[BeaverFever]

Often it makes it worse. What you are misssing is that this is meant to solve the problem of adults not intervening

[BeaverFever]

Often it makes it worse. What you are misssing is that this is meant to solve the problem of adults not intervening

[sandorski]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

sandorski sandorski:

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

So.....what other methods would you deem effective.

Being small in stature I was bullied at school, until I started martial arts. The bullies left me alone without having to lift a finger.

There are Adults at school. Surely they can intervene?

Are all u all gonna start advocating getting rid of Police in favour of Individuals simply taking care of Criminal Acts/Criminals directly? You're essentially advocating the same here with Bullying in school.

In my case no adults intervened.

Bullies only bully when they can get away with it, which they often do. Why is it a bully never goes after someone as large as themselves? After all bullying is a cowardly act

Often confronting the neanderthals makes them back off.

Agreed, and that means that Schools trying to stop Bullying can't/won't work, how? Or that the only way to combat it is with a kid fighting back? No.

[EyeBrock]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Th usual forum suspects are so full of shit. While Im not sure if this program will be successful (as was pointed out earlier the results will be in the implementation), the fact that schools will get involved instead sticking their heads in the sand can only be a good thing.

The whole "teach the kid to fight" thing is BS Hollywood fantasy.

1) Some kids just cant fight, period. They just dont have the heart for it, or the physical strength or coordination and no amout of Uncle Barts backyard MMA class is going to change that for these types of kids.

2) Some bullies are older, bigger and tougher and fight other tough kids all the time. They win some, they lose some and are not afraid to get their ass kicked.

3) Most bullying is done by whole roups of kids against one individual, often an entire class picks on just one kid. Trying to fight one of them will just end in a gang beating from the rest if it is physical bullying.

4) Most bullying - and some of the worst bullying- is non-physical and mainly consists of a group of kids constantly ridiculing, verbally harassing and publicly humiliating the victim. Resorting to violence is not an acceptable solution to these situations.

Do you ever actually add to a debate without pissing all over somebody elses point of view?

[sandorski]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Th usual forum suspects are so full of shit. While Im not sure if this program will be successful (as was pointed out earlier the results will be in the implementation), the fact that schools will get involved instead sticking their heads in the sand can only be a good thing.

The whole "teach the kid to fight" thing is BS Hollywood fantasy.

1) Some kids just cant fight, period. They just dont have the heart for it, or the physical strength or coordination and no amout of Uncle Barts backyard MMA class is going to change that for these types of kids.

2) Some bullies are older, bigger and tougher and fight other tough kids all the time. They win some, they lose some and are not afraid to get their ass kicked.

3) Most bullying is done by whole roups of kids against one individual, often an entire class picks on just one kid. Trying to fight one of them will just end in a gang beating from the rest if it is physical bullying.

4) Most bullying - and some of the worst bullying- is non-physical and mainly consists of a group of kids constantly ridiculing, verbally harassing and publicly humiliating the victim. Resorting to violence is not an acceptable solution to these situations.

Do you ever actually add to a debate without pissing all over somebody elses point of view?

[ShepherdsDog]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

sandorski sandorski:

Disagreed. Certainly Fighting Back is the best method, but to say it's the only method is ridiculous.

So.....what other methods would you deem effective.

Being small in stature I was bullied at school, until I started martial arts. The bullies left me alone without having to lift a finger.

We had a guy like that in highschool. One of the smallest kids in our class, but no one ever bothered him because he did a demo for the school one Friday morning. If he could do that to planks of wood that fast, he could do that to the bones in your body.

[BeaverFever]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

Do you ever actually add to a debate without pissing all over somebody elses point of view?

Sounds like you need one

[Gunnair]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

Do you ever actually add to a debate without pissing all over somebody elses point of view?

Sounds like you need one

Looks like you need to.

[BeaverFever]

How so Gunny?

[Gunnair]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

How so Gunny?

[Khar]

I think fighting back can be an option in some cases, and it might even be the best choice, but I think there are too many blanket statements about bullies and how to handle them for just one choice to be effective. Some say they come from troubled homes, others say they are just meek, and more say they are making up for shortcomings. To be frank, that can all be true. More often than not, though, a lot seemed to be sadists, idiots without a cause, people seeking power or something similar. Not only that, but fighting back does not always have the desired result.

As a result, I have to agree with BeaverFever, at least for his four points that he provided. This whole idea that bullies will back off because they suddenly get confronted is something that myself nor none of the kids at my school saw, and I speak as someone who did eventually get into a fight, won it, and got in trouble for it. I also speak as someone who knows kids with Martial Arts training who still lost fights (I was one who did have it, people knew it, and frankly my size helped me more in the fight) and ended up dealing with being in detention because myself and the other kid were seen.

Most bullying I saw were by kids who moved in packs and more or less just verbally abused the crap out of other kids, instead of actively beating you up. More than one of them fought kids and won on their own, and more than a few times they beat each other up, either for fun or for pissing one or another off. Those pseudo-bullies who existed only did because they wanted to avoid the wrath of the higher-up bullies who would push them into action anyways, so its not like they could back off. They continued this all the way through elementary, so older kids were dealing with their own in a lot of cases, or even kids above them on the food chain who would even defend bullies from kids who were younger.

Bullies did not leave you alone if you fought back. That made you a more entertaining target. If you won, that just meant more would come down on your head, and it would also mean you probably started the fight because they insulted you first, something on your head especially since using your fists to fight words is not exactly the most morally just action one can take. Bullies being wolves often means they like watching the sheep squirm while they chow down.

When I look back, they picked on kids of all sizes. I was six foot before finishing elementary school and I had my own bully or two, and they moved with a pack. They also went after a four foot nothing girl, and everything in between. That girl fought back once and ended up being dropped on a knee because the kid saw it on a Wrestling show and thought it would be cool. She was weak as hell and fighting back was only a source of amusement. More than once a single kid would be beaten up by five or six, regardless of whether or not they were seeking retribution.

I also disagree with you Eyebrock on the value of it at work. Teaching kids to fight back in the methods described by Bart is not going to be accepted in any workplace. Adults should not beat the crap out of each other if they have a disagreement, and that really is the only way of fighting back without going to an authority figure. Otherwise, you either get a toxic atmosphere that makes you hate life or you get in worse crap. This program seems to help teach how to deal with them through other means.

A lot of these kids are the reasons why some schools have metal detectors, like the one I was going to go to when I was just about to begin high school. Luckily, I ended up going to another because of a job offer my Dad got (and that finally moved us out of poverty, basically). I know more than one bully was already packing a knife before I went to high school. I got tickled with one. For all the talk about fighting back I got as a kid I was not about to get into a fight with one of those. And this is where the strategy for fighting back fails, because when you begin getting into that area all of a sudden it gets a lot more serious and dangerous to move out from their shadow. In my final year of high school we had a convicted murderer come in to speak to us, because he ended up fighting a loudmouth (and a few friends on both sides) after spending time in a bar with a knife and won, but ended up with the blood of a dead man on his hands, and people asking why he was packing in the first place.

I know of more than a few people who have moved around over the years, mostly old classmates, who have had similar experiences so I know I am not unique in being able to tell a story like this. The stereotypical bully who is meek when confronted and who only beats on smaller kids with his fists was one I saw maybe twice in my entire schooling time and a rarity among my friends who were bullied, and I wish we had seen more of those. I know how to fight, and it did me no good, even when I chose to fight back. Kids put in these situations often end up killing themselves or never doing well in life because they try to fight back and nothing comes of it, or they simply cannot get out of it for one of the reasons BeaverFever mentioned. Encouraging them to fight back is not going to help them much. Some of these kids ended up with gang affiliations on my end, a lot before they ended school. Others became hardcore criminals. It says something about their personality that they are capable of that.

Between grades 7 and 8 the new school I ended up in had me as basically one of the tougher kids, for the record. And the reason that school managed to get rid of a ton of the worst was because of programs like this -- ones that forced students to make united fronts, taught them how to fight back effectively (I know fists did all of us little good even in groups), ones that built up the confidence of the downtrodden, those that gave authority figures power to smack down kids and programs that ended tolerance for such actions, because in the end the biggest smack they can get is removing them from the school entirely. Those that did not grow up got thrown out. Those that did not want to get thrown out grew up. No program I had used police officers and the zero tolerance policy the school had was forced to give unlimited chances, essentially. This program seems to be going down that line, and I think that is great.

Frankly, I wish I had lived in a school system like this. Confidence and conflict handling should be taught and earned through other means, not something forced onto the kids being pushed against the walls at recess. In the end, all you get is a downtrodden kid who cannot fight back and a bully who never learns, from the experience of myself and dozens of others I have known through my life.

For the record, I have had no issues with my life in regards to asses or bullies that I could not handle on my own since grade 8 or so.

At the very least, they are tying hands less and its a low harm strategy. I just hope it has some impact, especially as something that can help people deal with assholes for the rest of their lives. Some kids can stop or slow down what a bully does by fighting back. For the rest of us, there are programs like this, and I hope for the best from them.

[Tricks]

sandorski sandorski:

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

sandorski sandorski:

Disagreed. Certainly Fighting Back is the best method, but to say it's the only method is ridiculous.

So.....what other methods would you deem effective.

Being small in stature I was bullied at school, until I started martial arts. The bullies left me alone without having to lift a finger.

There are Adults at school. Surely they can intervene?

They don't.

[Tricks]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

1) Some kids just cant fight, period. They just dont have the heart for it, or the physical strength or coordination and no amout of Uncle Barts backyard MMA class is going to change that for these types of kids.

Then it's up to the good kids to stand up for them. Something we don't see enough of.

$1:

2) Some bullies are older, bigger and tougher and fight other tough kids all the time. They win some, they lose some and are not afraid to get their ass kicked.

But they have respect for those other kids.

$1:

3) Most bullying is done by whole roups of kids against one individual, often an entire class picks on just one kid. Trying to fight one of them will just end in a gang beating from the rest if it is physical bullying.

And if that kid gets up, he may have taken a beating, but he will earn some respect.

Also, teachers should be intervening in this instance, as it's not hard to spot unless you're full blown retarded.

$1:

4) Most bullying - and some of the worst bullying- is non-physical and mainly consists of a group of kids constantly ridiculing, verbally harassing and publicly humiliating the victim. Resorting to violence is not an acceptable solution to these situations.

So what's your solution? Tell the teacher? A parent? None of that works, it never has, and it never will. Punching them in the head does wonders though.

[Tricks]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Often it makes it worse. What you are misssing is that this is meant to solve the problem of adults not intervening

I'm curious as to why that's even a problem. What the fuck are they waiting for? All the times that we've seen kids commit suicide because of bullying, are we really going to believe that the "adults" at the school had no knowledge of it? They must be tremendously obtuse then. I did security in a high school for three hours for one day, and was able to pick out the kids they took the most shit in that amount of time. And kept an eye on them so no one would fuck with them, at least for that one lunch period.

I have no patience for apologists of the school administrations and teachers who do not get involved. I dealt with that a lot in elementary school, and watched them sit back and do nothing. Or even toss in their own little quips.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Tricks Tricks:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Often it makes it worse. What you are misssing is that this is meant to solve the problem of adults not intervening

I'm curious as to why that's even a problem. What the fuck are they waiting for? All the times that we've seen kids commit suicide because of bullying, are we really going to believe that the "adults" at the school had no knowledge of it? They must be tremendously obtuse then. I did security in a high school for three hours for one day, and was able to pick out the kids they took the most shit in that amount of time. And kept an eye on them so no one would fuck with them, at least for that one lunch period.

I have no patience for apologists of the school administrations and teachers who do not get involved. I dealt with that a lot in elementary school, and watched them sit back and do nothing. Or even toss in their own little quips.

I went to one school where the principal would haul out his guitar and thought a nice sing-a-long would solve everything. And NO, I'm not fucking joking.