I just... yeah. Lost for words too. This is messed up so many ways, it's crazy.
And 12 year olds and sexuality? It's pushed at them in pretty much every form of entertainment for years. I remember being horrified watching 7 year olds gyrating to Spice Girls songs 10 years ago as parents cooed about how "cute" they were, and it's just gotten worse. It's everywhere - our kids are really sheltered, but my 8th grader has been fending off queries as to whether or not she's gay since she doesn't have a boyfriend and is stubborn and won't admit to any crushes.
I think there are some things that are "different now" and some that aren't.
Lyana, your daughter's experiences are not inconsistent with my memories of 8th grade. Even 7th grade - I recall quite specifically who I was crushing on back then. I also recall the banter and teasing with my peers - I recall who they were crushing on as well. I recall a lot of discussion around who was attractive and who wasn't, who liked who back, etc... and disbelief and abuse directed at those who professed indifference. I'm tempted to conclude that it's always been thus. (I started 7th grade in 1975, when I was 12).
What's different now: it seems there is a whole exploitative vibe in adolescent sexuality which I frankly just do not remember. People may not agree with my take, but I think sexual thinking and even behavior is not unnatural for adolescents - sexual behavior may not be OK, for a whole host of reasons, but it's not "shocking" or "unexpected", nor even necessarily a function of culture - IMHO it's a function of biology.
What is absolutely a cultural influence - a "social construct" if you will - is the phenomenon of adolescents exploiting each other for sex. This is a learned behavior and attitude and is profoundly regrettable.
There are a whole host of risks associated with early sexual behavior, but in my opinion the saddest is that early and exploitative sexual experiences often do not empower a young person and enhance their sense of self, but instead cause that young person to feel diminished - with consequences for the rest of their lives.
The current cultural stew arguably makes this kind of encounter more likely, not less, compared to years past.
Lewy, I think you've got something there; I must have been an early bloomer - I remember a summer camp crush when I was 8, followed by who knows how many as the years went by. :-) But that was all they were - innocent infatuations, sometimes returned, that resulted in flirtations, walks, a shiver at being pushed on a swing or a hand held - there was no expectation or pressure for something more at that age. (And granted, that's a girl's experience - I realize boys might experience things rather differently).
I think there's a level of difference between attraction, and those butterfly feelings in the tween and early teens and the current pressure/expectation to jump immediately into the sexual aspects of human relationships. We're all fine with mandating that kids can't drive until they're 16, but heaven help the young teen who chooses to not enter the meat market - there's something wrong with them (at least on a peer level, and I see a "well, just use protection" attitude from many adults - as if there's something that can protect your heart and soul.)
I don't think the spate of "teens being acted by adults" HS programs that are consumed by tweens healthy, nor the casual sexuality endemic in movies and music. Those ARE huge influences in that they "normalize" behavior, no matter what mom and dad say.
On an entirely different note, I'd appreciate some advice - the same daughter under discussion was fascinated by Japan after a module in grade 7, and chose Japanese as her foreign language this year; she will also be taking it next year. She loves it, and is immersing herself in Japanese culture as much as possible. Which also means anime/manga, and that's something in which I have NO experience! I know some is pretty explicit; any suggestions of what might be appropriate for a young teen?
I think Lewy has about got it nailed on the young sex culture versus biology thing. I know with absolute certainty that I was physically strongly attracted to girls by age 10 when I figured out just what that meant, even though I had not yet partaken, beyond kissy-face anyway. I was just finishing 6th grade and fell in love at least weekly, and in fact still recall some of their names. It was the culture of those times (50's) that kept the physical drives in check, for both sexes.
Now, on to bullying ... also a retro view. In my day if a bully carried out his actions in school, it was a certainty that the gym teacher would come and beat his ass with both fist and paddle. If the bully carried out his activity before and after school, the neighborhood guys effected (usually younger than the bully) would gang up and give the bully reason to never approach them again. Baseball bats, ubiquitous in those days, were the weapons of choice. I was only 8 when I learned a baseball bat was useful for things other than baseball.
Of course, when we reacted like this to a bully, even back then, we'd be grilled about it ... and in my neighborhood, none of us ever ratted out another, which closed the case since we never did it with witness strangers around. It was easy enough to dupe a bully in to an alleyway or cemetery.
Now you have some idea why I was so pleased and tickled by LTC Eisner decking that Scandinavian hippie activist. It is the simple justice I learned long ago....plus the "idiot rule" ... don't mess with uniformed authority, in their country, carrying guns ... unless you are prepared and willing to take the consequences. No oh's, no ah's, no ou's, weep weep. We'd never have won a single battle in any war without the "idiot rule" working, and accepting the consequences when necessary.
Aridog, I remember having crushes that young, too. But I certainly was not planning on getting laid by the girls I liked. It is that so many people push sex on children. On one of the Big sites a few weeks ago (I think it was there -- who knows, it may have been here) there was an article about a dance school where the teacher dressed 7-8 year old girls in flesh-colored costumes with panties and was teaching the girls erotic pole dancing for G*d's sake.
I have seen articles where 12 year olds brag about being sexually active because they are "so much more mature than previous generations." No, they aren't so much more mature, the bill just has come in yet in the form of depression and suicide.
I also remember reading, when I was young, that some kids to have "crushes" or admiration for another kid of the same sex that, in the long run, had nothing to do with being gay -- it was just a part of discovering one's feelings about other people. If this 12 year old finds out he is gay at 20, so what? But why does he need to be categorized at 12?
I also can't help but think that if this kid was bullied for having a crush on the prettiest girl in the class that he would be on his own.
The old safeguards used to take care of bullies. They have been purged from the schools.
I tried to post earlier, and Blogger bullied me by throwing my post in the trash and covering it with dog poo. I need a bully minder.
Ahem.
I have more than a few thoughts on this, but the ones that immediately come to mind are:
1) Why are they further stigmatizing, and actually punishing, the child that is being victimized rather than the ones who are doing the victimizing? What is so wrong with the school that they can't hold people responsible for their behavior?
2) I'm tired of hearing "such and such group is at a blah higher risk of bullying". No. If you added up all those percentages, they would equal many thousands. EVERY group is at a higher risk of bullying than the general population of kids, because it is precisely the difference that makes them bully targets. If you had a school full of fat kids, the skinny kids would get picked on. A school full of dorks would figure out how to bully the one athletic kid. In a world where D & D is popular, the kid who plays Vampire: the Masquerade is singled out. And I have seen more online bullying behavior from people I know who claim to be anti-bully and pro-gay (and sometimes are gay) than the people they are railing against. Sometimes even couched in such ridiculous terms as, "Normally I would never think this is okay, but some people just deserve it!"
Talking about who is more likely to be bullied just perpetuates the cycle and focuses on certain subgroups rather than focusing on who might actually be targeted.
3) I am an advocate of every taking martial arts training (in the style of their choice). And it might even help this kid drop the pounds quickly, which will help him blend in while in school. BUT, it takes years to get to the point where you can actually do some damage. Years and a certain personality bent - not everyone is comfortable hitting other people; hurting other people, regardless of whether they deserve it or not. And as soon as a kid tells people they are training in Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu or Tae Kwon Do or whatever, the bullies are even more eager to beat on them. "Ha!" they say. "I just kicked the ass of someone trained in Muay Thai! The best defense against bullies is having friends. It just is. Strength in numbers.
4) I'm sick and tired of schools being afraid to do ANYTHING to chronic bullies. They know who they are. Everyone knows who they are. And you know what? Discipline doesn't do shit. You know what does? Humiliation. Social pressure works where laws won't. And being embarrassed - especially at that age - is a huge deal. Stop worrying about their damn feelings and march those little shits through the school by their ear to the principal's office so everyone sees what a bitch they are when they aren't the biggest person in the room.
That little skunk in Australia who got tossed by the fat kid he was bullying? I'll bet he hasn't bullied anyone since. His face was all over the internet and people were LAUGHING at him. Instead we have these ridiculous zero tolerance rules that just make the problem worse, because everyone gets in trouble instead of the actual instigators.
5) Where the HELL are these parents? When I read stories about kids who are relentlessly bullied (as opposed to childhood drama), all I can think is that their parents have completely dropped the ball. Why would you leave your child in *that* school when you know their physical well-being is in danger? WHY? Don't give me the, "I have no choice," shit. You made the kid - you do what it takes. If it takes driving them to a new school further away, sometimes that will cure it. If it takes private school, you make it work. If it takes homeschooling, you homeschool. Is your child's life worth the expediency of keeping them in the closest school to your house? Because when your child is in physical danger, you are gambling with their lives.
Yes, most bullied children grow up just fine. But some don't get the chance to grow up. Do you want to risk that? I don't. I won't.
It is the parents that have me shaking my head the most.
I composed a big ol' rant this morning. Blogger ate it, belched, and scratched it's fat belly. Grrr!
I've been doing fist pumps reading the comments. This kind of stuff flips my lid. I'll spare you the "when I was a kid we would have got an ass-whoopin' for being mean!" crankiness. :)
Is it that certain kids are more prone to be a target of bullying than any other, or is it that many of the other kids chalk their being bullied up to experience and don't let it control their lives?
I found it interesting that during the "anti-bullying week", one daughter said that she was the only one who didn't raise her hand in class when they were asked who had been bullied. Interesting... I think we're raising a generation of kids who don't know how to deal with interpersonal stuff - many don't have siblings, so they aren't used to the realities of having to "deal" with every-day teasing and nagging, and they don't develop the skill to differentiate between that and truly soul-destroying hounding. Nor do they develop the skills to put an end to it. A good glare, kick in the shins or derisive laugh early on can stop things pretty quick, but if you don't know that, it escalates to the point that an adult has to intervene. I fully concur with the idea that humiliation and shame are very effective ways to deal with bullies. Bullies HATE being laughed at.
AFW .... I agree that martial arts, of any persuasion, isn't a direct cure due to the time it takes to develop real skills. They do help one lose weight and gain some confidence, but if taught traditionally, they don't sponsor aggression per se, and as you've said, not everyone can channel action in to defense.
That said, of course I'd favor the Tang Soo Do (now called Soo Bahk Do) & Moo Duk Kwan school of Tae Kwon Do, as a discipline because that is what I knew best long ago (60's). The dark blue belt is still the "black belt" of that discipline IIRC. The martial arts as taught traditionally require discipline, meditation, social responsibility, and self control, versus over overt aggression. It is far more about personal growth than fighting per se. Yep, I agree that almost everyone would benefit from such training, and in ways they'd not expect.
You mentioned "humiliation" as the best remedy for a bully ... and you are dead right on that. Where I mentioned the gym teacher kicking asses, the method employed, when I was in 7th and 8th grade, was to do so in the regular hallways, bouncing the jerk off lockers, then dragging literally by the ear to the principle's office in front of everyone. Obviously, in today's world, no such thing could occur. Too bad, because it worked. Admittedly it was a tough school, one where periodically there were top down searches where you all stood in front of your locker hands on head to be searched along with your locker ... in order to find knives, and yes, even then, guns. Humiliation was far more terrifying than anything else.
Parents? Yeah, where the hell are they? When I was growing up, if you got caught doing something wrong, that who ever caught you would call your parents and you catch hell twice. That was one of the reasons for our kiddie "Omerta" and being careful to not get caught when taking on a bully directly as a group ... as you said, "safety in numbers."
Another aspect that bears consideration is how some bullies get that way. I clearly remember one bully when I was about 8 that terrified us all until we dealt with him. HOWEVER, I'm not sure we were right in our anger, at least not totally.
The guy was large for his age and quite fat. A fair number of kids in school called him "Ketchup Bottle" relentlessly ... he was an outcast. Is it possible that the original bullying was that of the other students against this physical outlier? That his response was to bully by ambush as a result. Hindsight being 20/20, I think that was actually the case ... the first bullies were the kids who mocked him relentlessly.
AFW's mention of the large kid who body slammed the smaller punk for bullying him made me think of this ... many times snot nosed punks can be the bully en' mass when in sufficient numbers, and earn their beat downs when it comes.
Part of growing up in the Jurassic of my day was learning when to speak and when to shut up, when to stand up or shut up. If you tried to "act tough" by action or just by teasing someone mercilessly, eventually you got called on it and lost. Mom & Dad taught manners, but your peers enforced them.
Perhaps "Ketchup Bottle" was paying back bullying for bullying.
Aridog - I think you're quite right in mentioning that. And part of growing up is learning how to differentiate situations and people and have a basic understanding of why they act they way they do.
We all know someone with over-the-top behavior that we operate around, for one reason or another. We all know someone whose behavior we try to *help* moderate rather than poke fun at mercilessly. People have a responsibility to behave, but society also has a responsibility to take extenuating circumstances into consideration: i.e., a child with severe autism, an adult with PTSD, someone with deteriorating dementia, cerebral palsy, and a host of other issues. I think this basically another aspect of what Lyanna was saying, in that kids don't know how to deal with interpersonal behavior and drama anymore.
Kids learn to treat people the way they see people treated. First and foremost by their parents, but a parent's role gets smaller as the child grows.
This is yet another reason why I am an advocate of martial arts training for kids. Mainly because a tired child is a well-behaved child. But above and beyond that, martial arts are reactionary - you are reacting to, defending against, and taking up offense based on the behaviors of your opponent. My main training is done in boxing (with Muay Thai being secondary for me) - if someone is guarding their face, I use hooks to the midsection to try and get them to drop their guard so I can go head-hunting, etc.
You learn to read people pretty well. And that can only help you in life. In addition, fight instructors have to be more strict than, say, an art teacher. With so much violence in the air, rules become paramount. A kid becomes trained to understand how they fit in and what their role is, as well as what the expectations are for them. Authority figures become precisely that - authority figures. They aren't just overgrown kids, they are people you listen to because the consequences can be dire if you don't. And they are people you respect. A dearth of respect by kids is endemic nowadays. And that is truly tragic, because I think most of our other problems stem entirely from this one thing. We must have people we respect, people whose approval is important to us. And we must be respected by others in turn, others who also want our approval.
That doesn't mean we have to walk around trying to please everyone, that's impossible. It means we have a true lack of real role models (sports stars? PLEASE. Don't even get me started on that). It's a shame.
Which leads us back to, as Aridog stated earlier, the demise of the traditional high school coach. Sad.
I lied, I do have words. Two of them.
ReplyDeleteNanny State.
Not a metaphor - a concrete reality!
DeleteHe is 12 and he is gay? Why does society push 12 year olds into sexuality at all?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 12 I knew enough about sexuality to know this: I knew I wasn't gay! ;)
DeleteNobody pushed me: I jumped!
I just... yeah. Lost for words too. This is messed up so many ways, it's crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnd 12 year olds and sexuality? It's pushed at them in pretty much every form of entertainment for years. I remember being horrified watching 7 year olds gyrating to Spice Girls songs 10 years ago as parents cooed about how "cute" they were, and it's just gotten worse. It's everywhere - our kids are really sheltered, but my 8th grader has been fending off queries as to whether or not she's gay since she doesn't have a boyfriend and is stubborn and won't admit to any crushes.
I think there are some things that are "different now" and some that aren't.
DeleteLyana, your daughter's experiences are not inconsistent with my memories of 8th grade. Even 7th grade - I recall quite specifically who I was crushing on back then. I also recall the banter and teasing with my peers - I recall who they were crushing on as well. I recall a lot of discussion around who was attractive and who wasn't, who liked who back, etc... and disbelief and abuse directed at those who professed indifference. I'm tempted to conclude that it's always been thus. (I started 7th grade in 1975, when I was 12).
What's different now: it seems there is a whole exploitative vibe in adolescent sexuality which I frankly just do not remember. People may not agree with my take, but I think sexual thinking and even behavior is not unnatural for adolescents - sexual behavior may not be OK, for a whole host of reasons, but it's not "shocking" or "unexpected", nor even necessarily a function of culture - IMHO it's a function of biology.
What is absolutely a cultural influence - a "social construct" if you will - is the phenomenon of adolescents exploiting each other for sex. This is a learned behavior and attitude and is profoundly regrettable.
There are a whole host of risks associated with early sexual behavior, but in my opinion the saddest is that early and exploitative sexual experiences often do not empower a young person and enhance their sense of self, but instead cause that young person to feel diminished - with consequences for the rest of their lives.
The current cultural stew arguably makes this kind of encounter more likely, not less, compared to years past.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteLewy, I think you've got something there; I must have been an early bloomer - I remember a summer camp crush when I was 8, followed by who knows how many as the years went by. :-) But that was all they were - innocent infatuations, sometimes returned, that resulted in flirtations, walks, a shiver at being pushed on a swing or a hand held - there was no expectation or pressure for something more at that age. (And granted, that's a girl's experience - I realize boys might experience things rather differently).
DeleteI think there's a level of difference between attraction, and those butterfly feelings in the tween and early teens and the current pressure/expectation to jump immediately into the sexual aspects of human relationships. We're all fine with mandating that kids can't drive until they're 16, but heaven help the young teen who chooses to not enter the meat market - there's something wrong with them (at least on a peer level, and I see a "well, just use protection" attitude from many adults - as if there's something that can protect your heart and soul.)
I don't think the spate of "teens being acted by adults" HS programs that are consumed by tweens healthy, nor the casual sexuality endemic in movies and music. Those ARE huge influences in that they "normalize" behavior, no matter what mom and dad say.
On an entirely different note, I'd appreciate some advice - the same daughter under discussion was fascinated by Japan after a module in grade 7, and chose Japanese as her foreign language this year; she will also be taking it next year. She loves it, and is immersing herself in Japanese culture as much as possible. Which also means anime/manga, and that's something in which I have NO experience! I know some is pretty explicit; any suggestions of what might be appropriate for a young teen?
I think Lewy has about got it nailed on the young sex culture versus biology thing. I know with absolute certainty that I was physically strongly attracted to girls by age 10 when I figured out just what that meant, even though I had not yet partaken, beyond kissy-face anyway. I was just finishing 6th grade and fell in love at least weekly, and in fact still recall some of their names. It was the culture of those times (50's) that kept the physical drives in check, for both sexes.
ReplyDeleteNow, on to bullying ... also a retro view. In my day if a bully carried out his actions in school, it was a certainty that the gym teacher would come and beat his ass with both fist and paddle. If the bully carried out his activity before and after school, the neighborhood guys effected (usually younger than the bully) would gang up and give the bully reason to never approach them again. Baseball bats, ubiquitous in those days, were the weapons of choice. I was only 8 when I learned a baseball bat was useful for things other than baseball.
Of course, when we reacted like this to a bully, even back then, we'd be grilled about it ... and in my neighborhood, none of us ever ratted out another, which closed the case since we never did it with witness strangers around. It was easy enough to dupe a bully in to an alleyway or cemetery.
Now you have some idea why I was so pleased and tickled by LTC Eisner decking that Scandinavian hippie activist. It is the simple justice I learned long ago....plus the "idiot rule" ... don't mess with uniformed authority, in their country, carrying guns ... unless you are prepared and willing to take the consequences. No oh's, no ah's, no ou's, weep weep. We'd never have won a single battle in any war without the "idiot rule" working, and accepting the consequences when necessary.
Aridog, I remember having crushes that young, too. But I certainly was not planning on getting laid by the girls I liked. It is that so many people push sex on children. On one of the Big sites a few weeks ago (I think it was there -- who knows, it may have been here) there was an article about a dance school where the teacher dressed 7-8 year old girls in flesh-colored costumes with panties and was teaching the girls erotic pole dancing for G*d's sake.
DeleteI have seen articles where 12 year olds brag about being sexually active because they are "so much more mature than previous generations." No, they aren't so much more mature, the bill just has come in yet in the form of depression and suicide.
I also remember reading, when I was young, that some kids to have "crushes" or admiration for another kid of the same sex that, in the long run, had nothing to do with being gay -- it was just a part of discovering one's feelings about other people. If this 12 year old finds out he is gay at 20, so what? But why does he need to be categorized at 12?
I also can't help but think that if this kid was bullied for having a crush on the prettiest girl in the class that he would be on his own.
The old safeguards used to take care of bullies. They have been purged from the schools.
I tried to post earlier, and Blogger bullied me by throwing my post in the trash and covering it with dog poo. I need a bully minder.
ReplyDeleteAhem.
I have more than a few thoughts on this, but the ones that immediately come to mind are:
1) Why are they further stigmatizing, and actually punishing, the child that is being victimized rather than the ones who are doing the victimizing? What is so wrong with the school that they can't hold people responsible for their behavior?
2) I'm tired of hearing "such and such group is at a blah higher risk of bullying". No. If you added up all those percentages, they would equal many thousands. EVERY group is at a higher risk of bullying than the general population of kids, because it is precisely the difference that makes them bully targets. If you had a school full of fat kids, the skinny kids would get picked on. A school full of dorks would figure out how to bully the one athletic kid. In a world where D & D is popular, the kid who plays Vampire: the Masquerade is singled out. And I have seen more online bullying behavior from people I know who claim to be anti-bully and pro-gay (and sometimes are gay) than the people they are railing against. Sometimes even couched in such ridiculous terms as, "Normally I would never think this is okay, but some people just deserve it!"
Talking about who is more likely to be bullied just perpetuates the cycle and focuses on certain subgroups rather than focusing on who might actually be targeted.
3) I am an advocate of every taking martial arts training (in the style of their choice). And it might even help this kid drop the pounds quickly, which will help him blend in while in school. BUT, it takes years to get to the point where you can actually do some damage. Years and a certain personality bent - not everyone is comfortable hitting other people; hurting other people, regardless of whether they deserve it or not. And as soon as a kid tells people they are training in Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu or Tae Kwon Do or whatever, the bullies are even more eager to beat on them. "Ha!" they say. "I just kicked the ass of someone trained in Muay Thai! The best defense against bullies is having friends. It just is. Strength in numbers.
ReplyDelete4) I'm sick and tired of schools being afraid to do ANYTHING to chronic bullies. They know who they are. Everyone knows who they are. And you know what? Discipline doesn't do shit. You know what does? Humiliation. Social pressure works where laws won't. And being embarrassed - especially at that age - is a huge deal. Stop worrying about their damn feelings and march those little shits through the school by their ear to the principal's office so everyone sees what a bitch they are when they aren't the biggest person in the room.
That little skunk in Australia who got tossed by the fat kid he was bullying? I'll bet he hasn't bullied anyone since. His face was all over the internet and people were LAUGHING at him. Instead we have these ridiculous zero tolerance rules that just make the problem worse, because everyone gets in trouble instead of the actual instigators.
5) Where the HELL are these parents? When I read stories about kids who are relentlessly bullied (as opposed to childhood drama), all I can think is that their parents have completely dropped the ball. Why would you leave your child in *that* school when you know their physical well-being is in danger? WHY? Don't give me the, "I have no choice," shit. You made the kid - you do what it takes. If it takes driving them to a new school further away, sometimes that will cure it. If it takes private school, you make it work. If it takes homeschooling, you homeschool. Is your child's life worth the expediency of keeping them in the closest school to your house? Because when your child is in physical danger, you are gambling with their lives.
Yes, most bullied children grow up just fine. But some don't get the chance to grow up. Do you want to risk that? I don't. I won't.
It is the parents that have me shaking my head the most.
I composed a big ol' rant this morning. Blogger ate it, belched, and scratched it's fat belly. Grrr!
ReplyDeleteI've been doing fist pumps reading the comments. This kind of stuff flips my lid. I'll spare you the "when I was a kid we would have got an ass-whoopin' for being mean!" crankiness. :)
Is it that certain kids are more prone to be a target of bullying than any other, or is it that many of the other kids chalk their being bullied up to experience and don't let it control their lives?
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that during the "anti-bullying week", one daughter said that she was the only one who didn't raise her hand in class when they were asked who had been bullied. Interesting... I think we're raising a generation of kids who don't know how to deal with interpersonal stuff - many don't have siblings, so they aren't used to the realities of having to "deal" with every-day teasing and nagging, and they don't develop the skill to differentiate between that and truly soul-destroying hounding. Nor do they develop the skills to put an end to it. A good glare, kick in the shins or derisive laugh early on can stop things pretty quick, but if you don't know that, it escalates to the point that an adult has to intervene. I fully concur with the idea that humiliation and shame are very effective ways to deal with bullies. Bullies HATE being laughed at.
ReplyDeleteAFW .... I agree that martial arts, of any persuasion, isn't a direct cure due to the time it takes to develop real skills. They do help one lose weight and gain some confidence, but if taught traditionally, they don't sponsor aggression per se, and as you've said, not everyone can channel action in to defense.
ReplyDeleteThat said, of course I'd favor the Tang Soo Do (now called Soo Bahk Do) & Moo Duk Kwan school of Tae Kwon Do, as a discipline because that is what I knew best long ago (60's). The dark blue belt is still the "black belt" of that discipline IIRC. The martial arts as taught traditionally require discipline, meditation, social responsibility, and self control, versus over overt aggression. It is far more about personal growth than fighting per se. Yep, I agree that almost everyone would benefit from such training, and in ways they'd not expect.
You mentioned "humiliation" as the best remedy for a bully ... and you are dead right on that. Where I mentioned the gym teacher kicking asses, the method employed, when I was in 7th and 8th grade, was to do so in the regular hallways, bouncing the jerk off lockers, then dragging literally by the ear to the principle's office in front of everyone. Obviously, in today's world, no such thing could occur. Too bad, because it worked. Admittedly it was a tough school, one where periodically there were top down searches where you all stood in front of your locker hands on head to be searched along with your locker ... in order to find knives, and yes, even then, guns. Humiliation was far more terrifying than anything else.
Parents? Yeah, where the hell are they? When I was growing up, if you got caught doing something wrong, that who ever caught you would call your parents and you catch hell twice. That was one of the reasons for our kiddie "Omerta" and being careful to not get caught when taking on a bully directly as a group ... as you said, "safety in numbers."
Another aspect that bears consideration is how some bullies get that way. I clearly remember one bully when I was about 8 that terrified us all until we dealt with him. HOWEVER, I'm not sure we were right in our anger, at least not totally.
ReplyDeleteThe guy was large for his age and quite fat. A fair number of kids in school called him "Ketchup Bottle" relentlessly ... he was an outcast. Is it possible that the original bullying was that of the other students against this physical outlier? That his response was to bully by ambush as a result. Hindsight being 20/20, I think that was actually the case ... the first bullies were the kids who mocked him relentlessly.
AFW's mention of the large kid who body slammed the smaller punk for bullying him made me think of this ... many times snot nosed punks can be the bully en' mass when in sufficient numbers, and earn their beat downs when it comes.
Part of growing up in the Jurassic of my day was learning when to speak and when to shut up, when to stand up or shut up. If you tried to "act tough" by action or just by teasing someone mercilessly, eventually you got called on it and lost. Mom & Dad taught manners, but your peers enforced them.
Perhaps "Ketchup Bottle" was paying back bullying for bullying.
Aridog - I think you're quite right in mentioning that. And part of growing up is learning how to differentiate situations and people and have a basic understanding of why they act they way they do.
ReplyDeleteWe all know someone with over-the-top behavior that we operate around, for one reason or another. We all know someone whose behavior we try to *help* moderate rather than poke fun at mercilessly. People have a responsibility to behave, but society also has a responsibility to take extenuating circumstances into consideration: i.e., a child with severe autism, an adult with PTSD, someone with deteriorating dementia, cerebral palsy, and a host of other issues. I think this basically another aspect of what Lyanna was saying, in that kids don't know how to deal with interpersonal behavior and drama anymore.
Kids learn to treat people the way they see people treated. First and foremost by their parents, but a parent's role gets smaller as the child grows.
This is yet another reason why I am an advocate of martial arts training for kids. Mainly because a tired child is a well-behaved child. But above and beyond that, martial arts are reactionary - you are reacting to, defending against, and taking up offense based on the behaviors of your opponent. My main training is done in boxing (with Muay Thai being secondary for me) - if someone is guarding their face, I use hooks to the midsection to try and get them to drop their guard so I can go head-hunting, etc.
You learn to read people pretty well. And that can only help you in life. In addition, fight instructors have to be more strict than, say, an art teacher. With so much violence in the air, rules become paramount. A kid becomes trained to understand how they fit in and what their role is, as well as what the expectations are for them. Authority figures become precisely that - authority figures. They aren't just overgrown kids, they are people you listen to because the consequences can be dire if you don't. And they are people you respect. A dearth of respect by kids is endemic nowadays. And that is truly tragic, because I think most of our other problems stem entirely from this one thing. We must have people we respect, people whose approval is important to us. And we must be respected by others in turn, others who also want our approval.
That doesn't mean we have to walk around trying to please everyone, that's impossible. It means we have a true lack of real role models (sports stars? PLEASE. Don't even get me started on that). It's a shame.
Which leads us back to, as Aridog stated earlier, the demise of the traditional high school coach. Sad.
An example of zero tolerance in action: Kid fights back against bully, gets suspended.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132195/Nathan-Pemberton-9-suspended-school-Colorado-Springs-standing-bully.html
Theese es why u trik teh bully into teh cemetary where ur buddies r waiting and witnesses are upso. :D
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