Posted on 01/26/2010 11:55:01 AM PST by Sopater
While police in South Hadley, Mass., investigate whether cyber bullying was to blame for the suicide last week of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, the teenager who had recently emigrated from Ireland suffered a final indignity – disparaging remarks believed to be posted by classmates to a Facebook page created in her memory.
Prince died on Jan. 14 after a rough freshman year. Friends and school officials told MyFoxBoston.com that Prince had been picked on and taunted since moving to Massachusetts last fall.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It seems like everyone is blaming the victim. I understand that some people can beat up a bully and have it stop, but not everyone can. Nor are the victim’s parents the ones to blame.
It seems that we need to hold the bullies and their parents accountable!
Yes - the victim and family can work on handling situations better, but we need to place blame where it truly belongs.
Comparisons to other bullies in life area meaningless. Bullies at work? Look for another place to work. Avoid those people, etc. It’s such a different situation when your world (as a kid/teen) is so small...
You know, I've seen that everywhere, even in the church.
I've never understood the mentality that blames the victim and expects them to be all forgiving and stuff, and NOTHING is ever done about or said to the person DOING the wrong.
It makes the innocent pay and the guilty go free.
That is so twisted. I can't stand it.
This is the worst result of the public school system, and the prison-like atmosphere of the schools helps foster this inmate-like bahavior among its captives.
Yes, parents ignore the most important aspect of the human being for determining happiness, self-reliance and self-esteem.
The pursuit of happiness meant the pursuit of virtue to the Foundering Fathers. Without virtue, there is no happiness. Kid's souls are empty when they taunt and tease in the extreme. Empathy, the ability to love, trust, be kind, etc., all is established in the formative years.
In the first several hundred years of this country, it meant NOT sending your children to, godless, mass indoctrination centers which encourage belittling, dehumanization, and humiliation for control.
Children hardly spent anytime in schools, other than for the basics (no forced schooling). Definitely not for the (de)socialization that includes moral relativism and anti-Christian content. Public schools have exacerbated the process of creating inhumane, morally bankrupt people and too many parents are not doing the basics anymore.
I taught my children not to hit 1st but if they were hit then to fight back. I was taught that. Sadly the Myspace & Facebook etc have allowed bullying to get out of hand. Sassy will never be on them & if I catch her I will toss her computer out the window. Her brothers know computers better then I do & have blocks on sites & check her history. Many of the 10 yr olds in my neighborhood are on FB & asked me to be their friends. I know their mothers & wonder WTH they are thinking. These kids put exactly where & when they will be somewhere. When I asked one mom about why she would allow this she said well he has a private FB so it is totally safe....Shaking my head again.
MySpace has really deteriorated from what I hear, but my kids and a LOT of adults I know, have FaceBook accounts.
You can keep it private. FB has some pretty sophisticated blocking devices and filters.
My kids also know better than to put that kind of information up and that I WILL hear about anything they post on FB from someone, be it our pastor, or my sister, or some other party. They even rat on each other.
Better safe than sorry, though, for a ten year old. I didn’t even let them on the computer at that age. I don’t think it’s good for them.
Sassy goes to the online school half of the day but we can see what she is doing all the time. She plays horse games & reads quite a bit about horses. She was the one who was able to find our retired racehorse’s history. I struggled with her being on the computer until I learned if she was in public school she would be learning how to use one.
Or parents who are abusive bullies themselves.
Our computers are right out in the open so I can see everything they have going on.
But again, the best thing going for us is likely that they know they can’t hide anything from us on FB, so they tell us before we hear about it from someone else.
They are also surprisingly worldly wise. They don’t trust anyone they don’t know and will not let anyone on to be their friend if they haven’t personally met them and know and like them. If someone keeps pestering them on FB, they put them on ultra ignore, however that is done.
I would never take glee in someone’s death even my worst enemy. I don’t need skills to hide it.
My ten year old daughter has a facebook. Of course, I am her friend on FB. I know her password and I have to approve all friend requests. She uses it to keep up with friends and family out of state. Her FB is set to private. Only her accepted friends can see what she writes.
You are NOT harming her by not letting her have FB.
What a crock. That’s just a manipulation technique.
My kids were all at LEAST 15 or 16 before they were allowed to have something like that. My youngest is now 17 and she uses it to keep in touch with out of town friends, but doesn’t live on it by any means.
I think that it’s easier for kids to fight when it’s protected from a face to face confrontation.
I also think that there is a real danger of kids not learning how to socialize in person anymore. We’re becoming too isolated and impersonal in our culture because everyone is plugged in nowadays and our communication is now cell phones and computers instead of sitting down together and actually talking. People retreat into their own private world and shut others out with their iPods and MP3 players.
If our family lived close by my daughter would not have a FB. That is the ONLY reason she is allowed to have one. You are not harming her and I was very calculated in my decision to let my daughter get an account. You have to do what is right for your family. I would tell them to mind their own business!
I think to myself wait until these children get into their teens & tell me again how I harmed my daughter by not allowing FB or Myspace .
After we had our conversation, I went and checked all my daughter’s FB settings. I just turned her profile off of the search engine. Her profile doesn’t show up even if you type her exact name. Myspace is a definite no no! That place is a cess pool.
I was ALWAYS criticized for *overprotecting* my kids when they were littler.
I always heard* they need to know what real life is all about*.
And this from parents whose child wouldn’t sleep with his light off and had horrible night terrors constantly. I remember hearing them trying to wake him up and reassure him that what he was seeing wasn’t real while he was screaming the whole time.But they let him watch whatever on TV and movies and, by gosh, he wasn’t overprotected.
Now my kids are mature, secure, self-confident, young adults who know how to make reasonable decisions about their lives and are planning their lives out at an age where many of their peers idea of a good time is to get bombed out of their minds as many nights a week as they can.
And who was the unwise parent?
Pandy, you just keep doing what you’re doing and it WILL pay dividends. The best thing you can give your daughter is the gift of not being influenced by peer pressure, essentially not caring what others think of her.
Likely, they're really just secretly jealous.
Maybe she could consider inviting one or two at a time over to share the horse's care. There's nothing girls that age love more than horses and I could see that being a real jealousy issue.
Amen!
As soon as spring comes I will bring Moonie the ex racehorse here. My landlord at the barn doesn’t take very well to us bringing anyone but family to the farm because of insurance issues. I am sure Moonie on the front lawn will surprise my neighbors lmao!
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