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redbetta
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Maybe you should have asked one of your gal pals to pay her a little visit.
Can a moral case be made in defense of school bullying?
- Thread starter HomeschoolDad
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Neithan
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I was a bully until about age 13 or so. Kids are bullies for different reasons. In my case I learned it from an older brother and just passed it on to others at school. Thankfully I grew out of it, but we shouldn’t shame or aggressively target bullies to the extent that we’re doing more harm than good. It’s sinful and parents/educators should inform consciences, but kids are not entirely self-aware and often they really have no idea of the impact they are having.
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Servant31
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I was bullied pretty relentlessly when I was younger and a bit when I was older too. It’s not cool at all.
Honestly though I think we need to define bullying too. In the culture we have now many people believe bullying is anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. Or if you disagree with someone, that’s bullying too.
I was accused of this once at work. Someone asked me, the lead worker, to help them with a task, I said sure. “Yeah looks good maybe just tighten it a bit more.” This was, according to one group of girls (who were bullies) mean, I made the one I said this to “feel like she couldn’t do it”. I literally don’t know how I could have been nicer.
I think it’s possible to be bullied for sure. It’s also possible to be too sensitive. I think true bullying though should be eliminated from earth.
Honestly though I think we need to define bullying too. In the culture we have now many people believe bullying is anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. Or if you disagree with someone, that’s bullying too.
I was accused of this once at work. Someone asked me, the lead worker, to help them with a task, I said sure. “Yeah looks good maybe just tighten it a bit more.” This was, according to one group of girls (who were bullies) mean, I made the one I said this to “feel like she couldn’t do it”. I literally don’t know how I could have been nicer.
I think it’s possible to be bullied for sure. It’s also possible to be too sensitive. I think true bullying though should be eliminated from earth.
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TheLittleLady
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Forced friendship by edict is going to backfire. All of us naturally gravitate to a core group of friends. When my son was in grade school the rules were if one student had a birthday party (outside of school) they MUST invite every member of the class. You know what happened? Birthday parties became like a speak-easy during prohibition.
Children can be encouraged to build each other up without forbidding close friendships.
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TK421
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@HomeschoolDad
You’re definitely good at surprising me with thread topics, lol.
At some point, adults usually learn that many things aren’t worth it when it comes arguing or fighting over. Kids often don’t know this yet and they tend to mutually argue/nag each other over non-issues. The parents hear this and sometimes confuse it with bullying because A) they love their child, and B ) they only hear the story from their child and it is often colored in an extremely prejudice way to make the other child look bad.
Setting that aside, bullying happens where somebody is habitually predatory on somebody else for amusement (schadenfreude) and it is an extremely serious problem that needs to be addressed seriously. People that are bullies as children (actual bullies, not kids nagging with each other) are very high risk of being felons and aggressors as adults. The overwhelming majority of the time the bully has experienced violence from their parents or somebody else and this behavior is mimicked and they are looking for something to lash out at, which means finding somebody who is weak and easy and maybe has some social quirks that they find subjectively annoying. It is unjustifiable in all circumstances. There needs to be compassion, both for the victim and for the bully because there is almost always something happening that is driving that behavior. Many bullies live in houses that are hell on Earth.
Peace.
You’re definitely good at surprising me with thread topics, lol.
At some point, adults usually learn that many things aren’t worth it when it comes arguing or fighting over. Kids often don’t know this yet and they tend to mutually argue/nag each other over non-issues. The parents hear this and sometimes confuse it with bullying because A) they love their child, and B ) they only hear the story from their child and it is often colored in an extremely prejudice way to make the other child look bad.
Setting that aside, bullying happens where somebody is habitually predatory on somebody else for amusement (schadenfreude) and it is an extremely serious problem that needs to be addressed seriously. People that are bullies as children (actual bullies, not kids nagging with each other) are very high risk of being felons and aggressors as adults. The overwhelming majority of the time the bully has experienced violence from their parents or somebody else and this behavior is mimicked and they are looking for something to lash out at, which means finding somebody who is weak and easy and maybe has some social quirks that they find subjectively annoying. It is unjustifiable in all circumstances. There needs to be compassion, both for the victim and for the bully because there is almost always something happening that is driving that behavior. Many bullies live in houses that are hell on Earth.
Peace.
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redbetta
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This reminds me of that one school that tried to ban best friends.
People with similar interests are always going to gravitate towards each other. That does not mean that they are going to antagonize people with different interests.
People with similar interests are always going to gravitate towards each other. That does not mean that they are going to antagonize people with different interests.
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Neithan
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Not always. Sometimes the bully wants to be “the best” and challenges others who they perceive as a challenge so they can feel powerful. A bully can pick multiple targets for different reasons. I think it’s a primitive part of us that many kids, perhaps because they are naturally looked up to for whatever reasons at an early age, so they get a feeling of superiority, haven’t learned to control.
Excellent thread on one of my favorite subjects (especially since I was one of those bullied).
Let’s tear into these supposed defenses:
You can’t ask everyone to go out of their way to be friends with everyone else. If the “cool kids” hang out together, that’s their choice; you can’t stop them; and it may be for the best.
But there’s a difference between that and purposely trying to demean someone else and labeling that person as the bottom of the “pecking order.”
It is that bad, if you’re a young person being bullied.
“Well, if we get involved and tell the people who are bullying signit that they shouldn’t do it, he won’t learn to fight his own battles. When he’s in the adult workplace and he gets bullied there won’t be someone there to help him.”
First of all, as another poster said, there’s always HR.
And anyway, the kind of garbage I had to put up with probably wouldn’t be done in the workplace; it wouldn’t be “cool” there.
That one is so ludicrous, blaming the victim and not the perpetrator.
When I was bullied, one of the other guys, who was sincerely trying to help me, said, “If you (1) didn’t act like a “f_g,” (2) didn’t talk like a “f_g,” (3) played sports . . . these other guys wouldn’t bother you!”
Instead of saying, “It’s not nice to tell signit (1) he acts like a “f_g,” (2) he talks like a “f_g,” (3) he doesn’t play sports, so he must be a “f_g” . . .”
After all, he’s not bothering you any; why should you care whether he does any of those things?
A few years from now, the people bullying you are going to be adults, in an adult world where bullying isn’t cool.
Doesn’t make it right that someone’s being bullied now, though.
Let’s tear into these supposed defenses:
I won’t deny, there’s such a thing as free association.
You can’t ask everyone to go out of their way to be friends with everyone else. If the “cool kids” hang out together, that’s their choice; you can’t stop them; and it may be for the best.
But there’s a difference between that and purposely trying to demean someone else and labeling that person as the bottom of the “pecking order.”
It’s not that bad, if you’re an adult looking in from the outside.
It is that bad, if you’re a young person being bullied.
In fact that’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t helped when I was bullied.
“Well, if we get involved and tell the people who are bullying signit that they shouldn’t do it, he won’t learn to fight his own battles. When he’s in the adult workplace and he gets bullied there won’t be someone there to help him.”
First of all, as another poster said, there’s always HR.
And anyway, the kind of garbage I had to put up with probably wouldn’t be done in the workplace; it wouldn’t be “cool” there.
Ooh, don’t get me started on this one.
That one is so ludicrous, blaming the victim and not the perpetrator.
When I was bullied, one of the other guys, who was sincerely trying to help me, said, “If you (1) didn’t act like a “f_g,” (2) didn’t talk like a “f_g,” (3) played sports . . . these other guys wouldn’t bother you!”
Instead of saying, “It’s not nice to tell signit (1) he acts like a “f_g,” (2) he talks like a “f_g,” (3) he doesn’t play sports, so he must be a “f_g” . . .”
After all, he’s not bothering you any; why should you care whether he does any of those things?
Doesn’t always work, and even if it did, it wouldn’t make the bullying right.
That’s probably the least invalid of the arguments.
A few years from now, the people bullying you are going to be adults, in an adult world where bullying isn’t cool.
Doesn’t make it right that someone’s being bullied now, though.
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This seems to be a common thread.
True story:
I was bullied by one of the other boys in seventh and eighth grade (U.S. - age 12-14).
After eighth grade he moved with his family to a faraway town and I never saw him again.
Years later I met someone from that town he moved to, who knew him. He told me about some of the things he had to put up with in his home life. If I had known that back then, I would have tried to be nice to him.
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Buks
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What do you mean by “shouldn’t shame”?
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Neithan
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“You’re a bad person and should be punished!” As opposed to the healthier (and Catholic) “That is a bad thing and you’re not a bad person; so treat others as you want to be treated.” Shame is an unhealthy feeling about oneself and would just make the bullying behaviour worse.
I’m not sure how to make that connection for kids who are bullies: somehow to “activate” the empathy in their brains. I vividly remember reading Lord of the Flies and crying about what happened to Piggy and Simon. I wanted to be a Ralph and not a Jack. I also read the Bible.
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii
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This.
I’ve been wondering if our current refusal to let kids fight back is really a good thing.
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Buks
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I see. I’d suggest a middle response. Perhaps to include, “that’s a sinful behavior”. For the good of the bully, especially for the good of the innocent bullied ones, and for the good of society. A society needs shameful behavior to be identified as such, no?
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Close friendships are good. These can always be pursued more vigorously outside of school hours. My intent is to mitigate or blunt the effect of social hierarchies, to establish esprit de corps, and to inculcate a mentality of “we are all in this together, and everybody in this class is my equal and my colleague”. Kind of like the military — an institution where the best possible character development takes place.HomeschoolDad:
Forced friendship by edict is going to backfire. All of us naturally gravitate to a core group of friends. When my son was in grade school the rules were if one student had a birthday party (outside of school) they MUST invite every member of the class. You know what happened? Birthday parties became like a speak-easy during prohibition.
Children can be encouraged to build each other up without forbidding close friendships.
My son’s school had a “must invite all” rule for birthday parties, and I was always entirely in favor of that. My son had a classmate he didn’t want to attend, and I told him “you invite everyone or there will be no party”. (We ended up not having a party, not because of that, but for unrelated reasons.) When I was in grammar school, we had “invite all” parties and nobody had to be told to do this — it was just the way things were done.
HR isn’t worth two cents in a company where politics and personal relationships are everything. Structured terminations are the dirty little secret of the American workplace.
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Bruised_Reed
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The military breaks you down and the bonding happens through going through something extreme together.
Students with an authoritarian person at the helm may or may not bond, will likely be harmed, and there will srill be bullies, they’ll just be sneakier.
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yankeesouth
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There is no defense at all for bullying although it might not be the kid’s fault for being that way.
Not a defense of this position but a reality when I was a kid…bullies had a tendency to stop their bullying with a pop on the nose…quite a few friendships started with a fight. Difference is back then it was over and done with quickly. Now it carries over into social media.
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Servant31
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Hmm. I tend to think it’s a cycle of violence type of thing. It would be best if authority figures were more adept at intervention. Disruptive kids should be removed imho.
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redbetta
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The whole “you invite everyone in class to your party or you invite no one” thing is silly. Birthday parties are for the birthday boy or girl. Why force them to interact with someone they don’t care for on their special day? If your kid does not want someone at their party, there could be a good reason for it. Maybe that other kid is mean to them at school and would be mean to them on their birthday. Not to mention, the parents would have less kids to feed and entertain this way too.
This is one of the reasons I am considering homeschooling if I have kids. I do not want to be judged or have my kid get in trouble for not inviting everyone to their party.
This is one of the reasons I am considering homeschooling if I have kids. I do not want to be judged or have my kid get in trouble for not inviting everyone to their party.
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii
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Some issues surrounding bullying aren’t that clear cut.
A physical fight is an event. Adults can intervene to put a stop to it.
Exclusion is a lot more tricky. Does everybody have a right to the company of another person? Does everybody have a right to be asked to the sleepover? If you are a kid and only want to hang out with two other kids, is everybody else “excluded”?
What about the kids who bring unpopularity on themselves by annoying or disgusting behaviors? Are you really obligated to have lunch with the booger-eating kid?
A physical fight is an event. Adults can intervene to put a stop to it.
Exclusion is a lot more tricky. Does everybody have a right to the company of another person? Does everybody have a right to be asked to the sleepover? If you are a kid and only want to hang out with two other kids, is everybody else “excluded”?
What about the kids who bring unpopularity on themselves by annoying or disgusting behaviors? Are you really obligated to have lunch with the booger-eating kid?
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