By Tom PurcellSunday, September 23, 2007
Bullying isn't like it used to be. Contemporary bullies are also using technology. They're making nasty cell-phone calls, sending e-mails and text messages and posting embarrassing things on the Internet.
The anonymous cowards.
When I was a kid in the '70s, at least bullies had to put some effort into their work. They were still cowards -- they picked on kids who were small and defenseless -- but they had to do most of their work face to face.
It's not possible to give a wedgie over the Internet.
That made the bullies vulnerable. There were lots of older kids in our neighborhood who protected us. A bully who roughed us up was likely to get roughed up himself. And bullies feared nobody as they did my sister Kris.
I'm certain one guy still regrets the day he decided to bust up my go-kart. He was a big, fat kid and he laughed and taunted me as he kicked my handcrafted vehicle into pieces -- until Kris appeared out of nowhere.
She tackled him from behind and down he went. As he lay on his belly, Kris clenched her fists and pounded with abandon. He blubbered like a baby, forever humiliated in front of the other neighborhood kids. Bullies are generally not as tough as they appear to be.
But now, thanks to technology, anybody can bully.
"Traditional bullying was about boys intimidating other boys by physical force," says Carleton Kendrick, a family therapist and author of "Take Out Your Nose Ring, Honey, We're Going to Grandma's." "But technology has enabled people to bully who otherwise might not have before. One of the biggest trends is a significant increase in bullying by girls."
At the same time the opportunities to bully have increased, the kids who are bullied are more isolated. Families are smaller, neighborhoods are emptier and latchkey kids often find themselves alone.
A lot of kids aren't handling the trend well.
"According to various studies, one in three kids is either bullied or a bully," says Kendrick. "And on any given day 160,000 kids are so traumatized by fear and intimidation they're afraid to go to school."
Or worse. A common thread in school shootings during the past decade -- both in high school and college -- is that the shooter or shooters had been bullied.
So what to do? There are no easy answers.
When I was a kid, the prevailing wisdom was to teach kids to fight back. If a bigger kid bullied you, your dad showed you techniques on how to handle him. Even if you lost the fight, the bully generally would earn a respect for you and back down.
But in these nutty times, that might not work. The bully could be packing heat. Or, if a bully is humiliated by the kid he was bullying, the bully's parent might have his lawyer sue.
It's no wonder numerous government and private organizations are promoting anti-bullying campaigns. It's no wonder 27 states have passed anti-bullying laws and nine more are considering them. Or that school districts across America are implementing anti-bullying measures to defuse situations before they get out of hand.
Nobody knows who or when the next teen powder keg will be set off, but we do know that bullying may be an ingredient that sets the kid off. In our rapidly changing culture, something that used to be dealt with by kids on playgrounds has blossomed into a problem with all kinds of disastrous consequences.
Though even when I was a kid the consequences were sometimes disastrous. In 1972, a great tragedy shocked our community. A kid who'd been bullied cracked. When the bully showed up at his house one afternoon, the kid opened his bedroom window and shot and killed him with a .22-caliber rifle.
"That's the difference," says Kendrick. "The landscape has changed so radically that if such a thing happened today, nobody would be that surprised."
17 comments:
I agree with this article. Bullying isn't what it used to be. The reprecussions of bullying aren't the same either. All the school shootings have dealt with some form of this but no matter what happens it will continue. Some kids just feel better when they bully someone they feel stronger and better about themselves. When really they are just putting a sugar coat on themselves that will be sucked of at sometime. This is a form of Social Darwinism of the strongest survive.
The results of bullying have become more dangerous and crazy. Kids have turned to using guns rather than their fists. Many people say video games could have something to do with why kids are so violent and I think that is just stupid. Bad parenting is probably a better reason for all the violence. Bad video games is just a scape goat. Anyways bullying has become a huge problem in our society. What are people to think when our own government is a bully. Society we live in is survival of the fittest. Let the game begin!
I personally know that i see people get bullied everyday, but it's from the way you take it if it truely is getting bullied or not. I hear people say, you're a skank, everyday to someone else. No matter if it's a boy, girl, or a person they don't know, something along that line is always said. Me, i don't take it personally because it's how people interact these days, but i think it's sad that some people put others down because they are different and they just can't accept that. Isn't our nation supposed to be mixed and allowed to be your own person and not persucuted for it?
Bullying is a problem and must be dealt with but I don't think schools are doing a very good job at it. Of course every once in a while we get the bullying video and the purple hands thing but honestly, the actual bullies are most likely not listening and are nodding their heads with the rest of us. It just gives us another chore to do, bore us out of our minds, and accomplish nothing. After what, 12 years of videos it gets repetitive.
Bullying is a huge problem everywhere. Some people think that bullying is when that huge dude walks around pushing little kids into lockers and punching people in the face. But these days, bullying is becoming a much "smaller" problem than that. People walking by someone and saying, "I hate you." or things like that, often in much more vulgar terms. That's bullying today. The media makes it seem like situations[such as the shooting mentioned in the article] are more rare than they actually are. On average, 100,000 kids bring a gun to school daily as a form of defense against bullies. That's a huge problem.
We are also led to believe that bullying and related things are caused by "bad" video games, which is not the case at all. While it may be part of the reason, the reality is that lots of kids who get bullied, become bullies. It's like a domino effect. One kid bullies someone, who bullies someone else, who bullies someone else.
Bullying is a huge problem in our schools, and we need to get a lot better at fixing the issue.
bubbly stated that 100,000 kids bring guns to school daily, that is crazy.the article that gave that information did not cite their source.so based on that i could say well two million kids bring nuclear wepons to school daily, would you belive me? im not denying that bullying has been on the rise, but dont over exagerate-the facts (real ones) will speak for themselves
Bullying has gotten way out of hand..... How are you supposed to teach a kid to value education if they are scared to go to school??
Bullying is bringing down our school systems and frankly it is really sad..... what has the world come to when a child thinks the only way to end his lunch being stolen, rumors being spread, stupid pics on the internet, or hate calls and e-mails by killing the bully what kind of enviroment has this kid been subjected to itis really really sad!
I agree with Bubbly even though they sounded bad by saying 100,000 bring guns to school because that makes their argument illegitimate. I think that bullying is a problem that needs to be dealt with in a greater way than having meetings once a school year. The teachers need to get more involved with it also, they dont realize sometimes that this stuff is going on within there classrooms. They need to pay attention, and try to reach out and help. If everyone helps to prevent bullying, it will no longer be a problem.
saying that 100,000 kids bring guns to school on average everyday does not make my argument illegitimate. i got that information from the national bullying statistics website. So it is completely true. It is showing that bullying is a HUGE problem and it is affecting kids in a horrible way. Jerk is right, it needs to be dealt with in a much bigger way than yearly meetings. Because this problem is not getting any better.
One problem now a days is that if u tell someone, such as a teacher or parent, u'll be called a wussie(or a word that rhymes with wussie). Another problem is that teachers don't stop fights and if a kid starts punching u, u are told not 2 fight back or u'll get in trouble and if the teacher can't stop it that kid will have to wait for someone(like the school police officer) to stop it and in the meantime curl up in the fetal position and take a beating. Personally I have been bullied but as long as its not major and/or continual it doesn't bother me, but after a certian point it does, and one thing most bullies don't realize is that the bullied may have friends that are bigger than them (thankfully I have a friend thats bigger than almost everyone lol). This bullying also persuades kids to join gangs to have protection, and gangs aren't a good thing to get into, I personally know someone who was in a gang and his younger brother wasn't in the gang and want to join after he was asked to join. The gang ended up getting mad and knocking him out and burning him alive in his grandma's van. His brother ended up dieing all because he was a good kid and wanted to stay outta gangs. (This all true-ly happened about 3 or 4 years ago at Bryan Middle).
P.S.- Don't critisize me about the spelling k?, this blog isn't for english but history and its readable so ya.
Bullying is an issue in America, and probably all over the world. I agree with Savage on this, bullying isn't what it used to be, and I'm sorry, I feel for these kids getting bullied and going in and shooting up the school, I don't think they are wrong. Yes, they could have probably handled it better, and yes, shooting people probably isn't the best solution, but if you're constantly bullied day after day after day and all you know is violence, who's to say you won't respond with violence? I think those bullies get what they deserve.
Bullying is a problem but in all reality o dont think that there is nothing that "authority figures" can do about it. Anti-Bullying laws may have some effect but to be totally honest kids may have to deal with this on their own. You can offer classes on how to handle bullying and that could be the best thing for them. Unfortunately bullying is going to happen, its not a good thing and i am in no way endorsing it but i honestly dont think that you can control it with anything except with education. thats my opinion.
Just as everyone else has stated bullying is a big problem and has evolved in the last few years. Schools say that they do have the problems under control and that they know how to handle the situation. But the truth is that most of the time a bully is smart enough to not threaten peers around teachers. Then they believe they can stop these bullies by giving presentations that end up just losing the interest of everyone in the room. Students also aren't helping anything by ignoring bullies. Many students try and just laugh off the taunts and teasing of peers, yet the people that this harassment is directed to may feel horrible, even if they don't show it on the outside.
I think that bullying today has many of the same characteristics of bullying in the past-just, as the author said, in a different landscape. Kids now a days bully more with words then with fists. And not only is this kind of bullying as or more dangerous, but parents do not know how to deal with it. Most parents aren't quite as up to technology as their kids are, and if they find out that someone called you a bad name through the computer, they might just watcvh you like a hawk everytime you turn it on-looking for a clue to who the bully is, or if you yourself provoke others. It seems as if this kind of bullying rarely has a negative side-affect for the bully, which makes it a all the more popular.
Yes bullying is a problem, but hasn't it always been a problem? I think it's sad that it has taken school shootings to make people realize the seriousness of bullying. I know people are trying to put a stop to bullies, but they are wasting their time. Bullying happened when my grandparents were kids, when my parents were kids, now while I'm a kid, and it will continue to happen when I have kids. No matter how hard we stress that bullying is wrong, there are still going to be those few kids that do it. That's life, plain and simple.
bullying is a problem. video games and movies are not to blame. bad parenting is, for both the bullies parents and the victims parents. The bullies parents brought their kids up like "prosteriour apertures" and the bullied kids were brought up weak.
Today's world is so much different. Bullying was definitly a very different thing back then. But kids could roam the streets of their neighborhood and go to the sandlot and just be outside and they weren't spending time on the computer researching how to make a bomb or whatever. But in today's world it can be scary just to walk down the street because you don't know who could be out there and kids stay inside more playing video games and forming crazy ideas. (but I hate to blame the severe violence on video games) So I guess what I'm trying to say is the world which we live in has changed and sadly just isn't as safe as it was. Somehow it would be nice to show kids that there is so much more out there than having to pick on someone else to make yourself feel better. I mean in one way technology is a hendrance but in another way we could use it to stop Bullying also!
I think bullying is a serious problem. It has gotten so much worse through time. Too many deaths occur due to bullying. However, how are we supposed to prevent it? What more can we do that we aren’t already doing? Have a police officer for every kid walking around this country? The most you can do is have security and adults watching kids. It’s sad to think that deadly weapons come into contact with the hands of children. Things have changed in the world and that is affecting how generations are brought up. Basically, bullying is going to happen. It’s unpredictable. The most we can do is what we are already doing. It’s a sad situation, but that’s just how it is.
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