todays poll 4/12 - a thought

luvbug00 wrote: just wanted to throw out there that my option wasn't on there. I was bullied but then found out how to bully back so I was on both sides of the fence. just wanted to throw that out there because i didn't see that both sides option offered. Just a thought...

cameragirl21 replied: i thought about adding that option but that was really what the second option was for...that a person was bullied but it wasn't so bad that s/he didn't want to go to school, meaning s/he either wasn't bothered by it or found a way to counteract it.
i think this poll will make a lot of people realize they aren't alone and that the bullying did not preclude them from moving on in life and being successful.

Nina J replied: Heres my thoughts on todays poll, just because I thought I'd throw it in somewhere and here seems fitting. I was bullied at school very badly, by students and a teacher. This particular teacher would let other kids bully me in her class and just let it slide. No physical bullying, just snide comments. She would know that other kids were saying mean things to me and she'd just ignore it. She never bullied me in class in front of other kids, but she'd call me into the classroom during recess and just be a down right turd to me I was only 8 or 9. But I rarely tell people I was bullied, if someone ever asks I usually say no. I think my experiences are the reason that I'm so cold towards people, until I get to know them a little bit I put my guard up. I often get comments from people who've gotton to know me and they tell me they were frightened of me when they first met me because I seemed so mean So, I don't really have a point with this. I just thought I'd share my bullying experiences

Also, it's true when people say that bullying affects you for your whole life. It's been a very long time, but I still remember how upset I was when me and my friend asked a group of girls if we could play with them. They said "Shar can, but Nina can't"...it seems so insignificant but I've never forgotton. Although the good part about it is my friend Shar said she didn't want to play with them if I wasn't allowed too

ZandersMama replied: I was bullied horribly. I got glasses and hearing aids in grade 6, and it was horrible then until I graduated.

The worst was my older brother ( who I no longer have a relationship with0 started it all. He had the kids calling me four eyed deaf head and GST. I will not post what GST means, but it was very degrading, if anyone wants to know, pm me. THats what hurt the most, that it was my brother that began it all, and it escalated from there, and never stopped until I graduated.

cameragirl21 replied:
if you don't mind my asking, why didn't your mom do anything about it?
i can't imagine i'd ever allow any of my children to bully another of my children and of course if i could help it, i'd not want my children bullying anyone at all.
of course i'm an only child so i know i don't totally understand these things.
my friend has an older brother with whom she was always fighting when they were kids. they get along fine now but as kids, although they loved playing together and did love each other for the most part it always led to fighting and he was older and bigger so she always got it from him.
anyway, one day they were fighting as they were walking along somewhere with their mother and he pushed her backwards and she fell right into a cactus...her whole backside was covered in needles and she said her mom's reaction was to quickly remove the needles but that she didn't punish her brother because by the time the needles were removed from her butt the moment was over and the punishment would no longer make sense AND because her mother was used to them fighting all the time.

if those were my kids i can't imagine i wouldn't react to my son pushing his younger sister into a freaking cactus!!!!!
but then again, since i'm an only child, maybe i don't get it....

cameragirl21 replied:
Nina, if you don't mind my asking, why do you think you were bullied?
i always wonder what makes a person seem like a target to other children.
i can tell you in my case for instance, my family came from the USSR at a time when everyone hated the "commies".
so kids would ask me if my parents were commies and if the US went to war against Russia if my parents would fight for the Russian side and stuff like that. i think in that sense i was an easy target but tbh i can't say it was an issue for me.

PrairieMom replied: I was bullied too. Badly. In 5th grade I was outcast by my core group of friends for some reason, and in our school system the children are really clich-y, and you stay with the same kids pretty much through graduation, so it was highschool before I really got good friends again. The kids would get off the buss at my stop and shove me around and chase me home. The would hit me on the head with empty plastic soda bottles and put duct tape in my hair more than once. It was horrible. In HS I had a group of girls that had it in for me too. They would shove me in the halls and in the parking lot. I used to wait out side the principals office for an hour after school ( it was safe there ) with them circling me like sharks until they would get bored and go home. It was horrible. My father blamed me for it, saying that people don't want to hurt you for no reason, I must have done something to them to ask for it. "

In the end tho, it made me a stronger person. I wouldn't change a thing. Those girls taught me a valuable lesson about how to treat people, and how my actions can affect how others feel.

Nina J replied: I was a very shy kid, and I think that made me an easy target. When I was that age, I didn't have alot of friends. I also missed alot of school during my first year because of an injury, I think I missed an important part of school then because thats when everybody really bonded. So when I went back to school I was the outsider because nobody had gotton the chance to know me. They were all interested in me for a day because of my injury but then that got old quickly. Those are my best guesses, but I really don't know why I was bullied. They never had a reason to hate me, they just did.

cameragirl21 replied:
oh, i want to stress that i was not at all implying that they had any reason to hate your or anything like that, that's not what i meant at all. i am just wondering why kids bully.
i can tell you i used to babysit for twin girls (fraternal) who had little in common and so for this reason, they always fought, were very much in competition and they rarely stuck up for each other, i found myself constantly prying them apart. anyway, when they were about 11, they went to a bday party and one, Jessica, was very popular with both girls and boys, she was just very well liked all the time while the other, Melissa wasn't as popular but always had a small handful of close friends whereas Jessica had a new BFF every week.
anyway, i find out the next day that Melissa had been crying at the bday party because the boys were bullying Jessica and trying to put salt in her eyes (this party was at some restaurant or pizza place or something)!
And what's worse, the bday girl's parents didn't even do anything about it, they were upset with the twins because Jessica's debacle took all the attention away from her precious bday girl daughter and Melissa's sobfest made it worse.
once i heard Mel had been crying, i knew something must have really been wrong because i've never seen her stick up for Jessica, ever, what i always heard from her was, "i hate her, i've always hated her, and i'll always hate her!!!!" (in reference to her sister).
anyway, not only did the bday girl's parents not do anything to protect Jessica, they had the nerve to call the twins' mother and complain that her twins ruined her daughter's bday party. i remember having this convo with the mother who was embarrassed that her kids caused a scene and i just blew up, i was like, "what do you mean they caused a scene, your daughter was being bullied by a bunch of BOYS and the bday girl's mom didn't even do anything about it...she's SO lucky it wasn't me who came to pick up the kids from the party because i would have let her have it had i known about this!"
i can't believe the nonchalance of some parents, i was just horrified!

kit_kats_mom replied: I still have issues with the bullies from school. I actually still look them up on myspace to see if they've gotten fat and ugly (most have) and if they are losers now.

I think I know why I was a target. It started when I was very young and since we were poor, we usually lived in areas where I was the minority and we moved every year which kept me from being able to make good friends. That, combined with the fact that I was taller than everyone, had a big nose, legs up to my earlobes and I was really smart (teachers pet), all led to me being a target. I was also painfully shy and really preferred adult company to other kids.

In Indiana I was the only white kid in an inner city school filled with African Americans. In Hawaii, I was one of only a few whites out in the country and the Samoans would tease me mercilessly. Once they even beat me up and stole my clothes so I had to walk home naked after school. In San Fran, I was one of only a few whites in a poor Hispanic district and the gang-stresses had a blast torturing me & beating me up. Remember the shower scene in Karrie? Yep, they re-enacted that with your’s truly during gym class. Then in Florida, I was in a predominantly black school where the only Caucasians came from the country and were basically rednecks. Those country kids really gave me a hard time and are ultimately the reason I quit school. I was literally being threatened every day on and off campus. I'd go to a teen night in town and get drinks poured on my head or fliers made up with centerfolds and my face pasted on, vicious rumors were spread about me, my hair was cut off on the bus by a student etc. I really do blame a lot of that for my existing intimacy and self image issues.

I can see that K may be bullied just because of her size and temperament and it infuriates me. I will not have by daughter brought down by a bunch of ignorant sleeze bags. If I have to home school her until college to protect her goodness, I will. Teasing is one thing but the terrorizing is another thing entirely. Cruel IMO.

Ok, I'm done venting now.

TheOaf66 replied: well lets see Junior High and Freshman year were horrible, I got bullied and ridiculed a lot. I had grown to be about 6'4 and was skinny as a rail, with glasses blah blah blah, no muscle tone, uncoordinated etc. The summer after my freshman year I started lifting weights, got contacts, played football etc...when I came back my sophomore year it only took about an hour for some jackass to try and start the game back up again and I whooped his a$$. That felt good and then I didn't get messed with nearly as often, I started playing football for the team and every so often there was some cowboy who thought I was still the little weakling I used to be and had to be taught a lesson. I have to say my confidence really shot up after that and I learned to used intimidation to my favor but I never became a bully myself and I will make sure my boys are not either.

Nina J replied:
I never looked them up on myspace but I have crossed paths with my former bullies and I immediatly stare at them and try to decipher as much as I can about there life from their appearance or who they're with.

ZandersMama replied:
My mother still to this day does not admit he has don eanything wrong, she didnt see alot of it, we went to the same school.

luvmykids replied:
I think it can be more than the standard reasons, like appearance or being poor too, Kylie at age 5 has sadly dealt with the beginnings of bullying and I think it's because she wears her heart on her sleeve. None of the "typical" things that kids get bullied for apply to her but she's picked on anyway. For kids that have the ability to bully, there is nothing better than a soft hearted, nice kid who they KNOW won't do anything about it.

The girls who picked on me were just plain mean and nasty and would pick on anybody who would take it....I didn't have glasses, wasn't fat, wasn't poor, etc etc but I was just an obvious target because low self esteem shows even at an early age. I had the puppy dog eyes pleading "Will you be my friend?" and that, for some bullies, is enough to make a kid a target.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: I was bullied quite a bit when I was younger. I was chunky, I had bottom-of-a-coke-bottle-thick glasses, my hair is very curly, and back then it was cut pretty short...and when it grew...it grew into a big ole nasty afro...which my mother insisted on making me wear...because she thought it was cute... Me moved around a bit because my dad was in the military, so by the time I had a good friend or two, oops, time to move.

When I moved to Ottawa after my parents split up, I was still a little chunky, still had the bottle-bottoms, still had the hair... my mom was on welfare, so we had a lot of thrift store clothes, and nothing else brandname...although we lived with my grandparents AND my mom, so we never lacked of anything, we just didn't get the extra stuff most kids get. I also loved to read.... and I was in the gifted programs...

On the school bus, I used to get gum and spitballs in my hair, I've had my glasses taken off my face and tossed around, they got broken once by one of the kids. My mom had the NERVE to tell me that whatever I'd done to #@$@ them off wasn't worth the cost of the repairs to my glasses. I've had my face slammed into a patch of ice, I had a black and blue face for 2 weeks. I've been kicked, hair pulled, shoved around into those mini closets with the hooks, the hook cracked my skull. I've had food thrown at me in cafeterias, with comments like "here - i have extras, maybe your fat a$$ can use it, since your mama's too poor to buy you decent stuff". I never had the brandname lunchables...but I always had a decent lunch. Sandwiches or leftovers, fruit, veggies, cheese, yogurt, some cupcakes or muffins.... home made lunches can be the best. Just because my mom was poor didn't mean my grandparents were...

It didn't help that I was almost 2 years younger than everyone else, because of the schooling I skipped.

So after all that crap, I got to grade 9...and although a lot of the same kids were there, there were a whole bunch of new ones... and so I made good friends pretty quickly, whom most of them I've kept up to now. By that time, I'd had episodes with eating disorders, I'd lost some weight (about 30 pounds over the summer), my hair was down to my butt, and my mother finally allowed me to wear contacts. When I tan, I tan very dark... a lot of people who I'd gone to school with only a few months earlier, didn't recognize me. They assumed I was just another kid. When they figured it out, they teased me with names like mutt, halfbreed among the others they called me before.... they said stuff like that before because of my hair too... I shrugged it off, whatever. Actually, I pretty much always shrugged it off... but they teased one of my best friends one, and I went apesh** on their hiney. So Because I gave a fat lip to a popular girl the morning of the school pictures... I didn't get bothered ever again. muah ha ha ha

Now, most of them are posting on myspace or facebook or whatever, saying they're having their first baby, or they're engaged or whatever... those who talk to me now are all like - OMG, you're married? You have THREE KIDS? OMG! Like as if I'm some sort of freak who was never going to have someone love me. I got there first, you ape. Booya.