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One thing we can do is provide more and better societal support for families/parents. My older son was usually the smallest kid in class. He tended to attract bullies. In one case, I learned a little about the situation. The bully's parents were divorcing and he was apparently going through hell at home. Bullies are most likely a product of a negative social environment themselves and coping as best they can.

The other thing we can do is raise kids with respect and good boundaries from the start. Although my son attracted bullies, he did not suffer unduly. He knew how to cope effectively. I was molested and raped as a child. As a parent, I enforced a strong policy of respecting boundaries. That empowered him to take action early with bullies and not tolerate small offenses and the inevitable escalation. Bullying and molesting work much the same way: The predator starts small and escalates. The most effective measures stop it early. Most approaches fail because they do not identify the problem or try to address it until it has already gone too far.

I have previously written about the policy I had at home which empowered him to deal effectively with bullies: http://www.kidslikemine.com/2012/06/13/an-invisible-shield-h...

That was a good blog post. I largely have the same policy with my daughters, but your post inspires me to consider applying it more strictly. Thanks.

I'm really glad to hear that.

Trying to up vote you, but "User mismatch"? I'll take you're advice to heart.

Hope you don't mind me copying some of your advice here:

"They know if someone is disrespecting them, that is a huge red flag and the person should not be trusted because they are likely some form of social predator, whether sexual or otherwise. [b]They do not go along to get along.[/b] They do not get led merrily down some slippery slope.

...The vast majority of the time, child molesters are someone the child knows and trusts, someone who has made an effort to get close and push the boundaries of what the child would accept. My sons have basically a zero tolerance policy for boundary violation, thus they were virtually immune to that type of predation."

No, I don't mind at all. Thank you.

I'm trying to educate my little girl in standing up for herself. The thing is she is kind and considerate, even to bullies. She's doing judo now and when she's 7 she wants to do kids-Krav Maga. I hope that helps her understand she is not powerless. (Krav Maga for kids is also about understanding bullies and situations).

Please do not mistake kind and considerate for powerless. One of my favorite stories is of a woman who decided to walk out on a class about "empowerment" rather than learn to yell at people. One of the other students said "God, what a bitch" as she quietly left rather than take her turn dutifully berating people.

True words and good example. It took courage to step up and walk out of the group.

I'm trying to communicate to her she is definitely not powerless. I used the example of a cat: Not very big or as powerful as a dog, but you still wouldn't pick it up and mess with it. She doesn't have to be as strong as the bullies, as long as they know she won't tolerate any (physical) abuse.

My oldest didn't suffer unduly at school, but was beat up for a time, unbeknownst to me, by his younger brother. When I found out, he told me he did not defend himself because he knew he would get in trouble. I told him I had never and would never hurt him the way his brother had and he needed to defend himself even if he was grounded for it, that not defending himself was worse than anything I would ever do to him.

Teach your daughter she does not need your approval. Teach her to make her own decisions, even if sometimes other people don't like it. Help her figure out how to make good judgement calls in the face of difficult circumstances. Give her opportunities to make real choices and back them even if you do not like them. Let her know you don't like all of her choices but you accept them and respect her right to make them. Do not make her dependent on being liked and approved for everything she does.

Thumbs up!

One thing I am never, ever, going to tell my kids is the stupid "sticks and stones" rhyme. That's just to make you feel better, not them.

I agree. Part of the problem is that adults tend to hold kids to a much different standard than they hold themselves. For instance, as an adult, if I'm working in a company where verbal bullying and harassment is a problem, and HR does nothing to address the situation, then I'll just give my two-week notice and move on to another company. Kids on the other hand don't have the option of giving their two-week notice and moving on to another school because of a 'hostile work environment'.

How many adults do you think would stick around at a company if they had to put up with the level of violence and harassment we subject our kids to in schools? And if the only response they got back from management and HR was a "sticks and stones" speech? Forget about it! Which highlights another difference- it's also in a company's own self interest to address these issues seriously, because if they don't, it's gonna effect their bottom line when good employees start leaving. But, what motivation do schools really have- it's not as if their "employees" (students) get to quit if they don't like the way they are being treated.

What does this teach kids? That there is no justice in the world except that which you take by violence?

My son is only two and a half right now. When he gets older my advice to him will be to first go through all of the proper channels in case bullying comes up. Give the system a chance to work, and get some documentation that you did so. And if it does work great. And if it doesn't, a right-cross to the bully's nose is what worked for me when I was a kid. Will this stop the bully from picking on people? Probably not - but it will likely make him stop picking on you. He'll move on to the next victim - one who won't fight back.

> My son is only two and a half right now. When he gets older my advice to him will be to first go through all of the proper channels in case bullying comes up. Give the system a chance to work, and get some documentation that you did so. And if it does work great.

You are forgetting the schoolyard code. You never go to the appropriate channels. Ever. That is one of the worst things a kid can do to themselves.

The right response to physical bullying is to stand up for yourself. It's one of the most important lessons a person can learn - how and when to stand up for themselves.

I was bullied a lot in primary school, but I dealt with it and as much as bullies liked picking on me, they also knew going too far would hurt. A lot.

This is absolutely correct. I remember all too well when my graphing calculator was stolen from me during a movie in religion class (high school freshman year, catholic all boys school). I was socially inept and naturally, the first thing I did was tell the teacher. He asked the class who had taken it and waited a few minutes. When no one said anything, he said something like "Well, I can't keep them from their next class."

A few weeks later, a guy I knew had his stolen in English class, but he got it back by standing by the door at the end of class and asking people individually who had taken it as the other students left.

And I remember how in the months and years after that, if tricks were played on me in class, the kids would laugh at me and the teachers would stand at the front looking lost and doing nothing. Going through the proper channels doesn't do shit.

Physical violence never helps. You'll just get in trouble for attacking them.

Perhaps it's different now than it was 15 years ago, but no you wouldn't. Well, unless you properly damage someone ...

... but even then, they will stick to the code and you're both best palls in the principal's office and nothing happened. Any witness they ask will also support the two of you just playing and something silly happening by accident.

The only people in school who never get any respect, in my experience at least, are the ones who snitch, or generally side with the adults.

I can assure you that the system won't work against bullying -- oh there will be a lot of talk, maybe even with his parents - but of all the people (and that has been a lot) I know who have been bullied over the years only fighting back works.

And you better do it as soon as possible, before he does too much psychological damage on you.

My son is 2,5 now, too. I definitely plan to let him get some martial arts training before starting school. Not sure what age would be good, but I suppose 4 at the latest (maybe sooner).

It seems like a good basic skill to have in life...

And also, running - in most fight situations, running is probably the best option.

> What does this teach kids? That there is no justice in the world except that which you take by violence? It teaches me, at least, that bullies get away with what they do because they don't get reprimanded enough. Physical pain is still the best thing to associate with negative or undesirable behavior. I see a distinct trend when it comes to bullying: 1. Kid gets bullied 2. Kid snaps, stands up for himself, beats up bully 3. Kid does not get bullied anymore I don't think physical violence is inherently wrong. Excess and systematic violence - as employed by a certain category of bullies - is, but some pain to associate bad behavior with is, I think, a critical part of upbringing and steering behavior.

On systematic physical abuse, this is what happens when you get away with it. See also comment #2 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5284818); it stopped the moment the bullied stood up for himself and showed the bully, via a serving of physical violence, that his behavior is unacceptable and not without consequence.

Spoiled kids that misbehave at school often are exemplary students at school, simply because teachers are able to get them to realize their behavior is unacceptable. That 'toggle' should also be done to bullies though, and I for one can't understand why not more is done about it in schools besides the rather static and easily ignored 'awareness' lessons.

Aren't all justice systems ultimately based on the threat of violence from the state?

Yes - one of the central tenets of the rule of law is that the state has monopoly on violence, which is enforced by the police and the courts.

But in school thats not true. The bully has the monopoly on violence, which is enforced by actually committing said violence.

The bully has a de facto monopoly because no higher power is willing to exercise theirs.

But what can we do? Kids will be kids, eh?

End age based classes would be a good start.

And mandatory attendance. You can't force someone to learn when they don't want to. Stop treating schools like prisons and the attendees will stop acting like inmates.

School is a combination of daycare and training.

We make it mandatory because otherwise the kids of the disadvantaged, the uneducated or the just-plain-disorganised wouldn't get a decent start in life. It also allows more people to work - someone else is looking after the kids.

There's some argument to be had about what age it should be mandatory until, sure, but mandatory schooling is most definitely a good thing for society.

Mandatory schooling is more about keeping people OUT of the job market than it is putting people INTO it. If schools were about training, they'd look more like universities (and if universities were about advanced training, they'd look more like business environments).

How many kids study to pass the test? How many teachers teach to get the kids to pass the test? And thereafter they forget everything. I see grown-ass adults who can't calculate a simple 20% tip on paper, and more who can't do it in their heads, and that's an EASY one. People, working in industry, who don't know that the US has 50 states. I've seen programmers with computer science degrees counting on their fingers to add numbers.

Again, you can't teach something to someone who doesn't want to learn, and you can't prevent someone from learning who does want to. Schools get the credit for education, but they're just present. The mandatory aspect did nothing.

"you can't teach something to someone who doesn't want to learn"

Pretty sure you can, when they're kids. Repeated exposure at the very least.

I'm not going to address the rest of your comment, I disagree utterly with pretty much everything you've said there.

> mandatory schooling is most definitely a good thing for society.

[citation needed]

...and on the other hand putting smart kids _willing_ to learn in an uninspiring and oppressive environment. (Bad for their learning and devastating for their still developing personality.)

IMHO it's hard to find a worse crime against natural curiosity and willingness than _forcing_ people to do something.

Smart kids willing to learn - how do they know? How do we pick out these smart kids and make sure they get education? Even if they're not from good backgrounds? How do we get these smart kids out of their crappy homes and make sure somebody teaches them something, anything, unless it's mandatory?

YOU may have been perfect, motivated, willing to learn, and may have been given the opportunity to learn even if it wasn't mandatory. Many others would not, many parents wouldn't bother.

It was very noticeable to me, by second grade, who was there to learn and who was just there because they were forced to wake up and walk to a bus stop in the morning. While I was lucky enough to be put into some specialty classes based on previous testing I'd done, the majority of my day was still spent sitting next to kids who were literally drying glue in their desks, pouring ink into it to color it and eating it once it dried.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with those kids, they just need a different direction and a little more support.

Can't disagree with that. But at that age some of the 'forced to wake up and walk to the bus-stop' kids still have a long way to grow and change.

I don't know the system in the US very well. Kids can go to different sorts of colleges post-16 here in the UK, or could (until recently, this may have changed) opt out at that age and enter the workforce.

Just providing a good environment for learning (teachers explaining things, eager to answer question).

For ones wanting to learn, just don't force them to do so. OK, is someone is not much willing to learn - well, then it may be good to force to do so. But don't force everyone because some need it.

(It seems that forcing people to learn is very inefficient. And I think for that reason many times school are places to socialize, bully and drink doing not much work that it is necessary to survive... and not much places actually good for learning anything.)

Without 'forcing' kids to school, how do we find the ones that supposedly need it?

And how do we get kids who could use it, but from backgrounds that wouldn't bother to educate them at all, into the system?

Mandatory education is a good thing.

Forcing all kids to go to school and forcing all kids to learn are two different things.

As you know, daycare (and, say, crime and accident prevention), training, and cultural/national upbringing are different things, and they work differently, often with contradicting goals and methodologies. Currently we tend to treat "education" as a one thing, but in isn't.

I am all for all kids going to school (unless one can provide a better education), otherwise there would be a disaster of crime and poverty, much alike the one during the industrial revolution. However, what happens inside is extremely far from things which "make sense" both for them, and the society.

I'm not saying there's not vast room for improvement here!

I just don't think that abolishing mandatory education/training/socialisation/what-the-hell-ever is a good idea, and it seems you don't either :)

It's a good thing for Children who want to learn, but who's parents want to send them to the mines instead.

> We make it mandatory because otherwise the kids of the disadvantaged, the uneducated or the just-plain-disorganised wouldn't get a decent start in life.

For most of the "disadvantaged, the uneducated or the just-plain-disorganised", as you put it, mandatory school attendance does nothing to solve their problems anyway, as the people you are thinking of have many systemic things running against them in addition any personal issues in their lives.

> There's some argument to be had about what age it should be mandatory until, sure, but mandatory schooling is most definitely a good thing for society.

Mandatory school isn't the same thing as doing something positive for communities. Some communities will find the policy beneficial, others will find it destructive (esp. when some kids are forced into school systems are that literal prisons, complete with metal detectors, cell phone lockers you pay out of pocket for, and frequent searches of all student belongings).

"mandatory school attendance does nothing to solve their problems anyway"

I disagree that it does nothing. Some people still get the opportunity to better themselves through education, even if it doesn't help everyone.

Schools becoming prisons is a weird US phenomenon, I think you have societal issues to tackle that are much bigger than schooling.

And it's still better to have kids given access to education under those circumstances than not at all (and without it being mandatory they would not have access. No, they wouldn't)

so "we" have to provide mandatory schooling and a value judgement on what constitutes the "correct" schooling, but "you" have to deal with societal issues.

"we" in most western countries do tend to provide schooling to our children and make it mandatory

"you" in America seem to have some extra problems in this area, which I still don't think overshadows the benefits

Yes, problem?

I completely agree that age-based classes is stupid. But what's the alternative?

The idea of classifying 5 year old kids based on any kind of factor scares the hell out of me.

Erm, what scares you about ability-based classes? The single strongest motivator for me to do well at school was to get into the top set which was free from bullies.

The problem with ability based groupings across age groups is that doesn't take into account learning velocity, ie the speed at which people learn new things. For example, a second grader that is at a fourth grade math level is likely to learn much faster than a fifth grader at a fourth grade math level. And you don't want to put advanced 8 year olds in a class with slow 11 year olds. That in itself is an invitation to bullying.

Ability based learning within age groups makes perfect sense, but assumes a sample size large enough to make meaningful groupings at the high and low ends.

The problem is the classroom environment itself. The lecture format is an antiquated relic. We don't ever do the lecture format again once we leave school, which I think is pretty good evidence that it's garbage.

You might submit conferences as a counterexample, but I would submit them in favor of my argument.

I firmly agree with you that classroom lectures are garbage. We homeschool our children. I'm simply making the point that, at least among younger children, age based classes are preferable to skill-based classes.

A preferable alternative in my mind would be a classroom where ALL work is done independently. The teacher then calls each student to their desk individually to see what they have learned and what they need help with. They can then spend 10-15 minutes individually with each student per day. Fast students can get pushed ahead and slow students can get the help they need instead of being forced along with the rest of the class.

Actually, the argument for skill-based education _is_ that learning speeds are different.

So for one it takes 6 months to learn something, for another - 3 years. And in such systems it's fine - you got promoted because you have learnt something, not just because you got one year older (and haven't failed utterly).

And again, for the same "level" of subject there can be two speeds - so no risk of smart 8 yo kids in the same class with slow 11 yo.

I would say both that how "ability" is measured, as well as that a 5-year-old's ability is nowhere near an indicator of their future ability.

I doubt anyone could argue against things like AP classes, etc. in high school, but 5-year-olds?

Indeed. Education is only one part of the personal development you get at school. Socialising/communicating with your peers is another key thing.

Which is why so many "proteges" tend to burn out, I think, or have emotional problems as they age - simply for lacking that time to develop with their peers.

Who's saying we want to use a 5-year-old's ability as an indicator of future ability? We want to use a 5-year-old's ability as an indicator of their current ability. I'd say we'll look at their ability again when they're six, but really the ideal is near-continuous evaluation.

Don't just think about slightly tweaking the system we have today. Think about the system after it finally embraces computers as a transformative force, instead of a very silly expensive way to issue multiple choice tests. We're going to free up teachers to spend their time on the stuff that actually requires a human, instead of bogging them down with so much automateable work that they end up hardly any more effective than a machine, what a surprise.

It's not about a future ability. It's about the current ability of the 5-year old person. Next year she will be retested and reassessed.

Me too. Until my family moved to an area, the schools in which didn't recognize ability as an appropriate differentiator. It was not good times for me.

This doesn't mean that ability as a differentiator is bad--I think that it's a great idea. What it does mean is that consistency is absolutely crucial when such an idea is implemented; I was in an environment where excellence was encouraged, and that led to a lot of self-motivation. Not all children are going to be in the same situation, and that could be disasterous.

"The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin tackles the concept of the environment which best facilitates learning and personal growth, and touches on the idea of ability-based classes as well. It's a great read for anyone interested in such.

>Erm, what scares you about ability-based classes?

The fascist premise of "let's separate the most able from the riff-raff".

As if society should be a hierarchical pyramid of top dogs and underdogs.

I think its pretty common that when students are divided by "ability", especially later on in middle or high school, it can weigh pretty heavily on the students in the "lower ability" classes. Its essentially saying "we don't expect much but you need to be here."

This system works out very well for bright, academically inclined students, sure. But it sets a structure of expectations that don't motivate what could possibly be great talent, but we wouldn't know because they didn't bubble in the right answer.

The idea that bullies are never academically talented is a false dichotomy. The idea that bullies only attack "smart," kids is ludicrous. Thus, ability-based classes would not end bullying in any way.

Because getting bullied from kids 2-3 years old would be so much better?

> Kids will be kids, eh?

Alongside the "sticks and stones rhyme" this sentence makes me tear my hair our every time I hear it. Kids who bully are thugs, not kids. My brother, he's 13, he's a kid, not a thug. He skateboards and hurts himself, plays computer games and does his homework. That is a kid.

I feel or you too buddy. That whole sentence gets me really irate.

The kid with a myth of a father, and a mother who trades out her allotted food-stamps for drug money is a thug? Bullies aren't born, they're created; I have not once met a bully who had a perfect life before they decided to get angry and take it out on their peers, because, well, they don't know any better. So, yes, kids will be kids.

When I was bullied as a child, several of the bullies were children of lawyers and doctors, in well-to-do families. They were dressed well and clearly did not want for anything. It's possible that they were having some sorts of problems at home, but they certainly were not from a family such as you've described. Also, anecdotes are not data (for either of us)

Even then, if I accept "kids will be kids", it should be (and certainly is not) the purpose of a school to teach children to grow from kids to well-behaved adults. You do not teach them this by ignoring the behavior when they bully, and then punishing the bullied when they inevitably decide to strike back.

The Lord of the Flies atmosphere that exists in public schools is appalling, and we should not try to wave it off. It is clearly not "working as intended".

They didn't want for anything materially. Studies show that upperclass neighborhoods have as much neglect and drug addiction as the ghetto. As they say: The problem with winning the rat race is that you are still a rat.

Making it your goal to be the lord in a lord of the flies environment is like that. Good families that produce healthy kids are generally solidly middle class: They work hard enough to provide basic essentials, not so hard as to value work or money over family. Current trends make it increasingly difficult for anyone to arrange that. We increasingly make people choose between family and money. We didn't always do that.

I disagree here sorry.

There are kids who have everything except the love and recognition of their parents. This can have a detrimental effect on a childs life, not feeling loved but having everything. Money is not happiness.

I just used a stark example, you are correct, money isn't happiness. This is something a lot of people don't realize. So what is? In the case the answer to that question is out there, think about a child contemplating that. Can you expect a child to know how to deal with emotional pains at an early age? What are we putting on children if we expect that?

OK, but what's your point? So the bully has a hard life. OK, yes, that's true, so sad (really, no sarcasm), but what do you plan on doing about it?

Your argument often ends up implicitly turning into "Therefore, we shouldn't punish the bully, it's not his fault. Therefore, I guess, well, we'll do nothing." You've cognitively narrowed your focus to just the bully and forgotten everyone else who is getting bullied.

That's not goodness or justice, that's terrible. A very common form of terribleness that some people seem very inclined to, but I don't think it's ever just to get so caught up in the hard life of a bully or criminal that you forget entirely about the victims of the bully or criminal. I don't know what's so cognitively tempting about this point of view, but resist it.

To be clear, I'm not trying to secretly advocate for or justify any particular solution either. But there must be some way to contain the bullying; there's no value to anyone in letting one bad seed's poison spread.

>OK, but what's your point? So the bully has a hard life. OK, yes, that's true, so sad (really, no sarcasm), but what do you plan on doing about it?

Oh, some kids get bullied at at school. Oh, the humanity.

Really, first world problems of the highest caliber...

Congratulations, you're part of the problem.

I'm not even part of the country.

We don't have cliques, proms, or BS high school drama where I come from. We just get along. No mass shootings either.

If you had a brain, you would understand what you actually wrote.

But since you don't the best we can do is downvote you.

And if you had one, you would understood what I wrote.

This bulling thing is cultural. It doesn't happen everywhere, the same way mass shooting doesn't happen everywhere (and no, it's not because of no guns available).

And part of it is giving it too much attention. A lot of times it's not even bulling is merely normal behaviour in any team of people.

But since kids are taught that everybody is supposedly a "unique snowflake" and they must be greeted with roses and "ohhhs", they are devastated if they are not the most popular in school or are called a nickname or don't get the girls.

Meanwhile, in the real world, kids are struggling with extreme poverty, war, lack of water and food, etc. Not nicknames and not being invited to the prom.

> OK, but what's your point? So the bully has a hard life. OK, yes, that's true, so sad (really, no sarcasm), but what do you plan on doing about it?

Eliminate the social problems that make said person's life hard in the first place. Reduce poverty, end racist laws and law enforcement, and make it possible for individuals and communities to have self determination rather than being undermined by private and public institutions.

> Reduce poverty, end racist laws and law enforcement, and make it possible for individuals and communities to have self determination rather than being undermined by private and public institutions.

Welcome to the twenty-fourth century. My name is Jean-Luc Picard and I'm captain of the starship ``Enterprise''...

> Welcome to the twenty-fourth century.

If we (as a human kind) want to get there, we'd better get to fixing those problems; there's still a lot of work to do.

That's completely useless. Bullying is here now. It's not something that bad conditions are going to produce in 20 years if we don't do something. Your proposed solution is to let bullies just bully while we hopefully, someday, address some of the reasons why they exist, and I suppose, when that doesn't work, we continue to let the bullies bully then too. That's punting on the problem in a way even worse than the one I strawmanned in my post.

What are you going to propose now?

Where I live (Sweden), its common to move bullied kids to new schools, because its an political impossibility to do action against bullying kids while they still are attending school. It much easier to "ask" the parent of a bullied kid to move the kid to a new school. In the extreme edges, where clear physical evidence can be collected from several years of bullying, there is sometimes a court case. Those cases is always after the kid has left the school, several, often 10+ years later.

A problem is that physical evidence is extremely hard to collect from children. As the video show, kids do get bruised by accident, and when they fight, it rarely end up in obvious fighting type damage like an bruised eye or broken jaw. If one compare it to a brawl at a bar, school yard bullying do not have a bunch of reliable third-party witnesses (yes, drunk people at the bar is more trusted in this case).

However, what about Justice which one takes by violence? It might work sometimes, but I would warn about gangs. Kids like adults have a tendency to form groups. Groups get group mentality, which can get very ugly very fast. One has to be very fast, quick and lucky to survive going up against a bullying gang leader. Sticks and Stones hurt.

For the people who made this video, thank you. I hope this will remind people, and maybe get some tools invented to start combating bullying. Being a security interested person, I can think of several ideas but I am worried about which ones might actually have an effect and which ones will only make us feel like we are doing something. Cameras and microphones is popular in schools now, and each kid tend to have a smart-phone, and yet I not heard of a reduction in bullying. Small classes is an other solution proposed by people, but I have yet to see a case where that have made a difference. Even when a teacher has time to do something, they seems perplexed on how to deal with it. Maybe if tested tools and procedures is invented, small classes will start to have an effect on bullying.

I don't know. My best friend from growing up was not bullied in any way (we were homeschooled and he was the popular one in our knot), but some sociology class in college made him internalize the notion that "names really do hurt" and it eventually tore our friendship apart. He couldn't differentiate between good-natured ribbing and bullying. I knew this guy for 25 years and "names really do hurt" turned him into a dullard who couldn't hang out with the guys and have a drink.

There is no justice, life isn't fair and people aren't born equal. I hate to seem cynical but these are valuable life lessons for kids to learn to prepare them for real life.

What would you have liked the adults to do to solve the problem? What could they have done?

Not punish the kid defending himself with a chair?

Not punish the kid hitting back at someone who was bullying him?

Not punish the kid who beat up the bully?

It actually helps to have some idea of what's going on in the school yard, ask witnesses what was going on, and IF KIDS COMPLAIN ABOUT BULLYING DON'T TELL THEM TO GET OVER IT. "You're not making an effort to fit in" is blaming the victim. I'm not making the fucking effort to fit in because the other kids treat me like dirt. Why should I bother to try fitting in?

But yes, the adults could have looked at the situation and realised that the bully was getting their just deserts. Punishing the victim who has been pushed past the end of their tether is not helping anyone.

Evidence. Bullies are very careful to cover their tracks, they know the limits of the system, verbal bullying is usually ignored as is physical intimidation. And then it's one kids word against the others + one kid holding a chair.

With the above, a reasonable adult, considering evidence, has no choice but to "arrest" the kid with the chair, since the other has done no wrong other than verbal + possible pushing.

The system needs fixing by making what the bully did prior to the event actionable by the adults so it wouldn't escalate to where it did. Cameras would help.

But then what do we do with the bully? Move him to another school and let the cycle repeat?

The system needs fixing by making what the bully did prior to the event actionable by the adults so it wouldn't escalate to where it did. Cameras would help.

At a school, the adults are the system, so I think my point still stands.

I've long wondered what would have fixed this... in the end the only solution I could come up with would be to segregate the consummate bullies. I'm sure smarter people could think of more adroit solutions.

Expel the bullies, force them out of the system. The government has an obligation to educate children, it does not have an obligation to educate bullies. If your child is a bully then you, as a parent, need to fix that if you want them to be able to be educated.

That doesn't seem fair either to me. I mean, perhaps I am a sap, but I feel sorry for bullies as well. Usually what drives them is deep seated emotional problems of their own; and by pushing them out of the system all you do is create adult bullies, and probably offenders.

Bullies are in need of solutions too, but that is no excuse to let their problems spread out and have a huge impact on other kids and on society. The same thing is true of criminals. Most criminals (even up to rape and murder) don't start out as ordinary, well adjusted folks who one day wake up and go "huh, I'm bored, guess I'll go be bad", they lead troubled lives. They have been wronged by others and by society and sometimes they express that through theft, self-medication via drug use, violence, molestation, rape, murder, etc.

We have to triage the problem. First, prevent harm from occurring to others. Second, attempt rehabilitation.

Remember that bullies also create problems in other kids which can force them to act out. Force them to drop out and get into drug use. Force them to become bullies themselves, or thieves, etc.

Ok, as a teacher you come into the classroom and the normally shy kid with glasses is standing there angrily over the popular, loud, boisterous kid who looks shocked. Do you really need to call NCIS? I don't think its unreasonable to suggest you know exactly whats going on here.

(hint: the shy kid probably did not suddenly decide right this moment to pop up and decide to fight for alpha status)

Yes, to you it is obvious, but not to the teacher. The teacher was her/himself the popular kid in school and cannot comprehend what shy even means. She/he doesn't see a bully and a kid who couldn't take it anymore, she/he sees a respectable well-adjusted upstanding kid well on her/his way to being a respectable well-adjusted successful adult and a psycho holding a chair.

That doesn't make sense. I was the kid with the chair; top of the class, got on really well with most of the teachers, mum was a school governor, history of being bullied...

The teacher(s) new exactly what had happened. The administration didn't, though, and it was them that threatened to suspend me.

They did account for the circumstances; they brought in the bullies parents and all of us sat around a table to discuss it. But he squirmed out of it ("so sorry! Only a bit of fun", etc.).

The problem is; it's only when the bullied person does something extreme that the bully gets into that situation. And it didn't happen often, so this particular individual had lots of "last warnings" and final promises to be nicer.

But no one followed up and punished him properly the next time.

Teachers are there to educate, they aren't equipped properly to deal with a point of justice/behaviour.

> The teacher(s) new exactly what had happened. The administration didn't, though, and it was them that threatened to suspend me.

That looks like it is a significant part of the problem: the adults most likely to exercise good judgement on these matters (teachers) don't have the power to do so.

I really like the english "he had seen it coming". Sometimes it would be best not punishing people that just fought back (even if they fought back with violence against non violent bullying).

Problem is though who has the right to decide if it was just or not. This sadly always leads to unjust sentences.

Here's an idea- start holding adults to the exact same standards we hold kids, and then watch how fast policies change:

Co-worker makes racist remarks towards you: "sticks and stones" speech

Co-worker sexually harasses you: "sticks and stones" speech

Co-worker physically assaults you: "sticks and stones" speech, with added punishment if the victim defends himself

And in each case, tell the adult victim how they should be more empathetic to the bully's lot in life.