<p>The age difference bothers me, and the body slam could have lead to tragic results, but the bully’s mom needs to be more concerned with her son’s actions and lack of common sense, than worrying about getting an apology from the boy who was being bullied.</p>
<p>If I were here, I’d be mortified at my son’s actions, and embarassed by how they reflect on me as a parent. The last thing I’d be doing is giving interviews and demanding apologies.</p>
<p>I dont know why, but this story immediately brought a smile to my face for Casey’s sake. We see so many stories about kids committing suicide over bullying-its nice to see one where the bully gets put in his place instead.</p>
<p>Instead of demanding an apology from the victim, how 'bout she demand it from the person who shot the video and posted it online for the world to see. Oh, that’s right … because it was probably one of her son’s friends. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.</p>
<p>I would also add that there is a serious feminization of culture going on in schools today, in general. That plays into this topic in the suspension of the victim/bigger boy. Yet on the other hand, when I saw the body slam, I also saw a high likelihood of spinal cord injury. Runt-like bully may be going through all sorts of things that could contribute to his horrid behavior, but does he deserve to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair? </p>
<p>This is where good curriculum on bullying comes in. Kids need to be trained in how to respond to bullies. Faculty and the administration need to be instructed in how to listen and act. The entire student body needs to learn what is expected, immediately, of bystanders. Parents deserve recourse when schools ignore complaints of bullying. Much can be done to improve this problem world-wide. </p>
<p>While I do believe boys (or girls!) deserve sympathy when they hit back, or even hit first, in order to stop bullying, none of us has the right to become judge, jury, and executioner. The bigger boy/victim does unfortunately need to suffer a consequence for his undue force, which will hopefully keep him out of the prison system in the future. Being a victim is still no excuse for unnecessary violence which can permanently mame or kill another human being.</p>
<p>I notice in my travels that adults in schools sometimes harbor the same resentments as children toward the perceived weaker members of the community. I have seen teachers favor the stronger, popular kids, and look the other way when the LD or ADD kid gets picked on. It freaks me out, and I wonder how these people ended up in their chosen profession. I don’t wonder how they are able to remain in it. I know the answer to that. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Spidey- I agree, having survived my kids years of K-12 I was stunned by the number of teachers who either showed general favoritism or worse seemed almost excited to be linked to the popular kids. It was as if they were shunned in their own school years and were happy to finally have an in to the popular crowd.</p>
<p>I liked a lot of what spidey said in post 46, but I would disagree slightly on 2 points.
1). para 3 caught me by surprise. I think Spidey missed a very important step. Cause/effect/learning about bullying should begin at home, THEN maybe “faculty and administration…”. The first step is not (imo), instructing the school how to handle it better.</p>
<p>2). Spidey asks "does he deserve to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair? " I’d answer No, but I’d add that if he picks a fight, and particularly if the other one involved is twice his size, then he does take that risk. A fellow doesn’t deserve to lose just because he might play a hand of blackjack at a casino- but he takes the risk.</p>
<p>Determining what is reasonable retaliation in a bullying situation is too sophisticated to expect a child to handle, so they should never be put in the position of having to make that decision. </p>
<p>The first step for a bullied child should be to immediately tell an adult (either a parent or school authority - teacher or admin). It then becomes that adult’s responsibility to stop the bullying.</p>
<p>When bullying is allowed to continue, either because the child doesn’t tell anyone or because the adult doesn’t do anything, then it almost always culminates in a physical altercation in which both children are punished. This is horrible and grossly unfair to the bullied child.</p>
<p>Parents and school administrators should make it crystal clear to all students that bullying incidents should be reported to them immediately, and that doing so is not “uncool” or wimpy or some other stupid adjective.</p>
<p>I think what frustrates me about this discussion is so many people saying what “should” be done. Of course, in a perfect world. Many times the victims have told authority figures, many times over and over. Sometimes the bullies get a punishment, most of the time that just makes them “cooler” in the eyes of the other kids. Believe me, few boys are afraid of the normal punishments - suspension, ISS, etc. Maybe if they had to go out and do some sort of really awful community service or if their parents REALLY punished them - like staying in their rooms everyday after school with no media for a couple of weeks, they might think twice, maybe. But mostly what drives them is the sense of power and the “admiration/fear” from their peers. So yes, in a perfect world a victim would tell and authority figure and the authority figure would act quickly and the bully would be punished and the bully would be ashamed and mend their ways. Never seen it happen, probably never will. So in the meantime while everyone is wishing for this perfect world scenario what are the victims supposed to do?</p>
I agree 100 percent with this. Cause and effect is a powerful teacher. Of course, nobody wishes for that boy to be hurt or worse but he needs to understand that if you play with fire you might get burned. I think our society is guilty of over-thinking and over intellectualizing lots of things. I’m guessing that it wasn’t the first time that kid picked on the bigger boy. Maybe his luck just ran out.
I would also like to mention that I have been teaching for over 20 years and the vast majority of teachers do not cozy up to the popular kids. Most of us take our responsibility seriously and take a special interest in the well being of the students who might be likely victims of bullying, teasing, etc. Most of us love kids and want to protect all of them.</p>
<p>Shouldn’t there be a distinction between “retaliation” and “resistance” / “defense”?</p>
<p>One can easily argue that the victim’s actions were “resistance” / “defense”, though (as we see in this thread) there is the argument about what an appropriate force level is for “resistance” / “defense”, and whether a typical high school student with no special training should know that.</p>
<p>But a hypothetical situation where the victim kept kicking or throwing the bully after he was down and no longer a threat would be “retaliation”, which most people would find much less acceptable.</p>