Another innocent life lost senselessly

[author_by_night]

Girl commits suicide because of bullies

First, I want to emphasize that I'm not entirely sure I think suicide can be entirely blamed on these girls. The temptation, perhaps - I know people who were bullied and while they otherwise had no depression, the feeling of being hated by people they had to sit in class with five days a week drove them crazy. And these people weren't even physically harmed. However, they never went through with it, and even they very well may have had issues.

The sad thing is that I feel this article shows how bullying really is not taken seriously.

A few weeks ago, I found a disturbing YouTube video of a girl who was being told to kill herself, that she was fat, that she was ugly. Luckily, this girl was saying she didn't care, but the point is, she was being harassed. Because I care about kids, I went to report the incident.

The "abuse form" on YouTube doesn't exist, as a google search proved. I emailed several address (help@youtube.com, abuse@youtube.com, etc), and they either didn't work or were ignored. Meanwhile, the harassment continued.

YouTube did not provide a way for me to help this girl, and google research took me to a parent who claimed even calling YouTube didn't help. Please bear in mind that this is the internet, so who knows if she was being honest - however, if she was, that's pretty disturbing. Despite all the hooplah about YouTube's "moves" to prevent cyberbullying, it doesn't seem much is being done.

But that's another issue.

I think that people need to all take part in bullying prevention, and while I'm no expert, I do have thoughts on how.

Mainly it comes down to the kids, especially older ones. By fifteen, you should know better than to be overly hostile to someone. It's wrong. It's mean. And it's never clever or witty to take another person down just because you can.

However, there's other factors as well.

Teachers need to take all reports seriously, even when the bully in question is their favorite student. Just because Mary Sue is a perfect princess whenever she hands in her (usually A-B) papers doesn't mean she's like that everywhere. The myth of bullies only being the kids who are also failing and hate school is just that - a myth. Smart kids bully too.

I also think that teachers need to be mindful. I had a friend who was bullied during a group project; the teacher refused to remove her from the group, and she almost failed the class. Sometimes group work isn't the best idea; I'm not saying I don't see why teachers do it, but I don't get why they keep forcing it when it's causing problems. Kids want to be able to choose their groups and work with their BFFs? Good; they'd better behave, then. And if they don't, they fail, not the other way around.

But I think more important than the kids are the parents. I'm not saying good parents don't have bad kids; it happens. But sometimes you either have the parents who are rude themselves and don't realize (or care) what they're teaching their kids, and then you have parents who don't know how to tell Johnny not to be mean, so they just hope he learns on his own. It amazes me how many little kids will knock things over or knock into people without apologizing, and the parents just sit there grinning stupidly. I don't blame the two year old at that point; two year olds don't know better. No, I blame the parents who, I hope, have learned basic etiquette and appreciation of their fellow man. And if they haven't... that's another issue.

Again, this is just my opinion - I'm not a teacher. I'm not a parent. And it's been a long time since I was a kid. But stories like this sadden me, and I do think that bullying needs to be taken seriously by all parties involved.

Oh, and one more thing - people need to remember how kids think. Another time, I read a story where a school was shocked because "all the kids signed a pledge saying they wouldn't bully." Yeah, and they all write resolutions saying they really will clean their rooms starting January 1st. Give me a break.

Comments

[magikcat112.livejournal.com]

This reminds me a lot of "Odd Girl Out" -- a TV film I've seen a couple of times about cyber-bulling, harassment and the way girls can be downright awful to each other. And to a certain extent, I think girls are worse because they can bring down each other's confidence with mere words, yet pretend to be your friend. And people like that almost never grow out of that.

[beatriceeagle.livejournal.com]

If you were depressed by/interested in the film, you might also try the book it was based on: Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons. It's a collection of interviews and stories with girls from eight years old to eighteen years old, and it's entirely about female aggression and the subtle forms it takes. It's been years since I read it, so I can't vouch for its insight, but it's probably worth a try.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

And people like that almost never grow out of that.

I still have issues with people who do that, and I'm well into my twenties. I feel like friendship with women is so political - this might mean that, that might mean this, there's double meanings, etc. As much as I hate it when movies and television shows make it out like all female friendships are marred with half-truths and backstabbing, many are.

That's not to be sexist - guys do it too. However, even in school I felt like apart from the "he likes you!" jokes (which were always obvious anyway), guys would make it clear they didn't like me, whereas girls would string me along. But plenty of the girls were just as clear as the guys, and that always sucked as well. But in some weird way I think the ignoring hurt more. At least the girls who made fun of me never pretended we were friends. Still, I was never bullied to the extent that some of my friends were.

[r-a-black.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately sometimes the teachers don't even get listened to. I got into my first fight in middle school because this girl wouldn't stop bothering me, she kept throwing racial slurs at me and god knows what else. Anyway, luckily in this class I was basically teacher's pet, my English teacher and I were friends (still are actually) and she kept telling her superiors that I was being bullied but they wouldn't listen because apparently they needed "something" to happen. And it did. And that's why I walked around with a torn lip the next day and she wore heavy make up to hide her bruised cheek. I always remembered feeling so angry that they were just waiting around for me to get hurt, whereas my teacher was the only one trying to prevent exactly that. In fact it was because we had a substitute teacher that day that the girl took the opportunity to fight me.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. *Hugs* I'm sorry only one person in your school tried to help. That's awful.

[eurora.livejournal.com]

YouTube is great for getting messages across, but their administration is absolutely terrible. It's almost impossible to get stuff reported, and even then, you have to jump through hoops to do it.

I agree with everything you've said, though; there are so many factors involved in bullying, and so many different steps that need to be taken to prevent it - a lot of which ultimately coincide with teaching good values and equal treatment of others.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Yeah, YouTube's become like so many things - short of a lawsuit, you're not going to get anywhere trying to get to a human being.

a lot of which ultimately coincide with teaching good values and equal treatment of others.

Exactly. My parents always taught me to respect other people, say please and thank you, etc. I'm not saying that I was perfect and that I never made mistakes, but at least when I did, I sure as heck knew I did and made up for it.

[jadore-histoire.livejournal.com]

I was bullied a LOT as a kid, all the way into high school. There was days when I would fake sick just so I wouldn't have to go in and face everything. I was mainly teased for being the smart kid, the teacher's pet who got good grades, and the fact that was more child-like compared to the other kids, especially in elementary school. My mom tried explaining it away with the "They're just jealous" line, but that never made me feel better. And it went both ways; if I answered a question right, I was a nerd. If I got a question wrong, I got pointed and laughed at. If I screwed up playing kickball in gym, I was ridiculed. In high school, girls made fun of me because I got boobs earlier than they did. After a really bad day when kids were picking on me in science class, I actually went down to the guidance office, sobbing hysterically.

It comes down to respect, you're right. Kids need to be taught respect, and especially teens need to understand that as well. Teenage girls can be downright nasty. But kids also need to learn about confidence and self-esteem. I had zero growing up (and still don't), and because of that, I just took everything. I never stood up for myself.