Bullying...why?

Lanolin said:
Update...things have settled down and got better hooray. yesterday a boy who comes in the library regualrly confesses he has been a bit of a bully to another boy. He wanted to apologises and ask forigvenss but was scared to go back to class where the boy was that he hurt.
At first he said he thought it was unfair that he couldnt bully back and that he was only playing but the other boy reacted badly and violently.

I have noticed he sometimes teases the girls and makes them cry too. He didnt realise he was doing anythign wrong with this. I told him to stop it and that it hurts people when he does that. Also what may be playing to him is not to other people, who can be sensitive. And to also stay away or let people alone rather than tease them.

Please pray for this boy hes been going through a lot, he comes from a broken home just recently moved and lives with his mum and stepdad. Hes a senior boy and loves reading books. He also suffers adhd...some connections in his brain are slow to fire but in other aspects he can be brilliant. I talked with the teacher aide about this and he knows he can go to him as well.
Click to expand...
Lanolin, in this country, schools are required to create an Individualized Education Program (IEP) developed for each public school child in the U.S. who needs special education. The IEP is created through a team effort, reviewed periodically. With us, it is a Federal Law. Do you all have something similar?

rtm3039
 
rtm3039 said:
Lanolin, in this country, schools are required to create an Individualized Education Program (IEP) developed for each public school child in the U.S. who needs special education. The IEP is created through a team effort, reviewed periodically. With us, it is a Federal Law. Do you all have something similar?

rtm3039
Click to expand...
Not sure we have teacher aides for those that have special needs although I dont know if every child has them..some parents refuse to identify their child as special needs or dont recognise it.
Ive worked in some schools that seem to be more special needs friendly than others and honestly there would be some classes where the majority of children are special needs.

Teacher aides are paid very low.
 
Lanolin said:
Not sure we have teacher aides for those that have special needs although I dont know if every child has them..some parents refuse to identify their child as special needs or dont recognise it.
Ive worked in some schools that seem to be more special needs friendly than others and honestly there would be some classes where the majority of children are special needs.

Teacher aides are paid very low.
Click to expand...
Lanolin,

It’s different here. I work for the Miami-Dade County Public School system/ We are the 4th largest school system in the country; with over 40,000 employees (18,000 of which are teachers); over 350,000 students, and close to 500 schools. Our Teacher’s Aides and called “Para-professionals.” We have some schools where all the students are special needs. We have many students that actually have a para-professional assigned specifically to them in what is called a “one-on-one” relationship. Last year's school budget was $5.13 billion.

We have over 100 school psychologists who tests kids for either special needs or what they call “gifted” status. These kids get tested as early as kindergarten. We even have a special status, called “13 year graduates” for students who, because of learning disabilities, might be as old as 21 before graduating high school.

We also have what are called “magnet schools.” These are regular schools (K through 12) but are focused on a specific discipline. As an example, my wife teaches in a magnet school for marine biology. This just means that these students have an academic interest in marine biology, so many of their classes have a marine biology kind of spin. They have them for dance, robotics, art, etc.

rtm30398
 
thenami said:
When I was a child bullying within the school system was tolerated, as there were many other issues to resolve. In most cases fighting in the school yard resulted in conflict resolution. However the true bullies were almost rewarded for their bad behaviors as being the "cool" kids. Times have changed, but many of these former bullies are now parents. That cycle of bad behavior still continues, and dealing with it in different areas of life. Children learn from their parents, and sometimes dealing with them is harder than dealing with their kids. I learned this when mine were in school.

I sincerely hope things continue to get better. Hopefully this bullying can be solved with prayer, being a positive role model, and kindness.
Click to expand...
It was resolved by fighting? Um how. They fought, someone got punched and accepted it? How does that resolve anything.

We actually had a game in school called BULLRUSH. Basically its when you rush at someone and try and flatten them. Of course anyone smaller in size is going to get crushed. I dont know what the point of the game was as I never joined in it. Some kids must have thought it was fun but I thought it was really stupid.
 
rtm3039 said:
Lanolin,

It’s different here. I work for the Miami-Dade County Public School system/ We are the 4th largest school system in the country; with over 40,000 employees (18,000 of which are teachers); over 350,000 students, and close to 500 schools. Our Teacher’s Aides and called “Para-professionals.” We have some schools where all the students are special needs. We have many students that actually have a para-professional assigned specifically to them in what is called a “one-on-one” relationship. Last year's school budget was $5.13 billion.

We have over 100 school psychologists who tests kids for either special needs or what they call “gifted” status. These kids get tested as early as kindergarten. We even have a special status, called “13 year graduates” for students who, because of learning disabilities, might be as old as 21 before graduating high school.

We also have what are called “magnet schools.” These are regular schools (K through 12) but are focused on a specific discipline. As an example, my wife teaches in a magnet school for marine biology. This just means that these students have an academic interest in marine biology, so many of their classes have a marine biology kind of spin. They have them for dance, robotics, art, etc.

rtm30398
Click to expand...
I dont think we have school psychologists here but we do have social workers in schools. I dont know the graduating age when I went to school those held back were often those who were good at sports but flunked everything else, simply cos the school wanted to use them to win sports prizes for the school...so to get extra mileage out of them they just repeated years. Yea crazy.

I dont know what K means. Kindy? We dont have magnet schools here as such. We have grammar schools which are supposedly more academic than other schools. And theres waldorf schools. Apparently they dont teach reading at all till much older and go in for natural philosophies.

Schools really depend on leadership shown by their principals I think a big part of their success is a having a good principal. They used to call them headmaster or headmistress. In my job interviews I met a few principals and its always interesting talking with them...something I hardly ever did when I went to school. They were either loved or feared.
 
Lanolin said:
I dont think we have school psychologists here but we do have social workers in schools. I dont know the graduating age when I went to school those held back were often those who were good at sports but flunked everything else, simply cos the school wanted to use them to win sports prizes for the school...so to get extra mileage out of them they just repeated years. Yea crazy.

I dont know what K means. Kindy? We dont have magnet schools here as such. We have grammar schools which are supposedly more academic than other schools. And theres waldorf schools. Apparently they dont teach reading at all till much older and go in for natural philosophies.

Schools really depend on leadership shown by their principals I think a big part of their success is a having a good principal. They used to call them headmaster or headmistress. In my job interviews I met a few principals and its always interesting talking with them...something I hardly ever did when I went to school. They were either loved or feared.
Click to expand...
Good morning,

K through 12 means: Kindergarten through 12th grade. We call our principals "administrators."
 
Lanolin said:
Interesting. What do you call the school office staff then...? Secretaries?
Click to expand...
There is one secretary, which is the Principal's secretary. The staff usually consists of the registrar, treasurer, and administrative specialists. Also, the resource officer (a police officer), school security, head custodian, the cafeteria manager, counselors, and after-school care manager, etc. Most schools have at least 1, but as many as 3 - 4 APs (Assistant principals).
 
We had this report in the news that children were dropping out from playing sport because they didnt like the competititveness of it...and it was no longer fun. And it came down to the parents pushing the children to succeed by bullying them, and encouraging bullying behaviour in sports.

In parliament, theres been lots of reports of bullying and sexual harassment amongst politicians. It seems they dont even grow up in their behaviours its just like a playground and they think they can tease, mock and ridicule anyone they like.
 
The national sports organsiations put full page ads in the papers pleading parents to stop with their bullying behaviours cos children were dropping out.

I was left alone for much of primary school cos I didnt join in the fighting, not cos I fought back. They knew I couldmt fight anyone because I was smaller anyway and a girl. but girls can be bullies in a different way its more psychological and teasing. I would get racist slurs, but just ignored them. I would get top of the class and everything so that earned respect academically, so it didnt even matter that I couldnt compete physically. I did practically no sport in high school not cos i was lazy but I just didnt like the competition.

Workplaces were a big shock how some managment treated lowly workers. I found it was more that those older picked on younger just cos they could, but also, sometimes someone younger would be in A higher position and abuse that position. I thought that was unacceptable behaviour in workplace but if the boss didnt care there was absolutely nothing you could do.
 
I read an interesting article today about the result of some bullying. A school was having spirit week, and the children could wear shirts/jerseys for their favorite college sports team. A particular child was a fan of the Tennessee Vols... but he did not have a team shirt. But he did have an orange shirt, and was very excited about wearing it. Since it was a plain shirt, he even made his own team logo on paper and pinned it onto his shirt.

He was happy and excited about it.... until the other kids began to tease him and make fun of him.

Well, when the Tennessee Vols found out about this.... amazing things happened.

You can check out the article here at GoodNewsNetwork. But in order to get the full impact of this story, the article links to the teacher's facebook post that started all of this. There you can read from her words how this all unfolded, and see the photos she took, (that are not included in the article).

-----


MODERATOR'S WARNING
The link in this post goes to a website which sells goods or services or solicits donations. Members are advised to be wary of ANY such donation requests or sales and to research the group or individual making the request or sales and to PRAY before sending ANY donation or before purchasing any goods or services.
 
Your post reminds me of Dolly Partons song coat of many colours, how the children would tease and make fun of her cos of the coat her mother made for her out of rags cos they were poor.

I think that making fun of people can be cruel. Some children like to 'kid' or kid around and I actually spoke to a girl yesterday very sternly about that. I noticed that she would always kid about something, say something she wouldnt mean and then laugh and say she was kidding. I said if she continues to do that people wont trust her to do what she says.
 
Church bullying is a different kettle of fish but yea it happens. Its more seems to be 'i was here first' kind of attitude where the elders bully the youngers into obeying them, forgetting that its God we meant to be obeying, not man.
 
Bullying in schools made the front page of the nz herald (our national newspaper) the other day. Schools and govt want to do everything they can to stop the practice.

It was saying nz has the worst prevalence of bullying in the world. I think its good that its not tolerated in schools, because thats where it can start. But they need to go right back into families where its part of the culture. I think when people used to have bigger families with many children the older ones can turn on the younger ones and thats where it comes from. Ive noticed the bigger students picking on the smaller ones in class and across classes.

The worst time it happens is when you are in your first year of high school. Or when you start a new job. Ive noticed several months into a new job after theyve been nice and got you in the door, if you start having new ideas or doing your job well suddenly without warning some supervisors and bosses can turn mean cos they feel threateend perhaps.
 
Lanolin said:
Church bullying is a different kettle of fish but yea it happens. Its more seems to be 'i was here first' kind of attitude where the elders bully the youngers into obeying them, forgetting that its God we meant to be obeying, not man.
Click to expand...

I disagree. In my experience, it's the same sort of bullying you find elsewhere. Not just limited to elders, and it's not limited to church matters. For example, a couple of years ago I started attending a church and one of the church members who worked for a rival company tried to bully me about my employer.
 
ProdigalSon said:
I disagree. In my experience, it's the same sort of bullying you find elsewhere. Not just limited to elders, and it's not limited to church matters. For example, a couple of years ago I started attending a church and one of the church members who worked for a rival company tried to bully me about my employer.
Click to expand...
Really, like what did they do?
Usually its employers bullying their workers, not workers bullying other employers. They dont have the power. They cant do anything anyway cos they dont even work for them.
 
Lanolin said:
Really, like what did they do?
Usually its employers bullying their workers, not workers bullying other employers. They dont have the power. They cant do anything anyway cos they dont even work for them.
Click to expand...

He made some derogatory falsehoods about my employer. His demeanor was, at the very least, unfriendly. This was at an off-site social gathering for that particular Sunday school class. I was new to the church and this was my first social gathering. I've experienced this sort of thing many times over the years. As a young Christian, I didn't know how to handle it because it always caught me by surprise. Experience has taught me how to handle it. I didn't respond in kind, that would be sinful, but there's nothing that says I have to stick around.
 
ProdigalSon said:
He made some derogatory falsehoods about my employer. His demeanor was, at the very least, unfriendly. This was at an off-site social gathering for that particular Sunday school class. I was new to the church and this was my first social gathering. I've experienced this sort of thing many times over the years. As a young Christian, I didn't know how to handle it because it always caught me by surprise. Experience has taught me how to handle it. I didn't respond in kind, that would be sinful, but there's nothing that says I have to stick around.
Click to expand...
Thats terrible. It still always shocks me when unchristian things happen at church or where christians are gathering cos you dont expect it. Not just when you are new but even after several years you think how can this be going on with elders? Dont they know better?

If its just random people being snide I think well just keep away from them and pray for them. They are bitter about something. They dont need to take it out on you but you just happen to be there.
 
Lanolin said:
Thats terrible. It still always shocks me when unchristian things happen at church or where christians are gathering cos you dont expect it. Not just when you are new but even after several years you think how can this be going on with elders? Dont they know better?

If its just random people being snide I think well just keep away from them and pray for them. They are bitter about something. They dont need to take it out on you but you just happen to be there.
Click to expand...

Mostly the second paragraph, although I've experienced some very unkind words from pastors also. I'm not going to elaborate on it because it was hard enough to let go of it. Like you said, put it in God's hand, pray for them and move on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top