WeAreCentralPA.com

[Zeta]

My son has taken Tang Soo Do lesssons for four years, and I highly recommend you sign you kids up for that or any type of martial arts. They teach you not to use it, but sometimes you have to. Just last week my son was at a birthday party when one of the younger kids tried kicking him in the crotch over a toy squirt gun. My son blocked him several times before the kid finally gave up. Unfortuniitely, no adults saw what was going on. I told him he did the right thing, he protected himself without hurting a child much smaller.

[geowhindsey]

Bullying.........it is truly a deep problem in our schools. My son was a victim for a long time in elementary school. As he moved on to Kieth it became less of a problem for him fortunately. He has the ability to make friends easily, and can be disarming in his charm. But that is him. There are so many kids out there that are not that fortunate. I am facing sending 2 more kids into the school system and I am worried about when it will start all over again. We always told our son that he is absolutely allowed to defend himself. No matter what the school policy is on hitting back. If he gets hit, he is permitted, by us, to defend himself. Period. We will deal with whatever the school district decides to do, but I do not expect anyone to stand there and be hit. Telling an adult may work in first grade, but after that telling makes you a target for EVERY group of bullies. Not just the one that started the bullying. And make no mistake, the bullies are in GROUPS. They are not one kid alone. One kid alone is not showing off, and that is what it all boils down to. One kid showing off for his group, and the group going along with it because they are afraid to seem "weak" and "uncool". Bottom line, teach the kids to give as good as they get, and protect themselves. Bullying is not going away, and clearly there is no punishment in school strong enough to deter, so the kids have to be given the tools they need to combat it. And, to the parents of bullies.........wake up and quit living in denial. Quit burying your heads in the sand and thinking that your precious child is incapable of being mean. They all are. We have a resposibility as parents to keep our children safe, and for keeping them from becoming the very thing we are protecting them from. Quite often children who are bullied, become bullies in self defense. It is a fine line, but we need to learn how to walk it! Listen, listen, listen to what your kids are saying, and use what you hear, and use your common sense to determine what side of the bullying problem your child is on. Then do some teaching at home, to either stop them from becoming bullies, or show them how to stop being bullied.

[Zermoid]

Quit whining people, unless there are threats of physical harm or actual attacks it isn't bullying in my book.
Whaaaaa, he called me a name!
Whaaaaa, not everybody likes me!
Whaaaa, I wasn't invited to the party!
Whaaa, Whaaaa, Whaaaa!
Suck it up and deal with it! That's life, if you can't deal with it then get yourself some help, don't blame other kids for being kids.
In short grow up.

[irvnkim]

Hi,
My son was bullied in 5 th grade at UPPER PERKIOMEN MIDDLE SCHOOL in western PA. I still remember the day he came home from school crying. He said he never wanted to go to school again. After I found out what was going on I contacted the Assistant Principal. He said that he would talk to the kid. The next day I had to fight with my son to get him to go to school. I assured him that thing were going to be taken care of. He came home and said that nothing was done. So I went to the school to speek to the Assistant Principal. He told me that there was a bullying program in place and he will bring the kid back into the office. So to make a long story short I finally told my son to go to school the next morning and beat the crap out the kid. I told him that he won't get into trouble at home and I would deal with the school. I have always taught my kids to turn the other cheek but this wasn't working. Now you say not to encourage violence, but what do you do when the school your child is going to doesn't do anything or tells you they haven't seen anything so they can't do anything? When my son left for school that day I called Mr Carpender and told him that my son was coming into school to beat this boy up. He said that I can't do this. I said oh yes I can because the school wasn't protecting my child. So that is what my son did and the kid never bothered him again. I also contacted the boy's parents and they didn't even have a clue about what was going on with their kid. There is no communication between the school and parents unless the parents call in. That is another problem in these schools these days.

[centralpaadmin]

[quote]Sure we know about happening to our kids... but I don't think the news focuses on people who were bullied when they went to school. I think if the parents of the kids would see how bullying effects us long after it has been done. Maybe the parents would press the issue harder that bullying isn't something they want to do.[/quote]

I couldn't agree with you more. We tend to see bullying as a child's issue when studies indicate and most people's experience substantiates, that bullying can be a lifelong pattern of behavior. Increasingly businesses are dealing with the issues of adults who bully in the workplace. Same methods, different ages and places. And for those who have experienced bullying as children, those experiences may leave permanent scars on your psyche.
I hear adults who tell very vivid stories of what happened to them as children. They rarely remember other things about that time in their life, but they remember in exact detail what happened when they were bullied. I often ask them what else they remember about being in 5th grade and they don't have many memories, but they can tell me exactly the who, what, when, and where of what happened with the bullying. You are right, it doesn't go away from your memories.

[Zermoid]

And that's a good thing in my book, it's the problems in your life that define who you are and that strengthen your character. Any brainless dweeb can go thru life with no problems, it's your response to challenges that forge your path in life, and of course they stick out in your memory as they are different from the rest of the plain vanilla days that all blend together into one big blur over time.

You can also over protect your children, I've always told my kids that they had better not start a fight, but that they should be the one to end one if someone else start in on them. I refuse to punish my children for simply protecting themselves.

[cjc1223]

The way that I told my kids to deal with bullying is to give the bully one chance to stop and then if it persists my kids have my blessing to kick the dog crap out of the bully. The neutered males and women with facial hair in the school district will have a fit but the bullying will stop. The only way to stop bullying is to beat down the bully.