National effort emerging to halt bullying

Students who are bullied are more likely to be depressed and miss school, while bullies are more likely than other students to carry weapons, get into frequent scuffles and get hurt in fights, research shows.

"Bullying has been around forever, and I think the attitude among many adults is, 'Well, we survived it, and we're probably more resilient people for dealing with it," said Sue Limber, a Clemson University researcher who has helped the government campaign. "But if you look at research and listen to kids, there are good reasons to deal with this."

After the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, in which two frequently bullied students killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before killing themselves, the Secret Service led a study of school violence. It found that many of those who attacked others had been bullied in ways that would amount to assault or harassment if it happened in the workplace.

"You can't learn at high levels when you're being humiliated and thinking of how you're going to get your butt kicked in the boy's bathroom," said Bill Bond, a national safety consultant for school principals. He was principal at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, when a freshman who had been bullied shot eight students, killing three of them, in 1997.

"The solution is, everyone involved has to have the courage to say, 'This isn't right,' " Bond said. "The biggest group that can stop it is the peers, if they just have the courage to say, 'Hey, leave him alone, that's not cool.' But you can't ask someone to tell a bully to leave someone alone unless the principal has shown the courage to take action, too."

www.cnn.com...

Yes, bullying is a seroius problem.

I've been somewhat bullied before many times. I sucked, but I got used to it and they eventually stopped. Actually now, I don't mind being bullied. They use all those profane and slanderous words, but they're really making themselves look alot more ignorant and stupid.

It's getting alot more fun being degraded and made fun of now. There are so many ways to humiliate them back.

[Edited on 12-11-03 by Saucerat]

Recently, though 31, I had an experience thats had me reflecting on this subject quite a bit. An a-hole punched me in the face because I had the courage to step in when I thought he was going to hit his girl after some very serious verbal abuse.

As a result I found myself sad over the millions children that have to go to school and face these types daily. They don't have a choice. They really ought to be able to file assault charges against the perpetrator without having to go through the principle, who has an invested interest in trivializing such events due to the upkeep of the name and reputation of the school.

i tell you what...

high school is alot easyer then jr high

i tell you, make lots of friends and bandtogether

then youll be fine, or just change your periodes around so you dont have to deal with the "challenged" babby

Making friends for me is a challenge, so I guess I can't really go that way.

It's actually not that bad being a loner. Gives you sense of individuality.

Yes, kids really should start fessing up that they're being bullied. I think they're just scared that if they tell, then the bully will get them back even worse, or they're
afraid that they'll be looked down as a tattle tale and weak.

Personally, I wouldn't tell on them unless if they were giving death threats or something serious like that. It's not worth the trouble sometimes (filling out forms and such, agh).

I think it's alot more fun mocking their low intelligence level.

Indeed it is a problem. I am a geek and was bullied often. Then I realized something, whats the worst thing they can do. Hit you? Then they wont get what they want, knowledge. So I figured I owned them by making them beg to me for acededmic help. It worked well. Now I am like an illuminati, a clandestine ruler. Knowledge is Power, Stupidity is Slavery. And one note, I am fare to most people, only to those who bully I do not tolerate.

And on another note, humans are compusled to bully from upbringing and the idea of a dominate member in a tribe. Its natural, but unnacceptable and fixable early on. So therefore the bullies that stay bullies are un-civilized tribals.

One more thing, time will do more damage to bullies than phsyical violence. "If you sit by the river side long enough, the corpses of your enemies will float downstream." -Sun Tzu. And right now for me they just passed me and I didnt even finish my pop-corn. It does work, it worked for me, but be compassonate for when they need help once they are distroyed. "Love thy Enemy" -The Lord Jesus Chirst.

Why don't we try to wipe out ignorance, or obesity, or better yet, why don't we tackle the problem of those pesky brown-eyed people.

Come on. This is a bogus study. Everyone in their life is either a bully or a bullied. But in the end, we all know that the bullies end up bagging our groceries, so the universe balances itself.

ummmmmm, ya they do become scewed later in life but...

That was EXTERMELY offencive about ignorance and obesity, those do need to be STOPED. Its horrible and make me digusted that you use those two problems in your statement to push your point. Americans lifes shorter being obese and ignorance is what causes slavery, tryanny, and other atrocities.

This study is not 'bogus', its a helpful one. We need to understand that reason to bullying and find a way to end that problem in the US. There are too many deaths and injuries, phsyical or psychological, caused by bullying. In example, Columbine (I hate to reflect on this incident to push my point) was caused because the shooters were bullyied by the bullies.

Also, Jethro, have you ever been bullied?

First of all Taxman, I was being facetious for the most part.

But every joke has it's truth. Let me run this down by the numbers for ya.

Bullying - There are more important things to concentrate on in life and education than bullying.
Reason:
Bullying is a socialistic norm, meaning it happens all the time (class or position not withstanding). It is the system of humans to create a social hierarchy. It is no worse now than ever.

What this would do:
This would create a more diluted and misguilded school system since it would add red tape to the already warped current situation.

Obesity:
Again, a family issue. Obesity is a problem stemmed almost entirely by parents. How can it be stopped? Are you the one who can figure out a way to stop freethinking independant people that they have to eat a certain way? Kind of against the Bill of Rights.

Ignorance:
Everyone is ignorant. There is no way to wipe it out due to the finite nature of the human brain.

You propose to teach everyone everything? Hmm, good luck.

Perhaps you should concentrate your efforts on something worth while (much like the country and american school public system).

I'll suggest some for you:
-Getting the public school system away from a personal property tax system where the rich areas get more money than the poor.
-Work to normalize the crippled actions availible to the teachers so as to maintain discipline (NO I do not mean beating kids)
- Get a better system. Let's face it, some people are stupid, will never go to college, do not WANT to, and would be better suited to do trade jobs. Let's train them in that. Look at the Japanese school system.
-Get kids to learn to READ for God's sake. Although I am a firm believer that you SHOULD be able to teach yourself to read by the time you are 18-20, or should just make a firm career choice to work at McDonalds

The list goes on brother. The kids coming out of high school today are half way to retarded and you want to worry about a few kids getting pushed?

This is the reason the kids are so whiney these days.

Ok, Ill concede to your points. Bullying is not stopable, only treatable. But obesity and ignorance and be stoped, ie education, excerice, faith.

As I say, stupidity is slavery, knowledge is freedom, practical knowledge is power.

Lisa Simpson actually isolated the "Nerd" pheromone in "Nerd Sweat"...and found that ordinary salad dressing served to mask it from the Bully.

(Sorry, it was just on the other day...had to do it)...

The best defense seems to not let it bother you... If one isn't any fun to pick on, they quickly move on to another... Luckily, I was never bullied, but did stick up for quite a few that were (I was lucky in that I travelled alot as a kid, and was usually in the older age group wherever I went)...

The only time I felt in that position, was in 8th grade... Then, I just fed this one big ape my fries each day to keep anybody off me, hehe...

Taxman, I was sitting here thinking of bashing you on the loathsome grammer you use.

But in the effort of fairness, I've decided to section it up.

I can only assume that you are not that old (probably still in high school). So if you are, this is for you:

TM, please read more books. Reading is a fundamental element to success and to respected view points.
I am pretty sure that you have heard the radio commertial "People judge you by the words you use....". It's true, and since speaking has no need for spell check, a lot of people can pass. If you need to, use spell and grammer check on your posts before you send them.

Now, if you are older than 21 or so, then this is for you:
God lord man, get a dictionary, grammer book, and a thesaurus. There is no excuse for a grown man to spell so badly and write completely incoherent sentances. It's hard to even get what you SHOULD have said to make sense.
If you can not write properly in english, then your opinion MUST be as ignorant as you.

Im not that great at spelling, and faster I type and the later it is, the more horrible I spell. Oh well.

Most bullies will quit right after you stomp a mud hole in there azz

Some people only understand force