I didn't hit puberty till I was 16/17, I was about 5ft 4" during high school and now I'm 6t 2" at 21. I was your typical victim, glasses, braces, good at computers. None of it helped me. If I wasn't being beaten I was being called names, and as much as the phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" is thrown around, it's not true.

Honestly, I thought about committing suicide time and time again. The teachers all but provoked the bullies and my parents - who know better now - assumed the teachers would deal wit it. They didn't. Eventually I gave up mentioning it to be people. I was pushed down stairs, burnt with glue guns, you name it.

On one occasion, I was beaten in class, my teacher turned around, saw what happened and looked away. She knew full well what happened.

Eventually I dealt with it myself, I beat the crap out of the main bully. I wasn't proud of it, but I sorted it myself. It was that moment my life changed, the last month of school - yes, it took me that long to sort - was completely different for me, I had a couple of friends. I happened to muse the other day on Twitter that if I could do one thing differently, it'd be school. I'd sort my problems on day one.

These days however I've achieved quite a lot, I'm proud of what I've done with my life and in some ways grateful for the bullying. It pushed me to better myself, I pursued computing, I'm now Lead Developer for a travel company. I have plans for a startup. I'm engaged. Life is awesome.

I donate to Beat Bullying each year, this looks like a great project.

While I've personally never been on either end of bullying, what I've heard leads me to believe that for extreme physical bullying, getting violent can be the solution.

Bullying should absolutely be stopped by other means, but when it comes down to it these are animal level dominance games amongst young apes and violence does often solve them. I'm not saying it should, but it does.

If/when I have kids they'll be told to defend themselves and that their parents will back them up even if the school doesn't.

I just know that people tend to stop bothering you if you show them you aren't a pushover. You don't have to beat them into the dirt, you just have to hit back.

I wouldn't fight for the sake of fighting. When I used to go clubbing there were a couple of instances where some drunken guys would kick off on me, I attempt not to fight every time, it's hard to talk a drunken mess out of a fight, but if an attack is thrown at me I'll fight back, solely to knock them down in defense and walk off.

I forgot to mention I started following Ju-Jitsu so that if I was thrown somewhere I could land safely. I now use it to defend myself or friends if we find ourselves in a situation like that. It's happened only a couple of times thankfully.

A lot of the mechanisms we have in society are designed to contain or counteract our animalistic behavior, but not all kids are raised well enough or are mature enough to behave and physical correction can work wonders to break errant behavior.

He actually avoided me afterwards.

I want to hope that we'll reach some point where this won't happen anymore.

Not all of my teachers were like that thankfully, but that is the root of the problem. Teachers are too scared to deal with incidents like mine.

[1] https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/...

A lot of this I can relate to. School was hell for me, and I still struggle to forgive the adults around me during that period who, despite knowing what I (and others) faced, failed us utterly. Of course, school is rough and tumble - but when things went too far they sympathised, and in some rare cases talked to the bullies parents. I don't ever remember anyone being excluded or punished properly, though.

One thing I am never, ever, going to tell my kids is the stupid "sticks and stones" rhyme. That's just to make you feel better, not them. I'd get depressed, or upset, and get hugs and sympathy, but no solutions.

The first guy he describes in this video I can relate to. I became withdrawn, anti-social, believing that solace was in books and learning rather than other people. Fortunately I ran into some people at university who slowly dragged me out of myself. And, eventually, I met a girl who tore apart my world and helped me rebuild it (although, maybe she didn't realise at the time, I'd got so good at hiding everything away).

One particular idiot at school loved to taunt me, hold my upside down by my ankles. One day I snapped, and as he ran at me I picked up a chair and swung it. So. Much. Trouble. I was very nearly expelled... The same guy was a consummate bully, big, loud and evil to anyone weaker than him. There was another kid in our class, a bit large but it was more muscle than fat. He was lovely, quiet and very very odd (I think he came from a bad family). One day the bully was shaking down some younger kids in the playground and, I remember this vividly, this guy just decided enough was enough. He calmly walked across the playground and threw bully against the wall. Pounded him in the face a few times and told him to stop. It worked, so so well (he was excluded of course, but there you go...), and we rarely suffered again.

What does this teach kids? That there is no justice in the world except that which you take by violence?

I am certain that school ripped up several years of my life, and still adversely affects me to this day. But what can we do? Kids will be kids, eh?

The other thing we can do is raise kids with respect and good boundaries from the start. Although my son attracted bullies, he did not suffer unduly. He knew how to cope effectively. I was molested and raped as a child. As a parent, I enforced a strong policy of respecting boundaries. That empowered him to take action early with bullies and not tolerate small offenses and the inevitable escalation. Bullying and molesting work much the same way: The predator starts small and escalates. The most effective measures stop it early. Most approaches fail because they do not identify the problem or try to address it until it has already gone too far.

I have previously written about the policy I had at home which empowered him to deal effectively with bullies: http://www.kidslikemine.com/2012/06/13/an-invisible-shield-h...

Hope you don't mind me copying some of your advice here:

"They know if someone is disrespecting them, that is a huge red flag and the person should not be trusted because they are likely some form of social predator, whether sexual or otherwise. [b]They do not go along to get along.[/b] They do not get led merrily down some slippery slope.

...The vast majority of the time, child molesters are someone the child knows and trusts, someone who has made an effort to get close and push the boundaries of what the child would accept. My sons have basically a zero tolerance policy for boundary violation, thus they were virtually immune to that type of predation."

I'm trying to communicate to her she is definitely not powerless. I used the example of a cat: Not very big or as powerful as a dog, but you still wouldn't pick it up and mess with it. She doesn't have to be as strong as the bullies, as long as they know she won't tolerate any (physical) abuse.

Teach your daughter she does not need your approval. Teach her to make her own decisions, even if sometimes other people don't like it. Help her figure out how to make good judgement calls in the face of difficult circumstances. Give her opportunities to make real choices and back them even if you do not like them. Let her know you don't like all of her choices but you accept them and respect her right to make them. Do not make her dependent on being liked and approved for everything she does.

I agree. Part of the problem is that adults tend to hold kids to a much different standard than they hold themselves. For instance, as an adult, if I'm working in a company where verbal bullying and harassment is a problem, and HR does nothing to address the situation, then I'll just give my two-week notice and move on to another company. Kids on the other hand don't have the option of giving their two-week notice and moving on to another school because of a 'hostile work environment'.

How many adults do you think would stick around at a company if they had to put up with the level of violence and harassment we subject our kids to in schools? And if the only response they got back from management and HR was a "sticks and stones" speech? Forget about it! Which highlights another difference- it's also in a company's own self interest to address these issues seriously, because if they don't, it's gonna effect their bottom line when good employees start leaving. But, what motivation do schools really have- it's not as if their "employees" (students) get to quit if they don't like the way they are being treated.

What does this teach kids? That there is no justice in the world except that which you take by violence?

My son is only two and a half right now. When he gets older my advice to him will be to first go through all of the proper channels in case bullying comes up. Give the system a chance to work, and get some documentation that you did so. And if it does work great. And if it doesn't, a right-cross to the bully's nose is what worked for me when I was a kid. Will this stop the bully from picking on people? Probably not - but it will likely make him stop picking on you. He'll move on to the next victim - one who won't fight back.

You are forgetting the schoolyard code. You never go to the appropriate channels. Ever. That is one of the worst things a kid can do to themselves.

The right response to physical bullying is to stand up for yourself. It's one of the most important lessons a person can learn - how and when to stand up for themselves.

I was bullied a lot in primary school, but I dealt with it and as much as bullies liked picking on me, they also knew going too far would hurt. A lot.

A few weeks later, a guy I knew had his stolen in English class, but he got it back by standing by the door at the end of class and asking people individually who had taken it as the other students left.

And I remember how in the months and years after that, if tricks were played on me in class, the kids would laugh at me and the teachers would stand at the front looking lost and doing nothing. Going through the proper channels doesn't do shit.

... but even then, they will stick to the code and you're both best palls in the principal's office and nothing happened. Any witness they ask will also support the two of you just playing and something silly happening by accident.

The only people in school who never get any respect, in my experience at least, are the ones who snitch, or generally side with the adults.

And you better do it as soon as possible, before he does too much psychological damage on you.

It seems like a good basic skill to have in life...

And also, running - in most fight situations, running is probably the best option.

On systematic physical abuse, this is what happens when you get away with it. See also comment #2 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5284818); it stopped the moment the bullied stood up for himself and showed the bully, via a serving of physical violence, that his behavior is unacceptable and not without consequence.

Spoiled kids that misbehave at school often are exemplary students at school, simply because teachers are able to get them to realize their behavior is unacceptable. That 'toggle' should also be done to bullies though, and I for one can't understand why not more is done about it in schools besides the rather static and easily ignored 'awareness' lessons.

End age based classes would be a good start.

We make it mandatory because otherwise the kids of the disadvantaged, the uneducated or the just-plain-disorganised wouldn't get a decent start in life. It also allows more people to work - someone else is looking after the kids.

There's some argument to be had about what age it should be mandatory until, sure, but mandatory schooling is most definitely a good thing for society.

How many kids study to pass the test? How many teachers teach to get the kids to pass the test? And thereafter they forget everything. I see grown-ass adults who can't calculate a simple 20% tip on paper, and more who can't do it in their heads, and that's an EASY one. People, working in industry, who don't know that the US has 50 states. I've seen programmers with computer science degrees counting on their fingers to add numbers.

Again, you can't teach something to someone who doesn't want to learn, and you can't prevent someone from learning who does want to. Schools get the credit for education, but they're just present. The mandatory aspect did nothing.

Pretty sure you can, when they're kids. Repeated exposure at the very least.

I'm not going to address the rest of your comment, I disagree utterly with pretty much everything you've said there.

For most of the "disadvantaged, the uneducated or the just-plain-disorganised", as you put it, mandatory school attendance does nothing to solve their problems anyway, as the people you are thinking of have many systemic things running against them in addition any personal issues in their lives.

> There's some argument to be had about what age it should be mandatory until, sure, but mandatory schooling is most definitely a good thing for society.

Mandatory school isn't the same thing as doing something positive for communities. Some communities will find the policy beneficial, others will find it destructive (esp. when some kids are forced into school systems are that literal prisons, complete with metal detectors, cell phone lockers you pay out of pocket for, and frequent searches of all student belongings).

I disagree that it does nothing. Some people still get the opportunity to better themselves through education, even if it doesn't help everyone.

Schools becoming prisons is a weird US phenomenon, I think you have societal issues to tackle that are much bigger than schooling.

And it's still better to have kids given access to education under those circumstances than not at all (and without it being mandatory they would not have access. No, they wouldn't)

"you" in America seem to have some extra problems in this area, which I still don't think overshadows the benefits

Yes, problem?

[citation needed]

...and on the other hand putting smart kids _willing_ to learn in an uninspiring and oppressive environment. (Bad for their learning and devastating for their still developing personality.)

IMHO it's hard to find a worse crime against natural curiosity and willingness than _forcing_ people to do something.

YOU may have been perfect, motivated, willing to learn, and may have been given the opportunity to learn even if it wasn't mandatory. Many others would not, many parents wouldn't bother.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with those kids, they just need a different direction and a little more support.

I don't know the system in the US very well. Kids can go to different sorts of colleges post-16 here in the UK, or could (until recently, this may have changed) opt out at that age and enter the workforce.

For ones wanting to learn, just don't force them to do so. OK, is someone is not much willing to learn - well, then it may be good to force to do so. But don't force everyone because some need it.

(It seems that forcing people to learn is very inefficient. And I think for that reason many times school are places to socialize, bully and drink doing not much work that it is necessary to survive... and not much places actually good for learning anything.)

And how do we get kids who could use it, but from backgrounds that wouldn't bother to educate them at all, into the system?

Mandatory education is a good thing.

As you know, daycare (and, say, crime and accident prevention), training, and cultural/national upbringing are different things, and they work differently, often with contradicting goals and methodologies. Currently we tend to treat "education" as a one thing, but in isn't.

I am all for all kids going to school (unless one can provide a better education), otherwise there would be a disaster of crime and poverty, much alike the one during the industrial revolution. However, what happens inside is extremely far from things which "make sense" both for them, and the society.

I just don't think that abolishing mandatory education/training/socialisation/what-the-hell-ever is a good idea, and it seems you don't either :)

The idea of classifying 5 year old kids based on any kind of factor scares the hell out of me.

Ability based learning within age groups makes perfect sense, but assumes a sample size large enough to make meaningful groupings at the high and low ends.

You might submit conferences as a counterexample, but I would submit them in favor of my argument.

A preferable alternative in my mind would be a classroom where ALL work is done independently. The teacher then calls each student to their desk individually to see what they have learned and what they need help with. They can then spend 10-15 minutes individually with each student per day. Fast students can get pushed ahead and slow students can get the help they need instead of being forced along with the rest of the class.

So for one it takes 6 months to learn something, for another - 3 years. And in such systems it's fine - you got promoted because you have learnt something, not just because you got one year older (and haven't failed utterly).

And again, for the same "level" of subject there can be two speeds - so no risk of smart 8 yo kids in the same class with slow 11 yo.

This system works out very well for bright, academically inclined students, sure. But it sets a structure of expectations that don't motivate what could possibly be great talent, but we wouldn't know because they didn't bubble in the right answer.

The fascist premise of "let's separate the most able from the riff-raff".

As if society should be a hierarchical pyramid of top dogs and underdogs.

This doesn't mean that ability as a differentiator is bad--I think that it's a great idea. What it does mean is that consistency is absolutely crucial when such an idea is implemented; I was in an environment where excellence was encouraged, and that led to a lot of self-motivation. Not all children are going to be in the same situation, and that could be disasterous.

"The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin tackles the concept of the environment which best facilitates learning and personal growth, and touches on the idea of ability-based classes as well. It's a great read for anyone interested in such.

I doubt anyone could argue against things like AP classes, etc. in high school, but 5-year-olds?

Don't just think about slightly tweaking the system we have today. Think about the system after it finally embraces computers as a transformative force, instead of a very silly expensive way to issue multiple choice tests. We're going to free up teachers to spend their time on the stuff that actually requires a human, instead of bogging them down with so much automateable work that they end up hardly any more effective than a machine, what a surprise.

Which is why so many "proteges" tend to burn out, I think, or have emotional problems as they age - simply for lacking that time to develop with their peers.

Alongside the "sticks and stones rhyme" this sentence makes me tear my hair our every time I hear it. Kids who bully are thugs, not kids. My brother, he's 13, he's a kid, not a thug. He skateboards and hurts himself, plays computer games and does his homework. That is a kid.

I feel or you too buddy. That whole sentence gets me really irate.

Even then, if I accept "kids will be kids", it should be (and certainly is not) the purpose of a school to teach children to grow from kids to well-behaved adults. You do not teach them this by ignoring the behavior when they bully, and then punishing the bullied when they inevitably decide to strike back.

The Lord of the Flies atmosphere that exists in public schools is appalling, and we should not try to wave it off. It is clearly not "working as intended".

Making it your goal to be the lord in a lord of the flies environment is like that. Good families that produce healthy kids are generally solidly middle class: They work hard enough to provide basic essentials, not so hard as to value work or money over family. Current trends make it increasingly difficult for anyone to arrange that. We increasingly make people choose between family and money. We didn't always do that.

Your argument often ends up implicitly turning into "Therefore, we shouldn't punish the bully, it's not his fault. Therefore, I guess, well, we'll do nothing." You've cognitively narrowed your focus to just the bully and forgotten everyone else who is getting bullied.

That's not goodness or justice, that's terrible. A very common form of terribleness that some people seem very inclined to, but I don't think it's ever just to get so caught up in the hard life of a bully or criminal that you forget entirely about the victims of the bully or criminal. I don't know what's so cognitively tempting about this point of view, but resist it.

To be clear, I'm not trying to secretly advocate for or justify any particular solution either. But there must be some way to contain the bullying; there's no value to anyone in letting one bad seed's poison spread.

Eliminate the social problems that make said person's life hard in the first place. Reduce poverty, end racist laws and law enforcement, and make it possible for individuals and communities to have self determination rather than being undermined by private and public institutions.

Welcome to the twenty-fourth century. My name is Jean-Luc Picard and I'm captain of the starship ``Enterprise''...

If we (as a human kind) want to get there, we'd better get to fixing those problems; there's still a lot of work to do.

What are you going to propose now?

Oh, some kids get bullied at at school. Oh, the humanity.

Really, first world problems of the highest caliber...

We don't have cliques, proms, or BS high school drama where I come from. We just get along. No mass shootings either.

But since you don't the best we can do is downvote you.

This bulling thing is cultural. It doesn't happen everywhere, the same way mass shooting doesn't happen everywhere (and no, it's not because of no guns available).

And part of it is giving it too much attention. A lot of times it's not even bulling is merely normal behaviour in any team of people.

But since kids are taught that everybody is supposedly a "unique snowflake" and they must be greeted with roses and "ohhhs", they are devastated if they are not the most popular in school or are called a nickname or don't get the girls.

Meanwhile, in the real world, kids are struggling with extreme poverty, war, lack of water and food, etc. Not nicknames and not being invited to the prom.

There are kids who have everything except the love and recognition of their parents. This can have a detrimental effect on a childs life, not feeling loved but having everything. Money is not happiness.

A problem is that physical evidence is extremely hard to collect from children. As the video show, kids do get bruised by accident, and when they fight, it rarely end up in obvious fighting type damage like an bruised eye or broken jaw. If one compare it to a brawl at a bar, school yard bullying do not have a bunch of reliable third-party witnesses (yes, drunk people at the bar is more trusted in this case).

However, what about Justice which one takes by violence? It might work sometimes, but I would warn about gangs. Kids like adults have a tendency to form groups. Groups get group mentality, which can get very ugly very fast. One has to be very fast, quick and lucky to survive going up against a bullying gang leader. Sticks and Stones hurt.

For the people who made this video, thank you. I hope this will remind people, and maybe get some tools invented to start combating bullying. Being a security interested person, I can think of several ideas but I am worried about which ones might actually have an effect and which ones will only make us feel like we are doing something. Cameras and microphones is popular in schools now, and each kid tend to have a smart-phone, and yet I not heard of a reduction in bullying. Small classes is an other solution proposed by people, but I have yet to see a case where that have made a difference. Even when a teacher has time to do something, they seems perplexed on how to deal with it. Maybe if tested tools and procedures is invented, small classes will start to have an effect on bullying.

Not punish the kid hitting back at someone who was bullying him?

Not punish the kid who beat up the bully?

It actually helps to have some idea of what's going on in the school yard, ask witnesses what was going on, and IF KIDS COMPLAIN ABOUT BULLYING DON'T TELL THEM TO GET OVER IT. "You're not making an effort to fit in" is blaming the victim. I'm not making the fucking effort to fit in because the other kids treat me like dirt. Why should I bother to try fitting in?

But yes, the adults could have looked at the situation and realised that the bully was getting their just deserts. Punishing the victim who has been pushed past the end of their tether is not helping anyone.

With the above, a reasonable adult, considering evidence, has no choice but to "arrest" the kid with the chair, since the other has done no wrong other than verbal + possible pushing.

The system needs fixing by making what the bully did prior to the event actionable by the adults so it wouldn't escalate to where it did. Cameras would help.

But then what do we do with the bully? Move him to another school and let the cycle repeat?

(hint: the shy kid probably did not suddenly decide right this moment to pop up and decide to fight for alpha status)

The teacher(s) new exactly what had happened. The administration didn't, though, and it was them that threatened to suspend me.

They did account for the circumstances; they brought in the bullies parents and all of us sat around a table to discuss it. But he squirmed out of it ("so sorry! Only a bit of fun", etc.).

The problem is; it's only when the bullied person does something extreme that the bully gets into that situation. And it didn't happen often, so this particular individual had lots of "last warnings" and final promises to be nicer.

But no one followed up and punished him properly the next time.

Teachers are there to educate, they aren't equipped properly to deal with a point of justice/behaviour.

That looks like it is a significant part of the problem: the adults most likely to exercise good judgement on these matters (teachers) don't have the power to do so.

We have to triage the problem. First, prevent harm from occurring to others. Second, attempt rehabilitation.

Remember that bullies also create problems in other kids which can force them to act out. Force them to drop out and get into drug use. Force them to become bullies themselves, or thieves, etc.

At a school, the adults are the system, so I think my point still stands.

I've long wondered what would have fixed this... in the end the only solution I could come up with would be to segregate the consummate bullies. I'm sure smarter people could think of more adroit solutions.

Problem is though who has the right to decide if it was just or not. This sadly always leads to unjust sentences.

Co-worker makes racist remarks towards you: "sticks and stones" speech

Co-worker sexually harasses you: "sticks and stones" speech

Co-worker physically assaults you: "sticks and stones" speech, with added punishment if the victim defends himself

And in each case, tell the adult victim how they should be more empathetic to the bully's lot in life.

Of course the feeling of not being liked sticks, too, but perhaps it wouldn't even manifest itself so much if kids wouldn't have to expose themselves to so much nastiness to begin with.

I wish I could explain to all the depressed kids that there is actually a whole world out there, beyond the borders of the small environment they grew up in. With 6 billion people on the planet, there are many, many people you can relate to. The people you went to school with are just random.

The 'locked in' part is a huge factor. High school was a prison to me. Once I had a choice, my life id an absolute turn around. One other thing to add is that pride added to the problem. To tell my parents I was being bullied was impossible. So, this makes you isolated with your own mental anguish.

As in, this is your life, deal with it. You can't run away, so fix your problems instead of running from them. Teachers turn their back on you, so it's up to you. etc etc etc.

Learning that will help you in your life. Your job sucks: you can either run away and find something else, or you can kick it into high gear and make it worth your while, save the company, get rich. Depending on situation, of course.

What could also happen is that the bully gathers his friends and strikes back in a big way. Or maybe he has a knife. Or whatever - I don't know, probably I would try to punch back, too. But I don't think it is essential for people to go through such an ordeal.

Having spoken to a fair few people, a pattern that became plain as day very quickly was that almost all of us have had a background that either very specifically involved bullying as children or at the very least would have set us aside very strongly (heavy therapy for various reasons being one example). It's actually joked about at this university in multiple disciplines, however, that it's hardly uncommon for those who attend here to be 'crazy' in some way.

Lest you fear self-selection due to my own background I would point out that various circumstantial factors (including simply having spoken to many, many people) lead me to believe that I have enough of a sample to believe that isn't the case. Once again, when talking about others' lives I'll try to give as little identification as possible.

* I thought at length before putting that in, but I would hope that HN comments aren't likely fodder for the sort of 'shocker' article that graces rag news headlines.

Though childhood bullying is more traumatic long-term, and often far more overtly abusive, workplace bullying is in many ways harder to resolve, having a fight or full confrontation would often result in sacking + not being able to get a good reference going forward.

The typical way it works is via underhand comments + actions designed to put you down but which generally look perfectly acceptable to other colleagues. This makes it easy to make out that it's your fault, you're hysterical, why are you causing trouble when there isn't any?

No amount of bringing it up caused any managers up the line to do anything about it either - it wasn't in their interest to take the flak from challenging the people involved.

The really pernicious aspect of it is how it grinds down your confidence to the point where you start actually believing there really is something very wrong with you. I spent months afterwards emotionally burnt out, even getting a new job was incredibly hard because I had begun to truly believe I was just totally shit at my job, programming, etc.

The irony was, a simple word with the people concerned from a manager would have resolved a lot of the issue. The effort required was minimal and the consequences huge.

Please, if you're a middle/upper manager, don't put your career concerns over the human beings 'below' you. And if you do, don't kid yourself about what you're doing.

I sincerely doubt that anybody is going to stop bullying anywhere without addressing the root causes. And I doubt the root cause is that kids are inherently evil monsters.

[0]: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

But what the hell with the UI of this website? It can't find a link to the respective Youtube site, nor can I click the annotations.

It looks really nice, but it's not very usable like that.

I was thinking maybe it was a little too melodramatic... but perhaps that helps to facilitate a cathartic release. At any rate -- it's certainly a well-produced piece and worth a watch.

I wasn't bullied at school, IMHO (nothing physical, the odd bit of name calling.. which they got back ;-)) but it seemed as if people who were into sports avoided every hassle, including the sportier geeks who were in the football team, etc.

Looking back, I have to wonder if there's something about being active, being in teams, or the effect doing sports has on your body (language) that means you either fit in better, stand up for yourself more, etc. I certainly feel that way as an adult now trying to become more active. It changes how you hold yourself.

My daughter is now in all the social and sports clubs we can get in and which she enjoys. My parents never encouraged me into being active or joining clubs, but I have to wonder if I had been, maybe I'd be very different (not that I'm unhappy with my lot now :-)) and maybe my daughter could end up being one of the "popular kids" just by virtue of being active and socializing with her peers early.

Interestingly, there's a young diver here in the UK called Tom Daley (got a medal at last year's Olympics). When the media frenzy about him kicked off a few years ago, he got bullied at school. However, diving is a pretty solitary activity and he certainly wouldn't have had a team with him to prevent this.

I can recall the lightest wrestler on my high school wrestling team getting bullied by his teammates several times. I didn't do anything to help him.

I was one of those sporty geeks in high school, but I was completely unsporty in elementary school, and I was never significantly bullied. I suspect my "defense" was mostly being the biggest kid in the class.

When I played hockey, I certainly wasn't popular with my team, especially when the bullies were on it, but I never got picked on much since I was a good player, and I could give much more than I ever got. I was always pretty quiet, so the bullies never knew what to expect of me.

However, being a house league team, there were several players who got bullied, and they were always the fat kids, who couldn't skate as fast, or stand up for themselves.

And I think it's the same relationship everywhere, and on the comments already made. Bullies never pick on kids bigger than them, or that are necessarily unpopular. However, they will sniff out weakness and pick on the weak, no matter where they happen to be.

I was however, always curious at the root of bullying, since even in my adult life, I see many people who still cluster around making themselves feel better by laughing at stupidity of others (just not to their face), and scare myself, since I've caught myself doing the same thing. Sure we're certainly more civil about it, but to me it seems to be rooted in the same base nature, as a mechanism they're using to try and feel empowered.

Kids bully each other because we bully them.

It may be understandable that to this day, I honestly still feel my blood boil when bullying gets mentioned.

Really?

Look at the popular culture around you, comedy movies, youtube videos, blogs all about bullying people (fail blog and all fail culture), look at the front page of reddit etc.

I understand that if you don't personally connected but you can see that people enjoy other people's failures and misery.

This kind of popular culture and the internet makes it even worse.

This is a very grim outlook on life. What I see in popular culture is—for the most part—people being clowns in order to draw attention. I also think that having laughs at the expense of someone else's misfortune is not at the same level as causing misfortune in order to get some laughs, completely different things.

I have participated in countless professional development experiences over the years, and I have grown a healthy skepticism towards commercial offerings that aim to solve school-based problems. So I was not excited when we had to do a workshop based on the Olweus bullying prevention program [1]. I was completely impressed, however. This organization has examined bullying very carefully, and they have used the results of their studies to offer meaningful, concrete steps that can be taken to deal effectively with bullying.

The two clearest things I learned were a good working definition of bullying [2], and a breakdown of the roles that people play in a bullying situation [3]. Bullying is negative behavior aimed at a person who will have difficulty defending themselves; it is repetitive in nature; and it is carried out by someone with an imbalance of power over someone else.

In bullying situations, there are 4 negative roles: bullies, followers, supporters, and passive supporters. There are disengaged onlookers. There is a person who is being bullied, and there may be defenders and potential defenders.

I learned that is often best to give our attention, when interrupting bullying, to the victim. Clearly if there is serious, immediate physical danger, we confront the bully first. But if saying something simple like, "Hey xxx, I don't like the way you're being treated, do you want to take a walk with me?" takes the power away from the bully, and stops giving that person the attention they have been craving. This is not enough; we need to follow up by dealing directly with the bully. But engaging the bully directly just feeds them the attention they want, and gives them more power.

Quick story: My high school classroom looks out on the back of a kindergarten-first grade playground. My students and I watch little kids play all day long. We watch all the misfit kids play at the back, less-watched part of the playground. Most of what we see is low-level shoving, self-regulated by peer groups. I finally saw something I needed to interrupt last week. I watched a kindergarten kid grab another kid by the collar, shove him against a chain link fence, and hold his hand up to the kids face like a gun. I walked over and said, "Hi, my name is Eric, who are you?" to the bullying kid. He let go and got really humble, and said his name. Then I remembered to focus on the victim. He turned around, and he was a classic snot-nosed kid who looked like he'd be picked on a lot. I asked him his name, said it didn't look like he was being treated very well, and talked to him for a few minutes. All of the onlookers gave their attention to the victim, and you could see the bully backing out, not in fear, but because no one was paying attention to him. I did ask the bully before they dispersed, "Do you really want to shoot someone?" He said no, and I said he might want to find another way to play. By the way, if he had run off, I would have gone into the school and found him in his classroom. Those kids need to know that strong, positive adults are watching them.

[1] - http://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/index.page

[2] - http://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/faqs.page#Answ...

[3] (pdf, page 4) - http://www.pa-strengthening-families.org/providers/308/bully...

I was lucky never to be bullied physically in school. But I deeply sympathize with those that have been.

I thought that video was horrible. Kids need to learn to hit back, either physically or verbally.

My kids will learn to hit back because that is how I grew up. I've blooded lips and blackened eyes, and I've had it done to me.

I grew up where the teachers were smart enough (and had enough autonomy) to let some of this play out. Fights were broken up and kids punished, but the penalties were not juvenile hall and a ride in a police car. Instead there was some detention and parent conferences, and often the respect of your peers.

[1] - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094138/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I'm sure the trivia behind why so many programming languages use curly braces is super fascinating, but I'd much rather be discussing something of substance.

Are these honestly the things that people would rather be discussing instead of bullying and the work of poetry and art that has inspired this discussion?

I'm a little bit disgusted by the HN community at large right now. If I could reset my karma level to 0 in trade for keeping just this one thread on the front page for a whole day I'd do it in a heart beat.

We live in a society where people still put a tremendous amount of effort into being normal and liked, and as a corollary we tend to persecute those who don't do this. Bullies are our unappointed henchmen.

But because of the fact that these afflictions are often permanent and irreversible.

I think the best hope a child has against bullying is to have a parent that cares, and is educated of the impacts of bullying and how to minimize the risks of their child being subject to bullying.

Of course, this doesn't address the root issue -- the bully. And while we as a society can work towards educating others to help prevent their child from turning into a bully, there's obviously little I can do, as a parent, to change the behavior of a bully.

I feel that best way I can help my child not be the bully is to show them unconditional love, the best I know how, and to help them to love others. I also try to equip them with empathy so that they understand that their actions have a real impact on others, but this is hard sometimes -- especially with younger children.

However, I will honestly say that I don't feel equipped, as a parent, to help my child deal with bullying appropriately and effectively. Looking through this thread, I see a couple links, but does the hacker community have other good resources to equipping parents on how to help their child handle bullying?

You can't blame the bully for his/her social upbringing. Kids are basically psychopaths in such a young age - they just act according to whatever they feel, and if they haven't been taught boundaries - well, shit. Bad environments promote shitty attitudes and behaviour patterns, which is often due to their parents. Rich or poor doesn't matter. Some of the worst bullies I've been faced against came from wealthy families.

I think schools should be more focused on teaching the bullies way to cope with things at home, instead of simply excluding them. The bullies don't change their attitude, and someone new will take their place (I recall a Danish study about class rooms where the bullies removed, experienced the same amount of bulling just a month later. New bullies take other's places).

But son, as soon as someone puts their hands on you, they've crossed a line. Fuck them up. It's the only thing these vicious freaks understand. They're wild animals. They make violence on you, you need to show them that you're the stronger, bigger animal. When someone attacks you maliciously for no reason, you need to impose your will on them.

Even if you lose, lose swinging. They respect it. Be a tough fight.

This "talk it out" shit doesn't work... it's been the dogma for the last 30-50 years, it assumes the nobility of human nature will win out. It doesn't. It's nonsense. It just simply doesn't work.

I went to a secondary school (ages 10-14, first half of high school?) where the senior teachers gave the speeches about a "Zero-Tolerance Approach to Bullying!" and how they had only had three cases of bullying in the last few years. They lied, cooked the figures and redefined bullying to cases of systematic physical abuse which was rare. Because they did have a zero-tolerance policy towards violence.

I have two sets of parents, my dad and then my mum and step-mum. Starting secondary school someone found this out and like a lot of people suggested here when they tried to use it to verbally abuse me I exacted violence against him. Not wanting it to explode into something more, the school kept it very quiet and I didn't get punished, but neither did he. Instead, if he ever told anyone else what happened or about my parents he'd get off scott free. To his defense no-one found out for three and a half years. Instead, I got three and a half years of verbal abuse, the little physical things one can get away with in corridors, my possessions taken and hidden. Some teachers tried to help but there is only so much they can do when most of them don't care. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will break them for you" is something I remember hearing from a sympathetic teacher.

Then one day, it suddenly became common knowledge. I found myself faced with what felt like a third of the school who wanted to see me beaten. Fortunately, I appeared to be the only person who didn't know this was going to happen, there were almost as many if not more people behind me (and quickly, around me) who were adamant that I was going to be okay. The next six months were basically hell. Then as the natural progression of things, I shifted schools to a school that had a teacher who kept everyone in line and looked after those who needed help, be they the abused or the abuser. I was lucky in that I found a support network that let me rebuild myself and my self-esteem after. I am who I am despite, not because, of what I've been through. Even if there are still days where I have to look a little closer at the mirror to remind myself of that.

But... how do we do it? What one person perceives as hurtful is normal behavior to another. There simply is no quantitative scale of what is hurtful behavior and what is not, because it differs from person to person.

To those claiming "Our kids need to fight back", how's that other's parent going to respond when their child is beat up, for just saying the words "Pork Chop"? Not well, I can imagine. People are given nick names all the time, by their parents, by their peers. Because a minority of people take offense, can we now broadly classified this "normal" behavior as bullying?

Bullying is not right, but neither is it simple to classify or prevent.

I got a LOT of flack from teachers who would give me the usual "solve problems without violence" bullshit, but here's the thing: In every school I went to (we moved around a lot), I got picked on by the local bullies one time, and ONLY one time. Sure, I got the shit kicked out of me a few times, but you don't actually need to win the fight. Once they realize that you won't just passively take it, they leave you alone. You will, however, have to deal with ignorant teachers.

Also its been posted already but direct YouTube link to this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY

I'd say part of the solution is explained in the animation itself: you don't have to feel this way if you're getting bullied.

Parents have a role to play. My parents always told me to not pay attention (I was the smallest kids in my class from 4 years old to 15 years old or so, so people would tease me all the time). And I didn't pay attention.

Then he talks in the animation about bearded girls: parents have to intervene here. I was a boy but when I started having a mustache, which looked silly in retrospect on the tiniest kid in the class, they offered me an electric razor. I hated that day the day it happened. But then I realized I had to shave.

Same for bearded girls: parents have to take her to do laser elimination of the beard. Common.

If parents have a fat kid, they should confiscate coke and sodas and force the kid to go exercice a bit. A daily run. Something. It was tennis and bycicling for me (not that I've ever been fat).

Sure bullying is lame. But acting like a victim is not ok.

I agree that fighting back is not always easy, but it's not always mandatory to physically fight back either. As someone else already commented here: if they insult you, you can fight back verbally (being smart makes it all too easy to be really mean in retaliation ; )

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent".

We're all past the age of getting bullied and we can understand that nobody can make us feel inferior without our consent. Now we have to remember to raise our kids properly, so that they never become victims.

We cannot keep perpetuating this idea that you have to fit in. That right there is one of the most harmful memes in our Western society today.

If a kid wants to use the razor to shave, that's fine. If a kid has a problem with obesity, yes, support that kid and help that kid find a better, healthier path.

But not in order to avoid oppression. Because it's better for his or her health. For her, or his, self esteem.

A person close to me was severely bullied when she moved to a new school. She was the only person with dark skin in a school of white Northern Europeans, at a time when there were racists in parliament and a serial killer was murdering persons of color.

What do you figure she would do to fit in?

It's the bullies that has to change. The silent bystanders. Us. We must say "Wow, you have beautiful facial hair". We must embrace diversity.

Not eradicate it.

Kids don't start out strong, they aren't magically born with all the skills they need to be an adult. And we understand this, which is why we have different norms for children than for adults. When someone has grown into adulthood they may finally have their shit together and they may have acquired enough self-confidence to be able to handle bullying. But kids are not that way. And though we should try to guide kids towards becoming more mature along the way to adulthood we should not expect and especially not require that they have the maturity of an adult just in order to live day to day.

Telling people not to become victims is often not helpful. It's good to be more self-reliant and self-assured. But that does in no way diminish the damage done by the perpetrators or their culpability for that damage.

I don't think there is an age limit on being bullied. And while nobody can make us feel a certain way, they can certainly create an environment where it's an uphill struggle to remain positive.

This is not helpful advice, at all.