An article on "bullycide"

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Pointing out that the bullies go after certain kids that act a certain way is not the same as saying those kids invite it.

I cut your quote in mid-sentence because that was the only part of it I was responding to.

Well yes that could be helpful, however everyone is different so not everyone can simply toughen up and not let things get to them. I mean good coping skills should be encouraged but not in an invalidating way. I mean for instance telling someone not to be so sensative to what others say is not very helpful unless you offer ways they could do that. I mean I would not have minded being able to better deal with the bullying and stuff I experianced......but people more commonly just told me to get over it and not make a big deal out of things while ignoring that maybe I did not have the ability at that point and maybe needed some help with it.

I'm not talking about what to say to any specific kid. More saying that, when a kid kills themself over bullying, we stop acting as though it were a reasonable response, and start pointing out the things they could have done instead.

I'm with you on that. The problem is that we've already put a ton of effort and our unfortunately limited resources into preventing bullying, to no avail, while entirely ignoring the other side of it, which is teaching kids to cope.

Well sometimes there are not a lot of things they could have done or even knew to do I mean we are talking about kids here. I know when I attempted suicide I honestly felt like there was no other way. I mean I was in pain and I felt like everyone would be better off if I were dead at the age of 15 I did not know anything about mental illness or psychological disorders, I did not think telling anyone how I felt would help and I could not take the way I felt anymore. Now that I am more knowledgeable and probably at least a little bit more mature I can more easily convince myself not to act on suicidal thoughts.

But yes it would be helpful if kids would be taught how to deal with bullying or how to develop coping skills to deal with how they feel, but at the same time they probably should not be bullied in the first place so the effects of bullying have to be described as well.

And acting like Breivik or any of the high-school shooters isn't a reasonable response, people!

I think the major issue is usually people in abusive situations are not told to cope with them but to get out of the situation, well bullying is a type of abuse so thats why it can seem like saying they should learn to cope might come off as justification for bullying. But having read more of your posts i understand your reasoning and cannot totally disagree.

Well what are some reasonable responses?

The reason I say we should point out the things the kid should have done is not to blame them, but so that other kids will see those options. The reason I say we should stop treating suicide as reasonable is so that future bullying victims will look for other solutions, even if they don't know yet what those might be, rather than settling on suicide because they think that's an okay way to go about solving their problems.

Yes, the effects of bullying need to be talked about. But they already are being talked about, while the subject of how to deal with it after it's happened is being entirely ignored.

You say that being more knowledgeable and mature has helped you. I say we help others who are in the same position you were to become more knowledgeable and mature.

I'm with you there. I wish we could just get the kids out of the situation. But it's only in rare cases that the kid can move to a new school (which usually wouldn't help anyway), and home-schooling just isn't an option for most parents.

It's unfair that children have to learn to cope with situations that adults can just walk away from. But even more unfair is leaving them in those situations without any coping skills at all.

Yeah that is a good point, I guess if I had been exposed to information on how to deal with what I was going through things might have been a little better. I mean it still would have been wrong I was bullied but at least I would not have internalized all the nasty things people said to me as a child.

I think, ultimately, we are in agreement. We both agree that bullying is wrong and as much of it as possible should be stopped. I think we both agree that not all of it can be stopped, so kids need to be taught how to deal with it as well. I think each of us were just more focused on one side than the other.

Anyhow, this discussion is kind of exhausting for me, so I'm going to back out of it for a little while. I may come back to it later, but I'm glad we're able to see more clearly each other's viewpoints

I too can agree with that. Sorry I missed out on the last part of the discussion.

Are you serious?

If you're able to, basically show that you will not give into their intimidation. It's a complex issue and it really depends on the situation at hand. A very mild case of name calling by losers can probably be ignored. If it's a very difficult situation where you're dealing with people who have an awful lot of power over you, expert advice is needed.

Whatever the situation, marching around to somewhere and opening fire on random teenagers is the wrong way to deal with it in every single situation I can possibly think of. Unless you're a terrorist.

Well I was mostly serious, but not suggesting I think shooting people at school is a reasonable response.

Also, that sounds good on paper but when someone torments you till your breaking point its kind of impossible not to have any sort of reaction...then once you have a reaction they just keep pushing you even further. That is what it feels like to get bullied...so do you got anything other then 'don't show any response' no offense but most people can't take constant abuse without getting upset. Suicide and yes school shootings are extremes of what can happen...that is provided the school shooting has to do with bullying and not some random f*ck head coming into the school and shooting a student like the one at my school.

You're twisting what I'm saying to fit your own worldview. Again. This is why I got frustrated last time.

If it's just minor name-calling once or twice from some idiot in the street (or some builders asking if they can see your melons, phwoar!) who either stops or gives up, you ignore it. You take different strategies depending on how serious it is.

The problem may well be that you're not actually ignoring them - your body language is probably displaying some kind of reaction (probably the upset and self-loathing one) which they crave. If this has been going on for a long time it's probably harder to reverse. It sounds like your situation is considerably more serious than the mild random taunting I was going on about but perhaps isn't quite as immediately dangerous to your personal safety than the last one (where the people bullying you have the power to order the murder of your entire family for instance), which is pretty rare for most people. I'm not trying in any way to minimise the bullying that you have endured but again, you need to find a way out.

If it's possible, can you just ignore what they say entirely?

The reason why I incredulously asked if you were serious is that you seemed to be almost suggesting that this murdering random teenagers was an acceptable way to deal with a couple of them who were being right little dog turds.