Tracy Press

gosh, i dont really know how to go about this. i want to separate what i am going to say with what DOE said; i do not want to disrespect her at all.

that being said...bullying will never stop. in an ideal world, everyone is equal and 12 year olds act like mature adults. however, we are not living in an ideal world. my nephew was horsing around with his cousin the other day, him being 15, her being 9. he accidentally knocked out her tooth (which was already loose). she is screaming bloody murder, he is laughing hysterically. i had to yell at him to stop laughing at her and he didnt know what to do, he couldnt help it. he is immature, as are most kids his age. there are laws protecting those under 18 for the sole reason that they are not able to comprehend what a rational adult is supposed to. soooo, why should we expect kids to be mature enough to understand the long term effects of bullying? parents and adults can only talk to their kids and try to explain the rights and wrongs of the world. as for the ones being bullied, if they are not able to talk with their parents or other authority figures, i suspect that there are more problems in their life other than being bullied. i know that a lot of kids are not strong enough to go forth and protect themselves, like i said, they are immature. the only good end to this as far as i can tell is that parents need to communicate more effectively with their children. as for the VT shooter, i read an article where his grandfather stated he was diagnosed as autistic. while he was bullied, like DOE, bullying was not the only contributing factor to his anger.

bc76 - You are right parents can only talk to their children and try to educate them about the harm teasing and bullying causes. Parents sadly are the ones who first need to be educated because children tend to learn their behavior from their parents. They learn racism from them also as was pointed out in another fourm thread. Just today I had to get onto a neighbor child for animal cruelty and was yelled at by his grandmother who gave him the BB gun in question for stopping him from shooting at a young rabbit with it. She said he didn't know nothing about animal cruelty because he was too young to know. Bull! At 9 years old he is plenty old enough to know hurting an animal is cruel and if he does not know then it is long past time he was taught and I told her so. No child should be given a BB gun if they do not understand that and even if they do they should not be using it unsupervised as he was.
Bottom line any form of cruelty be it physical or emotional is wrong. Children have to be taught this by their parents or guardians and if they cannot be responsible enough to do so then maybe we need to reopen the debate about schools having classes on morals and values. I don't feel our schools should do the parenting in our society but if the parents will not then somebody has to or we will continue to see more young people harming others as the young man in Virginia did so recently. Maybe we need a dual class for parents and their children that both must attend if their children are teasing, bullying, harrassing or abusing others. A sort of three stikes and they have to go rule. Maybe if they are caught early enough we can begin to undo the harm such behavior is causing our society.
We may not be able to change everyone into decent human beings but we have to start trying. We have to try to make our world a better place. We have to evolve beyond our more animalistic behaviors if we can.
As you said Cho's problem was not only the bullying. Obviously he had other underlying problems. Many who are teased do have underlying problems of some sort. That is usually why they are teased, because they are different in some way. Knowing something of the Korean culture I feel badly for his family, they probably did the best they could. In a perfect world had he not been teased maybe he would have led a quiet life and he and all of his victims would have died of old age.<br><br>Post edited by: Kathy, at: 2007/04/27 00:40

kathy...well said. can you imagine how it would be if parents were held responsible for everything their kids did? for example...kid acts up at school, say a fight, the parent would then have to attend a class or pay a fine. i grew up on a military base and the officials there made it clear that if your kids act up, the parent will be held responsible. after so many instances, the family would have to move off of the base. sounds like a good plan for tracy.

My brother was in the military so I do remember him mentioning those rules. Actually as parents we are responsible for what our children do. The problem is too often parents are not held responsible for their children's actions by whatever entity is in charge, such as a school. When this happens over and over situations can and will get out of hand.

In thinking of the issue of teasing I'm reminded of that song sung by Mark Wills and also Brad Paisley and written by Allen Shamblin &amp; Steve Seskin, called
&quot;Don't Laugh at Me.&quot; The lyrics are so powerful. I cried the first time I heard it.

Below is just part of the song:

I'm a little boy with glasses, the one they call a geek
a little girl who never smiles cuz I got braces on my teeth
and I know how it feels to cry myself to sleep

Don't laugh at me, don't call me names
Don't get your pleasure from my pain
In God's eyes we're all the same
some day we'll all have perfect Wings
Don't laugh at me<br><br>Post edited by: Kathy, at: 2007/05/02 20:34

The schools can only do so much. I think the parents are the only ones who can stop there kids from being punks.If a child is suspended for graffiti or vandlism have the parent or parents help clean up befor the kid is let back into school. If a kid is being a bully, make the parents be there when he or she has to apologise befor going back to school.
Maybe we need to start thinking more about the rights of the victim than the little punks.

lulz