This is why I don't watch the news.

[Sheik]

Wow a lot of tortured souls rests at EP forums, I'm glad I fought all my bullies tooth and nail. Cannot be in a public school and not defend yourself.

Bullying is caused by many things, so is suicide or homicide FTM(for the matter).Boiling down such complex thought processes into he did/she did is asinine and needs to stop. The world will have problems until humans are extinct, just the way we operate.

Oh yeah, for the cuddling and over-protective parents(not likely they'd be on here anyway) STFU and GTFO. Kids need experience, just teach' em all you can and let Derp handle the rest.

[Rockstar1983]

I was bullied all through school, it made me a stronger person. But I don't think it should be considered something that is a part of life. Bullies are ignorant, simple-minded a-holes who can't think beyond the tip of their nose. So they bully a kid that's smarter to make themselves feel better. I think kids that bully others should either be bullied and tortured by other kids or have the crap beat out of them and kicked out of school, so they can be worthless somewhere else. On the other hand I agree that kids today are coddled [I]way[I] too much. When did it become ok to coddle the stupid kids? Some schools are getting rid of the grading system so the dumb kids won't feel bad. The problem is if they feel bad about their grade they will work harder the next time. They don't have any incentive to accomplish anything. They grow up feeling entitled for absolutely no reason. They become spoiled brats, then somehow it's someone else's fault. I think someone needs to kick these kids butts and maybe they'll grow up. I'm generation x, and I have no respect for kids today. I just want to smack them, because they are so whiny and act entitled. I just laugh at them.

So much truth in this statement.

that's old thinking and dumb.

Know what's really dumb? Cutting somebody down for their views, simply because you don't agree with them.

The fact is, YOU are accountable for your own life experience. If it sucks, figure out how to change it. Think: what can YOU do to make things better in your life?

For instance, if you fail to show other people basic respect and kindness, they'll respond to you in the same way... thus, they will decide you aren't worthy of their respect and kindness, and treat you rough or badly. Start being nice, and people might do the same for you.

[Dr Mario]

People still seem to be making the assumption that bullying, in its general form, is never anything more than a few people calling someone names once in a while. Which is the case in some areas. But its not typical of every instance. Hell, one of the schools I attended bullying started at minor physical abuse and ended with concussions and cracked ribs.

None of which changes the fact that a hell of a lot of stuff we write off as mere bullying would get adults arrested if they did the same thing to a coworker.

[Rockstar1983]

Personally, I wouldn't assume anything of the sort... I'm not going to say that bullying only consists of verbal abuse. In junior high, I had the bruises to prove otherwise... worst part was, the teachers and faculty would aid and abet the bastards that were having a go at me. These A-holes could knock me around all day, and they'd get "hey, knock it off"... but if I raised a hand to retaliate, it was "We expected better of you" and off to the principal's office and detention or whatever. So I learned to bottle it up and say nothing.

One Saturday my mother saw the purple marks coming down my arm out of my T-shirt sleeve and asked if I had others, and yeah, I did. She went to school on Monday and raised hell, asking why I was coming home battered and nothing was being done about it. The principal told her that they allowed these kids to target me because they felt I could handle it better, both physically and mentally, than my classmates.

The point in telling this story and airing out my juvenile dirty laundry is this: If it was happening to me then, it's happening to other young people now. And worse. The teachers and other adults are turning a blind eye, or worse still, allowing one to be singled out so the others are out of harm's way. Nobody is held harmless in this situation: The kid who allows the bully to take him for an easy mark, the bully himself for being an opportunistic trouser-stain, the teacher/principal/adult for ignoring the problem, the parent for not teaching their kids how to deal with adversity, et cetera.

Bottom line, the schools are zoos, with no zookeepers to mop up the droppings. Glad I'm done with education.

[Mr. Nemo]

All I read from the OP was , "Wah! I was bullied and everyone should tolerate being bullied too!"

If you liked your childhood, then it's fine to propagate it for future generations to experience. If you didn't enjoy it, consider stopping the cycle and do it the way you think is better. For some reason, there is nothing but whining from old codgers about how they can't beat the shit out of their kids like they could in the past and it's okay to punish their spawn however they like, even if it's against the common law of cruel and unusual punishment.

Real life is living in the Congo and having to cross a fence made of human intestines. We live in a much better area of the world and should treat each other with some better level of respect in relations to that. I almost godwin'ed that extreme example but you should get the point.

[Andy_Jerk]

Civilization allows weaker children to survive into adulthood. I'm not trying to be a dickhead, because it's my own story. I was so overly sensitive growing up that I felt like I was being pulled in every direction at once; and trying to honor every single one of those commands at the same time. Alas, it made me quite insane. it's the story of an ugly duckling that may have become a beautiful swan, but at what cost? I lashed out at more aggressive young people when all they were doing was following the code of nature and taking care of offspring that would not survive the lifestyle of cave-dwelling families. It is a conundrum that makes us all think hard--and it is not pleasant to do that sometimes.

[Mistereyedee]

My reason for remaining "out-of-touch" with the news is that mainstream sources often coddle to a particular political party, instead of equally representing both sides of the spectrum. CNN is too liberal, and FOX News is too conservative. Both liberals and conservatives are full of shit.

[Polizzi]

How does a person cope with bullying?

[Elin]

You hold up bullying as being an accurate reflection of the harshness of reality and a baptism by fire as it were for what kids will have to endure as adults, but I think in all but the most tragic lives, being physically and verbally abused over several years with no way out is no more a reflection of the real world than the overly sunny, cheerful picture than some coddling parents and administrators paint for kids. As someone who was bullied savagely as a child, I can safely say that what I endured as a child was far, far worse than anything I've encountered as an adult. As an adult, I can barely recall ever being subjected to name calling, much less real emotional abuse and physical violence, and I know that if I ever did encounter such things, there would be people there to help me. In school? That sort of stuff was essentially my life for a good three years, the administrators turned a blind eye to it, and there basically was no escape.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly agree that coddling kids and creating an environment where we bring the hammer down on harmless banter and make it impossible for them to challenge their peers can be harmful. But bullying - real bullying - is both behaviour that won't be a feature of most kids' adult lives and behaviour that can carry a jail sentence if and when we do run across it as adults. Bullying didn't prepare me for the harshness of reality, as you seem to suggest. All it did was rob me of three years of my adult life by instilling in me completely irrational fears in me about what the adult world was like. If other kids can be spared that, even if it means wrapping them in a tad too much cotton wool, I'm all for it.

[Andy_Jerk]

You hold up bullying as being an accurate reflection of the harshness of reality and a baptism by fire as it were for what kids will have to endure as adults, but I think in all but the most tragic lives, being physically and verbally abused over several years with no way out is no more a reflection of the real world than the overly sunny, cheerful picture than some coddling parents and administrators paint for kids. As someone who was bullied savagely as a child, I can safely say that what I endured as a child was far, far worse than anything I've encountered as an adult. As an adult, I can barely recall ever being subjected to name calling, much less real emotional abuse and physical violence, and I know that if I ever did encounter such things, there would be people there to help me. In school? That sort of stuff was essentially my life for a good three years, the administrators turned a blind eye to it, and there basically was no escape.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly agree that coddling kids and creating an environment where we bring the hammer down on harmless banter and make it impossible for them to challenge their peers can be harmful. But bullying - real bullying - is both behaviour that won't be a feature of most kids' adult lives and behaviour that can carry a jail sentence if and when we do run across it as adults. Bullying didn't prepare me for the harshness of reality, as you seem to suggest. All it did was rob me of three years of my adult life by instilling in me completely irrational fears in me about what the adult world was like. If other kids can be spared that, even if it means wrapping them in a tad too much cotton wool, I'm all for it.

I once met a student in CA who said he had come up a philosophy on living: he said that people either have a good childhood or a good adult life--but that it was not possible to enjoy both. I didn't really understand what he meant until I got older and started enjoying my own life. I had been such a bitter and withdrawn child and I didn't really feel alive until my late 20's, but I think for many more aggressive people it might be the opposite: that they have a good time in youth torturing others before the adult consequences catch up to them. That is an extreme example, but I think it holds true for a larger spectrum of individuals.

[Graeystone]

Four things Dad taught me about bullying -
1) Don't start fights buts always finish them.
2) All bullies all have the same weakness.
3) A well placed knee to the groin is the great equalizer.(See 2)
4) "Never be a bully because I(Dad) will find out and you(me) will regret it."

Only bullied once in middle school and because of pop's advice, was left alone throughout middle and high school.

[jmurjeff]

I was bullied when I was younger. Then I learned that many of these bullies are really weak. They don't want to fight. Kind of funny how I know so many people who talk bad about me but no longer want to say anything to my face. I guess martial arts has its uses.

[Polizzi]

Reminds me of that video when that big kid dropped some other kid that kept hitting him. Was all over the news.

[Shane]

I was bullied every schoolday since 22 January 2003 (Wednesday) to 7 March 2011 (Thursday).
Physically or by being called names and stuff.
And I'm rather weak, unless I'm angry. Breaking a pen one-handed a few days before 7 March 2011 out of rage.
At least it stopped. Well, that's because I left school...

And I don't watch news because it's boring.

[Ness]

What you don't realize is that bullies nowadays are 20x more brutal then they were back 10 years ago.