Bullies, Public Nudity & Conformity
“I’ll be famous one day, but for now I’m stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons.” – Diary of a Wimpy Kid
I’ll bet when you first saw the title of this blog post you thought I was going to be writing about Corporate America or Congress or my weekend, right? Nope. Even worse. Middle School. And Bullies. Has anyone in the history of the world ever looked back on these awkward, painful and embarrassing years and wished they could go back? I didn’t think so. Unless they wished to go back to finally stand up to a bully or two.
As I mentioned here, one of these future criminals punched my oldest son in the arm on the bus on his way home from his 2nd day of middle school. I now have 11 years of experience as a parent and I feel I’m on solid ground here when I say that something must be terribly wrong at the homes of these derelicts. I’ve met all sorts of children and parents and time and again I see that the children who misbehave most often and most severely are children whose parents are either too busy to be bothered, encourage aggressive behavior, abusive or simply set no boundaries out of ignorance.
I’m not in any way suggesting that my children are angels or that I am a perfect parent. Far from it. My kids do get into trouble and I do make mistakes. In this specific situation what I’m talking about is a fundamental lack of respect for other people combined with an overwhelming need to feel physically superior to those same people. There is something seriously wrong with a child that even considers punching an innocent by-stander for no apparent reason, let alone actually does it.
Following that logic, children who are raised with manners and who respect others, will always have a difficult time standing up to a bully. It’s not because they are wimpy. It’s because this behavior is actually bizarre and completely foreign. It’s no less bizarre than if someone were to stand up in the middle of a business meeting, jump up on the conference table and strip naked. If you were sitting in that meeting, what would you do? Nothing. You’d be too shocked. Of course, if it went on for any length of time you may call 911, start laughing, try to talk your nude co-worker down or at least cover him up. But, in those first few seconds, you’d be too stunned to take action. You may even feel a little bit afraid. Your adrenaline would start pumping and you’d look around the room in an attempt to make sense of this situation. And you’re a mature adult whose physical safety is not in immediate jeopardy, not a pre-pubescent child who is being attacked.
Bullying is not a matter of, “boys will be boys”. By the time boys reach middle school they have developed the mental capacity for sufficient impulse control. The fact that the impulse in question is unprovoked violence is seriously disturbing. Boys will play-fight, wrestle, and tackle their friends. That is not the same as randomly punching younger, smaller boys that they don’t even know and deriving some twisted pleasure from it.
It’s also not a normal rite of passage. Just because we all had to deal with bullies on our own when we were growing up does not make it acceptable. When our parents (or grandparents) were growing up, they thought segregation was normal and unobjectionable because that’s how it had always been. The argument that anything is acceptable simply because it has been ignored or allowed to continue for many years is nonsense.
The overall culture in middle school is conformity at all costs. The one exception to this rule is bullies. Bullies are extremely different. They are the ones leading the other kids in ridiculing others. When it comes down to being picked on or being on the side of the person who is doing the picking, even the most well-behaved kids (probably especially the most well-behaved kids) will not put themselves on the line to stand up to one of these little tormentors. We, as a society, have been allowing bullies to control the atmosphere in which our children spend their days for generations.
The real question then becomes: We don’t abuse our children so why do we continue to allow other kids to do so?
Thanks for stopping by!
My daughter Mia entered kindergarten and had two bullies in her class, it brought her home in tears. Her teacher and principal were aware there was a problem but things persisted. I went to class with her, followed her out to recess, and made a pest of myself. I threatened to sue the school district. One of the boys was moved to another school, a special education school. They gave Mia’s teacher an assistant that worked in the classroom with the other boy.
School busing companies are responsible for your child’s safety on the bus, schools are responsible for your child’s safety in the classroom.
I agree and am actually happy with how it was handled by the school. The camera caught the incident. The kid received consequences and was moved to a different seat. However, what he will do to his new seat-mate…..who knows. I have a friend who had a situation similar to yours and she had to threaten to call the local news before the school did anything.
I just loved reading this and it has spawned such a fire in my belly because I have an 8th grader that I’m also trying to teach to maneuver through the quagmire of being a socially and morally responsible person while learning to stand up to other people’s bad behavior. What I find about the lack of parental guidance that you were talking about is that these days, too many parents spend too much time trying to be their kid’s friends and not their parents. They are more concerned with hurting their child’s feelings than with actually disciplining them and giving them the guidance and tough love it sometimes takes to turn them into functional adults. There will be plent of time to be their friend when they are grown. Right now, our job is to turn them into someone we would even want to be friends with!
It seems that our society has turned into a bunch of namby pamby’s who refuse to take responsibility for inapproriate or unacceptable behavior and simply want to pass the blame to someone else. From our government (don’t even get me started there) to school personnel to other parents – no one wants to simply say, “yep, that was my fault, I’m sorry, and I will fix it right away.” It’s as if to do so would somehow make them seem to be less of a person when in actuality, it would strengthen people’s opinions of them.
I know people harp on the video game influence on kids too but it really is true that it desensitizes them to the true suffering of others. When they spend hours shooting and punching people on a television screen that just get reanimated during the next game, they don’t seem to really understand that in real life, people get hurt, people bleed, people suffer and they don’t just get up and walk away unscathed.
You are also right when you said that it’s the polite kids that are raised with manners that are more likely to be victimized because they don’t know how to respond to this type of ridiculous and aggressive behavior in a polite and well mannered way. You can’t respond to barbarism with kindness and they somehow know this and therefore are just frozen. It’s sad that we have to arm our children against others who choose to act like cretans while trying to teach them to balance that with being respectful and thoughtful of other people as well.
Well said. While writing that post I found a bunch of great sites with helpful tips on helping your children deal with bullies. I thought the exact same thing….how sad that we have to find ways to help our children deal with violence instead of actually working on solutions to the problem itself.
Excellent thoughts. Yes, we do not prepare our children for the bullies they will encounter in school and how they should be dealt with or how we should stand up for the ones being picked on. You have given us much to think about, thank-you.
Hi,
I understand how you feel. I was a kid who was a victim of bullying. Now I am an adult. Being bullied has affected my life a lot, especially my self-esteem. How is your child’s self-esteem?
This experience has taught me a lesson about myself. It made me aware of the way I percieved myself. You see 90% of our brain is unconscious and only 10% is. I believe that we get expriences in our lives to teach us something about ourselves. Today, I have a lot of confidence in myself and I might say that this exprience has made me stronger. Please don’t understand me wrong, I do not agree with bullying, not at all. I am only trying to say, that it is there to teach us something.
Good to hear that you were able to move past the self-esteem issues you developed as a result of being bullied. So far, my son’s self-esteem is good. This was the first time this type of thing has happened to him, but I’m sure, not the last. I agree that everything we experience can be used as a learning experience.
I remember being bullied by a group of girls in the 8th grade. I would lie awake at night, fearing what was going to happen the next day. Luckily, they got bored with me, and moved on. Ironically, one of these girls befriended me on facebook. I so enjoyed seeing how horrible she looks. Little, sad, and awful of me, I know…but at least I can admit it:)
I dread these days with my kids. Jaxen had an instance with being bullied last year in kdg. and I thought I was going to blow a gasket. That Mom instinct kicks in so fast, it’s almost frightening! I had to step back and assess before I taught him words he doesn’t need to know:)
Best of luck to your boys, and to you, in making it thru these years relatively unscathed. Middle school is hell, but I’m sure, with you by their sides, it will go a little more smoothly.
I would feel the same way about seeing a former bully looking badly now. Maybe it’s not nice, but it’s certainly fun, and much less harmless than what she did to you!
That mom-protecting-her-baby thing is powerful!
Michelle is so right about these idiot parents that are so worried about being their child’s “friend.” Kids need parents when they’re young and if you provide proper parenting, you’ll be friends later for life. With few exceptions, most of the kids that were troublemakers at my kids’ school had screwed up parents–either negligent and abusive or overly indulgent. Some actually smoked pot with their middle school kid or got booze for them. We frequently see these kids’ names in our local Police Blotter, and we’re not at all surprised.
I agree. It’s fine to have a good relationship with your kids, joke around with them, talk with them, etc. But this whole, “friends” thing is nonsense. They’re kids. It’s our job to teach them how to be responsible, confident adults, not party with them! I can’t believe parents actually smoke post and drink with their middle-schoolers! What are they thinking?!
DAMN! Great post!
Yes, yes and yes!
Back ground on myself: I am a home child care provider.
Too many times I see parents of toddlers trying to reason/logic/negotiate them out of tantrums and I just think to myself: “What the hell are you doing?!”
To me (although my kids are barely in gradeschool) this talking a toddler out of a tantrum is setting them up for *ass kissing* expectations later. This can be the begining behavior of bullies and these parents feed right into it. Who is in charge?!
PSA: TEACH YOU KIDS!!! (Yes, I believe it takes a village…….however, the vast majority of the responsibility of raising your children falls on YOU!)
Thanks!
I agree, how many parents’ lives are ruled by their very young children? They make separate meals for them because they “won’t” eat vegetables, or they sleep in their parents bed every night for years because they “won’t” sleep in their own beds. I never understand this. Who IS in charge? Well said!
Hi! First, thanks so much for visiting my blog! And just to clear things up, the last statement I made about going back to therapy was just a joke. We really did “graduate.” Not to say that isn’t an option for us in the future. The conversation was true though! But, anyway, it ties into your blog post here because one of the reasons my husband and I went to couples therapy was because of our 6 1/2 year old “special needs” son and the stress raising him has put on our marriage. You would probably call Noah a bully based on what I just read. Before I had kids I used to think just like you did.
“I’ve met all sorts of children and parents and time and again I see that the children who misbehave most often and most severely are children whose parents are either too busy to be bothered, encourage aggressive behavior, abusive or simply set no boundaries out of ignorance.”
And then we adopted our son. Read my blog. I don’t think you can say that my husband and I fit your criteria, yet my son has impulse and aggression control problems. It’s not always as cut and dry as you make it out to be. I wish it was. I wish that just being firm, consistent parents with Noah would stop his behavior.
I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve had parents look at me with that “you must really suck as a parent” look. Parents that have no clue everything we have done and are doing to help our son. We don’t want him to be like this. We don’t ever want him to hurt another child. But please don’t assume I’m a bad parent if he does.
And thank you for visiting my blog!
My post about bullies was not about special needs kids. I see that your son has ADHD, attachment issues, sensory processing disorder and the question of Asperger’s Syndrome. I can’t begin to imagine the difficulties in dealing with all of these issues with a 6 year old.
I’m talking about kids who have no special needs. I’m talking about pre-pubescent kids who behave with extreme aggression and the parents who encourage it, ignore it or are the direct cause of it through their own abuse.
No, I do get what you are saying! I think there are a lot of kids out there that don’t get the parenting they need.
The thing is, Noah looks “normal.” Parents that don’t know us or him just think he’s a bad kid when he does something. And of course you don’t have “bad kids” without having “bad parents.”
I guess in my emotional way, because this is a topic I can’t help but be emotional about, I’m just trying to say please don’t assume a child is “bad” and the parents are “bad” if you don’t know the situation.
And please know, I am in no way condoning aggression or bullying! I’m also not saying that just because Noah has special needs its OK if he hits another child.
Do you both mind if I butt in? (I’m also SoMuchMoreThanAMom’s sister, a child care provider, and former special needs TA.)
As a parent of 2 well behaved and manner minding children, should he ever be a victim of bullying w/o provocation…..I will only assume (and yes, I know the consequences of *assuming*) the bully is not special needs. Until I am told otherwise by the school or the parents themselves, my son will be taught to deal with bullies as if they are not special needs students.
I understand your urge to educate the public, however, I will do everything in my power to help my children sleep well at night, not to fear any thing about their day, and just be happy.
As a mom of a kid who isn’t “special needs” yet has “special needs,” I’ve been on the receiving end of many of *those* looks in the store.
As a mom of a kid (now two) who have/are bullied, of course I have the initial reaction of anger that it happens. And I’m mad at the faceless kid(s) who do these mean things to my son(s).
The question of whether a child is ADHD, Aspergers, PDD-NOS doesn’t enter my mind because consequences should still be enforced regardless. I have a child who has impulse control issues, low tolerance for frustration, but he’s still held accountable for his behaviors. Yes, let’s understand the root of the problem, but it still needs to be dealt with accordingly and appropriately by all adults involved.
For our situation, that is why I get so upset with the bullying. I don’t feel it is addressed because there is still too much of a “kids will be kids” attitude in our society.
Well said.
I hope that my comments from the other day aren’t being misinterpreted as saying that I think bullying behavior is OK if kids have special needs. I absolutely do not think it is ever OK. There absolutely needs to be consequences! We have zero tolerance for our son when he acts aggressively. No second chances! We are doing everything in our power to help him so this type of behavior doesn’t become more of an issue when he is 10 or 12 or older.
My issue was purely with the assumption that the parents are bad, or don’t care.
Boy, I really need to write a post on my own blog about this!