Lunch Time Poll on Bullying

[shadowkat]

This is a quick poll adjacent to my last post on bullying. Bullying in case there is confusion is defined as teasing, verbal or physical in nature, in which the victim is made to feel shame, fear, pain, insecure, or humiliation. It includes but is not limited to - being called names, having insects put in your food or textbooks, or other creatures, poked fun at, etc. (It is not just being hit or pummeled physically. Mental and emotional bullying is as bad as physical bullying, and leaves scars, they just aren't always quite so visible.) [ETC: Bullying includes teasing, excluding in a way that is obvious - ie four people in a class, three group together and whisper about the fourth while they are there, and it can be by siblings or teachers or fellow students or parents.]

(Sort of hope people will respond. I hate doing polls for this reason. It's not like a post - if no one responds, no big. But polls...sigh. )

[Poll #1631388]

Comments

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I wonder if anybody ever goes completely unbullied. The severity and duration of bullying can vary so much. My child, for instance, is fairly sensitive and feels every hurt, but has never been subject to a campaign of bullying. She appears to have a lot of social savvy and confidence, so we talk a lot about the importance of being kind to all people — without being a pushover. She's still not sure that boys count as people, but I get good reports about her behavior, thankfully. I know that hurt feelings are inevitable, but I've tried hard to give her the tools to be emotionally resilient and to help defend others against emotional assault.

Nowadays, the schools take the issue of bullying seriously, at least around here. No administrator who wants to keep his/her job would be likely to tell a kid to "toughen up" anymore. They can only do something about bullying that they know about, of course, but it's nothing like as rampant as in the bad old days.