How do we save these children?

This will only end when every human on the face of the earth accepts that 'alternative' sexualities are as normal and natural as heterosexuality. When schools, youth organisations, churches and families teach their children to embrace who they are. When homosexuals are given the right to marry, to have families and hold hands in public without being subjected to the revulsion of the intolerant and squeamish.

tl;dr - it's going to be a long time before this kind of thing stops happening.

Stories like this break my heart. I have no solid answer save that hate begins at home.

Parents have got to teach their children to understand that their fellow human beings are all worthy of respect.

I don't allow this kind of foolishness from my children. At all.
I do my best to teach them that everyone has the right to be who they are and quite frankly,they don't have the right to judge anyone.

I always ask them how they would feel if someone hated them for being Black,which is something they were born as and have no control over whatsoever.
They always say that's wrong,mean,cannot understand how someone could be so stupid,etc.

I tell them it's the same thing with being gay. Hate is never right and as my Nan used to say,what other folks do in their lives is none of your business.
I hate to be a sourpuss but I am honestly tired that every time these terrible suicides happen,people leap from the woodwork with dedications and whatnot.

WHERE were they when he needed help? They had to have witnessed the harassment he suffered but didn't open their mouths. It's too late now to go on about how they missed him. He's gone and far too soon.

I also admit that it's hard for me to relate to bullying. I was taught that you kicked a bully's ass and repeated as necessary until they got the message. But this is a different age and I guess some kids just don't have it in them to turn it back on their tormentors.

WHERE were they when he needed help? They had to have witnessed the harassment he suffered but didn't open their mouths. It's too late now to go on about how they missed him. He's gone and far too soon.

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This. So much this.

I also admit that it's hard for me to relate to bullying. I was taught that you kicked a bully's ass and repeated as necessary until they got the message

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I wish I'd been taught this. I was bullied very badly at school (so much so that even the teachers were complicit - one day, some kids brought in a dog's collar and lead, forcibly attached it to my neck and dragged me around the school. I saw several teachers laughing) and I ended up in a very dark place.

Kids can be cruel, but adults are often worse. And that's the core of the problem.

crunchyblanket said:

This. So much this.



I wish I'd been taught this. I was bullied very badly at school (so much so that even the teachers were complicit - one day, some kids brought in a dog's collar and lead, forcibly attached it to my neck and dragged me around the school. I saw several teachers laughing) and I ended up in a very dark place.

Kids can be cruel, but adults are often worse. And that's the core of the problem.

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It was what my brothers and I were taught from an early age. My mother always said that if you started running,you would never stop.Especially in the hood. We had to stand our ground and it was perfectly acceptable to kick our bully's ass from here to west hell. Now,if a kid defends himself,the damned bully would file a lawsuit and probably win.

I cannot express how sad I am that such a cruel thing happened to you. It might not mean much now,but I am so sorry.

Adults that allow that kind of mess to go on are just as messed up as the children doing the bullying.

Kitty27 said:

I cannot express how sad I am that such a cruel thing happened to you. It might not mean much now,but I am so sorry.

Adults that allow that kind of mess to go on are just as messed up as the children doing the bullying.

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And you wonder about the kids, now grown, who've had an audience of authority for their little performances. I wonder what happened to them? Are they monsters? Do they just revise their memories to grey down these episodes?

These displays of cruelty damage the whole fabric - from the time it happens and then onward as it's left unaddressed.

I'm also so sorry that you had to go through that, cb.

Kitty27 said:

Stories like this break my heart. I have no solid answer save that hate begins at home.

Parents have got to teach their children to understand that their fellow human beings are all worthy of respect.

I don't allow this kind of foolishness from my children. At all.
I do my best to teach them that everyone has the right to be who they are and quite frankly,they don't have the right to judge anyone.

I always ask them how they would feel if someone hated them for being Black,which is something they were born as and have no control over whatsoever.
They always say that's wrong,mean,cannot understand how someone could be so stupid,etc.

I tell them it's the same thing with being gay. Hate is never right and as my Nan used to say,what other folks do in their lives is none of your business.
I hate to be a sourpuss but I am honestly tired that every time these terrible suicides happen,people leap from the woodwork with dedications and whatnot.

WHERE were they when he needed help? They had to have witnessed the harassment he suffered but didn't open their mouths. It's too late now to go on about how they missed him. He's gone and far too soon.

I also admit that it's hard for me to relate to bullying. I was taught that you kicked a bully's ass and repeated as necessary until they got the message. But this is a different age and I guess some kids just don't have it in them to turn it back on their tormentors.

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I agree with absolutely everything you've said here. I also ask my daughter how she would feel if someone made fun of her because she was blonde/blue-eyed/etc.

Growing up, I never heard sexual orientation (or skin-color) mentioned. It wasn't like anyone was trying to ignore it or whatever; it was just that it wasn't important. I had gay friends as a teen (granted it was usually guys and we spent a lot of time talking about boys ). My best friend in highschool was/is a lesbian. Where I lived, no body cared and if someone did think it was ok to harrass someone over that, they usually were the ones who got "harrassed" in the end.

I wasn't taught to hate anything except hate itself. The bullies were the ones who got their butts kicked by the rest of us peons.

CaroGirl said:

Interestingly, I asked my son if he knew Jamie. He said he didn't (they came from different elementary schools and Jamie was a year ahead) but he'd seen him in school and watched him perform with the glee club (I've probably seen him perform too). I asked him why he thought Jamie might do something so drastic. Outright, he said, "Bullying."

Other students, even those who didn't know him, did know he was being picked on by 3 or 4 kids.

If I found out this was happening to my kids, I'd pull them out and home school them so fast their heads would spin. No one should be forced to go anywhere they feel unsafe every day of their lives. It's not right. You can say, "I'll make them change. My kid has a right to go to school." Sure, but they won't change. The kids would just find quieter, more clandestine, ways to torture.

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I totally agree and I would have to try very hard not to deal with it as I was taught by my mother. The urge to tell my kid to put their foot off in their face would be quite strong.

No one deserves to be harassed to the point they kill themselves.

I feel they won't change until they get their asses worn like clothes. People like to be PC and say violence doesn't solve anything. But sometimes,a well executed uppercut works wonders. I know the ones I threw in school did.

Talking,counseling and other solutions will NOT work with some of these mini-sociopaths.Talking to the parents can escalate the situation as these children often learn their behavior from home.

Doing what you suggested might be the only feasible way for a parent to save their child.

Thanks for the kind words. In a perverse way, I think it actually did me good. I learned what kind of person I didn't want to be. Once the physical and emotional scars healed, I grew a thicker skin, became tougher and stronger. I learned to stand up for other kids who were going through the same thing. My anger and hurt ended up being productive.

It doesn't always end that way, though, as this thread shows. I was lucky. So many kids aren't. Bullying someone for any reason is evil, but I can't help but feel that particularly when it comes to race and sexuality, these kids are influenced by the adult world.

If we want kids to stop hurting each other, us adults need to stop giving them the ammunition in the form of our own prejudices.

I'd also be interested to know about how these statistics are stacking up for young people medicated for depression. This young man wasn't finding relief in his prescriptions. I'll try to look it up, but it had been reported that for the individuals who weren't reaching stability with the meds, the suicide rate spiked.

Adolescence in this society is a drama-filled lesson in hurry-up-and-wait. Too easily the average level (which is heavy as it is) of feeling alone or behind or unloved, unworthy, un-_____________ is distorted like a horror movie hallway. They think it will never end.

If this kid was blogging his clear intent, didn't anyone see?

Not in any way to diminish how miserable bullying can make high school, but one of the alarming quotes from the article was a reference to his blog where he expressed "that being gay in high school was so hard - a thousand times harder in real life than on the popular television show, Glee, which he loved."

Everything from crime scene processing to cooking is much, much harder, and - sometimes more importantly - much more boring, in real life than it is on television. Sometimes I think it's the comparison, the contrast between the dramatic and comic representation of life and life itself, with its monotonous routines, that distorts our moods more than anything else.

I'm surprised time and again how often people, especially young people, look to the screen to gauge how they're feelin relative to what the beautiful people enjoy. It's fucking dangerous and, as the parent of a middle-schooler, I don't see enough guidance in separating entertainment from personal yardsticks.

I was bullied from kindergarten right on through high school, to the point that by the time I was in third grade I'd stopped trying to fight back. (Except when I got really pissed off, but then I got the worst of it.) I learned that I was worthless, that no one liked me, that no one ever would like me, that I might as well be dead. I attempted suicide a few times in high school, and finally ended up having a nervous breakdown my senior year. The only reason I wasn't hospitalized was because my parents refused to admit there was anything wrong with me; my dad pretended my problems didn't exist, and my mother was pissed because I was "too much work." They did put me in counseling after my breakdown, but only because my high school guidance counselor threatened to call Child Protective on them.

I'm alive today because my stubbornness won out over my desire to die when I was in high school.

I hate seeing stories like this one, and they're becoming all too common. Both of my daughters have dealt with bullies; that's why when my husband asked us to move to Massachusetts before I married him, I jumped at the chance. It got my kids away from the kids who were bullying them--some of whom were the children of the people who had bullied me. So I would say it definitely is learned behavior.

There has to be a way to stop this. But it will never be easy. Kids learn from their parents, and given how many adults bully co-workers, put down those who are "different", and even bully their kids, I don't see it ending any time soon.

I'm alive today because my stubbornness won out over my desire to die when I was in high school.

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*solidarity fistbump*

Thank goodness for your stubbornness

Crunchy the teachers who witnessed the collar incident should not have been allowed in a school or near children - their own or anyone elses.

As a teacher I have had to deal with bullies and agree with those who have already said it is a learnt behaviour. I base that on some of the parents of bullies that I have met and their attitudes and opinions, many of which a rational human being would find unbelievable.

crunchyblanket said:

(so much so that even the teachers were complicit - one day, some kids brought in a dog's collar and lead, forcibly attached it to my neck and dragged me around the school. I saw several teachers laughing)

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If I saw any of my collegues laughing about something like this, I would punch them in the face. Out with my job and in with justice.

KimJo said:

Kids learn from their parents, and given how many adults bully co-workers, put down those who are "different", and even bully their kids, I don't see it ending any time soon.

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Sad, but true. Unfortunately, bullying doesn't end when school does.

Another person bullied all through school. Fighting back wasn't an option. Outnumbered at least four to one, often ten to one. Defending myself meant getting piled on and hurt even worse.

Learned not to go to the authorities. They didn't care. I was 'odd' and so not worthy of protection.

Mom tried to help but didn't know how. Dad thought being beaten was a good learning experience.

I often wondered how I would have turned out if I'd been given a chance. Shrugs. C'est la vie.

One thing I've learned over the years is bullies never stop bullying. When they become 'adults' they just learn to use different tools. I had a really nasty experience with one a couple of years ago.

This story is heartbreaking. My son is 14, so it hits extra close to home. From the point of view of a parent, my husband and I have always taught him to respect everyone. As a result, he's kind and cares about the world. On the other hand, we've also taught him to be strong and not back down from the bullies. Once they see a hint of weakness, they're relentless because of their cowardly nature.

I've always thought if my son were to experience bullying, I'd pull him out of school as CaroGirl said and homeschool. I'd also be sitting camped out in the principal's office.

As an aside, my husband was severely bullied in junior high. Of his gang of oppressors, one was killed in a car accident, one ended up in and out of jail, and one went on to become a city councilman who resigned because of graft.

Parents have to teach their children to respect others and not hate.

Kitty27 said:

I also admit that it's hard for me to relate to bullying. I was taught that you kicked a bully's ass and repeated as necessary until they got the message. But this is a different age and I guess some kids just don't have it in them to turn it back on their tormentors.

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I think part of it is probably specific to this kind of situation, too. You were taught to do something, and I think a lot of kids can get some advice and support from their parents, friends, and other loved ones. Doesn't mean that's always the case, or that it'll always help, but it's something.

But how many gay kids don't feel like they can tell their parents about the bullying because they're in the closet? How many have homophobic parents who reinforce the negative messages the bullies are sending? And how many parents out there mean well, but can't really relate to the situation or how difficult things can been for young queer people? I think it can be harder to stand up to your tormentors when you're not getting any support or even any message that the tormentors are wrong.

crunchyblanket said:

*solidarity fistbump*

Thank goodness for your stubbornness

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*Bumpin' back*

I posted this in the wrong thread, but here it is!

It's only at times like this that I realize how incredibly lucky I was to have a D&D club made up of close knit friends.