Girls Just Wanna Be Mean
 

Girls Just Wanna Be Mean

Kids call it 'outcasting' -- using gossip, innuendo, and other unsavory techniques to alienate and shun a peer. And it's a growing, potentially dangerous problem in our schools -- whether your child is on the receiving end or the one doing the bullying.

By Star Lawrence

Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
on Tuesday, May 04, 2004
WebMD Feature


Mean girls don't just exist in movies -- they're real.

At 13, Kelsey hung with a pack of five girls in her Washington parochial school. Now 20, she recalls in vivid detail the day her pals took her behind the chapel and handed her a note.

"They made it seem like something good, like an invitation or something," she says. "They were smiling. I opened it and it was written in all different colors of inks and handwriting, saying we don't want to be your friend, don't look at us, don't call us, don't come near us. Everyone put it a different way -- they all wrote it."

Read the rest here

I like how the article addressed what to do if you child is a bully. Most parents would think their kid would be the victim.

Some parents encourage their child to be the bully, just as long their child doesn't get bullied. I've seen it happen, its ugly.

It happens. It happened to a friend of mine in high school, it was awful.

wow.

I don't ever think there's been a more appropriate article posted to the Chit Chat forum. Mean girls, bully girls........yeah, that definately belongs in here.

Kitso
KS 361

Kids now are so freaking mean. Yet parents are so unwilling to admit that their kids may be saying or doing things that aren't nice. Everyone wants a victim child. Plus nowadays you can excuse or validate anything. "Oh Johnny just beat your kid up because Johnny is struggling w/ weight issues/parents' divorce/learning problems." No Johnny needs to be taught how to behave and he needs to see that beating people up isn't the way to deal w/ things. The more kids have their behavior excused by their parents now the less self discipline and responsibility they'll have later.

So lots of kids disliked you?

-Rudey

This happened to me in 3rd grade. A boy that I lived down the street from carpooled w/ us. His dad was driving that day...and he was in the front seat and there were three of us in the back. We were teasing him about this girl that he liked...and his dad told him if he didn't like what we were saying to do something about it. So he turned around and punched me in the face! His dad laughed. My mom was pissed when she found out what happened, and she was even more pissed that his dad encouraged that behavior. Needless to say, we no longer carpooled with him after that.

Thank you!!!!! You saved me the time and energy it woulda taken to type all that :p

I was the girl who was teased and bullied and beaten up. It was so bad that I had to transfer to another school in a different neighborhood. My sisters and I were talking about it the other day. We have no idea why it happened, but it did. It really sucked.

Years ago, after Mrs. DeltAlum was named Prom Queen, a group of girls pushed her into a creek at some kind of senior picnic. She also had excellent grades, which didn't help.

I was tormented in school. I wasn't pretty; I was from a less-financially-advantaged family; and I tried hard to do well academically. The torment was daily; and it was brutal. I can even remember the day it started in fourth grade. Some of the teachers even got in on the act in later years. Being from such as rural place, there was no other school as a transfer option.

This WILL NOT happen to my child.

Silver

You deserved it for teasing him lol.

Actually I think one of the reasons that women are appear more scoailly viscious than men is that the threat of having your asses beat wasn't very common.

For boys there is a very real possibility of a fist fight, and physical threat comes into play with gossip and back stabbing.

For girls, well .. no one hits you, so you feel safe being really mean to each other as long as other girls are backing you up socially.

But the thing is, we weren't being mean. We weren't like saying he was fat or ugly or stupid. We were saying he liked Susie so-and-so...and it's not like she was fat or ugly or stupid - she was cute! And it was true - he did like her! It was on the same level of teasing you would do with your co-workers. He was just embarassed...and took it out the wrong way. Again, with his father's encouragement. A parent should NEVER encourage their child to solve a problem with violence. And I'm sorry, but there is NEVER justification for hitting a girl (unless of course she's gone out of her mind and needs to be slapped to bring her back to reality).