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.