Thanks for sharing all that. I think adults often underestimate young folks' intelligence and ability to cope. I wonder if people had allowed you to engage in discussions about your predicament and help identify a solution...if you would have gained more power and coping mechanisms out of that experience. Young people also often feel alone...like they are the only one experiencing their situation. I wonder what would have happened if the young woman in the OP had been empowered to address her situation in some controlled way...and had learned that she was not isolated, if that would have precipitated a different outcome.
How quickly we forget whats its like to be a kid.
Adults definitely underestimate how tough kids can be, both the bullies and the victims. Even though I knew that they'd probably beat me up again this morning, I still walked to the bus stop because I thought I would be a coward if I didn't. And those girls weren't the kind of girls who would stop if you punched back. Fighting was very common.
I assume that I was not interviewed by the police in an effort to protect me from further harm, but honestly how is asking me questions going to be worse than getting beaten up every day? That I'd have the courage to still walk to the bus stop, but not be able to handle a question? That was idiotic logic. I wasn't asked if any other incidents occurred that were not witnessed by the other kids, so how could they really know what happened?
Such a disturbing story. Although it's unlikely to change kids' behaviors, if anything good can come out of it it's that adults come to understand their responsibility to intervene and protect the "children" in their charge.
I'm not sure any adults knew until the gun incident.
TheBoyfriend asked me why I didn't tell my parents. I don't know about when you were 13, but I strongly felt like kids my age were supposed to handle problems with other kids my age by ourselves and not go to parents or teachers for help if there were problems. I'm not sure how this belief that I needed to handle it all on my own came from, but I strongly felt that I would be behaving in a deeply cowardly way if I did that. That rule seemed to be carved in stone.
Now that I'm an adult, I think that's completely insane. If anyone did what either of those two girls did to me now, they would be arrested for assault, long before the gun incident. Maybe if I hadn't thought that violence from children was only supposed to be dealt with by children, or that violence from teenagers was somehow less violent than adult violence, then I wouldn't have kept silent. I wonder if that's why the victim in the OP never sought help when she was bullied, because of that rule carved in stone.
I'm really sorry petite. Bully story always makes me sad...
Thank you, lopo. I think I turned out surprisingly healthy. I may be little, but I'm tough.
Bringing a gun into school? Thats beyond bullying! Thats fucking madness!
When i have kids, im telling them that should anyone bully them, fucking deck them straight off. It seems to shut up most bullies. Should anyone really hurt my kids or make them do something like in the OP, i think ill have to deck them myself.
We all know bullies have their own personal issues, and i think we have all pushed our pressure from these issues onto other people unfairly, but i think i can safely say i have never bullied a person in relation to them. Atleast not enough to gain power over them like this.
I think you should tell your children that they should tell you any time someone bullies them, and that they aren't being cowards if they do so. If I did not so strongly believe that there was some sort of code of behavior for these situations, and by that code I was supposed to keep my mouth shut and deal with it myself, then it would have stopped much earlier, before it escalated to such a dangerous point.
I've given this some more thought and nothing is going to change until the world starts addressing the issues for what they really are. This girl was not bullied; she was abused, stalked and harassed and charges should be made against the perpetrators of the crime. Until schools, parents and the legal system start addressing these crimes as crimes nothing will change.
Some of the accounts recounted here such as Ethyl's are clearly a bully and it was handled as such and it all worked out. But the issue brought to our attention by the OP is clearly something else.
I know that charges were pressed against those two girls, but another girl should have also had charges pressed against her and never was because I was not interviewed. I do not know if any of the fighting or harassing resulted in charges, or if they were based solely on the gun and the threat against me. I heard that both were sent to a juvenile detention center, but that was based on rumour. I was still a kid and not privy.
