[Newsbot]

Title: Teen bully reacts to victim's media attention
Category: Misc CDN
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2009-03-01 15:35:35
Canadian

[Schnek]

audacity... only word I can think of that properly describes. I do not believe for a second that there is even a feeling of remorse... i'm not TOO far away from these kids in age, and from experience.. none of these lil shits gives a rats ass about anybody else... sickening really... but that's a values/judgements/societal problem that were just putting a face too

[crystalsm]

She's not sorry for what she did to Lindsay. She's feeling sorry for herself because she's being held accountable for her actions.

[tritium]

Question? What is Facebook's reaction to this cyber-bullying harassment?

Are they taking any action?

[Bacardi4206]

crystalsm crystalsm:

She's not sorry for what she did to Lindsay. She's feeling sorry for herself because she's being held accountable for her actions.

Agreed, she assaulted that girl for months and never felt sorry unti'll the second the media spotlight hit her.

[Yogi]

I posted this article in an existing thread earlier today. Why start another thread?

And this isn't the first one. Aren't people paying attention anymore?

Maybe the mods should merge a few threads.

current-events-f59/bullied-student-finds-support-t72822-15.html

[commanderkai]

Being bullied in two high schools, and a few elementary schools (due to my psoriasis) I have in my personal experience, found my way to deal with bullies, which is a mix of knowing the right teachers, tolerating to an extent, and fighting back. It's a long story, but I might as well tell it.

Anyway, to start, psoriasis is a skin disease (more of an immunity disease, but meh) that causes large red patches on the skin, which then is covered by white, scaly flakes of dead skinthat come off whenever they are irritated. Basically, from kindergarden, to about grade...7, I was brutally harassed with insults and teasing due to this. On top of this, due to my father's career, we moved rather often, meaning I never was able to secure my place for too long, thus meaning I never had a support base. When I was older, I got into a few fights, which luckily I never got in trouble for, but that was because of the skin issue as well...

Now, when I moved to Whitby Ontario, I attended C.E. Broughton elementary school, and instantly I was...isolated once again, both due to my skin, my rather large stature (I was 5'11, 180 pounds in grade 7, and then I secured at 6'1, with the same weight, if not more, in grade , and my intelligence, thus making me rivals with just about everybody. Of course, the skin was the easiest target for them, and they made fun of it at will...and I took it.

Grade 8 however, I made a few friends (gamers=awesome). And then...I started fighting back, and that, on top of being friends with both my grade 7 and 8 teachers, my position was secured. I got into a few fights with some of the bullies, both girls and boys, and some even in front of my grade 8 teacher, in which he told the bully to get out before I killed him. Even in events that would of got anybody else in trouble, the teachers knew the harassment I faced, and thus stood by me, considering I made reports to those teachers that if the administration did not handle bullying, I will (and like it or not, teachers can only do so much). So...I started handling bullying in my own way, and sooner or later, some of the bullies I became neutral with.

High school was the same idea, except that those who went to elementary school with me stayed out of my hair, however, those who didn't attend school with me before decided to try their turn at bat. The most prime example of this is when a girl Alyssa Bush, if I remember her name correctly, tossed a pencil case at me in Computer Science class, in which I confronted the guy (her friend) who I thought did it, until she took the blame. After that, I took her pencil case and tossed it into the dumpster as my personal revenge (don't hit girls, even if they deserve it).

Anyway, ignoring or tolerating bullying just makes it worse. Now, I will never, EVER say I was popular...more feared, but fear can be quite powerful in preventing attacks. My teachers and my friends liked me, without me being the teacher's pet (I was the guy who challenged teachers quite often when I disagreed) and those who didn't know me, or bullied me, stayed out of my way. Taking a stand might help, but if you don't defend yourself, it'll get much, much worse, until things like what happened to this girl will happen.

School administration, quite commonly, are garbage. Pure, wasteful, garbage, at handling bullying, and probably will only take a stand if teachers support you (of course most bullying happens outside the eyes of teachers), and that's why I warned teachers, every teacher, that if I was ever bullied, I'll report it once or twice, but if I don't see any action done, I'll take my own action to stop it, and the teachers realized I wasn't one to go out and harass other students.

Anyway, that's my story. To any parents on this site, support your kids, like my parents did for me. If they EVER say they're being bullied, listen to them and support them. Don't get directly involved with the parents or the administration, but deal with the teachers themselves, and tell your kid to tell the teacher this is happening when, or right after it happens, and that he or she wants something done. After that, tell your kid to defend himself, especially from physical threats.

[mtbr]

Her excuses are pathetic , that kid needs help before it's too late.

[Dudeman320]

at my school a kid has to have police escort wherever he goes, he snitched on about 30 kids for smoking weed and after he snitched all of them were waiting for him outside the office, now the whole school wants to beat him up, but that is not the only reason why, the kid thinks he is better than everyone at everys sport, then when u want to play him, he doesnt show up and makes some excuse, he cant shut up, he is annoying, he is self centered, and he thinks he is better than everyone else. some kids deserve to get their butts kicked. a lot of kids do it to themselves, by playing pokemon, world of warcraft, runescape, or any other nerdy game. some kids wont shower, or will annoy the crap out of you, those kids will be dealed with. To tell the truth i have never seen 1 person be a bully, i have seen it where it is a lot of people messing with a kid for a reason. Many times what is called "bullying" is really constructive criticism. now this particular story is bullying, but most of the time the kid being bullyed did something to be bullyed. I have been discriminated for being canadian (i live in the U.S.) but that was me against everybody, not me against a group of people or me against 1 person, but it was me against everyone in the school. how i solved this was moving, and not saying i was canadian in the place i moved to. ppl need to be less offended by words, ever since being discriminated, and moving, i do not take offense to what ppl say to me, and do not get invovled in all the drama. now the #1 way to be bullyed is to snitch, in a lot of schools u can be killed for snitching.

[ShepherdsDog]

Grammar isn't the person your grandfather is married to.

[crystalsm]

Dudeman320 Dudeman320:

at my school a kid has to have police escort wherever he goes, he snitched on about 30 kids for smoking weed and after he snitched all of them were waiting for him outside the office, now the whole school wants to beat him up, but that is not the only reason why, the kid thinks he is better than everyone at everys sport, then when u want to play him, he doesnt show up and makes some excuse, he cant shut up, he is annoying, he is self centered, and he thinks he is better than everyone else. some kids deserve to get their butts kicked. a lot of kids do it to themselves, by playing pokemon, world of warcraft, runescape, or any other nerdy game. some kids wont shower, or will annoy the crap out of you, those kids will be dealed with. To tell the truth i have never seen 1 person be a bully, i have seen it where it is a lot of people messing with a kid for a reason. Many times what is called "bullying" is really constructive criticism. now this particular story is bullying, but most of the time the kid being bullyed did something to be bullyed. I have been discriminated for being canadian (i live in the U.S.) but that was me against everybody, not me against a group of people or me against 1 person, but it was me against everyone in the school. how i solved this was moving, and not saying i was canadian in the place i moved to. ppl need to be less offended by words, ever since being discriminated, and moving, i do not take offense to what ppl say to me, and do not get invovled in all the drama. now the #1 way to be bullyed is to snitch, in a lot of schools u can be killed for snitching.

You're a tool.

$1:

the kid thinks he is better than everyone at everys sport, then when u want to play him, he doesnt show up and makes some excuse, he cant shut up, he is annoying, he is self centered, and he thinks he is better than everyone else. some kids deserve to get their butts kicked.

Those are really pathetic excuses to push someone around, bully them or whatever.

$1:

a lot of kids do it to themselves, by playing pokemon, world of warcraft, runescape, or any other nerdy game. some kids wont shower, or will annoy the crap out of you, those kids will be dealed with.

I play nerdy games too. Should I get beat up? I don't believe so. And if people don't shower, just stay away from them instead of bullying them. Sounds like another piss poor excuse to bully someone around.

$1:

Many times what is called "bullying" is really constructive criticism.

That's just a load of shit, nothing more.

$1:

now the #1 way to be bullyed is to snitch,

No. When I was in school, I informed a teacher that one of my classmates was dealing weed out of their locker to kids in grade 8.

People who bully others are nothing more than insecure idiots who have to pick on others to make themselves feel all high and mighty. There's nothing about being a bully that makes you tough. Nothing.

[SprCForr]

commanderkai commanderkai:

...To any parents on this site, support your kids, like my parents did for me. If they EVER say they're being bullied, listen to them and support them. Don't get directly involved with the parents or the administration, but deal with the teachers themselves, and tell your kid to tell the teacher this is happening when, or right after it happens, and that he or she wants something done. After that, tell your kid to defend himself, especially from physical threats.

I handled it differently. I did get involved. Some time ago (3 years maybe?) there was another thread here about bullying and I posted the school policy on zero tolerance. Having gone through my daughter being bullied, I'll share what I did because it's different than ck's approach.

My daughter (12 turning 13 in a couple months)) was apparently the occasional target of a bully. She was trying to handle it herself and it got to the point where she finally said something to us. I told her we could help and so could the school. There was some other things (drama and truth) that had to be resolved before we could tackle this. So we started reading up. In keeping with the policy I alluded to above, we made the school aware of the situation. We had to deal with the acting Vice as both key players were away at the time. I was not impressed with the attitude, but since he was staff, we assumed he had to be aware of the policy and the appropriate steps to follow. We laid out the situation and left him to handle it. My daughter, wife and I were assured that the situation would be sorted given how the school handled such incidents in the past. Little did I know that not following it up was a mistake that would take this much further than I ever dreamed.

Fast forward a month. She was sleeping over at her friends one weekend when the phone rings. At 0130, it's hardly ever good news. It was her friends dad asking me to come over right away as there was something I needed to see. He had managed to log an MSN conversation between about 6 or 7 kids. One of them was the bully. It made my skin crawl. The graphic detail of how this person wanted to harm my kids was an unmistakable sign of a disturbed person.

The next morning I had the names of those involved. By the afternoon I had visited with the parents of every kid (except the bully) that was involved in that conversation and informed them of the prior conduct of this kid and all the intimate details of that disgusting log. I also laid out how I was going to tackle it they all readily agreed. So off to the police we went. We filled them in completely. All the prior history, the contacts to verify it, the logs, the names, everything. Constable X was confident that there was enough for them to act on. He had the kid picked up, and with her mother present, she's confronted. After some wiggling and weaving she caves completely.

So come Monday into school I go. In the principal's office I lay out the incident, hand over the logs etc and ask that the acting vice be made aware of this situation since he handled the first one. The puzzled look by the principal would be where the wheels fell off. Mr Acting Vice didn't follow the policy (I learn later Mr Acting Vice was angling for a move up the staff ladder to a position in the district and didn't want any undue attention. So he covered it up). He didn't think it was serious. That was when I detonated. Internally. I coldly informed him about reality and made a few key observations about his conduct. We got the assurance of the principal (he's a good guy and I know that Mr Get a long would be realigned) and went to see the superintendant. Ms PC was sure the "alleged incident" would be handled in an appropriate manner to both parties. Alleged? Hardly. It wasn't too hard to get her to show some resolve. The log was very compelling evidence.

The bully was neutralized and directed to the help she needed. My daughter joined the town Karate club to give a boost to her self confidence and to learn some physical skills. Word got around pretty fast on why she couldn't hang out a couple times a week. Most importantly the kids in school won't empower the bully and tolerate that sort of conduct from her. She isn't shunned, she just doesn't get the feedback so many crave. Her little group of followers has disappeared, which sort of indicates how many were hanging around in the hopes they wouldn't be the target. There are no words, looks or physical contact between the two. They just don't "see" each other. A hang around tried a few weeks later start up a rumour but the other kids shut that down fast. They knew the story. My daughter didn't keep it secret. The cold light of day thing.

Here are some things I learned:

1. Talk to your kids(I know, duh, but I learned that young girls can have self esteem issues and self confidence issues and aren't to be compared to boys). It eventually penetrated this thick head what I should be looking for. My daughter knew I cared, but she was afraid of the rampaging bull in a china shop thing. I surprised her on that aspect. There's a physical, mental and emotional impact and it all needs to be addressed. Know who the real friends are, not just the flavour of the moment.

2, Get involved with your kids school. Join the parents group and bone up on the policies. Learn the administrative procedures. Just talking with the key players will illuminate tons on the workings of the school and the district. Being informed is crucial. Make the time in your busy schedule.

3. Gather int. The more information you can get, the better. Who said what and who knows what. You don't have to be Horatio Caine but track down as much as you can manage. Don't rely on anyone to get it for you.

4. Enlist every single group (other parents, police, school, school district and health/social people) and get them in harness. Mr Get-a-long isn't to be trusted. Follow up. Be prepared to pin a Ms PC. Make your point absolutely clear. Be rational. Be direct. Be blunt. They have steps to follow, know them and make sure that they know that you know. You don't have to be an asshole about it, they just need to be aware that you're informed. The more different groups involved, the less chance of it being swept under the rug. Follow up on their action. This bully needed help. We wanted her to get it and we pushed that through out.

5. Phoning up the bullies parents and detonating doesn't work and it makes you look like an asshole. Same with the stomping over there to pass out the beatings. You need to be someone who's not to be ignored nor trifled with at that mucher higher level. It was a boat load of work and the desire to be the rampaging bull was very close to the surface. I held back and put the squishy thing upstairs to work after Mrs SprCForr put the grip on me. I'm glad I did. My daughter is too.


I love my daughter and once the hormones release their grip we'll have her back.

(When does it stop for girls again? )

/Sorry for the freakin' book.

[SprCForr]

Your post was enough.

[commanderkai]

I won't quote you SprCForr, because that is a book (and a great read too) but when I said don't get involved with parents, I meant the parents of the bully. That would just cause problems, and yeah, the administrations of schools are usually filled with PC cowards, but I find, in my personal experience, that teachers are much less PC, at least after scratching the surface.

Anyway, your daughter is blessed to have a good father like yourself, and hopefully things keep going well for you.

[crystalsm]

lily lily:

commanderkai commanderkai:

I won't quote you SprCForr, because that is a book (and a great read too) but when I said don't get involved with parents, I meant the parents of the bully. That would just cause problems, and yeah, the administrations of schools are usually filled with PC cowards, but I find, in my personal experience, that teachers are much less PC, at least after scratching the surface.

Anyway, your daughter is blessed to have a good father like yourself, and hopefully things keep going well for you.

So you know, I would have repped your book too - but I have to spread it around first. I'm hoping others will though hint hint SprCForr.

I keep forgetting about the rep thing. If I weren't at work right now, if be handing it to a few people here. I don't think I can do it from my phone