- Joined
- Sep 3, 2011
- Messages
- 34,817
- Reaction score
- 18,576
- Location
- Look to your right... I'm that guy.
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Centrist
I'm going to whip out an old cliche for this one, but "zero tolerance" equals zero thinking. If the bullied kid does defend them self, they get in trouble also. This sends the clear message to the kid that they were wrong to try and end the bullying, and should have let it continue.It's a difficult issue, and how to handle it with your child is tricky.
Outside of gang-infested (mostly) urban schools, most bullying is social and psychological rather than overtly violent... yet it is exactly this kind of bullying that can do the worst and most lasting damage, and is the hardest to deal with or fight back against. A child that is neither socially adept nor eloquent finds it hard to verbally defuse this kind of bullying, and children who already have self-confidence problems can be devastated by it.
Given schools' supposed zero-tolerance against violence, and the frequency with which the law gets involved in school fights, telling you kid just to whup someone's ass is likely going to draw you a whole basketfull-of-Hell worth of trouble... especially if your kid ends up throwing the first blow in front of witnesses, or just defended themselves in the ABSENCE of friendly witnesses. This can result in criminal investigation, lawsuits, and all kinds of Not Good.
It's not like it was when I was a youngster, and I complained to my Dad that someone had pushed me around and he said "Go to school tomorrow and fight him... make sure you give him a couple good punches in the face and win or lose he'll leave you alone afterward." At the time, not bad advice, but things are a lot more complicated these days.
So many youngsters do much of their socializing on the Net that cyber-bullying can result in nearly as much emotional trauma as in-person bullying. I think especially since people tend to say WORSE things to people from the safety of the Internet than they would in person...
My son is 17 and in HS; he's always been big for his age, and trained in martial arts from early childhood, but we STILL had bullying issues anyway because it is more complicated these days than can easily be solved just punching someone in the mouth... though I still think that IS a good response to some circumstances.
Sure, the official response would be, "You should have reported it and let the proper authorities deal with it.". Yeah, that works. :roll: What that means is that they will claim there's nothing they can do because they have no evidence and haven't witnessed it themselves. Something that the bullying victim has probably heard too many times already.
IMO, "zero tolerance" is excuse to NOT deal with the issue.
Last edited: