Physical and Repeat Bullying is far from "normal"!

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In my opinion children who physically bully and/or are repeat offenders are not "normal" children as many people would like to believe. I hate the excuses teachers and other school administrators use to justify turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to completely unacceptable behavior. I believe exceptionally cruel children in the majority of cases do not change, their crimes simply get more sophisticated and mature with age. By their adult years they will likely be engaging in illegal behavior or at the very least extremely immoral and questionable behavior. There is a label for this type of person, it's called Anti-Social Personality Disorder. It is not something to be taken lightly, and I strongly believe teachers need to be on the lookout for these individuals in their classrooms.

Sadly, the skills some bullies have leads to them getting into positions of power over others instead of admittance to incarceration. I have seen some very bullyish behavior from the Vice President over my department at work. Luckily employee surveys showed that 55% of the staff is not happy with our executive management, half her staff was taken away from her, and she is likely to be canned soon. I made sure I communicated my perspective effectively during the anonymous discussions with independent parties hosting the feedback discussions resulting from the survey scores. Getting a chance to stand up to bullies when the opportunity presents itself feels fantastic! + + + + + + + + = =

They way schools handle bullies is despicable. I was never believed and look at how depressed I got...now I can't set foot inside school. I just really can't. It makes me feel so bad on so many different levels. Anxious, scared, angry, frustrated. GAH ! !!

And you hear about so many suicides because schools fail to deal with bullies correctly. It's so disappointing how such an innocent child can be driven to their deaths by mindless bullies!

As much as they'd hate to believe it, the blood is on THEIR hands!

Agreed! Right with all posted - bullying is more than just a "displinary problem" or a childhood phase (except when a bullying incident is isolated and the kid takes accountability - that's understandable). Yes, bullies DO continue well into adulthood oftentimes and sometimes their bullying becomes unscrupulous to where the "victim" can lose in a big way.

Matt55: I like what you wrote and insightful. There's a book on the market relating to your post, about childhood bullies growing up to be.........BIG bullies: Snakes in Suits. Sorry I don't have the author but it's available via amazon.com and other sources.

j0sh & mikkyh are right-on. I've read too many incidents of bullying that has gotten waaaaay out of control. There was a recent incident of a teenage kid who was bullied. That "bully," or more descriptively, violate offender (!) actually doused that innocent teenage kid with alcohol and then lit him on fire! The unsuspecting victim is OK but with life-altering burns and plenty of future surgeries for him - and those scars are forever; inside of him too. I felt sick when I read that story - wish there was something I could do for him.

Agreed that bullying really needs to be addressed in kids who express that trait as the damage they inflict is all too real. As well know, Aspies can be especially hard-hit by bullies. November is Bullying Awareness Month. Too bad teachers (also employers, administrators, others) don't address this important issue more. Personally, I have endured the wrath of bulllies - it screaming hurts.

The biggest misconception about psychopaths is that people think that they are all like Jeffrey Dahmer or Dennis Rader (The B.T.K. Strangler) . Like Asperger's Syndrome, Psychopathy lies on a spectrum. At one end people like Bernie Madoff who swindle people out of their life savings and on the most extreme end of the spectrum individuals who have committed genocide, war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity like Dr. Joseph Mengele. Dr. Michael Stone M.D. of Columbia University has devised a "Scale of Evil" which places psychopathic/antisocial behavior on a spectrum. It has 22 levels, level 1 being people who are normal and level 22 being the most extreme offenders who recieve gratification from prolonged torture and homicide. Unfortunately, mainstream society likes to paint ALL psychopaths as being those rare few who commit the most evil acts. It is this kind of simplistic thinking which allows milder psychopaths to slip under the radar and continue to swindle, assault, bully and make life miserable for decent people.

LabPet: In regards to your comment on the book Snakes In Suits, I have heard of it and have read some of it. It is by Dr. Robert Hare, an expert on psychopathy.

The most realistic representation of a psychopath in the media is Nurse Millerd Ratched (Louise Fletcher) from One Flew Over The Cockoo's Nest (1975). She was manipulative, sadistic, cold-hearted, a skillful liar to point where she had the entire staff fooled into thinking she was Florence Nightengale, and she knew what she was doing was wrong, she simply didn't give a f...k! Yet despite the immeasurable damage she inflicted on her patients, she technically didn't break any laws, she bent the law as far as she could without breaking it. This depiction of cunning illustrates the core nature of a psychopath; a person without a conscience who posesses very superior social intelligence. Their high level of social intelligence allows them to lie much more skillfully than the average person, it also provides them with the ability to easily manipulate and con others, and lastly their high social intelligence allows them to be very charismatic. Psychopaths use charisma to their advantage, usually to project the false image of honesty and morality. Another flawless and realistic portrayl of a psychopath would be John Forsythe as Judge Henry T. Fleming in And Justice For All (1979). Like Nurse Ratched he was extremely manipulative and abused his power for his own twisted amusement.

I think the primary bully who tormented me in childhood could have grown up to be a decent person. He was intelligent and certainly had the capacity to be sensitive. I believe that his home environment was strongly implicated in his behavior. It's not impossible that he has overcome this.

Last I heard, the person I refer to was working with "at risk youths", and was preparing to study for a law degree. I think it's quite probable that he did change in respect of his unacceptable behaviors and attitudes (that these were a form of "acting out"), and that his prior experience and the changes he might have made with respect to himself, probably played a part in his decision to become involved with "at risk youth" as an adult.

pandd wrote: "I think the primary bully who tormented me in childhood could have grown up to be a decent person. He was intelligent and certainly had the capacity to be sensitive. I believe that his home environment was strongly implicated in his behavior. It's not impossible that he has overcome this.

Last I heard, the person I refer to was working with "at risk youths", and was preparing to study for a law degree. I think it's quite probable that he did change in respect of his unacceptable behaviors and attitudes (that these were a form of "acting out"), and that his prior experience and the changes he might have made with respect to himself, probably played a part in his decision to become involved with "at risk youth" as an adult."

I am in no way trying to be confrontational , but simply the fact that he was studying for a law degree and worked with "at-risk youth" no way demonstrates any improvement in regards to his anti-social behavior. Ted Bundy was also highly intelligent, a law student, and from all appearences; seemed like a very nice man. But in reality he was a lying, decietful, monster who murdered scores of women throughout the United States. I am not saying that your bully is a vicious killer like Bundy, what I am trying to illustrate is that people with anti-social/psychopathic tendencies are masters at faking integrity.

Last edited by Matt55 on 25 Jan 2010, 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bullies might need mental help along with punishment. Schools probably don't punish bullies because they are probably the school's sports stars. Most schools only care about the stars and little about anybody else and virtually nothing about people with disabilities.

These school bullies seriously like to take advantage of their respectable personality to pray on the weak, this is how all bullies function. They try to pick on others and they think they can get whatever they want and make the victim look like a bad guy. Unfortunately, when the victim is a person with AS, they won't understand how to socialize, they try to seek attention sometimes, but they do not know how to seek attention in the proper, socially approriate way. Also, sometimes what attracts bullies to AS people is how AS people lack social knowledge, ability to know what to say and when to say it, they cannot read social communications when they talk with others, they just have lack of social knowlege and this is what attracts bullying and tormenting, which leads to these poor victims to just simply drift into their own world where they just runaway from reality and they cannot deal with life's everyday struggles. I have been there and done that and now while I am in my 3rd year of college, I have finally found a group of freinds I get along well with, I can manage my priorities properly and stress the importance of getting my priorties done in life and now I have much, much more self esteem then I had did in K-12.

Every school has bullies and geeks, jocks and intellectuals. It's a part of life.

Should teachers do something about bullying? Of course.
Can they stop it? Hell no!

I think we need to start sending more bullies, especially violent repeat offenders to prison for thier crimes. No one has the right to assault, threaten, and stalk you. The law dosn't end just because your a minor. The prison overcrowding excuse is bull, the one thing that America is unquestionably good at, is locking people up.

Bullying is as old and as common as prostitution and drug abuse. Some human flaws go back thousands of years and no law will be able to stop them. It usually tends to make things only worse.

If it's your word against a group of people, there is no way anything can be held against anyone. Anti-bullying laws will only replace playground bullying with parking lot bullying and the latter is actually even worse because at least at a playground there are dozens of witnesses.

Rape is also a very common crime, one out of eight women are raped in their lifetime (12.5% of women). It is often difficult to prove, but do we tolerate it? Absolutely NOT! Just because something is prevelant isn't an excuse to ignore a crisis. According to safeyouth.org, 11% of kids reported being targets of bullies. So if we compare numbers, sexual assault is actually MORE prevelant than bullying, yet it is no longer tolerated as much as it was fourty years ago in this country, with judges and prosecuters often throwing the book at the accused today. I believe bullying laws will strenghthen over time, just like laws regarding victim's rights and sentencing for sex offenders strengthend over the last fourty years.

sources:
http://www.sfsu.edu/~upd/downloads/Sexual_Assault.pdf
http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/faq/bullying.asp

Last edited by Matt55 on 29 Jan 2010, 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can say that 6 years of being bullied in high school made me a stronger and more mature individual. Although high school was living hell for me, I wouldn't want to have any other past.

Well you are one of the lucky one's. I am to this day still bothered from time to time from my past experiences with bullies. A good friend of mine whom I have known for years was bullied throughout high school and as a result is terribly shy of other people, even twenty years later!

I guess it brings out different behavior among different people. In my case, it only made me more eager to develop my social skills and learn to get along with other people and the suffering I went through in high school made me quite a lot stronger than I would have been if I had been in a very safe and accepting environment. It's a dog eat dog world out there in the real world and high school is sort of a training for what's left to come. If you aren't forced to see how your behavior negatively influences other people and literally suffer the consequences until you change your behavior accordingly, you might not be preparted for a normal work environment once you graduate from college.

But believe me... I'm satisfied by the way my experiences in high school influenced me in later life, but nevertheless some of my years in high school were pretty much hell.... When I think of my teenage years, I usually think of the atmosphere brought up by songs like these (yeah, I was a nerd into so-called "alternative rock" and "metal" - genres quite popular among IT-nerds out here, actually). Especially Radiohead's Creep and most of the Eels songs pretty much represented my general sentiment... and it somewhat kept me straight to know I wasn't the only one......

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHwwPyJ7LwU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzjUjNPYzLg&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h15D6DJ8co0&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20jvV-BPNSk&feature=fvst[/youtube]