A
male
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hi all. I just finished reading http://www.dearcupid.org/question/traumatic-past-haunting-your-present-and-threatening-your.html and I was wondering why kids can be so mean nowadays? I understand that bullying went on lots when we were younger but it seems to be getting worse and the teachers and parents of nasty children are just as clueless, if not more so.What's your take on this?Much appreciated,Alan Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (30 August 2013): The thing is there is only so much we can do for a child like that. When it comes to a group of kids picking on another they're generally very smart not to get caught. Not only that but every little incident isn't reported, on top of that you have the word of one pupil against the words of many and trust me female bullies are manipulative bitches. You'll have 5 girls saying they did nothing, crying to 5 sets of parents who think the sun shines of their precious little angel's arse, they think the victim is the one who has been mean to them and the one who is the bully, and guess who get's all the shit then for even attempting to consider their daughter a low life?
They're exceptionally good at turning to tears when confronted and they will have a nice bit of ammunition of one or two times when the victim retorted or said something back and they'll use them as proof that she is the bad one.
You know I hate to say it but there are often times when we know there's a kid being badly bullied but literally cannot do anything because that kid doesn't report it, won't open up about it when questioned and when they do we don't see it so we literally cannot do anything unless there are other witnesses.
It's not that we don't want to are lazy or heartless, we can see that depressed loner with cuts on their arms but all we can do is inform parents who then send them to counsellors if we don't see an infraction. Very often the bullies themselves are victims too when you realize their home life is filled with abuse and addiction or parents who have split etc.
You know it's not always as simple as portraying the bullies as these evil kids intent on hurting people, most of the time these kids are in very dire situations domestically and are lashing out. It's a very fine balancing act between protecting the victim and not making the bullies situation worse for them. Seriously I've seen a father drag his daughter out of a room by the hair because she was caught spitting on another girl. I've seen one girl, a really difficult child always lashed out turn into a quivering mess at one glance from her parents who couldn't even bother to be sober or change out of their pyjamas for the meeting. You see no matter what she did she is just a product of her environment and frankly it was heartbreaking to see such fear in her eyes of what was going to happen when she got home. You could see it wasn't going to be a normal punishment but something no child should probably have to deal with.
Could they have done more for Iamhere, maybe but then again maybe not. We have to work within the system and we can't just take one pupil into consideration, trust me it's very hard to condemn children as evil for bullying when you know their mother is an violent alcoholic and they're basically raising their siblings on their own at age 14. Or when you've had to give your lunch to that child because it's Thursday and they haven't brought in any lunch in months and are plainly malnourished. You see you think in this day and age every kid has a means to be taken care of, that we can sick social services on their parents, that problems can be reported and dealt with easily. But most of the time these pupils won't speak up and we can't report parents without proper proof or it's our heads that will roll.
I haven't been teaching that long now, only a few years and my school is one of the regular ones in a good enough area of the city.
No matter what way you cut it, it's not children who have gotten worse it's the parents. I remember when I was in school, teachers were trusted, parents would listen and try and help their kid get better. More often than not these days parents think we're against their child if they don't do well, the money the celtic tiger brought has given people this sense of entitlement, like we're providing a service they pay for with their taxes. Well if that's case then try not paying for that service and see what happens. You think you can do a better job? Go ahead, homeschool them. Our classrooms are close to bursting as is, my colleagues get very little pay for a job they work 12 hours a day because it doesn't stop once you leave the school, you have prep to do, assignments to correct a huge responsibility to prepare the next generation of this countries citizens and some of my colleagues are only being paid 50 bucks on top of the dole as an "internship" to do this job.
It's the parents who have gotten worse. they work against us now, don't appreciate what we do, think they're our bosses/pay our wages and can treat us that way, we get the blame when little Jimmy fails even though he does nothing class but flick bits of paper off the other kids. Most parents don't even know how twitter works, what their kids social life is like online, don't know their daughters are sending illegal nudes to boys who have had their sexuality taught to them by porn. What's the solution? That's it, ignore responsibility blame everything else. Ban porn, ban social media sites where bullying has occurred. Fuck parenting who needs it, let's just ban everything as a reaction every time it comes up. Let's blame teachers, let's blame the government for our ignorance.
OP bullying happens because of parents, not the kids. Kids aren't evil, sure there are some who are wired that way but very few. Parents just stick their heads in the sand now and expect their kids to be raised for them. They buy their kids iphones without being aware of any of the dangers that a 14 year old faces online, they don't teach their kids healthy sexual values at the right age as is appropriate to how young they're exposed to that these days when we try to introduce sex education at younger ages to compensate they become furious. You see parents still think they can keep their kids innocent until they decide the time is right to teach them about sex and things like that. Think banning porn will stop that? It won't. Think banning ask.fm will stop bullying? It won't.
Parents these days are more in need of education than their kids. but if you suggest something like that they think it's an insult and refuse to hear how any other way but theirs can be better for their child.
So again bullying happens because of parents, not kids so it's up to parents to get their shit together and teach their kids how to protect themselves in all ways.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (30 August 2013): The thing is there is only so much we can do for a child like that. When it comes to a group of kids picking on another they're generally very smart not to get caught. Not only that but every little incident isn't reported, on top of that you have the word of one pupil against the words of many and trust me female bullies are manipulative bitches. You'll have 5 girls saying they did nothing, crying to 5 sets of parents who think the sun shines of their precious little angel's arse, they think the victim is the one who has been mean to them and the one who is the bully, and guess who get's all the shit then for even attempting to consider their daughter a low life?
They're exceptionally good at turning to tears when confronted and they will have a nice bit of ammunition of one or two times when the victim retorted or said something back and they'll use them as proof that she is the bad one.
You know I hate to say it but there are often times when we know there's a kid being badly bullied but literally cannot do anything because that kid doesn't report it, won't open up about it when questioned and when they do we don't see it so we literally cannot do anything unless there are other witnesses.
It's not that we don't want to are lazy or heartless, we can see that depressed loner with cuts on their arms but all we can do is inform parents who then send them to counsellors if we don't see an infraction. Very often the bullies themselves are victims too when you realize their home life is filled with abuse and addiction or parents who have split etc.
You know it's not always as simple as portraying the bullies as these evil kids intent on hurting people, most of the time these kids are in very dire situations domestically and are lashing out. It's a very fine balancing act between protecting the victim and not making the bullies situation worse for them. Seriously I've seen a father drag his daughter out of a room by the hair because she was caught spitting on another girl. I've seen one girl, a really difficult child always lashed out turn into a quivering mess at one glance from her parents who couldn't even bother to be sober or change out of their pyjamas for the meeting. You see no matter what she did she is just a product of her environment and frankly it was heartbreaking to see such fear in her eyes of what was going to happen when she got home. You could see it wasn't going to be a normal punishment but something no child should probably have to deal with.
Could they have done more for Iamhere, maybe but then again maybe not. We have to work within the system and we can't just take one pupil into consideration, trust me it's very hard to condemn children as evil for bullying when you know their mother is an violent alcoholic and they're basically raising their siblings on their own at age 14. Or when you've had to give your lunch to that child because it's Thursday and they haven't brought in any lunch in months and are plainly malnourished. You see you think in this day and age every kid has a means to be taken care of, that we can sick social services on their parents, that problems can be reported and dealt with easily. But most of the time these pupils won't speak up and we can't report parents without proper proof or it's our heads that will roll.
I haven't been teaching that long now, only a few years and my school is one of the regular ones in a good enough area of the city.
No matter what way you cut it, it's not children who have gotten worse it's the parents. I remember when I was in school, teachers were trusted, parents would listen and try and help their kid get better. More often than not these days parents think we're against their child if they don't do well, the money the celtic tiger brought has given people this sense of entitlement, like we're providing a service they pay for with their taxes. Well if that's case then try not paying for that service and see what happens. You think you can do a better job? Go ahead, homeschool them. Our classrooms are close to bursting as is, my colleagues get very little pay for a job they work 12 hours a day because it doesn't stop once you leave the school, you have prep to do, assignments to correct a huge responsibility to prepare the next generation of this countries citizens and some of my colleagues are only being paid 50 bucks on top of the dole as an "internship" to do this job.
It's the parents who have gotten worse. they work against us now, don't appreciate what we do, think they're our bosses/pay our wages and can treat us that way, we get the blame when little Jimmy fails even though he does nothing class but flick bits of paper off the other kids. Most parents don't even know how twitter works, what their kids social life is like online, don't know their daughters are sending illegal nudes to boys who have had their sexuality taught to them by porn. What's the solution? That's it, ignore responsibility blame everything else. Ban porn, ban social media sites where bullying has occurred. Fuck parenting who needs it, let's just ban everything as a reaction every time it comes up. Let's blame teachers, let's blame the government for our ignorance.
OP bullying happens because of parents, not the kids. Kids aren't evil, sure there are some who are wired that way but very few. Parents just stick their heads in the sand now and expect their kids to be raised for them. They buy their kids iphones without being aware of any of the dangers that a 14 year old faces online, they don't teach their kids healthy sexual values at the right age as is appropriate to how young they're exposed to that these days when we try to introduce sex education at younger ages to compensate they become furious. You see parents still think they can keep their kids innocent until they decide the time is right to teach them about sex and things like that. Think banning porn will stop that? It won't. Think banning ask.fm will stop bullying? It won't.
Parents these days are more in need of education than their kids. but if you suggest something like that they think it's an insult and refuse to hear how any other way but theirs can be better for their child.
So again bullying happens because of parents, not kids so it's up to parents to get their shit together and teach their kids how to protect themselves in all ways.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (10 August 2013): What a load of baloney it's not just children, it is people in general of any age. They are rude, cruel and darn right judgemental. They seem to forget everyone has their own personal struggles and problems in life, but still feel the need to ridicule others and make things unpleasant.
I'm twenty and went on a dating site and was bullied by a FIFTY-TWO year old! He was disgusting. For someone his age to come up to a young girl and harass her is beyond me. How sad and pathetic.
Sorry for my rant! But this is ridiculous it isn't just children that are nasty.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (6 August 2013): I did read it and as I said that kind of stuff is in decline. well it is in my school and in official figures.
OP I went through all that in school too. I went to primary school in England for three years at the height of our war of unification, guess how much fun that was living in London and being Irish and just so happen to live in the East end.
When I came back to Ireland I was thrown into the roughest school in my city because I didn't do the entrance exams.
As I said I've been head butted, pushed down stairs, had my yoghurt in my bag crushed, soup thrown in my face, chewing gum in my long hair etc.
Kids aren't meaner nowadays, they are if you didn't experience extreme bullying yourself. Yeah then I'm sure it seems that way.
There's one thing missing from iAmHereToHelpYou's story and I love and respect her as an aunt on this site, she never stood up for yourself in a way that would make them stop.
Unfortunately and also fortunately in some ways we're not allowed to tell kids to stand up for themselves anymore.
Guess how I got my bullies to stop and how I gained respect and to be left alone. One particularly nasty bastard kept going out of his way to punch me hard in the back of the head every time he walked past me in class. I told the teacher to watch what he was doing and she just ignored me. Finally I got so furious with him the next time he walked past I jumped on his back and just stabbed the shit out of him with my compass, we got into a fight then and admittedly he did kick my ass but that was it. While waiting outside the headteachers office all of a sudden his attitude had changed and others in my class knew too that even if I lost a fight they were going to be hurt taking me on and so no one did anymore. A new boy come to the school and make a smart ass comment? I'd slam his head off the wall or break his nose and he wouldn't do it again.
You know girls were bullying one of my sisters in my school. How did she stop it? The same way, my sister is well built for a woman, she has a sprinters physique, so she's strong and fast. She too snapped after one girl kicked her heels and tripped her over. She rugby tackled that girl and slammed her head of the ground a few times. Funnily enough that was the same day I waited outside her school and pinned one of the other ring leaders to wall and let her know she'd be fucked if she didn't stop.
That's one thing that annoys me as a teacher, we've gone too soft. The counselling, the talking to parents, it can work for some but it only papers over the cracks. We can't watch your kids when they're not in school and you can't watch them when they're not at home so you have to give them the tools to be able to stand up for themselves and in some cases violence really is the solution.
I will raise my kids to know that when it comes to bullying; extreme violence and brutality, while the last resort, is on the table and is very effective. It does not compromise any morals, it does not make you a bad person and you may know it yourself OP, no matter how big the bully they won't soon go after a person who will fight back and hurt them.
It's not worse these days OP, it is getting better. Kids are better informed, they have far more ways of reporting this kind of thing, we teachers get a lot of extra training and are very good at spotting the signs, warning the parents and preventing it happening in our school. Nothing will ever be 100%.
I mean ignoring bullying like in Iamhere's case wasn't working because she was letting them get away with it. Letting them win and pawning her off to counsellors wasn't going to work.
If I was her parent I would have waited outside the school, grabbed the group of those bitches and made it very damn clear how awful their lives would be from now on if they didn't stop. I would have sent her to MMA training not a counsellor to draw her emotions. I would have given her confidence through strength, confidence from knowing that she can handle herself and has the tools to do so and an outlet for her frustrations by getting to knock the shit out of a punch bag 2-3 times a week.
I wouldn't have blamed her for anything. I would stand side by side with her and tackle them and I wouldn't stop until they stopped and believe me Alan, I'd have no problem knocking the shit out of a teenage girl and their parents if they were making my daughter's life hell. No one gets to do that. I'd do jail time to protect my family.
If there's one thing wrong with how we approach bullying these days it's to molly coddle the victims into remaining in that victim mentality and feeding off their sensitivities. Yes, it works for some. but we no longer have a culture of standing up for yourself. We're supposed to take it now because violence is supposedly worse than long term abuse and suffering. Fuck that in all fairness. A broken nose can be more effective than years of counselling to stop bullying and make some feel secure and confident.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (1 August 2013): Technology doesn't override the difference between right and wrong. It's not a teacher's job to instill morals, ethics and values in kids, that's the parents' responsibility, and more and more parents across all socio-economic strata are failing their kids miserably, either through hovering, enabling, or neglect.Clueless kids can't be blamed for not learning what they were never taught, and clueless parents can't be blamed for not teaching their kids what their parents never taught them.Unfortunately more and more innocent children are born into tenuous, unstable living situations as the products of irresponsible, random, spontaneous breeding and with each generation the cycle of dysfunction not only perpetuates but worsens.
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reader, anonymous, writes (31 July 2013): That's not true at all OP. I'm a teacher and bullying has declined rapidly, the only difference is that kids have greater access to each other through the Internet and phones so it's publicized a lot more now.
Yes a lot of parents are clueless but it's not my job as a teacher to raise your or anyone else's kids.
When they're in my class and school I will go out of my way to protect them. But I'm not the idiot who gave their 12 year old a smartphone. Most parents buy their kids laptops and smartphones without having any idea how they work, and without any way of teaching their kids safe usage.
Frankly I'm sick of teachers getting the blame for not protecting someone's kids when all the bullying goes on online. I can't be responsible for that and frankly while I care about your kids well-being I'm not going to cry into my cornflakes because they got an abusive text outside of school. Not my jurisdiction, yet parents always like to blame us for not stopping it. They don't do it on school grounds anymore, you sort it.
You know how often I catch kids texting abuse at others in class? Pretty much never, they also don't abuse each other openly in class or in the school grounds much either. When I went to school I got headbutted, spat on you name it behind the teachers back right there in class.
OP it's just more publicized now, social media has made it easier for cases of bullying to be shared, for cases of suicides from bullying to be highlighted, kids are less afraid to speak out now because there's not much "you're dead after school" going on. Research shows that levels have declined dramatically. Assaults involving children have declined hugely, incidences of suicide through bullying are also at an all time low.
It's parents who need to better educate themselves on how the internet works so they can teach online responsibility to their kids.
If you want to know why bullying still exists it's simple, it always will, even though it has declined parents still want teachers, TV, the internet to raise their children for them and talk to their children about how their lives are. Bullying only exists because parents don't talk to their kids, don't bother to find out what's going on in their lives, or are too busy spending their dole money getting high or in the pub when there's no food for little Seamus to eat when he gets home so he goes off sniffing nail varnish and robbing instead.
Funnily enough Irish kids are smarter, happier and emotionally stronger than they've ever been in our history. It's okay to be openly gay, it's okay to have sex outside marriage, you're not going to be thrown into a Catholic abuse centre for getting pregnant young. It only seems to be worse because they aren't scared to talk about it anymore and more kids are standing up for themselves publicly.
You know what the worst thing about all this is, preventing bullying, ending it is the easiest thing in the world because bullies are themselves victims. Yet you read about cases of kids killing themselves over it like that girl who got bullied on ask fm and there is one underlying theme in all of them. "We didn't know how bad it had gotten" well fuck me whose fault is that? What's their solution? Blame the website for existing, try to get it banned. But how did it happen in the first place? Yeah, that's right, you didn't know how bad it had gotten because you knew nothing about your kid's life.
Graphic violence doesn't have that effect at all, it can act as a trigger to those who already have violent tendencies but there is no correlation between fantasy violence and people becoming violent. Besides if people worry about that then why do they expose their kids to it? Everything is marked 18+, don't let them watch it if you're scared of that and yes you do have that kind of control, you're their parent.
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A
female
reader, eyeswideopen  +, writes (31 July 2013):
 My take is just that it's easier to bully nowadays. You can bully in person, over the phone, Facebook, texting, Twitter, etc. In my day we had the playground, period.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (31 July 2013): Popular entertainment like Tv and movies and video games depict and glorify more graphic violence. The Internet is also a source of graphic violence both real and fake. This serves to desensitize kids to violence or normalizes it. That's my opinion at least.
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