how should schools handle it? should there be different actions taken for at school or physical bullying than online or verbal bullying? do think any bullying off school property should be handled by the school? feel free to debate amongst yourselves

bullying is quite serious & i'm glad schools are starting to take it seriously. i was bullied thruout school. i was the smart kid...i lived w/ my grandparents, not my mom...i was different, so i was bullied.

as i got older, the threats were more serious. one guy who had bullied me constantly, cut off a piece of my hair during a class project involving scissors...a year or so later, he threatened to kill me. NOTHING was done in either case.

fortunately i'm a pretty strong person, so i was able to put up with it. i did occasionally skip school because i couldn't deal w/ the torment. there are other kids tho that aren't as strong & they either drop out or commit suicide even. both are horrible....and then of course, afterwards the remaining kids go on & on about how nice the kid was. :eyeroll:

given my experience, i say schools should crackdown on ALL bullying. it is better to be anal than to lose a child over stupid immaturity.

wow I was just watching the lifetime movie odd girl out about bullying and how the girl tries to kill herself and the pricipal didnt do pretty much anythign about it.

I think bullying in any way shape or form should never be tolerated. Everything should be taken serisouly on school grounds or not, it will create an enironment for the bullied child where they dont feel comfortable and not want to go to school making their school work suffer. Maybe Im a little extreme but I believe if your going to bully someone you should get the concequences of it. No one is better someone else regardless of the situation and no child should have to go through the emotional and sometimes physical pain of bullying.

then again I want everyone to live in a perfect world where everyone is happy. yeah I know I have unrealistic dreams but its how I feel

wow I was just watching the lifetime movie odd girl out about bullying and how the girl tries to kill herself and the pricipal didnt do pretty much anythign about it.

I think bullying in any way shape or form should never be tolerated. Everything should be taken serisouly on school grounds or not, it will create an enironment for the bullied child where they dont feel comfortable and not want to go to school making their school work suffer. Maybe Im a little extreme but I believe if your going to bully someone you should get the concequences of it. No one is better someone else regardless of the situation and no child should have to go through the emotional and sometimes physical pain of bullying.

then again I want everyone to live in a perfect world where everyone is happy. yeah I know I have unrealistic dreams but its how I feel

that's why i started this debate actually :)

i think kids that are bullied need to be taken seriously. off campus bullying is really hard to deal with because it turns into he said/she said. i think anyone caught bullying should have police charges filed on them for harassment. but then the issue comes into play what if this person is just majorly sensitive and a joke about their socks or something is taken as bullying kwim?

I agree Jill, and that's why I think that a zero tolerance policy doesn't work with bullying. It's too hard to prove and different people feel bullied by different things. There needs to be some common sense applied, and bullying needs to be taken seriously and evaluated on a case by case basis. I think that no matter what, the parties involved need to be seen by a counselor and the parents need to be involved. Schools should send out information to parents about what to do when their child is bullied, and how to handle a child who is doing the bullying and what may cause that kind of behavior. Parents of bullies tend to ignore their children's behavior because they automatically get defensive when someone accuses their kid of being a bad person. It needs to be approached in a way that tells parents of bullies that their kids are not bad, it is just a symptom of something else going on and the school doesn't want to punish them, they want to help them. KWIM? Then maybe the problem can actually be addressed and stopped before it happens again or gets worse.

i agree wicked. like i was bullied in jr. high but i wouldn't have wanted the girls and boys prosecuted for it, just have detention or something kwim? i do think though that there is a fine line between harmless teasing (making fun of someone's outfit) and bullying (chronic teasing) kwim?

I think the problem really lies in the parents. How do they handle these situations. If my kids say something to someone and it hurts their feelings I make them apologize. And I explain why to them. Maybe it was a joke but it hurt that person's feelings.

I think when you have parents who get bent out of shape for every little thing and parents who say "kids will be kids" is where you get most of the problems.

That said, I also feel that true bullying meant to hurt or demean someone should require strong consequences.