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9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide
Raul654 writes "Massachusetts teenager Phoebe Prince committed suicide on January 14. After her death, it was revealed that she had been the target of cyberbullying for months (and that her teachers were aware of it and did nothing). Today, nine of her classmates were indicted on charges including harassment, stalking, civil rights violations, and statutory rape. Prince's suicide echoes the earlier case of Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being cyberbullied by a classmate's mother."
The authorities have made it plain by their actions that there's no way to get justice and stay alive. This is just going to make suicide look like a more attractive option to targets of bullying.
The problem also runs deeper than the conduct of the high school authorities. What are the odds that the conscienceless perpetrators didn't present any warning signs in grade school and middle school?
People acting like assholes happens for actual reasons. Don't wave away the effort of figuring it out. That will just make you less able to cope.
Want insight? Here's a great starter: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200910/big-bad-bully
You can look a little further and look for why you get spineless teachers and spineless administrators. Those with spine tend to get prosecuted when they attempt disciplinary actions by overzealous parents that most of the time won't do their part in their children's education, leaving all the burden to school.
Interesting paradox, isn't it?
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
But it won't be without a comprehensive solution. Simply kicking the bad kids out of school doesn't help, it requires the action of the parents as well, but frequently the parents have the "not my kid" or "it's not a big deal" attitude. And once you have to get the cops involved it's gone too far.
A big part of the problem is that the rewards for being a bully are simply too great, vs. any punishment a school can hand out.
On the other hand there is a fuzzy line between mostly harmless teasing (which learning to deal with builds character) and bullying, although in this case it was clearly so far over the line that there is no question.
What we don't need is yet another zero tolerance policy. As I stated above, there needs to be a comprehensive solution where the bad kids are held accountable in a material way, and the parents of the bad kids are likewise held responsible. At the same time, the victims need to be to learn that the bullies just don't matter. Unfortunately, society rewards the "cool" kids and punishes the dorks.
Probably the best current solution is teaching your kids how to beat the living shit out of a bully and to deal with the repercussions of that action.
I didn't have to deal with this too much when I was in school, probably had something to do with being 6'2" / 160 in 8th grade. It seems to me that most bullies grow up to be extroverted assholes selling cars - just desserts.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
The other unfortunate thing is that parent of so-called popular kids think that this kind of behavior is acceptable. Equally unfortunate is that unpopular kids do not feel empowered to do something to solve the mean-kid problem, up to talking to the ones parents. Tell them what is happening, and ask for help. Since their is a cyber element, that is documentation. Show it, report it. If administration want to protect the popular kids, escalate. For instance, I recall in elementary there were a couple kids who harassed everyone, the stupid 5th grade teacher could not believe that these christians could do this. By the end of the year it became obvious that these kids were playing her. This is almost a similar simplistic case in which adults clearly have documentation, but, clearly, the parents of the criminals refuse to do anything about it. Parent should have access to their kids communications, and failure to monitor and stop criminal activity makes them accomplices.
Kids do need to figure out how to interact with peers. However, when we as adults are victims of a crime, we do not usually solve the problems ourselves. We call in help. We do need to teach our kids to the same, and when there is documentation like a twitter message, to show in, and force adults to act on it. This is not snitching, this is civilized behavior. We see this with the current crop of right wing wackos. A video on you tube threatening and elected official has landed someone in jail. Kids need to learn this lesson as well, before they actual take the it to the level of physical assault.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
A couple of kids on the school bus decided they had it in for me. It was pretty constant physical harassment, 45 minutes each way, 5 days a week.
I was only 11 at the time and had no ability to deal with this on any level. I came home in tears every day. My mom called the school; my mom called the kids' parents; nothing changed.
After a couple of months, I basically said I wasn't riding the bus any more. That made it my mother's problem. She went to my father and made it his problem. My father went to the principal and made it the principal's problem. I don't know what the principal did. My guess is he called in the two kids and told them to stop it. After that, they restricted themselves to verbal harassment, which I could more or less deal with.
When one of my own kids was 10, he started reporting harassment at school. We had a few discussions with his teachers, but the harassment continued. So we pulled him from the town school and sent him to a nearby charter school for the duration of Junior High. He was not harassed at the charter school.
In our state, the per-pupil funding for a student follows the student when they go to a charter school. So for the next 4 years, I got occasional letters from the town school extolling the quality of their faculty and curriculum, asking me to respond to surveys, and even inviting me to attend focus groups (I am not making this up) that they were conducting to try to figure out what they needed to do to hold onto students (and their per-pupil funding).
I always responded to these, in writing, explaining exactly why we had pulled our son. I never received any response, let alone any indication that school might actually protect my children from harassment.
Even when their own funding is on the line, town schools are unable(?) unwilling(?) (take your pick) to protect students from harassment.
At least in our school district, the school adminstration has always met the problem head on. There was a Russian kid who got bullied, he filed a complaint. The administration took action, called the papers, set up school assemblies and had sessions for the kids. No news on kids who did it, but I guess that they got some serious counselling.
Something similar happened to my daughter; she's a jock and walks like a lumberjack. This kid has bigger arms than most boys her age. So some girls started to make fun of her; she took it to the administration and the behavior stopped immediately.
So not all districts are like that. Only the bad ones make the headlines.
You cannot educate bullies because, unless they are psychopaths, they already know what they are doing in causing harm. That is the reasons they are doing it - it makes them feel powerful. The only way to get them to stop is to make it not worth the reward they get. Giving people detention is usually not effective because its a very weak deterrent. I would suggest - involve their parents - and have them stand up in front of the entire school and explain their behaviour and what they have done. To make it effective you basically have to embarrass them publicly.
This kind of bullying is not just an issue in the US. I have lived and gone to school in three different countries and the same behaviour was on display in all three. This is just how kids act.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
A teacher of mine told a nice story about a wheelchair-bound friend of hers. The man was occasionally bullied by idiots (not quite kids anymore) and more than once did he do a little "trick" to such people. He said something like "come on, stop that, I dare you to shake my hand". At that point bullying idiots began to hesitate and he could ask how they could be too scared to shake his hand or if they did shake it, he could squeeze their until they screamed. Since he was in a wheelchair and had to use his hands much more than most people, he had really strong muscles. Any "main bully" that was scared of shaking his hand or cried and screamed if they did, didn't get much respect by his followers anymore. And instead, the followers were quite impressed with how strong the man was despite sitting in a wheelchair.
I recall a very memorable moment in my life. I was in year eight at the time (about twelve or thirteen years of age for non Australians) and there were two year eleven or year twelve kids both very loud, both very physical and both annoying everyone else on the school bus with their ten minute argument which seemed to be on the edge of a physical conflict at every second. This carried on for a good while, eventually a year nine kid got involved and they sort of turned their built up rage on this new kid.
Having had enough this ongoing saga, I stood up and rather loudly shouted while staring them both down "You two shut up, else I'm going to beat the shit out of BOTH of you!". Looking back, this clearly must have looked comical. One kid half the size of these two older kids threatening them, yet the effect itself was what made this stick with me.
The rest of the bus went silent for a split second, then literally BURST out into both laughter and applause. Result? Amazingly the two kids in the main argument both sat down, shut up and remained quiet for the rest of the trip to the train station.
Sometimes even the perceived threat (however unlikely - a twelve year old kid beating up TWO fifteen year old kids heheh) is enough to stop a tirade.
Since then, I have never been afraid to step in when I see a kid getting picked on if they are outnumbered and clearly have their tail between their legs so to speak.
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