When Did the Bullying Start?

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One of my earliest memories was having my wagon taken from me by force, resulting in a rather nasty scalp wound.

You might say it was the emergence of a pattern.

In kindergarten, I was afraid of the slides on which we were required to play and I talked my grandmother into writing the nun to ask for an exception. Kids picked up on the fear the way a dog picks up on it. When we did those huge jig-saw puzzles, I always required more time to do mine, and the others were so impatient. They started to tease me about Marsha A., my kindergarten crush.
It got going full-throttle in grade school though. I always had just one or two friends I could survive with. My mother even told me that she had to pay kids to socialize with me. My poor mother was alchoholic and, I think, bipolar, and she had a tongue like a bull whip. She never let me forget that she'd financed friendships, even decades later.
There is something that I have not forgotten and never shall...When we graduated from grade school, we had graduation parties. I was the only student who was not invited to a single one. It was not that I wanted to go. It would have scared me to death. It was that I wanted to be invited. You see, most of us had gone to that school for eight years, and I thought of the boys and girls as my brothers and sisters (I was an only child.), and I loved them and thought of that school as a nest. A few weeks after that, my mother encouraged me to have a swim party and invite kids. I did. Only one or two showed up. I had learned the score.

It began in pre-kindergarten at age four. Kids would yank my hair hard for fun, because if they pulled hard enough I would bend over in the direction they pulled me, and I would then stay that way, bent over without moving, till someone pulled me upright. They also mobbed me in the coat room and their game was to knock me down and see how many of them could fit sitting on my body at the same time.

Of course I never spoke or made any sounds either, even while being attacked, and the teachers would only find them abusing me by sheer luck. Because I couldn't speak, I could not ask to go to the bathroom either. So each day, I wet my pants; not because I didn't want to go to the toilet, but because I couldn't bring myself to ask permission to do it.

My main goal daily was to escape from kindergarten and run away home, even though I didn't know how to get home from there. But I made quite a few escape attempts. While inside, my main activity was to slowly scrape the paint off the wall with a small scraper, like a sharp pebble. I collected these powdered paint scrapings in a little cup, and that was my only interest in being there. I never played with any of the toys or games, nor with other children. Of course it drove the teachers mad that the paint was being systematically scraped off the walls, but no amount of yelling or punishment had any effect on me whatsoever, and I'd return to doing it as soon as possible.

Seeing how insane I was making the teachers with my escape attempts and my paint-scraping, some of the other children decided that was cool and began escaping and scraping paint too. There actually developed a secret underground paint-scrapings black market, with children competing about how much scrapings they'd collected without being caught. But that's didn't make me any more popular, just slightly less weird in that one way -- I had unknowingly started a fad.

Despite this amount of overwhelming weirdness, nobody seemed concerned for my mental health. I was scolded for "misbehaving" all the time, yet praised for learning to read fluently at such an early age (4). Neither their scolding nor their praise had any effect on me whatsoever. "They" were not even in my world, and so long as they left me alone I was happy to continue collecting small twigs and scraping the paint off the wall, speaking to no one, and peeing my pants.

I'm surprised how young it started for most here. I remember being picked last for sports in elementary school, but I didn't care and generally kids were not mean to me. It wasn't until changing schools in 4th grade that it went downhill pretty much from the first week of class.

I see a few others were fine until changing schools. I wonder if sometimes a group of kids can get used to you if you grow up with them at a young enough age, but then when you are thrown in with new kids who don't know you (like changing schools) then you become a target.

The bullying started before I was enrolled in school. My parents had friends that had 3 kids, & their oldest son used to love physically hurting me (often to the point where I was bloodied). His mom even encouraged him. In any case, it didn't stop until mid way through high school. It happened at home, in the neighborhood, in school, etc. I got used to being a punching bag. My parents mostly ignored it, & being an only child, there wasn't anyone I go to for help. However, I did learn to fight back on occasion, & I often got in trouble. Usually the bully went unpunished. Go figure.

10-11. The last year of primary school is I think when I started becoming noticeably different to other kids my age, although I didn't notice it myself until a year or two later. I just remember being very confused at the time as to why kids who had formerly been my friends had started to avoid me or play tricks on me.

Day 1 of kindergarden, they said I always was in the way. They also said they did not like me because I never smiled. Its funny becuase they were the reason I never smiled. It got worse in high school.

My older brother was a bully. Sorry, but harssasing someone for their special intrests and sensory sensetivites spells bullying to me. There was always a kid who would tease me but the true bullying started when I was in third grade and the teacher actually encouraged it.

I didn't get on with kids in pre-school and school but that was because I didn't understand or like other kids rather than them bullying me as such. Although, a couple of teachers in school from about age six did bully me because they didn't understand why I was different and didn't like it. The bullying from kids started at about age 9 - 10.

Last edited by Maolcolm on 22 Nov 2010, 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It began in kindergarten for me, I acted waaay to mature as far as I can remember and understood from my parents.

I thought those children games where stupid and disliked my fellow "inmates".

I have been fortunate in the sense that I have only experienced the occasional bullying that everyone experiences. My heart goes out to all those who posted in this thread before me, though.

It was my case also - my bulling only started when I change to a new school at 5th year (10 y.o.).

My theory is that elementary school children are usually more "live and let live" than middle/high school pre-teens/teens - in elementary school you usually have a small group of friends, while in middle/high school you have a big group of acquaintances - and friends are usually much more tolerant to eccentricity than acquaintances.

I was 7-ish. It was when I started going to a regular school instead of the very small school I'd gone to before. My previous school had had only 2 students when I was in Kindergarten (in the whole school, I being the only kindergartner) and then 8 students later. It was a very loving environment. The next school had classes of about 28 or so and that's where the bullying started.

My life before I turned 5 years old, was nice but after I turned 5 years old, my mother remarried. My step-father was absolutely horrid, a walking nightmare. He started the bullying and abuse.

Both of these, I think. I think we also have to admit that it has something to do with what level of functioning someone is at, too. Most of the people who have reported bullying at a very young age have also reported that their behavior deviated quite far from the norm. (I am not saying that anyone deserved the kind of bullying described here. Nor am I trying to demean anybody, in any way. Just pointing out the 600 pound gorilla, ya know?) I have to admit, I'm surprised by how many people say that their teachers joined in and/or encouraged the bullying. Why did they become teachers if they can't treat kids decently?

I didn't have any real problems until we moved, in between my 5th and 6th grade years. I got picked on and teased now and again, and I was usually the last picked for sports, but nothing major. After we moved, though . . . things didn't just go downhill, they fell off a cliff!

before 5th grade, I was in a special ed school. There, classes were small (6-7 kids) and bullying was virtually nonexistant. However, some of the teachers were control freaks... Once I remember having a meltdown because of a drawing the teacher did not consider to be done... a nice black and white pencil drawing with fine details that absolutely had to be smothered with colours did not go down well with me.

5th and 6th grade in Australia were good, however the increased level of discipline was hard to adapt to as well as language (having to constantly speak English for one). When the other kids found out that I spun into a blind rage when they bullied me, some of them apparently thought it was fun.

After coming back to Denmark, and being put into the normal school system (by my own request), I started along for the second part of 6th grade, and soon after the bullying came yet again... the first few times I told a nearby teacher, but I soon came to know that a stern talking-to by the teachers did exactly nothing, and I ended up taking matters into my own hands by literally smashing their heads into the nearest hard object I could find (usually a wall or table)... and ofc ended up getting in trouble with more bullying on the way...
At this school, there was another kid in my class... He was literally insane, going as far as putting a lit, illegal firecracker down the back of my jacket... Had I been just a little slower at dumping my jacket it would literally have blown out most of my spine... I was nearly deaf for two days afterwards from the bang and I still have a small scar on my back from the lit fuse.