^^^Amen. Bullying now is not about shoving people into lockers and calling them names on the playground. It's about intentionally setting people on fire as was the case in Florida, or rape like in this case. Sorry, but an "ass whooping" would be foolish and feeble as a response to a lot of the bullying that goes on in schools today.

I am FULLY aware of my tone.

As am I.

Right.

I am more than able to defend myself, and thankfully, I've only had to get physical once in my life. I would have NEVER gone after an adult, though. You just didn't do that.

Now I see kids trying to punk teachers and administrators while they sit back and take it. It's sad.

If a kid goes for a teacher it's hard to know how to respond. If a teacher responds aggressively verbally or physically they'll be crucified. Kids that go that far probably have bigger problems than just being a bully. It would be great if they were all offered help. I know they're not, though.

The problem for me is had I THOUGHT about it, my Mommy would have gone after ME and I would've gotten a lot worse than I could have done to the adult.

I have a guy friend who teaches middle school and says the kids beat up one of the female teachers. He's 6'5 with HUGE hands and told them pointedly that if they put their hands on her again and if they thought about hitting him *raising his huge hand up to the level of their face* he would be going to jail...for a long time!

Which is why I said......

I just think it is absurd that you would cause that much disruption over a situation like that. Not only are you allowing your child to be bullied by other kids, but you are allowing YOURSELF to be bullied by those kids as well. And it is a sad day when adults let kids bully THEM.

I know that. My point was that my generation (ha!) never would have never gone after authority figures. We may have fought fellow students, but never an adult.

Fear of mom and dad having to leave work to come pick me up from school kept me from doing it, and most of my friend's were the same way.

ETA: prettyface08 beat me to it :)

There was a case in the local paper recently where a 12 year-old student had acted up enough to warrant them calling security. The student then stabbed the officer in the side with a pair of scissors.

Lovely.

I don't much care whether you are appalled and disgusted. get over it.

There's nothing naive about what I said. It is naive to think that going in and complaining to school officials is always going to solve the problem.

O...k.....

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Because that's what I said.

Shooooot! I know the game LOL

Haha!

I wonder if there have been any studies trying to figure out what caused this shift from "us being scared of parents" to "us wanting to fight parents and other adults?" I'd be interested in reading up on that.

I'd love to read those studies! It's crazy how things change, it both frightens and saddens me.

It's the way people parent now-a-days. In our day, we'd get our asses handed to us by our parents for even looking @ the teacher cross-eyed. Now, parents are encouraging their children to talk back to the teacher if the child feels like it.

I had a 6th grader tell me that he wasn't going to do any effin thing I said because his mom said if a teacher "doesn't give respect" don't give any back. All I asked him to do was stop playing his instrument and do the worksheet he was assigned.

My mom was yelled at by a parent for saying 'stupid' in class. She never directed the comment to the student, instead she said something (to the entire class) like "i don't care if you don't like this assignment or think it's stupid."

Parents need to get back into the habit of whooping their kids butts for getting out of line.

My parents encouraged me to stand up for myself (and clearly, I have no problems doing that haha), but also made sure my sisters and I knew to respect our elders/authority figures. If I felt that someone was out of line, there are better ways to address the issues.

"I'm curious to know why you want me to finish this assignment when I completed it already"

works better than

"Bitch, I'm not doing this shit. I did it already! Kiss my ass!"

ETA: And, yea, beat your kids' asses from time to time.

I'm Prettyface08 and I approve this message!

I'm just sayin. . . It's the truth.

LOL!! Wait! No. But seriously, that's how they talk to teachers nowadays. I love that my mommy was one of those parents who had NO problem asking to have a meeting with me, her, the principal and the teacher I was having an issue with. I'd better NOT try to handle it on my own.

Back in graduate school, I had a conversation with one of my friends about this very topic. She had gone to some conference about how parenting shifted somewhere around the early to mid 80s. It used to be that people just had kids. They had them when they were young, without really really trying and if they couldn't have kids, they adopted (back when it was easy to do so) or they just didn't have kids.

Around the early 80s, it was a much bigger deal to have kids, for middle class families at least. For the first time, mainstream folks timed their careers around the best time to start a family. If it wasn't very easy, they spent thousands of dollars on difficult adoptions or reproductive technologies. Even if it was easy to have a kid, the safety of that baby became the center of their lives. This was around the time that "crib death," something that a lot of women experienced before, got the name SIDS. Remember the "Baby on Board" signs? Car seats weren't standard until around that time. In other words, people became so proud of their investment and creation that the kid could do no wrong.

My mom was the same way. If there were problems, she wouldn't hesitate to call the teacher and administrators (some of which weren't even involved lol) to get to the root of the issue.

Then I had to deal with "Wait til I tell your daddy."

To this day, I will second guess my decisions if I'm afraid mom and dad are gonna pop up and say something about said decisions.

That makes sense.

But I was born in 84 and my parents were very invested in their careers. That didn't cut into their parenting, though, and they didn't think my sisters and I could do no wrong.

I know that my bubble isn't representative of the entire population, but from what I can tell, a lot of the problems have come up with these 90s babies.

OK...

...so going with the logic of "these crazy kids are out of their damn minds these days," doesn't that potentially apply to both the bullies and those who are being bullied?

I don't care how much everyone is their parents' bundles of joy, parents never really know what their kids are doing when they are at school. There are some kids who are angels most of the time, but many kids (even the straight A students who are uber religious) have outlets where they unleash their badassness.

With that said, the bullies' parents are probably shocked by their behaviors and the the bullied's parents are probably clueless as to what their child may or may not have done to contribute to the bullying. Not every kid contributes to his/her bullying, but some kids do. So, blame the parents and adults, perhaps partially blame the kids at times--but, definitely examine this further to get a more complete picture of what's going on in these kids' lives.

YEP!

I had a 3rd grader, mind you--he was 8 years old, tell me exactly what you typed out (minus the 'bitch' part cause I woulda whooped his ass myself) because the teacher assigned the class math problems they already did.

The others said it nicely. They didn't have to do the work. I made him do them again, along with writing out the question in its entirety plus answer choices (if there were any) and he had to draw out the problem and show how he did it. He was pissed and had a baaad attitude, but trust me when I said my bad attitude was much worse than his.

Why would it be hard for a teacher to know how to respond? I don't understand that either. Many teachers these days need more backbone too. They shouldn't let the kids bully them.

You're right. Many parents have NO idea what their kids are doing at school. And kids ARE often really good at presenting themselves as little innocent angels while at home.

I also have found that in some instances, a parent may not exactly know, but they have an inkling because the child bullies THEM at home. smh

I was diagnosed with some kind of authority disorder when I was a little bitty...I don't think I had an actual disorder but my issue with being told what to do was bad enough to register with a therapist. And I STILL never once talked back to a teacher/adult authority figure. My parents would have killed me dead. No way in hell would I have said "boo" to a teacher, much less physically attacked them. I don't get why that happens so often these days.

I grew out of my 'tude, and learned the right way to do it. My mom explained that if a teacher is really being rude to me to find a way to nicely ask if I've done something wrong. I tried that one time and it turned out the teacher told me they thought I was unresponsive and rude in class because I never showed interest and always looked angry (I was really just sleepy). So I apologized and started paying more attention instead of doodling, and the problem was solved. If a teacher was grading me unfairly she advised me to take the assignment to them and discuss it with them every time. The only time this didn't work I had to go to the dean. And if nothing works, chalk it up to a sucky teacher. In high school you have them for a year, in college for a semester. Not for life. These are all ways to solve situations without being rude, obnoxious, or aggressive. And they're so EASY to do.

So when you've tried every route and your kid is still being tortured every day, you'll stick it out because you don't want to be inconvenienced? Are you going to go kick a 12 year old's ass?

As my mom used to tell me, "That's cutting off your nose to spite your face". Even worse, it's at your child's expense.

Yep the 90s kids were the start of the problem. I was born in '85 (and my cousins in '86 and '88) and we were all well-behaved and knew our right from our wrong. Our parents kept us in line when needed and just like k_s told us to speak our minds when necessary....to an extent.

Some of them have that mindset of "i'm not gonna be like my parent" so they act like the complete opposite.


The laws. What do you expect the teacher to do? The teacher can't do anything without risking getting fired. It's not about having a 'backbone.' Teacher's can't tell a student to 'sit their ass down' without being reprimanded. All a teacher can really do is call for help.

Speaking as a future teacher, I am not going to risk my job or even being sued...I'm going to find someone above me to handle it.

Administration doesn't want them coming after kids like that. I'm sure many of these teachers have backbones in their "real lives," but they aren't able to showcase that at work.

To sit here and imply that I said it was a matter of being inconvenienced is ridiculous. It goes deeper than that. Changing schools is not that simple. And you have a right to demand and receive adequate protection for your child at school. There are so many avenues to pursue to get the situation taken care of. But I can see there is no point in discussing that because people just want to continue to make lame excuses.

As long as people have attitudes of simply letting the bullies have their way, it will continue.

When that kid is punching you in the face, you don't have time to find someone above you to handle it.

No, you are right about admin. However, my argument has always been that if adminis don't want teachers doing that, they need to provide good support networks for their teachers when it comes to disciplinary issues.

Kids feed off of the perceived lack of respect that teachers get from admins.

I was born in '86 and have younger siblings, but we were raised pretty old school. Don't get me wrong, my mom was all about car seats, cute baby outfits, and sterilizing everything (at least until around the time of the last kid), but my parents were never under the impression we can do no wrong. I got away with a few things here and there but not much, and when I got caught I got CAUGHT. I wasn't willing to drink in high school even when my friends started to because I weighed "buzz" with "punishment" and wasn't willing to risk it.

I've got younger friends who have gotten arrested multiple times with no reaction from their parents. Their parents have helped them get out of these situations with not only no consequences at home but none legally, either. And it still floors me. If it were me and my parents...well my dad told me a long time ago that if I were in jail for a night and thought about calling him...don't bother.

As long as people have attitudes of simply letting the bullied suffer, it will continue.

Not every family is able to send their child to a different school. But some are. And it really doesn't matter what rights you have if you can't get them. I hope no parent would let their child suffer for years because they think it's more important to "fight the good fight" than to protect them. As I've said repeatedly, this is of course a last resort. But if talking to the teacher, principal, board of education, bully's parents, and even bully doesn't work...and sometimes it doesn't...then parents should, if they're able, be prepared to protect their child. You can not guarantee that you'll get your way. Sometimes it's more important to let go of pride for the good of those you love than to save face.

Yeah. Great. But MOST of the time the kid is talking back or making threats. And I'm sure as hell not risking my future by giving them more of the same.

My kids better not be little hellions, but if my students are I'm going to find a way to make it work without getting fired.

That's funny because our middle school and high school teachers told us to sit our asses down in the 80s and 90s. Perhaps it doesn't work that way now with these entitled kids of the Internet generation.

But, badass kids were not rare in many of these school systems. Teachers and administration knew how to handle them (with some exceptions) and everyone knew that if YOUR child is a badass, take their badass out of school OR get over the fact that an adult will borderline cuss out your child. There are plenty of ways to instill power and authority without stooping to a child's level--but, some kids NEED their asses handed to them through rough talk and/or embarassment. That's the only way that they'll believe that fat meat is greasy.

Parents and administration can't have it both ways. You either control these badass kids or give teachers the clear to damn near cuss their asses out. You can fuss at the teacher for doing it, but acknowledge that the teacher should've have HAD to do that and YOU dropped the ball somewhere.

You would HAVE to find a way to get someone 'above you' to handle it. Yell out to a student to run and get a teacher, or whatever. Cause if you don't want to lose your job....like for eternity (cause no school would hire you after that) you best not lay a hand on that demon spawn.