Bullying

4 thoughts on “Bullying”

1. Seeing it happen…

   My life from kindergarten through eighth grade was a constant string of bullying. I finally ended it by vowing to kick any kid that bullied me in the nuts.

   I still got picked on, but after eighth grade it was no longer violent. And I had to put up with jokes about me being a wimp and stuff because I’d kick other boys in the crotch if they attacked me. I hated it, and the “lack of honor” it implied, but I never wanted to fight, I just wanted to be left alone.

   So yes, it’s alive and well, across demographics (at least circa 1979-1988). My reaction to being bullied was to try to deal with the situations using humor, to try to get the other guy to laugh and maybe be on my side. It worked rarely, but enough that I relied on it, and still rely on it today.

   The only thing that sucks about that is that my real-life comedic timing is way, way off, and I normally think up the funny zingers way too late for them to be useful…

   It was my father empowering me, telling me to do whatever I had to do to stop the bullies, including “kick them in the nuts”, which finally stopped the bullying. Teasing remained, but getting beaten up stopped. That, and reading “Ender’s Game” that year made me realize that the only way to stop the bully was Ender’s way: hit them so hard and so long that they and their cronies will know never to touch you again because the consequences would be devastating.

   Ender’s Game really affected me as a kid, in more ways than one. I think bullies can sense weakness, and once you’ve made the determination to beat them into the ground using whatever slimy means necessary if they touch you, they realize you’re not easy prey anymore and move on.

   —
   Matthew P. Barnson

2. Are they out there?!

   I know from my own personal expereience that they are out there. When I was younger I was forced to get off my bus 2 miles out of the way to avoid what I knew would be the beating of my lifetime. Eventually I couldn’t walk that far home anymore and I got off. So did the rest of the school bus. All wanting to get in on the action of destroying a little girl in the gravel. Then I moved to Montgomery Co. Where the bulling was no longer physical but more mental. In the 7th grade I had a girl go so far as scream out in the middle of gym class that I was picking my nose. Was was forever a social outcast because this girl didn’t like me. We all know that we are put into certain social groups. The geeks, the headbangers, ESOL, the preps, and even the music hallway drama club freaks. We are judged by what we do, how well we stand up to it, and what we wear. If we make one wrong move, we are dog meat. I have had to put my daughter into a socialization group to learn to deal with it in school. Especially here in this county where everyone is expected to have money and to be the prep, one slight move of excentic tendecy in shcool can cause a downfall that will last the rest of you school years. The kids today are more devious than the puch in the gut. They know how to get you where it really hurts. And at a much younger age. Little girls are going to school in knee high black healed boots and short mini skirts just to feel like the fit in. I even dyed my daughter’s hair with streaks for her in the first grade so she could feel more in with the crowd. Something I wasn’t allowed to do until High School. Adults have turned there little kids into adults so that they wouldn’t have to go through what they did but in turn it just upped the anty. So yes we parents are really going through the bully thing. I am afraid though that there isn’t anything we can do about it. To me it seems that the “Survival of the Fittest” instict is stonger when we are kids. When we get older we tend to stop caring what other’s think to that extreme. Our kids though…

3. Living proof.

   Hey Sammy, I have to concur. Up through college I dealt with bullying.

   I was a weird awkward kid with zero confidence and that meant to some that it would be fun to physically abuse me. By the time I entered good old QOHS, I had been thrown through a fence, had dogs sicked on me, had my head beaten into the base of a stopsign by 5 kids, been held against a wall by two bigger guys so a smaller guy could punch me in the face, I’d been cut with a knife, tied to a chair and left, had my house broken into by peers who tortured a pet in front of me, and endured more random punches in the stomach than I could count.

   It started because some guidance counselor somewhere decided I should move up a grade because I was ahead of my classmated in reading. So now, I was the annoying, year younger, smaller, less mature kid.. and everybody made sure I knew it. When I finally opted to rejoin my age group, I had learned the lesson too well and the victim cycle began.

   In Eighth grade I decided, much like Matt, that I was done with it. One day a kid was flicking me in the ear (a typical tactic that is annoying, painful, and silent to the teacher) I told him to stop. He wouldn’t. I started crying, he started laughing.

   So I picked up my desk and threw it at his head, knocking him down and bloodying his nose. One or two more instances like that and I had happily taken on the role of “psycho” which was more isolating, but less physically dangerous.

   That’s where I was when I entered QOHS. I found a home in the theatre, but still had that unconfident, annoying kid reputation through my freshman year. Like matt, I just tried to be funny, tried to imitate the people I thought came off as confident (ahem, Mr. barnson). Having a girlfriend for most of my sophomore year made me feel and look a lot better to a lot of people, but what I did is channel all that negativity toward her when it wasn’t her fault, and when she got sick of it and left, I kind of flipped out.

   This cycle repeated again my senior year into my first year in college, when I finally just kind of lost it. At that point, to get away from the nutso reputation I had made for myself, I left the state of Maryland (telling no one I was leaving until a week before) and kind of rebuilding myself from the ground up, starting with my faith, then I got a wonderful girlfriend–>fiancee–>wife, then I honed my skills as an actor, and finally, when I came back to Montgomery county, five years later, it was like Grosse pointe Blank. People wondered where I had gone.

   Today, I finally have that confidence, I am respected in my fields, I have dear dear friends.. but it took drastic measures to get there, and a lot of it was because kids found it necessary to bully. I almost lost everything.

   Now, I don’t blame the bullies. Certainly, when you’re a kid you make childish decisions, but I certainly blame their parents, and the schools that allowed to happen. They were adults who should’ve known better.

4. From a parental point of view.

   As seen in the previous posts, we all have suffered bullying in our lives. However, I’d like to share my views as a parent watching my kids grow up.

   Kids are great big balls of “I want”. My second job, as a parent, after safety and all, is to teach my kids to control their desires in lieu of others’ feelings and common decency. More specifically, biting the kid who just took his toy is BAAAD.

   My parents told me to stand up to bullies from day 1. The longer you let it go, the harder it is to get rid of it. And they taught me that I might get beat up if I stand up to it, but if so, A) tell an adult, and B) go right back for more. That fit right into my personality, so I didn’t have many problems with bullies in my school career. I actually was the guy in high school who was friends with ALL the groups, and not really a member of any of them.

   Bullying will always be a part of life, because it is the way the world works. Four hyenas attacking the littlest wildebeast is bullying on a deadly scale. Then we evolved to Billy picking on Tommy because Billy won the genetic lottery and was 6′ by age 12. This makes Billy feel better in the deep, dark places of his heart, and all the other kids dside with Billy because they don’t want Billy picking on them.

   And there’s no easy solution to bullying either, because Billy’s dad might be proud of the fact Billy can kick your boy’s ass, and you can go climb a tree if you think he’s gonna help you do anything about it. The schools are so scared to do anytyhng they’re no help, and your own boy might be embarassed you’re even involved. Then what?

   And I don’t even want to think how you’d help girls who suffer from verbal bullying. Verbal bullying is so much more cruel and damaging than anything physical, because your body knows how to heal normally, but your mind sometimes heals wierd ways. Thank God I only have boys!!! 🙂

   My $.02 Weed

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