I’m saddened by the attempted suicide by an 8 year old victim of bullying in Houston and the suicide of a young girl who suffered at the hands of bullies in South Hadley. I’ve shared some thoughts on bullying in a Little Bill book titled “Meanest Thing to Say” and an episode of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids titled “The Bully”. What are your thoughts on bullying?
For informational purposes, here are a few links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0axbtgnUJo – Fat Albert The Bully Song
http://www.amazon.com/Meanest-Thing-Say-Beginning-Readers/dp/0590956167 – The Meanest Thing To Say: A Little Bill
And as for bullying, it needs to stop. If you’re in the life of a child, teach them that they’re special for being them.
bullys are victims of low self esteem that find some kind of joy by causing others pain.A bully is something like the stearotype of a man tuff on the outside but on the inside there hurting but youll never know
I don’t think the harmful effects of bullying are truly magnified enough in society. The short-term damage is sometimes catastrophic, as in the case you mentioned. I also think the subconscious damage we carry with us into adulthood is pretty harmful as well. It is actually incredible how much of my habit and mentality is defined by past experiences, and even today at 24 years old working on a master’s degree in another country, far removed from the bullying of junior high, I sometimes catch myself feeling like I am no better than the bullying kids in year 7 said I was…very compelling stuff, Bill. Very sad as well. When I have my own kids someday, I am determined to instill in them self-confidence and compassion for those around them!
Bullying is bad. It happens at ALL ages, not just with children. We live in a win-lose society. Bullying is a product of that. It needs to GO!
As a person with a vision impairment, I was a victim of severe bullying in my youth. My memories are that the people in charge of my safety while in school dismissed the actions of my bullying peers as a result of my not having proper social skills. I never understood how the inability to stop a punch headed for your face indicated a lack of social skills. I thought of suicide many times in my youth as a way to escape the physical pain of life as I saw it. Since I grew out of this predicament, I never thought of suicide again. I am surprised and saddened that 40 years later this issue still plagues the youth of this country.
The trauma and isolation of being bullied never leaves you. I am a 40 year old adult who was bullied and beat up daily by three popular girls in my school. The fear I had when being chased home will never leave me. They tormented me constantly through most of elementary and junior high school. They were popular girls and would encourage swarms of students to circle me chanting, “fight, fight”. It was horrible. I still do not have many female friends. And I quit school.
I was bullied a lot in my school years, and can sympathize with these two kids. My upbringing taught me that my self-worth wasn’t dictated by others, and that got me through. It’s what I try to teach my students now as well.
I’d appreciate any resources or ideas that are shared here.
As a parent of a 4 and an 8 year old, the reports of these young children attempting suicide is really alarming. I would like to think that cruelty to peers is not a universal phenomenon, but I remember being bullied in grade school and high school. For teenagers and pre-teens especially, peer pressure is the single most significant driver of behavior and self-esteem, trumping even parental and sibling relationships. That’s a frightening concept when you look at how pervasive bullying really is.
My daughter’s school has a focus program active on bullying. They’ve made large banners to hang up in the halls, reminding children to report bullying to adults at school and at home and to intervene whenever they see another student being bullied. I would like to think that with this kind of awareness at the administrative level that any incidents at the school would not be ignored by the teachers and staff as they seem to have been in some of the cases that have made the news.
I think some of the results of bullying can be helped by parental involvement with their children, by helping them to build self-esteem, supporting them in their chosen activities and hobbies, helping them to find things that they like to do, which will ideally give them a friend base of like-minded kids. Even so, the loud voice of the bully often overrides the voices of loving parents and friends. Its hard as a parent to know when to intervene, but I hope that I will be sensitive enough to my children to see when my help is needed.
This is indeed very sad Let’s for a moment zoom out and instead of just looking at how wrong bullying is, let’s examine the bullied. Every time a parent tells their child, “Don’t fight back; talk it out” they, consequently, are telling their child not to value themselves; the parent is saying, “You are not worth fighting for” and kids DO get that, no matter what age. Being someone who was bullied, I know that talking never fixed the problem but a quick smack at the back of that boys neck (who thought it was funny to call me fat and push me) did. The bullying stopped because that boy knew if he messed with me, he’d have a challenge.
I’ve known many parents who have gone to the school about a bully that was bullying their child and the school did nothing to the bully; however, when the kid being bullied defended him/her self against the bully they were told that was wrong. Why? because unfortunately in this society the good get punished and the bad get told they just need to be understood. What about the kid who’s getting pounded (verbally, physically, or both) everyday? Don’t they deserve to be understood?
Bullying will never go away because there will always, unfortunately, be bad parents who have kids just because they can and not because they want them. What can stop, is kids being devalued because they stood up for themselves and what’s right.
That’s my two cents (or two and a half cents) Mr. Cosby
I was always one of the biggest and tallest kids in class, but I never used my size to bully people. In fact, I was often bullied myself because of my docile nature. But I persevered because of good parenting. My parents brought me up in church where I learned that I should turn the other cheek. I also knew that if I got into a fight at school or bullied someone my mother would tear my tail up (then there’s that famous line that wrenches every kid’s heart: “We are disappointed in you”). My parents loved me and taught me to love others. I always felt a little sorry for those bullies. And at the end of the day I knew I had a loving home to escape to.
I realize not every kid has the same luxury (it’s sad to be able to call a loving home a “luxury”), but parents and caretakers need to make their homes into loving ones. Then children wouldn’t need to escape because their wouldn’t BE any bullies. I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I truly feel bullies bully people because they’re not getting what they need at home: love, attention, affection, discipline, etc. The root of the bully problem is, I feel, with the bullies’ parents/caretakers.
It’s sad that people could allow an 8-year-old child to be bullied and humiliated to the point where they felt that removal from this world was the only solution. There had to have been signs. Parents: GET INVOLVED in your children’s lives! Mine stayed involved in mine and I am eternally grateful.
My heart goes out to those two families.
Chase Terry, 25
Greenville, North Carolina
@BillCosby The behavior of kids/teens we bear witness to in the media is nothing new. Years ago, my daughter was subject to taunts and bullies. Girls rode ‘her bus’ home from school with intentions on ‘jumping her after school.’ To my horror, I went to see why she wasn’t coming in the door at the usual time to find a group of girls yelling from down the street and my child gathering her belongings sprawled about the street. Her friends/neighboorhood kids laughed and acted as if they had never know her. My pain as a parent, for my child was indescribable. She is a non-confrontational person to this day. I was preparing to home school if need be to rectify the situation. That situation resolved itself with a change in schools.
What is new are the social networking, far-reaching, unrelenting taunts and venom. Not so long ago, a bully could be avoided, somewhat. Nowadays, there is no escape. The INVISIBLE bullies follow these kids into the home. There may be one or numbers unimaginable nipping at the heels of the ‘target’. Like popcorn, taking turns ‘tormenting & heckling’, they rally. I attribute the behavior to parenting or lack of parenting. To take pleasure in the intensionly inflicted pain of another is worthy of a diagnosis and a history lesson.
Schools need to be more accountable for kids in their ‘mandatory’ care.
I remember Fat Albert. I haven’t had a reason to read the “Little Bill” (I’m so old that one of the first books I paid for with my own money was “Cool Cos: The Story of Bill Cosby”), but I don’t think reading it would change my comments very much.
The problem with bullying ISN’T just a problem between kids. Neither the kids doing the bullying nor the ones being bullied live in a vacuum.
It’s adults who send the message, “You’re so stupid, that when you fail a test we give your school a failing grade and fire your teacher” when they talk about school reform.
It’s adults who call people who look different nasty names or kill people they disagree with over political issues.
A bully learns everything they do by copying the behavior of adults and everything that makes a child feel bad about themselves only matters because the same messages comes from the adults around them.
The bullying among adults have to stop, if there’s going to be any hope of it stopping among kids. If we hope that kids will feel better about themselves, we also need to recognize how we all (children AND adults, alike) are special and valuable.
One of my personal favorite ways this sentiment has been expressed is Dr. King’s Drum Major Instinct.
When I was little, I had ‘Buck teeth” and a girl in the neighborhood teased me INCESSANTLY. Ii was like she was possessed with doing it. Then she got the others to join in and it hurt badly and I felt like I didn’t fit in, like an outsider. To this days, it hurts, though I attempt to forgive her. I saw her father a few years ago and said to him, why as ______ so mean to me? His reply was _______ had issues of her own. Well, issues or not it hurt and still does.
In the news here in Canada : the story of a girl who was driven to hang herself by a group of persistent bullies who picked on her because she was a recent immigrant from Ireland and one of the popular boys had taken a liking to her, thus inspiring furious jealousy in the other popular girls, who hounded, harassed, bullied, browbeat, and otherwise tortured this poor girl so relentlessly that she felt like the only way out was through her own untimely death.
I was a victim of bullying as a child. I spent much of my school years terrified of my fellow students. I had no friends. My obesity, social awkwardness, and academic brilliance made me a natural target. As a result, I had a very lonely and isolated childhood.
Now, as an adult, I suffer from clinical depression which makes life very difficult for me even on the good days.
Bullying kills. We’ve accepted it as a fact of life for far too long. Teachers and administrators just shrug and says “Oh, there’s always some kid who gets picked on. It’s the natural order of things. ” Myself, I think some teachers actually agree with the bullies. You deserve to get tortured for being weird.
But we can end this cycle of horror. We have to face the issue head on and declare that children have the same right to live safe lives without fear and torture as adults.
There is no special category called “bullying” which is somehow acceptable and normal and natural. Crime is crime, and should be treated as such. If an adult takes another adult’s books and dumps them in a mud puddle, they get arrested. What insanity is it that makes us think it’s OK for children to do it?
People have rights. Even children. Even the weird kids who nobody likes because they’re weird and irritating and smell funny.
And that’s really all there is to it.
Michael “Megaword Man” Bertrand
http://millionwordyear.com/megaword2010
Bullying is a symptom of a society that is intolerant of people who might be different from themselves which stems from fear which is a manifestation of the bullies own insecurity. I moved to Canada at age 12 from a small close knit town called Little London, just 10 km from Negril in Jamaica. I was shocked at how intolerant the young people were.. and how they seem to lack a certain degree of empathy.. Empathy is a very powerful quality that seems to be at a low level or almost completely missing from the soul/lives of a significant portion of North American society.. You see it is only empathy that can allow you to relate to the feelings of another person… and it is this relation/relationship that can prevent this kind of destructive behavior. I do believe that this cold attitude to others is passed down from Adults to children (it is learned at home and in the streets from adults). So much anger, so much pain in the lives of these abusers. Ultimately, I believe that parents if they exists should be investigated for the behavior of their juveniles and if there is a pattern of neglect then they should be charged and made to pay…
I hate bullying. I too am saddened and angered by those who take part in bullying tactics. The criminal students who stalked poor Phoebe Prince to her grave were unrepentant and mocked her even in death.
The only time they showed any emotion was when they were taken into custody and booked on felonies. Bullies are demons in human form. Or maybe they are human beings who hate life so much that they have to crush it out of others.
But not all bullies stay that way.
I am glad to say that I was given an opportunity to meet with a man face to face who was my chief tormentor in High School.
It astonished him that I wanted to see and talk with him after all those years that he was mean to me.
I explained to him the concept of growth and the concept of forgiveness.
We sat down, had a couple of drinks and he said, “I’m sorry.”
I shook his hand and said, “You are forgiven.”
He is now a friend.
NPR shared a story this weekend of a Mom and two kids who had bully problems. To paraphrase, she informed the principal at school that her child was going to “fight back” as nothing else was working. Her child did, and the bullying stopped.
Her take was that passive resistance didn’t work, and that sometimes one needs to (defensively) fight back. This mirrors my own experience. I was bullied for years until I snapped one day and fought back. I have never had a physical altercation since then.
It seems bullies can spot an easy target.
Bullying is a way for a kid or adult to get attention. When nothing else works, hurt somebody. It simply shows our kids hurt for attention and are not finding it at home or school. As Evan said: “They’re special”. Let’s love our kids until they ooze love for others. Let’s love other’s kids when given the opportunity. Nobody needs to hurt when there are so many caring folks around.
It isn’t “Hurt people, hurt people.” That would make the first two words a direct address and the second two a command. It must be written “Hurt people hurt people.”
The meaning is very powerful and concise, though.
Regarding the topic of bullying, I tend to agree with the animals in The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White. Bullying is within mankind and must be educated out.
I had a fairly lengthy discussion with some friends about something that I think figures in a bit. The anti-bullying messages given at many schools today are good – and I certainly do not downplay that at all. However, there’s a mixed message given when students are told that they have self-worth, and to report bullies, etc. – but if the bully gets physical, and begins a physical attack on the victim, the victim is taught NOT to fight back. On one hand, stand up for yourself, report the bully, don’t let them get away with it – but then on the other (when things turn physical), don’t fight back, take the beating — because in many local districts here, it doesn’t matter that the bully started it, both parties will be ticketed and held guilty as far as the school is concerned.
So how are students supposed to take the schools’ message of having self-worth and speaking up seriously, when it is completely countered by their message to victims of physical assault? Many won’t. They’ll see that the schools’ policies seem to say they care until you are physically attacked, but then if you strike back, you’re *just as guilty as the attacker*.
Which only feeds into the “I deserve this, I’m not worth honoring” mentality that bullies try to drive into their victims.
Heh. figured out why I couldn’t comment- anyhow.
Yes, let’s STOP bullying, as adults we need to teach kids that taking out any problems they have on others is not OK, and that they do need to have a responsibility for making the world a better place for people other than themselves.
I was bullied. I was bullied incessantly at every school I attended, public or private. If I tried to fight back verbally or physically I always seemed to be the one caught, when I tried to “ignore it so they’d go away” they redoubled their efforts (amazing how many people actually think ‘if you ignore them they will go away’ will work).
Teachers told me I was making it up even after witnessing things. I got written up as a ‘disturbance’ to the class when other students threw spit wads and erasers at me, when I began to suffer serious depression, anxiety attacks, and started being regularly sick with no sign of virus or bacteria, I was punished by school administrators for ‘seeking attention’ and ‘trying to skip classes’.
And I did try to skip classes, and even took my GED to avoid high school entirely.
And until about high school age, my parents, otherwise loving, good parents, believed the administrators and teachers, not me- because they couldn’t comprehend teachers ignoring bullying or lying about it, or blaming the victim for ‘deserving it’ because I was ‘too sensitive’ and ‘didn’t fit in’.
If you know a child who dreads school, who has turned uncommunicative, who spends most of their time as alone as they can manage it, you may be seeing a child who’s being bullied. And they don’t DESERVE it, no matter how ‘weird’ they are in what they do or like, or how they look. If they are crying and in pain it is NOT that they are ‘too sensitive’ and telling them to just toughen up is not going to get through to them- bullies make a person feel flawed, and saying things to make the victim feel they are to blame or broken or being ‘silly’ just is more bullying from another source.
If you know a victim of bullying, child or even adult, you need to come to their side, and tell them they *don’t* deserve it.
And if you see bullying behavior from someone– call them out on it, if you’re an administrator or manager or teacher, write them up for it. Don’t let them think that it’s an acceptable part of life.
Bullying at school, particularly when acute and ongoing, never leaves you.
At 42 years of age I still wake up sweating at the memory of being backed into a wall by a dozen teens and beaten, only to look up during the ordeal and see a teacher standing there watching while he ate his lunch. One of many horrific encounters.
Teachers and administrators (here in Australia) are more tied up than ever by a bureaucracy that insists they look to the ‘healing’ of the bully rather than the protection of the victim.
When one of my kids ran afoul of a bully, the only thing that worked was facing up to the principal and making him understand that my child would not have a problem again or the police & lawyers would be called. It is amazing how well the school worked at fixing the problem after that.
No surprise that kids are taking or attempting to take their lives. No surprise either when I hear that a parent has been arrested for taking more direct action to protect their kids.
Solutions should be weighted toward helping the victims first, THEN working with the bully.
Mr. Cosby,
Thank you for getting me fired up and mad as hell about my child being bullied. I am now setting up an anti-bullying campaign for the school. I am glad school is out. The last few weeks fo school were awful for my daughter.
I am looking for a guest speaker for our kick-off rally and wondered if you’d be interested? I promise you an amazing time at our school.