The bullied kid that fought back - the "conventional wisdom" is bullshit.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/video-of-tables-turning-on-bully-sounds-alarm-bells-20110315-1bvmu.html

Fuck me, we get this "Now now, violence is not the answer." pabulum from the so-called experts, who are saying this kid who was bullied day-after-day-after-day-after-fucking-day, and gets punched in the face on video, should not have retaliated. And they're suspending both kids.

ARE THEY FUCKING SERIOUS?

What was that kid supposed to do? We all know how those dynamics come together. The teachers weren't doing diddly-shit to stop this. In fact, in many schools, the bullies are varsity football players, teachers' pets or the superintendent's kids, which means that they get the run of the place, while anyone who fights back gets punished.

The only way to get through to that bullying little shit was to body-slam him and break his fucking ankle. The kid doing the body-slamming used the only option he had left. And now he's getting punished. What, you say he should have walked away? For what? So the same harassment can happen over and over day after day next time? He did what he had to do.

If I have kids, this is the way I will teach them to deal with bullies.

If they know they will have to physically fight you everytime and risk personal injury they will stop. My kids will be taught not to depend on administrative procedure to defend themselves.

That's what I always told my kids. My son was the new kid in school in 10th grade. One pain in the butt made the mistake of picking on him. One day he came home from school with blood on his t-shirt and no obvious injuries of his own. When I asked him what happened he told me he'd never start a fight but he'd darn sure finish one. He finished one that day and nobody ever made the mistake of bullying him again throughout high school.

Today he and his wife are raising two of their grandchildren. He was called to school about his granddaughter last year. One of her classmates pulled her hair and she turned around and popped him in the nose. My son made sure she received no punishment for defending herself.

There was a young boy who was relentlessly bullying her. My brother told my niece to talk to the teacher. She did. Bullying continued. He said talk to her again. She did. Bullying continued. Then, one day, the boy pushed my niece out of the swing and took it away from her. Nobody saw it. She went home, told my brother, and he said, "Okay, here's what I want you to do. Next time he does something like this, first, you look over to make sure the teacher isn't looking. Then, I want you to PUSH him as hard as you can to the ground, and you tell him in the meanest quiet voice you have, "Leave me alone or you will be so sorry!" She did this the next day. And the kid never bothered her again. She still talks about that. And even if the teacher saw it and punished my niece, then the school would have heard from my brother BIG TIME for not handling the situation better and sooner. I think empowering a child to care for him/herself if there is no one else to care for them, is the right thing to do. Otherwise, you are only teaching them how to be victims. Period.

it's about creating an understanding that there WILL be a fight, everytime, until the bully fucks off.

What used to be known as "defending yourself" (basically, kicking someone's ass if they assault you) can now end up with assault charges filed against *you* - if you contribute to an escalation of the confrontation, or use excessive force (kicking someone on the ground, for instance).

I'm with you.

:crazy:

However, bullies did think twice to mess with me a second time.

Even when I got my clock cleaned, I managed to make it very unworth their while.

I might not win, but you WILL pay dearly for the privilege of kicking my ass.

I was bullied a ton, and it only stopped after I snapped and broke two kids arms and gave another a concussion. I had about 45 witnesses that where willing to go to bat for me, so I didn't even get in any trouble, although I could tell the dean wanted me suspended but its a wonder what the threat of a lawsuit will do.

then allow the bully to get away with the bad behavior it sends the real message and that is this poor kid is on their own... Poor kids.

We were called names, spat on, my brother kicked in the crotch so hard he told me he was bruised for weeks. In about 8th grade, I'd had enough. My parents had told us to just ignore them. They said they would get tired of picking on us. That was not true and I finallydecided that the next person that said something bad to me would be sorry about it.

I got on the bus and was walking down the aisle and some smart ass opened his mouth with just another bad comment. I gabbed his collar, lifted him off the seat and told him to NEVER speak to me that way again. And then I sort of dropped him back into the seat. And the fact that I was a girl... helped.

None of the bus bullies EVER bothered me or any of my siblings again.

Bullies don't stop.

:thumbsup:

"Just ignore them! They'll leave you alone eventually!"

It took until I was in ninth grade to finally get the bullies off my back, and that was because (surprise!) they had all been kicked out of school or moved away. I was, unfortunately, too petrified to throw punches in my own defense.

four wheeling. Something inspiring about the way I drive.:rofl:

Yep...I had very similar experiences...You have to stand up to bullies.

Bullies never stop.

:rofl:

To think about what he did to deserve it.

The ONLY time they left someone alone was when their target put a hurt on them they wouldn't soon forget. There are always smaller, easier fish in the sea.

If they realize it is painful to fuck with you, then they stop. Been there, done that and have the emotional scars to back it up.

I was called "harelip" one time too many, and rather than wilt inside and hide away to cry, I kicked a guy's ass. The little SOB had tortured me for years and finally I made pain a part of the transaction. Suddenly, it was not fun any more and the bullshit stopped. That isn't exactly the PC method espoused today by all the warm fuzzy people--that probably never had to endure that shit on a daily basis--but it was a life lesson for me.

There are a lot of dimwitted adults in the teaching profession and I marvel every day that our system still manages to turn out a few functional thinking citizens.



Laura

let your last sentence go unchallenged. Yes, there are "dimwits" in the profession, as there are in all professions. However, the majority really do try their hardest in a system where they are now expected to do more and more, and be responsible for more and more, with less and less, in both money, resources and respect. Too many parents now expect teachers to do their job for them in all areas. And let's not even get into how many kids show up hungry or abused/neglected, or with an attitude the size of Texas, refusing to cooperate or do their work, not getting reinforcement on homework at home, etc., etc., etc. You seriously think parents aren't equally, if not more, responsible for their own damn kids?

And many teachers CANNOT even touch students anymore, for any reason, for both liability reasons and fear of misinterpretation or twisting around; when many do try to physically intervene in problem situations, THEY can get in trouble for it, from both the administrators and the parents of the little darlings doing the bullying. And if you don't think they can be given professional grief for it, think again. My stepdad once tried to stop a fight, only to have the bully turn on him; when he attempted to defend himself from the bully, (who was stronger than he was), HE was the one in trouble for it and could have lost his job and his license. Had there not been a couple students willing to withstand the threats from the bully and his family and their student sycophants, that very well could have happened. And in the days before tenure and unions (such as when my parents first began their teaching careers), teachers could be and often were summarily dismissed on the false complaint by a parent of a bully or other at-fault student, with no investigation, no getting the other side, nothing. They saw it all the time. And now we're going back to those "glory days" thanks to the current repuke policy, with the generous aid of too many Democrats.

I wonder why virtually every story told by people that were bullied have teachers ignoring it when it's reported, and usually at least a few teachers that outright encourage it. Where are all the stories that go "This guy kept beating me up, but I told a teacher and it stopped."? (I'll concede that, from what I've seen, it's more the administrators enabling it than the teachers.)

He didn't say all teachers are bad. He didn't even say most of them are. There's absolutely no need to lecture people that were abused on why speaking out about their abuse is wrong. Would you lecture a victim of any other kind of abuse about making blanket statements, especially when a blanket statement wasn't actually made?

I'm usually as pro-teacher as they come, but I'm not going to defend the bad ones that don't think a kid being harassed is a problem.

I'm surprised that these school administrators aren't being called to task for enabling or turning a blind eye to a dangerous environment for students. I can't imagine it being very conducive to learning if a student is being bullied on a regular basis. Failure to provide a good and safe learning environment should be grounds for dismissal of the Principal and the entire school board.

I was responding to. She said it was "full of dimwits" and she was surprised that the system managed to turn out a few functional people each year. THAT is a blanket statement.

And I took and take offense because my parents never tolerated that in their classroom and neither did any of their colleagues. When you constantly hear your parents profession demonized, attacked and trashed, when you know they worked their asses off trying to do a good job and got shit for it in the end (all of their so-called "cushy" pensions now go to his nursing home costs, as he has early dementia and never even got to enjoy their retirement), and you know of many, many more such cases, it gets a little tiresome. It's more the administrators than the teachers. My parents would even get in trouble by administrators, (you know, the ones with the power over their jobs?) if they tried to stop bullying or teasing, especially if the parents of the tormentors complained to the admins.

I was constantly picked on, bullied and teased all through school and it was teachers who stopped it and intervened; the admins couldn't have given a damn unless the teachers were bothering the poor bully and his parents ocmplained.

Still don't regret it.

On another occasion, a little shit was spitting on me in the gym locker room, and was recovering from a broken rib. One day, I got sick of the shit and punched him right in that broken rib.

Still don't regret it.

During a football game a bully kept taunting me and being a jerk. At one point after the play was over I slammed into him while he was still sitting on the ground. My friend Eloy said I made him cry. :)

I told her never to participate in bullying another child or she's in deep shit. I also told her that if another kid physically bullies her to give them the business and I'll handle the fallout with the principal. I'll be damned if I'm going to stand around wringing my hands and telling my child there's nothing she can do about being bullied.

They constantly excuse bullies, and chastise victims that they should just take the bullying, that fighting back isn't responsible. Fuck Dagleish. Some 12 year old kid needs to beat the shit out of him, and then we'll see what his response is.

I was bullied and it was hell until I fought back.

That you are correct.

I was a very 'pretty' young man. I loathed violence, and for many years could not understand why I was being picked on when I had done nothing to precipitate abuse.


(Me... High School)


I was lucky to have been gifted with good kinesthetic architecture. IOW; I had a knack for physicality. During the last year of middle school and first year of high school, I laid out and otherwise humiliated several bullies. I'm not proud of this as the actions came out of fear and rage. I drove a sewing needle into one of them when his back was turned. He screamed, I shrugged, the teacher told him to sit back down... he never laid a hand on me again.

Part of me believes that bullies get whatever they deserve, but I know better. The reality is that the bullies are terribly weak creatures lacking something fundamental in their lives. Being struck upon does nothing to 'help' them in the vast majority of cases. They'll only find other ways to alleviate their insecurities at best.

I read an obscure comic once. One of the antagonists, a brute of raw power and hatred who'd just destroyed the entire post-natal wing of a hospital (killed dozens of babies) was confronted by a 'Batman-like' protagonist who said to him, "How sad that you've never known what it is liked to be hugged", or some stuff. The bad guy crumbled like a rag-doll at the internal conflict that unleashed and wept like a child.

It's not that bullies need to be coddled, they don't. But something fundamental is missing from their experience, or some flaw was not dealt with when they were young. Do they deserve to get what they give? I believe so. But I don't believe it will solve their problem.

In my case, it sure the hell solved mine.

They don't have empathy or conscience.

and not using violence but you have to deal with them. I had a neighbor who acted like my property was his, came on it whenever he wanted and even cut up my trees and bushes threw trash in my yard. I was actually afraid he was going to eventually break into the house. I felt like I was under seige from this bully. I tried to ignore him but he only got bolder. I finally put in a survillance camera system so now he's the one who has some stress and is confined to his own property. I'm the one happy now because I'm free of his abuse.

more than either kid needed to be and this is exactly the kind of thing that should get a teacher fired.

what a good teacher does is drag that fucking bully into the office, call in the parents and explain to them the next time their kid does something like that at school, they'll be leaving in the back of a squad car -then you talk to the parents of the bullied kid and convince them to press charges. That solves that shit pretty quick in an adult fashion.

I got bullied and harassed over and over by this kid, kept asking teachers for help, they did nothing till finally I snapped, grabbed a chunk of old asphalt and threw it at his face, he ducked and it hit one of his minion toadies. And so it was me headed out of school in the back of a squad car. No one did anything about the teachers who let this shit go on, though those pieces of shit all lined up to point their finger at me.

a couple days later, a few guys who didn't even like me that much decided that they were sick of this guy (bullied a lot of other kids) and beat the shit out him with bike chains in front of the entire school. He cried for help and no one helped. He had to go to the hospital, lost a lot of teeth and was pulled from the school. I don't think that kid deserved it, he needed guidance -not getting the crap kicked out of him. All those teachers had to do was do their job, but they didn't and they cause some poor kid to get the shit kicked out of him on a level way disproportionate to anything he ever did.

I am a father now of a four year old daughter, and if any bullying happened to her, that bully is getting charged with fucking assault and the teachers who look the other way are getting their names and personal info posted all over the net with clear descriptions of their failure to protect the children.

YOU TEACH YOUR KIDS TO STAND UP TO BULLIES EARLY, SO WHEN THEY ARE GROWN UP, THEY KNOW NOT TO PUT UP WITH THE BULLIES OF THE GROWN-UP WORLD EITHER.

were bullying me, chasing me home from school and threatening to beat me up if they caught me.

My mother phoned the principal, who took me out of class, led me into the fifth grade classroom, and quietly asked me to point out the bullies. He then grabbed the bullies by the collar and dragged them into his office.

He sat all three of us down and laid into the boys for trying to scare a second grader. He asked them how they would feel if an eighth grader did the same to them and warned them that if this happened again, he was going to call their parents. (This was in the 1950s, when parents were mostly appalled and apologetic if their children behaved badly outside the family.)

I never had any further problems.

By the way, the "fight back" method works with emotional bullies, too. I had a relative who never opened her mouth except to criticize and enumerate my faults, real and imagined. I finally blew up at her and said that I wouldn't put up with it anymore, that the things she was criticizing me for were none of her business and I was going to walk away if she ever did it again. That was all it took.

The response seemed entirely justified given the provocation.
It is not the sort of thing most bullying victims could pull off though.

Most bullies aren't dumb enough to attack somebody bigger and stronger than themselves.

The shrimp probably thought the bigger kid would run away - and he'd look like he was a big intimidator.

"Most bullies aren't dumb enough to attack somebody bigger and stronger than themselves."

...the vicious little bastards hunted like a pack..the only time I ever saw them scared was after I'd transferred to another school and came upon one of them by himself one day...he couldn't stop kissing my arse for fear of what I might do...

Bullying doesn't. That's why they're punished for fighting back.

Social Darwinism is what it sounds like to me.

That boy should not have been suspended. He didn't do anything wrong. He was cornered. He was being physically assaulted. He showed restraint until he was forced to either act, or to continue being assaulted. And after he fought back *just* enough to get that little shithead off of him, he walked away.

If that kid deserves a suspension because he broke the "rules", that's fine. But the teachers and administrators who SHOULD have been there to protect him--and who then decided to SUSPEND him for protecting HIMSELF--deserve to be suspended right along with him. After all, don't the adults have "rules" too? Aren't there consequences for utterly failing in your responsibility to keep these kids physically safe inside your school? Or do the grownups get a free pass for failure, while the kid gets the hard line?

And that aggressive little shithead's parents should see some fucking consequences too. This shit ALWAYS starts at home with permissive, indulgent parents who encourage their kid to think that he (or she) is "better" than other people.

kid beaters. Take your pick.

And the kid in the video gives the aggressor MANY chances to stop. At least the bully will now think twice before doing that again.

however, they really should look the other way in these instances. On the other hand, in most cases bully's are bigger than the kids they are teasing and can be very dangerous; fighting back will often end with just the opposite effect of what happened here. Also, had that kid been thrown down two feet further to the left onto that hard wooden corner, his back might have been broken. Or perhaps landing on his head and being killed. The conversation would change very quickly if that happened. Schools need to be very careful about promoting any kind of violence, even with bully's.

I am on the kids side here but I don't think these are cut and dry issues.

what are they? I would really like to know. The only way I've ever seen bullying stop is retaliation. Period.

Unless I'm missing a post it seems unanimous that we agree that kids should be allowed to defend themselves without getting suspending. I remember in Junior High both kids got suspended no matter who started it and even in the student newspaper, one of the students made an excellent argument that kids should be allowed to defend themselves without getting suspended. It seems quite a few people feel this way. What I can't wrap my head around is why exactly schools have this policy.

If someone gets their back broken or is killed (either side), if they can show the school encouraged kids to fight back I think the school would be liable to some extent. Either way the school loses. If the kid fights back and wins and someone is badly hurt the school would be in trouble or if the kid fought back and gets badly hurt then his/her parents might take legal action against the school. The schools have to take a "Non Violent" policy or the are fucked!

Sure all this is wonderful when things work out but when someone gets shot or killed then the idea of fighting back doesn't work out so well. Schools need to be very careful about these things. They are not cut and dry.

I think you make excellent points. I didn't think of it like that. I was just thinking of a kid constantly bullied and harassed getting punished for responding. The tips they taught when I was in school, "Ignore them and walk away" weren't really effective in getting them to leave you alone.

I see your point and agree with it.

I wish it always worked out that way. Too bad life is so complicated.

One good thing however. That kid now has a fan page on FB which I am sure is wonderful for him even with the suspension. The other kid is being seen by millions getting exactly what he deserved. I wonder if he can even show his face in school now? It's a beautiful thing. :) On the other hand, I hope he learns from this and becomes a better person and someone people respect. Seeing himself on the video and how disgusting he was acting must have hit home after such a humbling experience.

He was the class target and anytime he tried to stand up for himself he was punished.

If someone gets their back broken or is killed (either side), if they can show the school encouraged kids to fight back the school would be liable to some extent. Either way the school loses. If the kid fights back and wins and someone is badly hurt the school would be in trouble or if the kid fought back and gets badly hurt then his/her parents might take legal action against the school. The schools have to take a "Non Violent" policy or they are fucked!

Sure all this fighting back stuff is wonderful when things work out but when someone gets shot or killed then the idea of fighting back doesn't work out so well. Schools need to be very careful about these things. They are not cut and dry.

With that I loved seeing that bully get his ass kicked! :)

that this kid does.

I don't think the "bullies will stop if you stand up for yourself" advice is any more sound than the "ignore it and it will go away" advice. I've seen both strategies work and I've seen both strategies fail.

I wish I saw these posts before I made mine. :blush:

Our school had a similar policy about punishing everyone involved, whether it would be bullying or fighting. That was very frustrating because if somebody had you in a physically threatening situation you were put in a place where just defending yourself might lead to suspension. I agree that that isn't really fair. I do understand it can be hard for the powers that be to really know who started it, and so on, but still, if someone pushes you up against a wall and cocks their fist, you shouldn't be punished for tackling them.

Of course, it's also true that though my school had that policy, it was rather unevenly applied. :grr:

Don't come to a gunfight with a knife, I always say.

Your advice is why kids went from fists to knives to guns.

Many pro-gun types like myself hate the pro-gun culture that has washed across this country the past couple decades for that reason. Arguing for the right to keep and bear the gun was one thing. But the people arguing pro-gun all too often end up arguing cases for using the arms in addition to keeping and bearing them.

Kids hear these arguments. And they don't have filters. Which make them more likely to kill (why so many people get shocked when a kid kills someone is beyond me ... well, no, it isn't; most people are complete dumbfucks).

Nor do they have the experience to even put the arguments into proper context. Just as inner city killer kids was a negative outcome of the need for residents to protect themselves from the police, we are now seeing rural killer kids on the increase as a negative outcome of those who failed to keep the pro-gun to keep and bear and instead ventured into use.


Losing a fight is not the worst thing in the fucking world. In fact, I would rather lose a fight than hit someone with a baseball bat. For one thing, a baseball bat is a lethal weapon. I would only use it if I truly believed I would otherwise be killed.

I remember once when I was in 8th grade there was a guy in my gym class who engaged in a bit of bullying of me for a while. He was a freshman (though he was actually two years older than me) and I was the only 8th grade guy in the class. I wasn't a slight kid by any stretch, and the only issues I personally had with bullying (after about the 5th grade) were from people older than me.

Anyway, things came to a head with this guy while we were playing water polo. He was a defender and I was a forward on the opposite team, and after I scored a goal or two he decided to "cover" me personally, which he did by simply holding me underwater for extended periods of time whenever he got the chance, whether the ball was anywhere near us or not. He told me, at the time, that if I scored another goal he would kick my ass at lunch (which was immediately after). Every school, I suppose, has at least one more-or-less "official" fighting ground where students can stage their fights outside the view or beyond the arm of the school authorities. One of ours, at that junior high, was just across the street from the building we were in, so when I actually did score another goal and he slapped the back of my head and said "you're fucking dead," I assumed that I would be spending my lunch hour getting beaten to a pulp up there.

As I've said, I was plenty big and strong enough for my age, but he was older, bigger, and stronger, and was also a very talented wrestler (he actually made the state finals that year even though he was only a freshman). It's not a fight I would have had much of a chance to win. I was tempted to get dressed and out of the locker room as quickly as possible, but decided instead to take a long time getting showered and dressed, hoping that he'd forget or just leave. He didn't. When I was dressed he came to my locker and repeated his threat. I don't remember the whole conversation, but the gist of my argument was (trying to portray more courage than I actually felt): "Look. We both know that if we fight you're going to kick my ass. We can do that if you want to. But that won't help you win at water polo. Tomorrow I'm going to score again. If you want to kick my ass, fine, but I think it would be better for both of us if you'd just try to get on my team tomorrow."

It was kind of silly, I suppose, and it's not as though we became best friends after that, but it did put an end to his threats and bullying, and I gained plenty of respect from him and his friends without "fighting back" physically.

That same year I got in a stupid fight with a different freshman. It was right after school got out and he was making fun of a friend of mine and I made fun of him back and one thing led to another and before I really knew what was going on we were on our way, by mutual agreement, to the parking lot behind the shop building. (That was another occasional staging area--had it been an important fight, with a real grudge between the combatants and an excited crowd invested in the spectacle, we would have gone down the hill to a water fountain in the city park which was where the "main event" type fights were always held. But as it was we were just mostly fighting out of boredom. It was a pretty good-natured affair.) We both landed a few punches, but there was nothing major--no black eyes, no bruises, no blood. He probably got the best punch of the day in, because I did have a split on the inside of my lower lip, but it didn't really bleed and it wasn't really noticeable unless I physically showed it to people (which, of course, I did). After a few minutes one of the office ladies came to her car, saw us, and asked us if there was a problem here. I looked at him and said "do we?" He said "I think you've had enough." We shook hands and made our separate ways. It was all very civil.

A month or so later he saw me sitting in a class as he walked by, and said "aren't you the kid whose ass I kicked back in December?" I just waved. He called over a few of his friends and pointed me out, laughed and so on. After that he started doing typical stupid junior high shit--I'd be at my locker and he'd walk by and slam it shut, or he'd go out of his way to aggressively bump into me on the stairs, or whatever, almost always in the company of friends and usually throwing in some assorted name calling as well. So in this case the bullying (I use that word here advisedly, since unlike the previous situation I didn't really feel I was in physical danger, just in an awkward position) actually started after the physical confrontation. I suppose I could have just decided to fight him again--the first fight was no big deal and I think I would have had a more than reasonable chance in another fight--but at that point it wouldn't have been an impromptu affair, like our earlier engagement had been, and I had no desire in being at the center of the spectacle of a fight "by the fountain." Eventually I ran into him away from campus when he wasn't surrounded by his friends. He made some kind of typical degrading comment, so I decided to talk to him. I said the first fight was fun, that he'd landed a good punch but we both knew it wasn't accurate to say he'd kicked my ass, that I had no real interest in fighting him again, and that the provocative behavior was stupid and I was getting sick of it. He said something along the lines of "whatever, loser," and never bothered me again.

Trying to reason with a bully is certainly not a one-size fits all solution, but then neither is escalating the violence. It will work in some situations and fail in others. Alas, there's no single approach that will guarantee a hollywood ending.

Bullying is a pattern of behavior--it's a repeated effort to intimidate, humiliate, etc. There is one quote in the article that says some person on facebook knew the older kid and that he had been a victim for some time, but that's not exactly fully reliable. It may well be the case, of course, but I'm not sure we really know.

What we do see on camera is a 12-year-old rather stupidly picking a fight with a much larger 16-year-old. The "bully" throws a punch--not a slap or a tap, but a full punch in which he invests some significant energy--and it barely moves the older kid at all. Maybe this is all part of a pattern of bullying and the older kid finally had enough and snapped, but it seems as likely to me, just from what we see on the video, that the older kid is restraining himself because he knows if he doesn't that he can fairly easily hurt the kid. When the kid throws another punch, the older kid fairly easily deflects it. Little kid still doesn't give up and big kid has had enough of the gnat buzzing around and squashes him. Doesn't seem like bullying to me. Maybe it is, but not all fighting is bullying.

I think students who are legitimately threatened should have a right to fight back. I also think that it's obvious the older kid could have handled this better. I'm not saying that to condemn him, and I'm not saying we should feel pity for the kid who decided to pick a fight with an older and obviously bigger, stronger opponent. But the difference, physically, between a 16-year-old and a 12-year-old is pretty substantial, even putting aside the obvious size difference, so it's not as though body-slamming the kid was the only way he had to defend himself.

Is having 7th graders and high school sophomores share school space common in Australia? When I was in seventh grade my town had a "middle school" for 6th and 7th graders, a junior high for 8th and 9th, and a high school for 10th, 11th, and 12th. It's also been common, in places I've been, to see jr. high for 7th and 8th (sometimes also 6th and/or 9th) and then high school for 10th-12th. It seems rather unusual, outside of a private or parochial school, to have 12-year-olds sharing space with high schoolers.

The supporting article stated that there was a patter of behavior that led up to this moment.

However, each trend begins with a single data point. If this were the first incident, would it be bullying? What if it were the first incident in a string, and the video just surfaced? Would that change anything?

What if it were the only incident, but the students INTENDED for there to be more, but changed their minds due to the other boy's rsponse? Would that make it something other than bullying?

It's not so easy to define what is--and what is not--bullying.

who claims to know the older boy. Then later there is a passive voice "It is understood the Year 10 student is a victim of repeated bullying ..." to lead into a reaction comment by someone who is not directly involved in the situation. So I still think that it might be the case that it's bullying, but it may also be the case of simply assuming a context.

I agree that it can be difficult to define bullying, but at the same time if all fighting is understood to be bullying than I think the term "bullying" loses some of its usefulness. If this is a case of a 12-year-old repeatedly picking on this other kid, or having observed other people picking on the kid and deciding to get in on the action, that's quite a different situation than if it's a 12-year-old who (as 12-year-old boys are sometimes prone to do) thinks that he's much tougher than he actually is and picking his fights very, very poorly.

It may well be the former. I just thought, given the lack of real evidence pointing in that direction, that it was worth raising the other possibility.

that's a fight.

But if one kid hits another because he's fat (substitute "skinny," "short," "poor," "red haired," or any other adjective for "fat"), it's bullying, regardless of how many times it has happened.

The best way to deal with bullies, however, is to organize

No matter how strong the bully might be, he can't beat all of us

Since many school administrators don't seem to feel physical violence is important.

I mean, obviously, there are different ways this can go, but I know who I'd rather end up as.

There's a second hero in that video...the girl at the end who came upon the scene, looked ready to pounce, and then intervened when the friends started to follow the victim. Everything I've read about how to stop bullying in schools is to teach kids to shun the bullies and to step in when someone is being victimized.

The two girls in the beginning of the video were instigators. They looked on and seemed to approve. That helps create a school environment that allows bullies to continue. Instead, the second girl walking by herself stepped in. She's a hero!

"What was that kid supposed to do?..."

Without condemning or condoning what the young man did, there are quite often more ways to prevent what his attackers did other than returning the violence. I was bullied horribly my first year in HS and soon realized that if done in a particular manner, I could easily humiliate the bully in front of his peers, and slyly indicate that any further aggression on his part would call his manhood into question.

Again... I'm not judging his response, merely pointing out that there are usually additional options available that have been used successfully.

He's a teabagger, and we had an argument in person (not online) about abortion. Afterwards, he friended me on Facebook, and I saw on his wall that he was talking smack about me online. Not too bright...

So I just jumped right into the thread where he was talking smack, starting with "Since we had this discussion, I might want to point out...", shot down a few of his points, and made him look like an ass for the way he was talking about me, and made him look like an idiot.

In the end, he rage-deleted his own posts. :rofl:

The little Napolean complex kid, even has his friend video tape it - meaning this attack was planned.

I got bullied routinely growing up. The only way to deal with them was to stand up to them. One of my worst bullies was a 16 year old girl who moved into my neighborhood. I was 12, and she was always threatening to beat the crap out of me. One day I got tired of out running her, and I threw a couple smoke bombs in her back yard. The fire department came, she never bothered me again.