Tell me about it. Especially observing the public reactions to German school shootings is always an awful experience. Already after the first big one in Erfurt in 2002 some rather intelligent people pointed out some of the social causes and possible solutions but they are always mostly ignored by the media and politicians. Each time a thing like this happens it's the same story all over again and it's a taboo to consider any form of guilt on the supposed victims' end which blocks any possible progress.

That quote is something worth reflecting over. It's usually not a lack of motivation that is the problem, but access to the right tools and know-how (if even available). The same goes for stuff like "just ask her out" or "get a job" etc. I try exanding on such "goal definitions" by asking for details of previous encounters and provide at least a couple of possible ways to handle them should similar situations arise. So far things seem to working out reasonably well, although I can't be sure of the specifics of whats and whys.

Reading the page you linked to I'm getting a bit critical, though. It's creating and sustaining misconceptions itself, but given the apparent intended audience I'm not going to "split hairs" - it has little to none practical relevance anyway (although my BS detector wouldn't keep quiet during certain paragraphs).

I agree with that velvet clad chap. It's a horrible thing, but it's not going away. Kids are horrible, we all know it, we were one once. I think the more appropriate solution to stopping kids being bullied via social media is to stop them using it. If anything it's likely to be destructive to their learning of how to form human to human relationships. Then there's the bullying. If we keep setting kids up with facebook and twitter accounts, we're just breeding a generation of trolls.

Don't say that out loud - if the 4chan kaballah finds out you've figured out their secret plan, they'll hunt you down and silence you..

Is this enough of manning up? :P

http://i55.tinypic.com/2e3bekj.gif

Fuck no. Bullies aren't the only fucking victim, and they don't need all your fucking help. Fuck them and fuck the entire school system. I spent the first fifteen years of my life being relentlessly bullies day in and day out, and the school kept saying "oh well, that's how it is, kids will be kids, shrug!" They wouldn't even get fucking detention or any sort of tiny mediocre punishment, despite the fact that I regularly had the shit kicked out of me while waiting for the bus. In fact, more than once I was punished for "hurting their development", or the fucking fuck fuck time I was suspended for starting a fight just because the fucking serial bullies said I punched him first. Yeah, the guy bleeding everywhere that needed stitches started it, not the untouched bastard surrounded by eight of his friends, punched you. This literal living nightmare ended up giving me severe chronic depression that I continue to suffer with to this day, and led to multiple suicide attempts in the past just so I wouldn't have to go back to school. Yet all through this (even after a fucking eleven year old tries to hang himself) the school insisted that the bullies just needed everyone to treat them nicely so they would stop acting up. It was a fucking failure of a system that continues to ruin my life to this day. So seeing people stick up for those fucking vile pricks just pisses me off. I don't give a flying fuck if you want to help the bully, just remember there are victims suffering too, and you need to handle their recovery as well.

There was this one guy in my class. All of his classmates picked on him, even the not so pupular ones. For no particular reason, just because he was chosen by fate to be a victim. Everybody participated in that - including me.

It's not like we mentally tortured him untill he cried every single day, but we constantly made fun of him, ridiculed him, didn't take him serious or see him as an equal person. I wouldn't consider myself as beeing a bully, though. I just took part in what everybody did and didn't think much about it. Also I had nothing against him personally. In fact, one or two times I even invited him to my home. We played some SNES, did some homework together and stuff.

That was about 15 to 20 years ago. For what I know, today he's a married, working, normal person who lives a normal life. But it could've turned out completely different. He could've not stood the pressure and maybe even committed suicide eventually. As for myself, I am deeply ashamed of how we treated him back then. Today I realise what consequences my actions could've caused. But at the time, I just gave in to peer pressure.

My point is: Kids are cruel, and in many cases they are not even aware. And also, there is not much you can do about that. Demanding something like "Bullying must end, NOW!" is very honorable, but it won't have any impact on those affected. I don't say you shouldn't even try to fight against this problem. Parents and friends should try to influece or be rolemodels. Schools and other institutes should support the victims and offer education. And maybe the law should think about appropriate punishment for delinquents (although it's common knowledge that detterence doesn't work). But don't expect that this will ever be solved for good. There is no magic bullet.

At least there is one light at the end of the tunnel: Maybe some of the most notorious bullys are going to stay in that intellectual state even as adults, but most people are going to brighten up and wise-up as they grow up, especially regarding empathic matters.

I'm sorry you've had to go through all that shit, and you're absolutely right that bullies don't need or deserve the kind of "help" they were getting from your school. Being "allowed" to keep up that kind of behaviour isn't anywhere near "getting help" in my book. Bullies don't need help to go on being bullies - they need help to stop being bullies. They need to be helped into becomming better people whether they want to or not - it's simply not acceptable bahaviour.

At the same time those being bullied need help with adjusting to the often cruel and unfair world we all live in. Not by being kicked out of the nest, in a "either you master flight before you hit the ground or you, well, don't" kind of way, but by being thaugth/shown how to deal with various problems. Yes, everyone needs to "(wo)man up" simply because there's no conceivable way to avoid difficult and potentially harmful situations during one's lifetime. (Nor should that be what we aim for, but that's another topic.)

Being a Sociology graduate, I know that peer pressure is an important factor when mass bullying takes place, as many people simply don't want to be bullied themselves so they choose to participate in the groups activities although they personally don't like it (see Bavarian's case).

I see that the educational system sucks in many countries, the current of thought being that kids will be kids and they should be left alone and figure it all out by themselves. Guess what, most of the shootings that took place in schools were caused by bullying, because people have a tendency to snap off at one point. We all have dangerous instincts lurking deep within ourselves, just that most of us dominate them. See Falling Down with Michael Douglas.

Once again I have to emphasize that education starts at home and an iron fist is needed to enforce a rule or two, though I'm no fan of violence.

Myself I've been experiencing bullying on and off until I was 10th grade when I finally snapped and stood up for myself, the group leaving me alone from that point. When I was little, I would use to hang out at my aunt's house and nasty things would happen at night, when my aunt and uncle would get drunk and start fighting, my cousin screaming for help and stuff. That wasn't a pretty picture for a kindergarten kid, but I learned that violence was wrong and swore that I would never hit a woman in my life (except if she'd want to kill me, in which case I would kick her teeth in, but that's an extreme case).

I hate violence and especially hate dumb, violent idiots that hit women, but I learned to adapt and take it like a man should the need arise. I began bodybuilding, learned self-defense and generally how to take care of myself should the need arise, but until now I've managed to avoid all manner of confrontations.

The educational system has a large part of the guilt, that and the laws that are too lenient towards minor offenders. I'm not saying that a scenario like the one seen in Battle Royale should be applied, but kids should know early on what they can and especially what they CAN'T do, not without severe consequences.

One's liberty ends where another's begins and you must be accountable for the s^^t that you do. Violence is not the answer, but some people don't understand otherwise, unfortunately. It may be in their karma that someone should teach them a lesson now or later.

In the end, everyone should take home a couple of things from reading this topic:
- bullying is a fact, although not only the victims can suffer from it (some do it because of peer pressure)
- nasty consequences can result from lengthened bullying , an extreme case being shootings
- children should be informed and taught how to react and avoid such individuals; if they can't avoid, talk to the parents => a good parent-child relationship and trust is needed
- we can only look out for ourselves; the system doesn't care too much about the little guys, regardless of all the yada yada in the press; you scream for help and almost nobody comes to lend a hand; one must learn to be self-sufficient
- don't forget that education starts at home and when you will have a child, work on to create and maintain a good bond with him, so that at times of need he can have someone to come back for help and act on it because many events can be avoided if one would simply listen for a child's cry for help

There could be more to be said, but if a couple of people would be more careful with their children, to have a strong relationship full of trust after reading this topic (or take note of these things if they don't currently have children), I think this topic would have achieved something.

Action is needed, not some posts in a topic. Talk to your friends, your children, try to understand them, help them when you can and with each person that does this, who knows, maybe we will manage to change something in the long run :)

Crap, I've written a lot :)) Sorry for the long post.

Not being aware of being cruel is being stupid.
You are forgiven since at least all the stuff you wrote made sense.

Ahh, victim blaming. One of the most cherished pastimes of privileged people on the internet.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that some people understand only their own type of language. Which is why depending on circumstances, I have no problems with behaving in certain ways. I actually think you did a good thing, a little extreme, but efficient. I usually don't like to be personal in public places, so I won't go into details, but yeah I was bullied too, quite badly actually (though not nearly on this level. and may I say, no one is as efficient at bullying as girls) And, like with you, it resulted with me always defending people. But I find that in some cases there is no place for empathy. You reap what you saw, you treat people a certain way, you'll get it back, simple as that (and my concept of justice is awesome :P)

I'm wondering, those of you who were bullied, have you forgiven your bullies completely? Cause honestly, when I hear that some of them are doing really well in their lives, on a particularly bad day...let's just say that I won't be too happy about hearing it. I don't care if they're nice now, nor do I care about their initial motivation. It's the deed that is important, and a change of heart doesn't change what has been done.

But yes, if you manage to get your act together, it makes you grow a spine and get a personality like nothing else.

I'm still seeing red from watching the video, I hope that this girl's bullies will someday suffer really, really badly. Or at least die a slow, extremely painful death. But I'm guessing that at least some of them won't be able to sleep properly for the rest of their lives.

@skunk - wanted to say this for a long time, check your thyroid gland someday. I think you might have this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothyroidism when not cured, it can get really, really bad
since the edit function is being weird, @skunk - all you need to do is a blood test checking your tsh and t3 and t4 levels

That's some hardcore shit. One would expect nicer stuff form Canadians. :B But honestly? The way you're describing it - dude, I would have gone to a lawyer and sued the crap out of the school for not taking care of the safety of their students (I'm quite sure that in Canada schools have these kinds of legal obligations, don't they?). Only if some people stand up things can improve. Fighting bullies is obviously incredibly hard but grabbing educational institutions by their balls with legal threats... probably not that much.

I actually thought I had put all that behind me, but when I went to a reunion a couple of years ago (7th to 9th grade 20 years later (didn't go to the 10y)) and was greeted by one of the others with one of the "good ol' nicknames from back then" I was kind of speechless for a second. I'd have to say I was a little impressed he even remembered it - he wasn't very bright. However, he then realised that since the last time he saw me I'd grown to be at least 20cm taller than him and probably able to throw him clear across the room, so he slunk away and I hardly saw him the rest of the evening. It dredged up a lot of memories, though, none of them pleasant. Nobody else "bothered" me, though, and most very quite friendly.

So, not completely over it, apparently, but close enough. As for having forgiven them? Never seen any reason to. Bygones can be bygones, and I'm not interested in "payback" or anything, but forgiveness? In my opnion that's not something anyone is entitled to, nor something that "must" or even "should" happen at some point. I don't owe them anything.

Sorry to butt in here, and I have no idea regarding the state of your health Skunk, but if it might be hypothyrodism you really should have it checked out. My father has it (or something similar anyway) and shortly before they figured it out they told him he probably only had weeks, maybe months left to live. That was about 30 years ago (my, how time flies.. I'm getting old).