The adults are definitely to blame for some of this as well. There have been many suicides in the last couple of years and there are alot of parents who have said that they had no idea the extent to which their kid was being bullied. Obviously, the lines of communication between the child and the parents were not open enough for him or her to be able to confide in the parents.
But then there are also the cases where the parents knew exactly what was going on and reported it to the schools. Not once, not twice but many many times. Yet, the kids still continued to be bullied and it got to the point where they took their lives. In those cases, I blame the adults at school.
You can teach your kids to defend themselves, but what if they are just being verbally abused? You cant tell your kid to go kick the crap out of someone just because they called them a name. And I am sure that no parent wants to teach their kid to start calling people names back.
What pisses me off is people speculating that the suicides are a result of kids not being strong enough or that the bullying is not bad enough to warrant a suicide, so there must be some other cause.
And yes people should say "this should not be happening" because the more you say it, the more something will be done about it. Of course it will not be eliminated completely but that doesn't mean that our solution is going to be to teach kids how to beat each other up.
Kids who die because of bullying is just one of those unfortunate realities of life. You cannot mold each child into a strong man or mentally capable of dealing with stigma that being bullied carries. We can stop kids taking extreme measures by forcing vasectomy for those who churn kids out and then look the other way when their kids are beating or hurting another kid. I've seen many desi parents who, at dawats, look or IGNORE what their kid is doing and mostly its during fights with other kids and OTHEr parent has to step in to break it up... these are young 4, 5, 6, 8 year old kids. That may not make them a bully but it certainly lays the foundation.
I think today's teen is also super dramatic, what with the wonderful role models out there like Linday Lohan who are perpetual mental cases walking around who make suicide, drugs, depression, bipolar disorders, just plain fashionable.
It's fashionable now to be a depressed teenager who wears sexy kaajal and looks like she just cried her eyes out in the bathroom. Boys dig that crap now too. When I was teaching it was nothing but a show for some of these girls. Very few girls had a healthy outlook, and usually, it was the sports players. Those girls don't give a crap - they learn good team ethics, good team spirit, good work ethic and values, they come to class, and do their work and get their **** done without being melodramatic.
Yesterday's jock is actually today's economic asset. Those girls will probably make it to college and beyond. The rest of these cheapos...oh my Lord, you can't BELIEVE what goes on in schools today. You just wont believe it.
And 90% of it is what's on the media out there these days. These damn Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohans need to be put in jail.
My question is why do such cases not happen in Pakistan (or at least not to this extent that every couple of months a suicide happens because of bullying). It's hard to compare two completely different cultures but this is not just anything, it's education, school system, and how a child is going to grow into an adult.
Like PCG said, it's become fashionable to be living life on edge (like our greatly influential clebs). That story & video posted by Ghost14 is something I do believe was full on bullying and of course there are many more. But if you notice news headlines from the past 1 year or so, even journalists have stopped automatically assuming bullying was the real issue in half of these suicides (even if the parents say it was). It's one possible reason for the suicide.
CLEARLY, there is a much bigger problem. Which in my mind starts at homes of the bullies and the bullied. It's not just about self-confidence or defending yourself. These children have completely misunderstood what their priorities SHOULD be. And so have their parents. Kids all over the world fight to just get an education, and here kids are dying because they were bullied?
I really don't mean to be incensative but, I don't understand what is going on in a 10 year olds (the bully and the bullied) mind besides going to school and just being a child.
Everyone has been a bully to someone at one point in their life (maybe without realizing) and everyone has been bullied so what makes a child (as young as 10) take their life? From my observation, it's priorities. These suicide cases happen all over the world, but the numbers are no where near comparable to the US (from what I have read). And that alone tells us, we have a huge problem in how these kids are raised and schooled that they have to take such drastic measures.
My question is why do such cases not happen in Pakistan ...........
Adolescent depression, stress and tension because of psychological pressures are 'bharay pait ki baatain' which don't apply to a majority of Pakistani teens.
Adolescent depression, stress and tension because of psychological pressures are 'bharay pait ki baatain' which don't apply to a majority of Pakistani teens.
I think in my school days bullying was a horribly huge issued because kids got to go home and had a moment of disconnection with the school/social life. Also if they wanted to get in touch with the students, we have have to make phonecalls. Myspace, facebook and twitter has opened up social networking and the children never get a chance to breathe and shut the other students out. If the bully is done at school, well there is ur facebook wall, or he/she is tweeting horrible things about the victim or resorting to bully through texting. KIds now have to work uber hard to maintain their social and facebook status and the pressure of being cool and staying cool is making them fristrated, depressed and angry and they forget that they are only children. Schools, and faculty can often look the other way hoping the children will sort it out and some even intervene and take disciplinary action but they can't do much if the child is being bullied outside the school.
There needs to be community program and school programs to stop the bullies because children should not be taking the frustrations of their ghar outside on other kids. They should also be punished harshly because a 30minute detention isn't doing much. If they relish mocking others then in my eyes, they should be socially ridiculed as well.