• Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, the built environment, planning adjacent topics, and anything else that comes to mind. No ads, no spam, and it's free. It's easy to join!

People 👫🏽 Bullying

Maister

Maister

Chairman of the bored
Staff member
Moderator
Messages
38,079
Points
78
Bullying seems to have been on the decline for a number of years in our society. Unlike the days of my youth, most school systems now have official non-tolerance policies towards bullying. The more callous may say this is all caving in to snowflakes and it's important for children to suffer abuse so they can develop the thick skins they need for life, but the other side maintains that institutions that tolerate abuse tacitly give it unofficial sanction and democratic societies have a right to determine how that society and its institutions should deal with juvenile crimes and misbehaviors. Children that exhibit early tendencies towards criminal behavior carry many of those behaviors into adulthood and the same kids that were extorting lunch money under threat of violence on the playground are the same ones populating our prisons as adults.

Anyone here have to deal with a bully as a child? How did you deal with it?
How about as a parent, have your children ever had to deal with a bully, and if so, how did you direct them to respond?
This is the 21st century - any parents aware of their children being cyber-bullied? (and if so, can you explain how that works to this old guy)?

1758801537234.png
 
Bullying is alive and well. I can't speak for what goes on in schools or how it's handled but I see plenty of adults participating. I don't play that game so I get right in someone's face about it and let them know I'm not having it. I have always been one to stand up for myself whether it be at work, in the store or on the playing field. I've taken a few lumps through the years but sometimes that's the price you have to pay to not be taken advantage of or walked on.
 
Maister said:
Bullying seems to have been on the decline for a number of years in our society. Unlike the days of my youth, most school systems now have official non-tolerance policies towards bullying. The more callous may say this is all caving in to snowflakes and it's important for children to suffer abuse so they can develop the thick skins they need for life, but the other side maintains that institutions that tolerate abuse tacitly give it unofficial sanction and democratic societies have a right to determine how that society and its institutions should deal with juvenile crimes and misbehaviors. Children that exhibit early tendencies towards criminal behavior carry many of those behaviors into adulthood and the same kids that were extorting lunch money under threat of violence on the playground are the same ones populating our prisons as adults).

Anyone here have to deal with a bully as a child? How did you deal with it?
How about as a parent, have your children ever had to deal with a bully, and if so, how did you direct them to respond?
This is the 21st century - any parents aware of their children being cyber-bullied? (and if so, can you explain how that works to this old guy)?

View attachment 65426
Click to expand...

Bullying is still very much there, but now in addition to physical bullying, we have cyber bulling to deal with. The forms have just continued to adapt. Heck, we get it from the guy with the bad hair in an oval office too.

  • I had a few instances of bullying when I was in school, until I beat the crap out of one of the bullies. That ended it for good.
  • We were worried about our middle son being bullied, but it was quite the opposite. It sounds like people would try, but he never paid attention to them and never feared them, so they left him alone. On top of that, it sounds like a ton of other kids stood up for him. We learned about it from a teacher who gave us a heads up.
  • We talk with our boys on a regular basis about this, not only to make sure that they are not being bullied, but also to assure they are not bullying someone else.

We also have adults who are bullies too:
 
michaelskis said:
  • We talk with our boys on a regular basis about this, not only to make sure that they are not being bullied, but also to assure they are not bullying someone else.
Click to expand...
Good for you. Because bullying behaviors don't develop in a vacuum. It's a learned behavior. Frequently child bullies learn these types of behaviors in their own homes from abusive parents and siblings. For many of the same reasons that spousal abuse perpetuates along generational lines. It's behavior patterns that are made possible through ignorance and certain enabling behaviors.
 
Bubba said:
I do not advocate it, but one solid punch to the face is a pretty good deterrent to most want-to-be bullies (or so I've heard ;)).
Click to expand...
Yea... mine started as one solid punch to the face, followed by several others, body shots, and a teacher pulling me off.
 
I've said this recently to a citizen. They gloated then threatened.

If you'd like to work this through and get it down through the correct channels, we're happy to do that.
If you want to play games, we'll play games.
 
Physical bullying has become less prevalent, but cyber bullying has gone beyond the level of commonality physical bullying ever had.

I've been lucky--I've always been a big guy. Nobody was ever really going to screw with me. But this also came with a strong caution from my dad that in any altercation, I'll be subject to a presumption of bullying because of my size and that I best tread carefully in picking battles. This was coupled with my class clown status and contributed to why my personality went this direction--a funny guy peacemaker. But I also took up the mantle of shutting down bullying. I ended up in a handful of physical fights, but all well-witnessed examples of me stepping in to support a little guy and always me quickly doing the minimum necessary to shut it down. A few in-school suspensions--basically slaps on the wrist because the principal had to do something.

I found the sharp contrast of class clown physically laying out a known bully tended to serve as a cooler for other bullying--it got attention.
 
Bullying is alive and well with the added feature of cyber bullying which can be relentless. One of our local high schools had a culture of bullying and harassment that led to a young lady committing suicide. The superintendent was also highly inappropriate in remarks he made after the news broke and released personal information about her and her family. The next school board meeting was moved to the high school gymnasium and over 100 past and present students and parents testified about being bullied and how the school and leadership failed them.

The superintendent was terminated and the district has done a ton of work around preventing bullying both inside and outside of school.

It’s not just young people either.
 
MD Planner said:
Or sitting council, mayor etc. I particularly enjoy it when they bully one another. I like being on the outside and watching drama.
Click to expand...
Few things spark joy in my heart quite like seeing two self-important twats pissing down each others legs as though being on the city council of random town USA makes them hot shit.
 
Planit said:
What about council candidate bullying employees? Does that count?
Click to expand...
Been there, had that happen, got the T-shirt. That, plus sitting members of the board.


I think cyber bullying takes a lot more forms than people are willing to admit. In some ways our profession is the receiving end. All these keyboard warriors out there that will type something, but don't actually have the guts to say it at a podium or more so face to face. Personally, I don't engage with that type of behavior. If they want to have a discussion in person, I welcome it. Until then, it is background noise in my book.

Having said that, sometimes they do say something worth looking to more, the problem comes from filtering through the crap to find something meaningful.
 
Back
Top