Dude, being a teenager is often the pre-existing mental problem. And if a bully is purposefully harassing their victim, they 'take the victim as they find them' and all the consequences that arise from it.
And if bullies are using school computers, it is the school's job to be the cyberpolice. And often when kids sign up for extracurriculars like sports teams, one of the papers they sign has a morals clause- if the participant breaks the law, they're kicked out of the activity. It's up to the school to hold kids to their contracts.
I haven't seen your local news story, so I don't know what the parents are expecting the school to do. But schools oversee the vast majority of the face time between bullies and victims. I seriously doubt that behavior that has gone to that extreme in cyberspace hasn't made it into day to day life.
" I seriously doubt that behavior that has gone to that extreme in cyberspace hasn't made it into day to day life."
this.
The girl who killed herself over MySpace was a teenager, being told by the boy she was in love with (and teenage infautation is far crazier, more impassioned and less logical than the feelings of an adult, which is saying a lot considering how crazy it is as an adult) that he wanted her to kill herself, the world was better off without her, she was universally hated.
I cannot imagine the sort of break in psyche that sort of emotional abuse would cause. You certainly would not need a pre-existing condition of instability for it to lead to the extreme.
Ugh... one of my worst party experiences is trying to ditch an idiot who wouldn't acknowledge the fact that depraved heart murder existed and wouldn't shut up about the Myspace case.
Maybe you were sheltered as a teenager. I bullied, and I was bullied. Nobody I know killed themselves, and neither did I. We all got depressed on occasion, got angry, got pissy, but ultimately it helps us develop thick skins and learn to ignore the bullshit and move on with our lives.
If someone kills themselves over it, then there is something wrong with them. A mental disorder or chemical imbalance or something. They're not stable, though, if they commit, or attempt, suicide.
If someone kills themselves over it, then there is something wrong with them. A mental disorder or chemical imbalance or something. They're not stable, though, if they commit, or attempt, suicide.
Does that make the behavior that drove them to the suicide excusable? that they were already messed up so it wasn't really the bully's fault? That they MUST have been messed up already to let something like bullying effect them that much instead of just dealing with it?
I was not sheltered. At all. High school was fine, but in grade school (up to 7th grade) I was bullied so badly, I had to switch schools. I was a good, happy kid from a really amazing family. I was smart and I had great friends. And the bullying got so bad, I started writing papers and poetry that concerned my parents. I saw counselor after counselor. There was nothing wrong with ME, there was something wrong with the sociopaths who took their teenage aggression out on a shy, quiet smart girl.
Maybe YOU don't know what that feels like BECAUSE you have such a limited range of emotions. But believe it or not, a perfectly mentally stable person can be pushed only so far.
There are two states of mental stability. Stable and unstable. When a person who was mentally stable is pushed to instability, then they are mentally unstable. If they were still stable, they wouldn't commit suicide.
You learned to realize that there was nothing wrong with you and that the fault was in others. This is a healthy, stable response. This is the response people are supposed to have to bullying. It helps them become stronger people.
Also, I don't know what you're talking about with a limited range of emotions thing. I run the full gamut of emotions, from depression to love, I just don't feel them for strangers.
The TV report was a short 2-3 minute blurb. They interviewed the superintendent about why the school had not taken action and what action they would take in the future, then had the parents bitching that they had to find out from another parent and that if their kid had killed themselves they wouldn't know why, and it would be the school's fault. I'll see if I can find a link to an online copy. There's probably more info if so
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Depends on what 'talking shit' is. If you constantly rip on Bobby, and say that he doesn't deserve to live, and continue to do so when you know it's causing him emotional trauma, especially when it drives him to or over the point of killing himself, it's criminal. It's called depraved indifference.
Also, this isn't a formal logic class, where we can only make arguments based on premises 1, 2 and 3. This is a real case, with real people, based on a news report which doesn't have complete information. There's a hole there, I know I'm filling it with an assumption, and if new information comes out that contradicts my assumption, I'll re-evaluate my conclusion.
And my response is that bullying outside of school is a strong predictive factor of bullying inside the school, so yes it is the school's problem, since they're now on notice that something is very wrong.
And I said that if any bullying happens on school grounds or during school activities, it should be addressed by the school. On the rest, we'll have to agree to disagree.
You can stop arguing if you want, but I can't help but think you're missing an important causal link between on school and off school activities that is causing me to come to my conclusion.
Causal link or not, there is a line. There is school-related and not school-related.
I don't think that schools should police, or that they should be expected to police, non-school-related activities. If they find out about it, they can notify the parents that they've heard that X happened to their child, and then let the parents address it. However, neither the movies, nor the mall, nor a slumber party, nor facebook, etc, are, in my opinion, the the school's grounds to police.
Once the bullying happens in a school-related context, then, and only then, should the school react, and even then, only to activities that happen within the boundaries of the school's authority.
It is still the same kids. It is foolish to think that the same kids are not interacting in the same way just because they're inside the school building instead of outside it. School officials can't see individual, peer-initiated hate sites and sit with their thumbs up their asses. Asking school officials what their plan is to investigate and deal with bullying is asking a perfectly legitimate question. Refusing to investigate in the face of strong evidence amounts to willful ignorance, which is as bad as knowing it and ignoring the facts when one has an affirmative duty to act.
I never said that you shouldn't think the kids are interacting the same way on and off school. I'm saying that it's not the duty of the school to deal with those situations that happen outside of the school's parameters. The extent of their involvement should be to notify the parents and make them aware that X site or X incident happened, and let the parents deal with it, while being more mindful and keeping their eyes open to future activities that happen at school.
See, it's really simple. There's school, where the school should deal with it, and then there's outside of school, where the parents should deal with it.
There are exceptions that I'm willing to acknowledge, such as conspiracy to commit an act harmful to the child, such as assault or rape, or signs of molestation. But simply having a group to swap hate stories does not constitute something the school should police. That falls wholly under the jurisdiction of the parents and, possibly, civil court.
And if bullies are using school computers, it is the school's job to be the cyberpolice. And often when kids sign up for extracurriculars like sports teams, one of the papers they sign has a morals clause- if the participant breaks the law, they're kicked out of the activity. It's up to the school to hold kids to their contracts.
I haven't seen your local news story, so I don't know what the parents are expecting the school to do. But schools oversee the vast majority of the face time between bullies and victims. I seriously doubt that behavior that has gone to that extreme in cyberspace hasn't made it into day to day life.
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this.
The girl who killed herself over MySpace was a teenager, being told by the boy she was in love with (and teenage infautation is far crazier, more impassioned and less logical than the feelings of an adult, which is saying a lot considering how crazy it is as an adult) that he wanted her to kill herself, the world was better off without her, she was universally hated.
I cannot imagine the sort of break in psyche that sort of emotional abuse would cause. You certainly would not need a pre-existing condition of instability for it to lead to the extreme.
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If someone kills themselves over it, then there is something wrong with them. A mental disorder or chemical imbalance or something. They're not stable, though, if they commit, or attempt, suicide.
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If someone kills themselves over it, then there is something wrong with them. A mental disorder or chemical imbalance or something. They're not stable, though, if they commit, or attempt, suicide.
Does that make the behavior that drove them to the suicide excusable? that they were already messed up so it wasn't really the bully's fault? That they MUST have been messed up already to let something like bullying effect them that much instead of just dealing with it?
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Maybe YOU don't know what that feels like BECAUSE you have such a limited range of emotions. But believe it or not, a perfectly mentally stable person can be pushed only so far.
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You learned to realize that there was nothing wrong with you and that the fault was in others. This is a healthy, stable response. This is the response people are supposed to have to bullying. It helps them become stronger people.
Also, I don't know what you're talking about with a limited range of emotions thing. I run the full gamut of emotions, from depression to love, I just don't feel them for strangers.
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Also, this isn't a formal logic class, where we can only make arguments based on premises 1, 2 and 3. This is a real case, with real people, based on a news report which doesn't have complete information. There's a hole there, I know I'm filling it with an assumption, and if new information comes out that contradicts my assumption, I'll re-evaluate my conclusion.
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I don't think that schools should police, or that they should be expected to police, non-school-related activities. If they find out about it, they can notify the parents that they've heard that X happened to their child, and then let the parents address it. However, neither the movies, nor the mall, nor a slumber party, nor facebook, etc, are, in my opinion, the the school's grounds to police.
Once the bullying happens in a school-related context, then, and only then, should the school react, and even then, only to activities that happen within the boundaries of the school's authority.
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See, it's really simple. There's school, where the school should deal with it, and then there's outside of school, where the parents should deal with it.
There are exceptions that I'm willing to acknowledge, such as conspiracy to commit an act harmful to the child, such as assault or rape, or signs of molestation. But simply having a group to swap hate stories does not constitute something the school should police. That falls wholly under the jurisdiction of the parents and, possibly, civil court.
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