Posted on 12/13/2017 4:50:06 AM PST by Kaslin
This week, America found a new cause to rally around: Keaton Jones. Keaton is a middle school student who was apparently viciously bullied at school for the crime of having a scar on his head from the removal of a tumor. His mother filmed a video of him crying as he explained that other kids had poured milk over his head and mocked him; through his tears, Jones questioned why kids treat one another this way.
The video was absolutely heartbreaking.
It was particularly painful for me. I skipped two grades. By the time I hit sophomore year of high school, I was half a foot shorter and 40 pounds lighter than the other kids. The other kids had been in classes together for years; I was a newcomer. That meant being physically shoved into trash cans and lockers. On one overnight trip, some of my classmates handcuffed me to a metal-framed bed and then hit me repeatedly on the rear with a belt. I pretended to sleep through it, and rather unconvincingly.
So I know what Keaton went through. Being bullied makes you feel like a bottle about to burst -- the frustration eats away at your stomach lining and makes you dread going to school. It makes you miserable; even when you're happy, you're constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Still, I don't think Jones' mom should have taken that video.
I think that for two reasons. First, all the celebrity Jones has achieved here won't help him when the cameras turn off. The bullies will still be there, but they'll be twice as cruel, thanks to their belief that he has made fame and fortune off of them. They'll seek to justify their bad actions with more bad actions. CARTOONS | Jerry Holbert View Cartoon
Second, Jones himself isn't going to be helped by this in the long term. No child should have to be bullied, and if someone ever tries to bully my kids, I'll step in with the full range of possibilities at my disposal. But being bullied can have two possible effects: You learn to stand up and cope, or you learn to identify as a victim. If you can hold your head up high even while you're being bullied, you're likely to live a stronger, happier, fuller life. That doesn't mean you're going to be able to knock out the bully a la Daniel in "The Karate Kid." But it does mean you'll be able to better deal with the vicissitudes life has to offer. Those won't end with middle school.
We worry -- rightly -- about bullying in schools. But we should also worry about how victims treat their victimhood and how they can turn that victimhood into strength for the long haul. Our society has sympathy for victims of bullying, as it should. But we should recognize that just as a wounded animal must be prepared to re-enter the wild lest it die in wild conditions, children must be prepared to live in wild conditions. Those conditions represent life for most people at most times. We can and should stick up for victims against bullies. But we should also focus on empowering victims to become the future bulwarks against bullying -- for themselves and for their children.
For most of the people that I deal with, life has been brutal. No breaks, just sh8t. Why are we sentenced to this? Did any of us ask to be born? School is brutal. It sucks to be bullied, but there really is no help for it. I told my kids you have to bully a bully but one of them was bullied and one of them was a bully who now is bullied. My ex was a bully.
What is the effing point?
I sympathize with kids who are bullied, I got bullied as a kid for years on end. I was bigger than a lot of kids, but clumsy and withdrawn, and wore the black plastic glasses that seem to be bully magnets for some odd reason. I used to have a kid wait for me at a certain point every single day for several years as I walked to school.
But, in my opinion, it is far, Far, FAR more important to teach kids how to withstand bullying than it is to eliminate bullying.
Because just like there will always be criminals, deviants, thievery, and violence, there will always be bullies. Always.
It isn’t easy. It isn’t fun. It is painful, and sad.
But, it is a microcosm of life itself, which sometimes isn’t easy or fun, and often painful and sad.
It is a liberal construct to try and put people in a bubble to protect them. And it is damaging, destructive, and even dangerous to do so.
I do not think that enough is being done about bullying. Too many schools, unfortunately, turn a blind eye to it.
Some kids do learn to cope with it. Others end up withdrawing and becoming dysfunctional adults, incapable of forming real relationships or holding down jobs.
Yes, there are tough times in life, and kids should be empowered to stand up to them. Heaven knows, we’ve been failing on that front, with all of the snowflakes. But excusing bullying is not the way to make strong kids. If we wouldn’t tolerate a behavior from an adult, we should not tolerate it from a child.
Then point has always bee Survival Of The Fittest. The weak are culled from the pack, the herd, the community of nations. Not saying I like it but it’s reality.
It’s nature’s way. Much of nature’s way has been shielded from human beings for the last 75 years or so. That shield will eventually drop. It always does.
I used to get bullied in school because I was always the new kid and big for my age, but passive.
The comedy is that I was an expert at goading bullies and then running away in such a way that I was NEVER caught. I remember, as an 8th grader, being chased by a bunch of ninth graders at South Mercer Jr High (Mercer Island) and hiding behind a really good bush while they were angrily discussing how I got away, right in front of me.
I was caught once by a sophomore bully when I was in 11 th grade. The grass was wet and I had leather soled wingtips on. He close fisted me on the back of the head as he caught up to me. So I stopped, turned around, lifted him off the ground by his belt and collar and threw him down on his face and sat on him. I was 6’1” and 160. He was about 5’10”. I told him we could wait for a teacher to come by, or I’d let him up and he could walk away. He chose the latter.
I’m 64. To this day I stand by a commitment I made to myself when I was in grade school: When I see a kid getting bullied, I WILL intervene. I had to do it in the international district of seattle when an asian kid (looked to be about 15) was being absolutely pummeled and blodied by a group of 10 or so other asian kids. While the people walking down the street just gawked, a cab driver and I went full force into that group and started ripping kids off. That stuff makes me sick.
I agree. There will always be bullies. And sometimes victims of bullies can be bullies themselves if the occasion develops. Best to learn how to deal with it early. I only had it happen once. I still have bitter memories and occasionally now I run into the mother of the bully. A nice old lady but I still feel like telling her she raised a nasty bully!
Bullying is not a rite of passage, its abuse.
However,that's no reason to tease or bully the kid.The kids who are doing that should be spoken to and,if necessary,punished by their parents.
When I was a kid (many,*many* years ago) there was a girl in our class who had some kind or orthopedic or muscular condition (polio,perhaps?) which made her walk funny and which required her to use those clunky looking "cripple" crutches...the type that "Timmy" uses in South Park.We used to tease her badly.I think back on that now and am very much ashamed and I hope that I (we,actually) didn't cause her any lasting emotional harm.If someone had sat me down and explained how wrong it was I might have stopped...even back then I had something that at least resembled a conscience and a sense of empathy.
You are correct, it is abuse. When I went to school, which is many decades ago, my teachers did not allow any bullying going on and explained that it is cruel to bully another child for something that was not his or her fault.
Sorry..I meant Jimmy of South park,not Timmy.
News flash to you. I have seen his picture too. The kid can not help how he looks, and while not handsome, he sure is not ugly.
I wonder if bullying has become much more common in recent decades. When I was in HS In the late ‘60s, the term “bullying” was not even in our vocabularies. We used the term “picking on” to describe what was mostly verbal harassment and very minor, if any physical contact. And there was very little of that.
Yes,of course the kid can't help how he looks.And,as I said earlier,there's no way that anyone should be teasing or bullying him.As for "ugly"...all I'll say is that I'm glad I didn't look like that as a kid.
And,BTW,I wasn't particularly handsome as a kid...nor am I now!
‘I wonder if bullying has become much more common in recent decades.”
While reading all of this I came to the same conclusion. Back then those that did the “picking on” threw out a few verbal remarks and moved on with nothing physical.
I see the bullying problem of today a byproduct of our cultural shift towards leftism, where it starts in school and progresses to the violence that fills our streets and prisons of today.
Some day we will return to sound family values, the rule of law and high moral standards. This will be long after I’m croaked off, but it will and we will have a better America once again. We just need more Trumps to keep the ball rolling in that direction.
If you show weakness or let them know they’re getting to you, it’s like blood in the water to sharks.
They’ll pour it on all the more.
The best thing to do is either dish it right back, and self-defense training would come in very handy for that, or ignore it.
And then the parents could always homeschool, which is no guarantee against encountering bullies, but greatly reduces the likelihood.
You’re fortunate to have size on your side.
‘even back then I had something that at least resembled a conscience and a sense of empathy.’
yes, along with the pack instinct, the desire to fit in so as to achieve a sort of false safety...it is very common, and leads to much abhorrent behavior from us...
I was pretty much a loner as a kid, no reason for that as far as I’m aware, I was just an island. That by itself made me stand out and so I got unwanted attention. The only way to stop bullying is to beat them down so that they’re afraid of you. That runs the risk of turning you into a bully yourself, but there comes a point in everyone’s lives when enough is enough. There are worse reactions than punching your tormentors in the face to get them to leave you alone. I didn’t start it but I ended it. Seems fair enough to me.
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