azurelunatic | Don't stand for bullying.

I will not stand for this


Everyone Feels This Pain
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The trouble with bullying is that children are expected to put up with behavior that would, in a modern workplace, win harrassment suits from here until 2014. We tell our children that this is normal, they're to just ignore it, that kids are being kids. Sometimes we even go along with the bullying. Four of my little friends and I conceived a dislike for another girl at school and we quietly made her life hell until she told the teacher who caught us at it, and subsequently we were not particularly happy. I never pulled that one again.

Bullying can be stopped, if you catch it early enough. The Little Fayoumis had the distinct potential to be a bully. We knew this from his family history, so we were on the watch for it, and when it transpired that he'd bullied another kid in preschool, he was so grounded for a week. Of course, I don't know what he'll get up to when he's a teenager, but I'm hoping that he'll stay a decent human being, because we're training him to be that way at home. Spiderman's a better role model than Strongbad, and he does get to watch the Strongbad e-mails with the knowledge that Strongbad is a very, very bad role model for being polite and nice to other people. (Of course, he's also in danger of becoming the sort of whiny, sanctimonious prig that gets picked on and doesn't know why. We're working on that one too.)

Girls Just Want to be Mean is an article on some of the adolescent bullying that goes on with girls. I am happy in that I escaped most of this. I didn't really try to fit in with girls my own age. I stayed to myself, I had a few friends, I tried to stay out of the fights (and there were quite a few social group upheavals, especially in middle school) and I stayed in my books. In high school, I was mistaken for a senior during my freshman year.

I would say that probably some of the best things you can do for a kid who is not interested in fitting into the local child power structure would be to groom and arm the young person into adult manners and so forth. Kid's not interested in high school? See if you can't work a few college classes in. See if there are any friendly local or online interest groups who could mentor the kid. People like

ataniell93 are known to take an interest in young people who have no problem interacting with adults, ones who have no real interest in interacting with high school society, and introduce them to some of the more interesting things out there. The trouble with young people who are ready to act like adults, though, is that they balk at being treated like children, even if they still legally are.

Does the adult world still have bullying? Of course it does. Some of it's very insidious. But it's easier to sue and point it out and have people listen to it as being a problem and do things about it and leave, rather than being locked into a school you hate with people who hate you.

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See, though, this is the secret. I treat people, whatever their age, in accordance with basically what they have to say for themselves, and I'd rather sit with a sixteen-year-old girl who has something of interest to say than someone my own age who is not going to challenge me in any way or doesn't share my interests. Smart people are interesting at any age.

Excellent post. Do you mind if I friend you?

And dumb people are boring at any age.

<azzgrin>

Go right ahead! I'm not in automatic friendback mode anymore, because my friends page is more chaos now than ever, but welcome to the Lunacy!

My husband, adult that he is, just admitted to me yesterday that he doesn't wear solid-color t-shirts...because of *bullying*. He has large breasts, you see, being a chubby guy, and apparently if he wears t-shirts that don't have something on the front to distract from that figure, he gets his nipples pinched sometimes. Which, of course, pisses him off and *embarrasses* him. He said it was the only time he was ashamed of his body.

After asking him what his normal reaction was (which was to basically push them away and get pissed - pretty much the reaction the guys are going for, I think), I pointed out to him how stupid it was for GROWN MEN to be pinching his nipples. Gave him some tips on how to turn it back on them. Instead of getting angry, laugh, or glare, and ask them, "What is this, second grade?" We started swapping lines for making the perpetrator feel like the child he was acting like, and I got Chris laughing about it. I made it clear to him that HE had NOTHING to be ashamed of, and the people doing the pinching were being the childish assholes.

We were on our way to the thrift store to buy him some new t-shirts while we were having this discussion. And lo and behold, he actually walked out of the thrift store with 2 or 3 *plain* t-shirts!! I didn't even mention the conversation once after we'd segued into something else...but apparently he agreed with it enough to try and break out of his embarrassed-feeling.

Heh, heh. "Want me to show you where the playground is, little guy?"

I think my favourite one that he came up with was, "For $30 you can do that with my shirt *off*." ::winkwink::

So cheaply, he sells himself! *tsktsk*

Heh. Since it's guys that are doing it, and redneck idiots at that, that sort of comment will set off homophobic reactions. :D

Ah. Yes. Hee.

If you ever get room, you're welcome to friend me back if you like. I'm mostly friends only, but this may inspire me to make a public post or two :)
thanks for allowing me in on the insanity :)

Enjoy your stay! Be warned that I've got bizarre posting habits -- I'll be relatively quiet for a few days thanks to schedule chaos, and then suddenly all my random thoughts will be on LJ for the world to see.

You're not alone in the bizarre posting habit thing, I do it too. If for some reason, you can't comment on my posts, let me know. I've had to set posting to friends only because I was mocked and misunderstood. I loathe LJ drama...and RL drama, been there worn that t-shirt. I have enough to deal with. LOL.

I'm fortunate in that I've only had isolated incidents of angstwanking from the LJ public. Anonymous comments are off courtesy of one asshat who thought that posting trollish comments from a computer in the University of Michigan library was cute, and I made a brief yet anticlimactic appearance in the Hate Thread that Ate LJ as being boring and obsessive, but that's about it for random LJ dramatics.

There were a few incidents with exes and one rather ugly situation with a troubled teenager, but all of that is in the past and likely to stay there.

*nods*
I've had one bad marriage, and my fair share of battle scars, but I'm still here to survive another day. *hugs*

Don't stand for bullying.

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