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Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

As a dad with young kids, I can assure you that if this were to happen to them, I'd wage all-out cyberwar, on the kids and any parents that didn't properly curtail their child's behavior after official notifications. From doxing and redialing faxes to bully-vision youtube channels naming and shaming their family.

You will make your child's school life more of a hell than it already is.

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No, not true. The parents of bullies are usually bullies themselves. The solution is to draw a hard line and say, I will take this so far you won't want to go where it ends up.

When I was a kid I got pushed so far that one day, when a bully stole my stocking cap for the 50th time and was going to dunk it in a cold puddle along the curbside I ran up and pushed him into the busy street's moving traffic. He was totally shocked - at that moment he realized I would now do anything to stop him. He never touched me from that day forward.

Hmmmm. Bullies pick on the weak/inactive/defenseless. Key is to nip it in the bud, swiftly and vigorously. Don't allow it to fester.

Bottom line: I want my kids to know they can come to me and I will take action, immediately, so they never have to feel alone.

PS The writer seemed half-hearted in dealing with the bullies [I didn't want them to get arrested, I just wanted them to stop]. That was a major mistake. No repercussions so more bullies pile on.

>> The writer seemed half-hearted in dealing with the bullies [I didn't want them to get arrested, I just wanted them to stop]

This may be based in the fact that we are taught from childhood that we should forgive and be good.

And many of us take it seriously. I "let it go" bullying for too long, though in my case, it wasn't this serious!

I guess I was fortunate that I was taught forgiveness without genuine repentance on the other side is pointless, and generally not something to do.

Catholic doctrine, if I remember correctly.

> I guess I was fortunate that I was taught forgiveness without genuine repentance on the other side is pointless, and generally not something to do.

> Catholic doctrine, if I remember correctly.

?!?! That's not Catholic doctrine at all. Not that it's well practiced, but Catholics are taught to forgive, period. That doesn't mean forget. Trust, once lost, can be hard to earn back depending on how it was lost. Someone who beats you up can be forgiven, and you can still go out of your way to avoid them or to never let them stand behind you.

Ah, yes, as you're applying it, I think that's correct.

I was more thinking in the confessional, where you must truly repent for your sins to be forgiven. Which is not what's applied to daily life.

A more (but probably still imperfect) description of Catholic doctrine would be repentance + forgiveness = reconciliation; either repentance of forgiveness on their own is incomplete, but not undesirable for the party doing it .

In my book, its not just that.. its forgive and forget.

You only forget if there is repentance at the other side.

forgiving is for yourself, so that you can get on with your life and not be consumed by hatred. Never forget if the other party doesn't repent.

Do that and you will be prepared to deal with re-occurance and also be more mature about it.

Yep, its even better if the kid retaliate themselves and right away, it must cost someone lots to go pick on you. That way they pick a weaker target.

I think you have to judge each case on its merits.

The sure fire way to beat a bully though is to stand up to them and let them know that what ever they throw at you, you'll throw twice as much back. They will not win.

Some bullying stops if you just ignore it and make it "not fun anymore" for the bully. But it all depends on the individual circumstances.

The hilarious things kids have discovered is that bullying in groups is even more fun. Fighting back just makes it funnier. Laughing and participating means being in on the joke and out of the spotlight. Standing up may be the worst thing you can do.

So you propose "to ignore them and it will go away?" I tried that once. No dice.

Only a disproportional reaction solves the issue, once and for all. Shock and awe.

I suspect cognivore agrees, and perhaps even kjackson (self-described former bully)

As I said in my other comment, I don't really have answers to how to solve it. I just know that from my experience I ended up knocked out and hospitalized with a fracture in my skull from having my head kicked in by a group of teenagers. A friend of mine was jumped and beaten into a coma for six months. I've read about kids in the newspapers stabbed to death, gang raped while passed out, and worse. I don't think any amount of rage you can throw at the situation will make it better for you if you're being bullied by more than one person.

"Standing up," may work in some scenarios but in those which the OP and I are familiar with it's pointless at best and dangerous at worst.

Update All I did was skip school and show up for tests. Maybe leaving is the only option for some kids.

Internet Hug

As the parent said, it needs to be a disproportional response. I mean REALLY out of line.

One time a friend of mine got jumped by six dudes. He was able to defend himself by taking a pencil out of his pocket and jamming it right into an eye socket. The other kid literally lost his eye. The fighting immediately stopped and nobody messed with my friend again.

That's what it takes.

Yes, I absolutely agree. Ignoring never worked, it only made it more fun and challenging for me. The best way to stop a bully is to punch them in the face early on and make them think twice about considering you a target.

For me, I deal with crowds of jerks by concentrating on the first person to insult - and announceing it. I've diffused physical violence against me by a crowd by announcing that the "first person who attacks me will receive all my wrath."

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