Re: Being Bullied
^ These days bullying doesn't just happen in schools or on the way home. There's a tremendous amount of crap dished out on Facebook and other online sites. It's amazing how they (particularly girls) find ways to torture and hurt each other.
Re: Being Bullied
^ good point! it makes things even more complicated.
Re: Being Bullied
In elementary school I had girls pick on me and I'd come home crying some days. But I can't remember specific issues (just general embarrassment). I honestly think I've been more traumatized by and cried much more over silly comments about my appearance made by Pakistani folks who probably didn't know (or care) that they were being hurtful.
Re: Being Bullied
I think there's a lack of empathy .... which is why these kids end up bullying. Apart from the obvious of witnessing abuse in their own homes, which is why they repeat the behaviour they see on the playground. I was punched in the stomach cause the girls' father was beating her mother up .... yet at that time (around 1985), nobody really talked about it and I guess the teacher's were not educated.
When we moved to Canada, I was targetted by this kid who was younger than me and he would chase me on the way home, cuss me out, say horrible things, spit at me, and I would just run and cry. But I never told anybody. In fact, I completely blocked the memory until only very recently.
It's so important to encourage kids to to talk about these things .... cause what I ended up doing was damaging my own self-esteem in the long run. Well that's a whole other story, but this is apart of it.
As a parent, we must make ourselves available, emotionally, and time wise, to hear out our children. If they say something, don't dismiss it. I've seen this a lot with kids, particularly females, they get dismissed by their parents ... and whatever bad behaviour boys are displaying, it gets laughed off. Big, big mistake. These boys may grow up to be successful, educationally, but the bullying aspect is always within them and it never leaves.
When it comes to girls .... girls are trained to be 'nice' ... which is why they resort to passive aggressive ways to attack other girls (i.e. gossiping, spreading false stories). I've seen all sorts of crap on FB ... especially with photoshop now, bullying has been taken to a whole new level.
Re: Being Bullied
sgc thanks for pointing out somehting that we had all missed.....the fact that there are different types of bullying for the two genders.
this opens up a whole new area.....