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Bullying and harassment

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mvansand76:
I wanted to start this thread about bullying and harassment because in my opinion not a lot of attention is paid to prevention and to the life-long effects of bullying. It makes me so sad to think of the consequences and still, at least here in Holland, insufficient attention is paid to prevention and really finding out what the long-term effects are of bullying.

Were you ever bullied in school?

How did you deal with it?

Are your kids being bullied?

How do you deal with it?

Have you ever or are you now being bullied at work?

How do you deal with it?


And another question that always plays in my mind. Do you really think there is a difference between teasing and bullying? I have always thought that to a very sensitive child, teasing can come over as bullying, and especially because children cannot put things into perspective as much as adults can.

Wishes:
I think I'm an expert on what it is like to be bullied. Without getting into details it will haunt a person for the rest of their life.

I don't think education or anything else will stop it. People will bully if they feel superior either physically or mentally to a person. I think it is part of the human psyche. Eventhough I don't think it applies to everyone, but to a large population. Basically they are cowards because they never pick on someone bigger than themselves or bully alone.

injest:
this morning on the local news they showed a little segment called "Focus on the Family" (yeah, the same group) anyway it was about bullying. The expert said that bullying is a major factor in suicides and school violence...then he looked into the camera and said "When kids start killing other kids it is time to do something"

so I guess when the kid kills himself because he can't stand it anymore...that's ok. no need to act as long as it is just the 'losers' killing themselves...

 >:( >:( >:( >:(

moremojo:
I was a gentle and shy child and teenager, and was bullied on occasion by my peers. There just seems to be this dark corner in human nature that some will seek to feel powerful by abusing those who they deem to be weaker and more vulnerable than themselves.

What made my situation even more egregious was that the adults (teachers, in my case) stood by and let the bullying continue. In the first case, it was my sixth-grade coach, who I believe in retrospect was thinking that the incident was "good" for me, and would "help" me become a "man" (what absolute, insulting nonsense), and in the second, a female teacher (high-school level) who I think was afraid in some sense to intervene in what she knew was happening right outside her classroom door. I felt (feel) even angrier and more betrayed by these elders to whose care I was entrusted than at my peers who abused and threatened me.

To be fully honest and fair, a first cousin of mine and I on occasion bullied another cousin (my first cousin's younger brother) when we were children, because we were older, stronger, and could get away with it, and all this gave us a feeling of power that we enjoyed (though we would not have been able to articulate all this at that age). So I have been on both sides of the coin. I think the impulse to power and domination is a natural component of humanity, but I do not think it is moral or just. It is wrong to victimize another human being, even a child wronging another child, and it is the responsibility of society (represented by the family, the school, or the law) to intervene in such circumstances.

Wishes:
Those Focus on the Family segments make me sick. I turn the channel when they come on.

I agree with you moremojo about the adults in school. I too experienced this. Teachers were aware of incidents and let it go. Some bully mentality definitially starts in the home and with the parents.

I figured out a number of years ago why I never felt comfortable at the mall: it reminded me of the hallways at school. I still hate going to the mall and will rarely walk through one. I usually just target the department store I want to go to and that's it. Yay for internet shopping!  :)

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