s coming; run away around the side of the building and don’t talk to her.” In the particular cases I remember the “reasons” were hygiene, race, disability, and/or obesity – usually at least two of the above combined, actually. E.g., the girl who got treated worst was adopted from India in my white-as-snow hometown, physically more mature so she sweated and thus smelled more, and hard of hearing (and to be honest she had some pretty annoying social maladjustments too).

Probably some of the teachers did try to subtly intervene to improve matters; e.g., my fourth grade teacher taught us all about Guatemala before a refugee from there joined our class, and managed to make to make her background seem so exotic and intriguing that she immediately became the most sought-after girl in the class. However, anything heavy-handed would definitely have backfired. Myself, I actually made a point of being nice or at least not mean to the kids who were singled out for exclusion, because that was what my parents had taught me. (Although since I was a bit of a “loser” myself, it’s not like I could improve anybody’s social status.) I really doubt a school curriculum can teach kids to go against the crowd like that, though. What specifically were you thinking the adults could do? Work with the excluded kid – e.g., on their hygiene or whatever it is, or influence the other kids?

To be honest, I’m really not sure. If it’s a hygiene problem, it could hurt the kid to bring it up. You’d also be involving yourself in their home life, so it might not work out well for teachers. When I was in 3rd grade, a classmate had nasty, blackened teeth. A nice girl, to be sure, but her home life was horrible and her foster caregivers were really in it just for the check. (At least, that was the rumor..take it for what it’s worth.) As a kid, I remember feeling pity for her, but also I was so wrapped up in my loss of popularity that I didn’t want to go too far in her favor.

In K-2, I had many friends. From 3rd afterwards, I somehow found myself being excluded. My friends of the previous years suddenly had no time for me. I was lost in confusion. I didn’t really understand cliques. I hadn’t changed anything that I could think of. I was on the lousiest little league team the year before 3rd started, but that shouldn’t have made a difference. The problem is that once the ostracization starts, it becomes habit. The kids think, “Hey, we didn’t allow such and such to play with us…why start now? We had plenty of fun without him.” In the mind of the excluded kid (at least in my case), it starts to affect your personality. The confusion turns to anger and resentment, which also interferes with making friends…and keeping them. You begin to hold on to the friends that you currently have too hard. When they inevitably begin to get tired of it, the rejection is that much harder. You lose the will and the ability to make new ones.

I don’t really have a solution except to teach kids that actions, and inactions, have consequences. I don’t know how to intervene in a way that would help. I wish I did. Until we do, there will always be those who have no way to fit in. I guess it’s life.

As an adult, I’ve made just a few real friends. Most, I’ve met through church. We need teachers who can recognize the signs and help students build skills to make friends, especially if they’re parents are unable to do so. Whatever the reasons for exclusion, they need to be taught that there are others out there willing to be their friends. They just have to have the skills to find them.

David

“Or isn’t it just possible that some things aren’t amenable to being taught in a curriculum, but have to be learned by doing? ”

Are you of the opinion that “learn by doing” is mutually exclusive to “being taught in a curriculum”?

I suspect if a child being bullied said something like: “John, who’s been bullying YOU? Ya know, they say bullies are often being bullied by someone else. So who’s bullying you? Your Dad? Your brother? Come on, John, who is it?” Then turn and walk away.

When I was a kid, my next door neighbor was way bigger and a few years older than I. She was pushy and would use intimidation to get me and others to do things her way. I mean she would hold up her fist and threaten to use it if we didn’t comply. One day when I was 11 or 12, she started bugging me and I decided I wasn’t having it. I had my toddler brother in my arms and she started saying rude things to him about me. I said something about her being so immature that she would direct her attack at a toddler. She lost it and slapped me hard across the face. I held my ground and said something dismissive about her. She burst into tears and went away.

After gathering herself, she came back, still in tears, and apologized to me. After that she always treated me like a true friend.

Of course none of that would have happened had an adult been supervising / interfering.

I was proud that that was a moment of growth for both of us, because I had the guts to resist intimidation. I’ve had other moments like that since then, as an adult (where it’s not a fist but some other form of intimidation), and they pretty much all end the same way.

Love it, but why oh why do we have to use the word “orgasm” in relation to children’s play? Can ANYTHING not be sexualized today?!

They use “orgasm” not to sexualize it (although it kinda does) but to emphasize the parallel with the rush of endorphins that comes with that event. It’s such a happy, enjoyable sensation that whoever used that term feels that any other term falls short.

I used to have a work colleague who thought everything fun or tasty was “orgasmic.” I blushed a lot working with her. 😛

‘Are you of the opinion that “learn by doing” is mutually exclusive to “being taught in a curriculum”?’ No, I don’t think so necessarily (although I think there might be many cases where that is true), but some things are ineradicably one thing or the other. And if the skill in question essentially involves social interaction, being taught to follow a set of rules or invoke an authority figure to intervene is being taught something false and counter-productive to the skill in question. I should know: I was a socially inept kid who listened to what I was taught and tattled regularly. Believe me, it was a bad lesson.

“I was a socially inept kid who listened to what I was taught and tattled regularly. Believe me, it was a bad lesson.”

I was the one in hundreds of fistfights. Also a bad lesson. Bully A gets sent packing, and finds new victims elsewhere, but bully B steps up to the plate not long after. Somewhere along the line, you run into the bully who doesn’t go away… he waits until he can catch you by surprise, he makes his next visit with several friends, he brings a weapon, or some combination of all of these. Or he moves on to vandalism of your property.

Yes, I had the bully who wound up in prison, for crimes committed while a minor. Most bullies just need to grow up; they aren’t psychopaths. But… every rule about human beings has an exception.

I’ll make a more general and then a specific (thread-related) comments.

There is something about this and a couple similar “free range” communities that make me uncomfortable: the automatic nostalgic validation of whatever social norms, especially among kids/teens, were prevalent 50 years ago as necessarily positive and worth reviving just because half a century ago they had more freedom to walk alone, play alone etc.

This is they typical wrong inference of causation fallacy: just because two phenomena were happening together doesn’t mean one causes the other or vice-versa.

This being said, I’m even more disturbed by how bullying and other forms of aggression are also often dismissed on this site as if they were all unreasonable assessments of risk or impacts.

The suggestion that people should just “fight back” instances of bullying, in the sense of physical violence, couldn’t be more wrong. There is also a major misunderstanding of how bullying really operates.

First of all, not all severely bullied kids can fight back, and being weaker doesn’t validate making someone a target. If that happens among adults, police might be involved, we are long past the days of accepting physical assault or duels as means of solving dispute, thankfully. Girls, for instance, are often physically weaker than boys of similar ages on high school, does this mean boys can to bullying girls around and then we all blame them for not fighting back? Remember that this was once a despicable mainstream reasoning: if a girl can’t take the catcalling, the sexual slurs or the vindictive name calling, and can’t fight back mostly boys doing it, then they shouldn’t ‘provoke’ the boys with ‘indecent’ clothing – is this the sort of social behavior we want to “bring back” as hallmark of free range child life?

Regarding the exclusion specific discussion, I also think some people are missing the point how pre-teen and teen life operates now with all social media and full time connectivity. Not inviting everyone for a social function isn’t bullying. Refusing to play with someone specifically isn’t bullying. Orchestrating a general social ostracism of some student because of the way (s)he dresses, speaks, or because of a disability or anything else is a cruel measure.

“when I was in school (which was 20 not 50 years ago, by the way) boys didn’t generally bully girls, nor did girls generally bully boys.”

When my daughter was in preschool, they sure did. And there are some stereotypes (wifebeater, henpecked husband) that suggest that cross-gender bullying were recognizable (even leaving out the question of whether sexual violence should be counted under the “bullying” umbrella.)

Just from my own experience and things that have gone one with my kids at their schools:

I’ve given my kids 2 rules to live by on the playground:

1) They don’t have to be friends with anyone but they have to RESPECT everyone.

2) They can’t start a fight, but they are permitted to finish one and they won’t get in trouble with me.

@ Buffy:

I completely agree with you that exclusion, in and of itself, is not bullying. Can it become bullying? Of course, but that’s a far cry from not playing with a kid who is unpleasant. I personally believe that being excluded because of “anti-social” behavior teaches people in the long run how to be inter-personable with other adults. A kid who doesn’t learn to modify their poor behavior will grow up to be an adult that no one wants to be around.

Also, I too have asked my kids to go out of their way if they see someone being excluded for an unknown reason. Those kids are usually not too hard to pick out. They don’t even need to play with them — but acknowledging them, maybe even offering to eat with them, can go a long way. Both of my kids have been really good at that.

Getting schools and administrators involved with bullying only works if the school actually wants to step in and do something, I grew up in Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley. The Apple IIe had just hit the market when I was a kid. My sister and I still live in the area but our kids go to 2 very different school districts.

My kids go to a great district (in my opinion). It’s not the best academically (at least by Bay Area standards), but the schools are all CA distinguished schools and they are also ethnically and racially mixed — Asian, Indian, Black, White, Mexican…you name it.

My niece (and nephew) go to the same district I grew up in, but it has changed so much from when I went there. Now, the students are primarily Chinese and Indian and the schools there are huge on the academics — so much so that an under achieving kid will be sent to an under achieving school before they are put in a class that is more at their academic level. Kids at the high schools are regularly getting 5.0 GPAs (which I still think is hinky, but oh well). They are also wealthier because most of their parents are working at Apple and Google, Hewlett Packard, and any number of start-ups and the other 50 million tech companies that are ruining this area (my opinion).

My niece, who is for all intents and purposes half black, was fairly popular her first few years of elementary school. Then her dad picked her up one day and it was then that the other kids realized that she was half black. Suddenly they were making derogatory comments about her hair being too curly (its not kinky, just wavy) and her skin being too dark. This went on for a while. A long while. My sister complained and had meetings and was always told that the school was working on it and it would take time.

Then I picked my niece up from school one day (a little nervous because I tend to gravitate towards the punk culture so I have tattoos and piercings and my hair is always different colors so I wasn’t sure how that would go over in that environment), and when I asked her how school was she told me honestly that she’d been picked on during recess and lunch because of her hair and skin. I turned the car around and drove right back to the school.

I’m not a huge “play the race card” person, but I was so pissed that I told the principal that if they didn’t actually make a concerted effort to stop this bullying that I was going to contact the ACLU and the NAACP. To be honest, I was bluffing, but the schools in this district are so competitive and image conscious I knew they would not want the scandal that would happen if the NAACP marched onto the school grounds demanding to know why a black student was being targeted. I also told them that since I worked nights, I would have more than enough time to park my ass at the tables on the playground to watch what was going on if they wanted or needed evidence. I also added that they were required to move students to a new school if requested by the parents and that if nothing was done, then they would lose their straight-A student to an entirely different district (mine!)

The school finally actually stepped in and started handing down punishments. And while the bullying didn’t stop, it did decrease and my niece started to have more “okay” days than bad days. But, as I said at the beginning, these anti-bullying programs at schools (when there is actual bullying and not just kids being kids) only work if the schools are less worried about their image and more worried about actually educating and creating a rich environment for the kids.

Bullying has taken a dramatic increase because:
School administrators must adopt Gustopo practices or lose their jobs. Men are not allowed to sit next to children on airplanes. Adults can’t visit Lego land unless they bring a child. Toddlers are suspended if they eat a pop tart in the shape of a gun. Parents have to face CPS, police, or jail if they allow their child to play unsupervised. People can be tortured for life if they pee outside by becoming a member on the sex offender list.

Are kids too safe to succeed? Perhaps. However the laws are written that you must raise them this way.

Buffy: Bullying can be exclusion depending on how it is done. Would you allow her to invite every girl in her class but the special needs girl? Or every girl but one? If you don’t see how that is cruel and exclusionary than you must have been a mean girl in school too.

Exclusion, even exclusion people don’t like is not always a bad thing. Do you really think children are so stupid they can’t tell when they aren’t wanted to be there? My mother made me go to plenty of parties where I was just there because they were required to invite everyone. I knew I wasn’t wanted there from the first moment and none of those parties were fun or enjoyable in any way.

Also it keeps people from excluding people they want to. Why should anyone be penalized for not wanting to be around someone they have nothing in common with? I had to deal with that both living on site at job corp despite being 18 (repeatedly punished for not being friend with all the girls despite having absolutely nothing in common with them and having friends with those in my course) and at a job where I was penalized again for not being friends with everyone despite again having nothing in common with them except where we worked.

Not being friends or not getting along with everyone around you is normal. Adults certainly don’t invite everyone around them that they casually know to every single event why should children be required to? Being left out of things is not the end of the world and thanks to the internet, you can in fact find people with similar interests somewhere else.

@SOA
“Let’s not focus it on sports. There are a thousand and one games kids can play that are not sports”

Of course it doesn’t have to be sports. How about music, for example?

You know, I was thinking of some of the very young (teenage) groups I’ve seen at the Celtic festivals I attend, and you know what? They were all homeschooled, expect for one group whose members went to a special school for musically talented kids.

Something about regular schools seems to warp the ability to interact without supervision. And it must be getting worse, since a generation or more ago even public-schooled kids could manage SOME things by themselves.

“I was in school 20 years ago and yes, boys bullied me. I had boys do the lovely bark at me as I walked down the hall to indicate I was “Dog ugly”. Yes, I believe they were put up to it mostly by their girlfriends who did not like me. I heard other boys bullying other girls by calling them sluts or other names.”

Oh – boys regularly mocked me in high school for being physically undeveloped (try looking like you’re 9 years old in 11th grade if you want to know how mean high school guys can be) but I guess I didn’t really class that as being bullied. It was easy enough for me to ignore and avoid them. But I thought the earlier point I was responding to was about bullying a younger age, and focused on the need to protect girls from boys because they’re bigger and stronger. That’s what I did not see much of – boys using their physical strength and size against girls. If it’s just mockery and words, I feel like girls can easily beat them at that game – home turf advantage, as it were.

“The most successful anti-bullying measures involve empathy training regardless of age — and the best way to train is by caring for those who are younger and being cared for by those who are older.”

This.

I’m a bit sick of all this bully talk. Yes, we need to call out the specific bad behaviors and address them but focus should be on empathy for others. “Mean Girl” behaviors will never totally go away and are often passed down from parents, like manipulation and control. All of my kids have had encounters with these type of behaviors and I never considered them “bullied”. They can learn from these experiences and not be treated like fragile tea cups that will shatter if they are called a name or not included. They can also stick up for their friends and have empathy for others who need it most.

You may not be the most popular, prettiest, fastest, smartest, or skinniest. But you can always be the nicest.

@Donna- I think I know that kid! My husband calls her the “grenade” because she implodes every social event.

My daughter had an informal birthday celebration at the annual fete (carnival rides, performances, horse show, etc) and invited 8 friends. We got the girls unlimited ride wristbands and partnered them up so they had a buddy on each ride. About 30 minutes into the rides, the grenade girl goes on the Gravitron (which was earlier shut down to clean up puke) with her buddy. I waited outside the ride for her but only the buddy came to me. She said the grenade got back on the ride, by herself, and rode it again. She was entirely green when she came off and demanded to go home because she felt sick.

I took her to lie down on some chairs in the shade while a musical performance was setting up and gave her water. I also asked her why she went on the ride again without a buddy or permission. She insisted on being taken home NOW. I told her that leaving would mean everyone would have to go (this was an hour away) and it would ruin my daughter’s birthday. She said that’s fine and asked if she could have cotton candy. Yeah, no. She moaned and groaned to leave so my husband finally left me with all the kids and drove her home (she again asked for cotton candy on the way out) and he said NEVER AGAIN. We had to call all the other parents because we came home 2 hours after we were supposed to because of this kid. There are some kids that seek out drama and attention.

Avoid the grenade children. It’s not bullying. It’s self-preservation.

People like SOA are the problem when it comes to the bullying label.

Saying “Ew get out of here Dork.”, is not bullying. Yes it is rude, but it is not bullying.

Talking badly about people is not bullying, it is gossip.

So sick and freaking tired of hearing people say this is bullying and that is bullying, and every damn thing you don’t like is bullying.

I would like to know where it is written that people have the god given right to only deal with people that are going to be nice to them. It is life, not everyone is nice, and you cannot change that.

What you can do is teach your kids to be tougher, have thicker skins and not cry at the drop of the hat.

No, its not okay to be rude. If you tell a coworker “eww dork you can’t sit with us” you would find a harassment complaint filed against you. Try telling your boss that and see how that works out for you.

If adults can’t do it, why can kids? School is not like the real world because besides maybe your job, you get to choose who you are around. School you are forced to be around these other kids every day all day long and its such an eclectic group of all types. Even at work you are probably going to be around other science nerds if you are a science nerd. Not at school. The science nerds have to share the same space as the jocks. And it causes issues.

But it does not have to. Being rude is never okay. Since when is it okay to advocate being rude over being kind?

So yes, saying “Eww dork you can’t sit with us” is bullying and unacceptable. What if the kid you just said that to had their parent die last week? What if they were thinking about suicide? Yeah that might have just pushed that person to killing themselves. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. So be kind to others. If you can’t be kind to others, then maybe you need to go sit in silent lunch detention to learn your lesson? Natural consequences. Is it really that hard to say “Sorry we have someone else sitting here.” with a smile versus the mean attitudey insulting way to say it?

The difference is at least you are treating them with enough respect to answer kindly versus treating them like dirt on your shoe. In one case, at least it shows you are trying to spare their feelings. The other shows you could care less if they go slit their wrists or not. So yeah, to me there is a difference.

SOA,

I would have no problem telling my boss that. Mind you the people around me would think I was going nuts for talking to myself.

And yes it is overly sensitive people like you that are a bigger problem than bullying. Because you think everything you don’t like is a form of bullying. No they are not. People just do not like you. That is not bullying.

Being rude is not bullying. Never has been and never will be. If it was bullying, then you would be very guilty of bullying.

“So yes, saying “Eww dork you can’t sit with us” is bullying and unacceptable.”

This is utter nonsense. That’s like saying because I had one beer with dinner last night (two actually…those summer shandys go down too easy) that I am an alcoholic. I am not an alcoholic.
One beer does not make a pattern of abuse just like one comment does not make someone a bully.

Rudeness is not bullying. It’s just being rude. And sometimes we perceive others to be rude when miscommunication happens. Some folks have a direct matter of speaking. Some kids ARE having bad days and say mean things unintentionally. That doesn’t make them bullies, just human.

Dolly, if my child was to say to yours “Eww (allergy kid), you can’t sit with us” because they are feasting on a jar of peanut butter smeared all over their table and they don’t want to expose your child to an known allergen, are they bullying?

SOA, you really don’t have much real workplace experience, do you? It takes a lot more than one rude comment to initiate a harassment complaint.

I’ll take a stab at it and say you run into your fair share of rude people. And it has nothing to do with your personality.

No, saving a chair for somebody is not bullying. But the WAY you go about doing it might be.

Donna: reading comprehension. I never said saving seats is bullying. Telling someone in a mean rude way that you are saving a seat is what is rude. Instead of just saying “Sorry Charlie, this seat is being saved for Joe” they will say “Eww gross dork get away from here you can’t sit with us,” is bullying.

It is going out of your way to be mean and insulting when you don’t have to be.

Warren: my husband almost got fired and was given a bad review at work and did not get a promotion one year because he used less that stellar wording towards a female coworker. He was not even blatantly rude. Just said something along the lines of “If it is so easy, then you do it” when she was bugging him about doing something he was already working on.

So yes, I absolutely believe that you can get in trouble at work for being anything less than perfectly polite.

Yes, dorks know they’re dorks for the most part, and high school sucks for a lot of kids. Relentless rejection will cause some kids to snap, as in Columbine, but one hopes the parents of ‘dorks’ can help their kids find activities beyond school to engage in, so that they find a group or even a friend somewhere. …

I don’t think it’s helicoptering to assist kids on the social outer to find a place to fit in.

It’s been pretty well proven that the Columbine shooters were not victims of bullying; in fact, they bragged about being bullies themselves. Start here:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-04-13-columbine-myths_N.htm

Then read Dave Cullen’s book “Columbine”.

SOA: It sounds like you’re classifying any bad, nasty, blameworthy or aggressive action as “bullying.” This seems to me unhelpful. Do we really want to say every bad action toward others is “bullying” and invoke a special kind of zero-tolerance policy against it? I think all of us here probably agree we don’t want our kids behaving like jerks, but not every jerk is a bully.

I think maybe those who earlier on this thread objected to the increasing use of “bully” as a verb rather than a noun were onto something important. The traditional meaning of the term (and I believe its primary usefulness) is to designate a particular type of person who routinely and habitually uses various forms of violence and pressure on other kids with the purpose of bringing them into submission. Not every kid who does something nasty or rude is a bully, and the term is in my opinion not especially helpful in dealing with normal kids who experiment with meanness.

This is a really good article from someone who does anti-bullying trainings. I quoted the key points I thought were relevant to this discussion, and I think the author says it better than I could.

Is it Rude, Is it Mean, or is it Bullying?
Why we all must learn to distinguish between rude, mean, and bullying behaviors
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/passive-aggressive-diaries/201211/is-it-rude-is-it-mean-or-is-it-bullying

“Rude = Inadvertently saying or doing something that hurts someone else. Incidents of rudeness are usually spontaneous, unplanned inconsideration, based on thoughtlessness, poor manners, or narcissism, but not meant to actually hurt someone.

Mean = Purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone once (or maybe twice.) Mean behavior very much aims to hurt or depreciate someone. Meanness is impulsive cruelty that is often regretted in short order.

Bullying = Intentionally aggressive behavior, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power. Experts agree that bullying entails three key elements: an intent to harm, a power imbalance, and repeated acts or threats of aggressive behavior. Kids who bully say or do something intentionally hurtful to others and they keep doing it, with no sense of regret or remorse—even when targets of bullying show or express their hurt or tell the aggressors to stop.

If kids and parents improperly classify rudeness and mean behavior as bullying we all run the risk of becoming so sick and tired of hearing the word that this actual life-and-death issue among young people loses its urgency as quickly as it rose to prominence.”

This whole overuse of the term bullying stems from the emerging sense of entitlement we see these days.

People seem to think they are entitled to be treated the way they want to be treated. If not then they cry bully.

Life is not fair. Never has been and never will be.

“If kids and parents improperly classify rudeness and mean behavior as bullying we all run the risk of becoming so sick and tired of hearing the word that this actual life-and-death issue among young people loses its urgency as quickly as it rose to prominence.”

JKP- I wish your comment were up at the top of this thread!

I think we are there already and it has lost its urgency. Do you think bullying is more likely with this lack of social training from not playing without adult supervision? I see more and more kids (mostly boys) who at the first opportunity to not be under mom’s watchful eye (or in aftercare) behave abhorrently to others and generally act like little shits. Not so much bullying, just see what they can get away with.

@SOA-
I used the word “ewww” correctly in a sentence last night. I am not rude or a bully.

My teenage son played soccer all day and was dripping sweat and smelly when he walked in the family room and tried to lay down on the sofa. My daughter and her friend were on the sofa watching a movie and planning on sleeping there for the night. I said, “Ewww. Don’t lie on the sofa in your sweaty uniform” and suggested he get a cool shower to cool off, which he agreed was a smart idea. He came down later and watched the movie. And I saved my sofa from a wet and smelly spot. Because sleeping on that IS ewww gross. It’s just a word. Using it isn’t automatically rude.

And this is why I won’t feel sorry for any of you if a kid shoots up your kid’s school over bullying or being ostracized and lonely.
Because you seem to think its okay to be rude and mean to people for no reason and that kindness is not the standard you should strive for.
I certainly am not friends with everyone I meet. But I try to at least be kind. Which is probably why I was such a target as a young kid. Because they knew I was going to be nice and not snark and bitch back at them.

You should prepare your kids that there are jerks out there, but never advocate they become one of them.
I still follow the golden rule of if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all and treat others as you want to be treated.
If you want to mock me for that go ahead. That just shows what a truly awful person you are. And definitely unChristian if you claim to be one of those.

Personally I have never seen a person over age 14 say “eww” nor “you’re a dork” to anyone other than a good friend who would understand that it was a joke. Maybe I travel in different circles.

Bullying in adults is a whole different thing IMO. It is much more rare at that age too. It is also easier to deal with in a workplace, because the bully can be fired. Some people are bullies at home, and that’s a whole other issue, and not a FRK issue.

As for whether kids bully more now than before, I don’t know. If they do, it’s only because we treat bullies with kid gloves, not because kids are meaner or stupider. The fact that some kids will be a$$holes when their parents aren’t around is nothing new.

There is a girl next door to us, and I am thrilled that they moved in a year ago, because before, there were no kids for mine to play with. This girl is super sweet when adults are around. But I work upstairs with my window open, and I hear what happens when they think nobody is listening. She is overbearing at times (which nobody else believes, because she’s so nice around adults). Her being older and much bigger than my kids already makes mine more likely to want to please her vs. disagree. However, my kids aren’t shrinking violets; they will put in their two cents’ worth, and they’ll leave if they feel mistreated. Therefore, I don’t see bullying. Also, my kids are not accusing her of bullying even when they come home because of her being unkind.

Adults should be mature enough to not take it personally when people prefer to sit with people they hang out with. They can of course ask kindly, “mind if I sit here,” and I’ve never seen anyone say “no” unless they were actually saving a seat for a friend/relative (which is certainly not bullying). Then they might become friends or they might feel awkward because they aren’t a good fit with that group. And next time they probably won’t choose to sit with that group. Not bullying.

An adult who thinks it is normal to just plop your butt next to a stranger without asking permission is an adult with a severe lack of social awareness. No wonder if people look at them a little funny. Politeness is a two-way street.

“Adults should be mature enough to not take it personally when people prefer to sit with people they hang out with.”
So if all the lunch counters in town hang “whites only” signs, that’s OK, because it’s just people wanting to sit with people they hang out with?

SOA,

“And this is why I won’t feel sorry for any of you if a kid shoots up your kid’s school over bullying or being ostracized and lonely.
Because you seem to think its okay to be rude and mean to people for no reason and that kindness is not the standard you should strive for.”

What is your problem? Nobody said it is okay to be rude or mean. All we have ever said is that being rude or mean is not bullying. If you cannot understand that, then you need to go back to school.

As for the kindness issues, there are all sorts of different levels of kindness. Do I expect my kids to be kind to everyone, no matter what? Absolutely not.

And I think you need to go to confession, immediately. You say you won’t fell sorry if our kids school gets shot up, and then later on call us “unChristian”. Go tell your priest, minister or whatever what you wrote, and ask him or her if that is within the values of your faith.

“Because you seem to think its okay to be rude and mean to people for no reason and that kindness is not the standard you should strive for.”

And anyone said that where? We said that there is a difference between being rude and bullying. Nothing more. We also said that you need to be able to deal with rudeness in life as many people are rude. Most are not, but you will run into rude people during your life. If you get your knickers in a twist and start whining every time it happens, you are going to be seen as the problem.

“But I try to at least be kind. Which is probably why I was such a target as a young kid. Because they knew I was going to be nice and not snark and bitch back at them.”

Sweetheart, if your posts here are any indication as to how you treat others in the real world, this is so far from true that it is laughable.

“You should prepare your kids that there are jerks out there, but never advocate they become one of them.”

And where did anyone advocate that their kids should become jerks?

“I still follow the golden rule of if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all and treat others as you want to be treated.”

Wow, Lady, if you treat people as you wish to be treated, you must wish to be treated awfully. Just about every thread you participate in shows you to be completely condescending, self-absorbed, judgmental and a pretty negative person in general.

“And this is why I won’t feel sorry for any of you if a kid shoots up your kid’s school over bullying or being ostracized and lonely.”

Yes, hoping our children die in shooting spree is certainly nice and “christian” (actually it is fairly “christian” which is why I am adamantly opposed to religion, but that is a different topic).

“If it’s never bullying, it’s never bullying. If it’s never bullying, then nobody was bullied. Applying this logic to the LR9 case tells us that they were not bullied. Will you not stand by your original claim? Or is “but that’s somehow DIFFERENT!” your final answer?”

No it is not bullying. It is discrimination, hate, and illegal if they are actually threatening violence. But it is not bullying. Yes final answer.

Now James do you want to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?

Buffy,

I am not sure if it is her stories or her meds she can’t keep straight.

What Christian religion is it again in which the believers hope for school shootings? Dolly?

SOA,
Give it up, we all know you and what you are about.