14 year old girls form suicide pact, hang themselves in MN

[Apricot]

So sad. The parents must be devastated.

[Whirled Peas]

I read an article about social media and bullying. The bullying techniques of the past are gone. Now the bullying can hit the entire school in minutes. All the kids have iPhones and they have hundreds of friends each. So the entire school is on the facebook friend list. One comment goes out and is noticed immediately and shared by everyone. The person that the thread is about is now looked at a bit differently by everyone. If that kid had any insecurity at all, well imagine how that kid feels after that?

Combine this with a dysfunctional family life - parents working and not actively involved in the child's life. No nutrition in the food that is consumed. Single parent households. .... well, you get my drift.

It is very sad.

[Moreflourideplease]

If a school really wanted to end bullying and its consequences, they could do it tomorrow. Any reasonable person can distinguish between typical schoolyard skirmish behaviors and the unprovoked torment of children who for random reasons are outside of the majority or of a tolerated minority. In my cynicism I attribute this continual excuse on the part of schools (always after the fact) to pledge a greater awareness in the future, to be a crock of bullshit. I think it's more likely that schools are teaching children social Darwinism at an early age. The weak are prey and the strong are tacitly rewarded. It makes for better warriors once they are of enlistment age.

[Whirled Peas]

If a school really wanted to end bullying and its consequences, they could do it tomorrow. Any reasonable person can distinguish between typical schoolyard skirmish behaviors and the unprovoked torment of children who for random reasons are outside of the majority or of a tolerated minority. In my cynicism I attribute this continual excuse on the part of schools (always after the fact) to pledge a greater awareness in the future, to be a crock of bullshit. I think it's more likely that schools are teaching children social Darwinism at an early age. The weak are prey and the strong are tacitly rewarded. It makes for better warriors once they are of enlistment age.

I don't know if I agree with this MFP. I actually think the teachers and administrators in the school systems these days are quite wimpy and they just ignore any behaviour they don't like or don't know how to deal with. With lawsuits by parents and being unable to reprimand anyone, let alone a student, I think they are all afraid to say or do anything. I would love to spend a week in the elementary school system to see what they are teaching though. From what I hear from friends kids - its all the same old bullshit they taught me. All crap. I do wonder though about your last sentence though - better warriors for enlistment - this is definitely a possibility. Unfortunately.

As for the phones, I think they should be banned up to a certain age. There used to be payphones everywhere. And the school has phones. I never needed one in elementary or high school I don't think they do either. And if the parents pay attention to the kids on the computers after school and on weekends then the kids would be far better off.

And on that note, have you ever tried to find a payphone to use now? It is NOT easy. They've removed the majority of them so that they make cellphones a necessary evil.

[Moreflourideplease]

But Whirled, What is so hard about a school saying "We have a zero tolerance policy on unprovoked bullying and your son/daughter has violated that policy twice. I'm sorry, but he/she is no longer welcome in our school." Start doing that across the country and see what happens to bullying.
If the courts don't uphold it, then that supports my suspicion. Children are being socially engineered to see that aggressive, predatory behavior is silently acceptable. Plus, you can get recognition by watching it go viral on Youtube. No wonder it only gets worse.

[Ry]

It's usually not the strong praying on the weak. It's normally the weak ganging up on the stronger. You're not allowed to hit people in school or you get suspended as one of these girls was. But you can mouth off all day. What allows great numbers to mouth off is the assurance no one can hit them, and little dogs love to bark more than anything else.

On my island when I opened up a jujitsu gym I said anyone you want to fight legally and not get in trouble you can just invite them to this gym and you can have a 1 on 1 MMA match. It's basically a legal fight and the person has no recourse or excuse to back out because it is perfectly legal to do it. It will basically be a fight only with tiny gloves and a mouth piece that is it.

4 fights later only 4 fights, and the entire school was restructured. Some bullies got beat up. And a couple wimps showed everyone that neither knew how to fight at all. And one pair just fought for fun, but showed how strong they were. After these 4 fights which were all in like 3 days, everyone acted differently in the high school. Why? because they could get called out. And when a group was picking on a person that person could challenge whoever they hated the most and kick their ass. A person's ego and image is completely broken after a public ass kicking. Furthermore the parents or the kids getting picked on loved it. And the parents of the ass holes didn't care.

People say fighting doesn't solve anything. I say bullshit. Fighting is the perfect way to resolve young school type tensions. There is a natural pecking order but what school does is reverse evolution.

I am for legalizing unarmed fighting for people under 18, as I am for legalizing drugs for. It's sounds bad, but if someone knows you can hit them when they harass you then they won't do it, not unless they are stronger. And rarely do the strong pick on the weak, I've been working in schools for 5 years and I see this shit. The most bad ass people and biggest kids just ignore it. Gentle giants. It's the little punks and sassy bitches that go around spreading rumors and name calling etc. It's the strong the smart the attractive etc who get targeted to be bullied which is the exact opposite of what is shown on TV. It's the kids who don't play sports and have shitty grades and got nothing going for them who are ring leaders in the teasing and shit. Basically losers with loser parents. Peopel shouldn't shit on them either, they usually have crappy home lives. The kids need constructive things to do that are not just busy work and typical school BS.

This hollywood image of strong vs weak needs to be broken. Because kids getting teased don't want to say and do feel like it is the case that they are weak and being picked on my stronger people. They aren't. Anybody that is not violent can get picked on. Anyone that other people know won't hurt them can and will get picked on. Anyone with something to be jealous of will get picked on. Anyone smart, or creative, or good looking, or wealthy, or anything positive will get attacked by crabs in the bucket.

In the adult world is comes in forms of smears and press. Look at how they demonized Ron Paul calling him a racist, and anti-semetic, saying he is crazy, banning him from debates, slamming him in one liners on the news, censoring his wins on polls and all that bullshit. Why? Because he's a doctor, he is right about the economy and his peace message is a threat to the thieves in charge.

[Whirled Peas]

But Whirled, What is so hard about a school saying "We have a zero tolerance policy on unprovoked bullying and your son/daughter has violated that policy twice. I'm sorry, but he/she is no longer welcome in our school." Start doing that across the country and see what happens to bullying.
If the courts don't uphold it, then that supports my suspicion. Children are being socially engineered to see that aggressive, predatory behavior is silently acceptable. Plus, you can get recognition by watching it go viral on Youtube. No wonder it only gets worse.

You are right. Schools should have a zero tolerance for behaviours like bullying. And parents should also be more involved in their kids social lives and ask questions and pay attention, especially to the social media issue. I think that suspending from the school isn't the answer as most parents would just be pissed to have to move their kids to another school and that could be worse for the kid, not better.

Now that kids are not even allowed to bring their lunches to school and must eat from the school cafeteria and not only that but the schools are performing the vaccination campaigns on the children, with authorization or not, I believe you have something here. I will NOT say you are wrong in your theory. I will say that I sure hope you are wrong. What this world (via our children) needs now is peace and respect from all humans, not war and armies.

[Whirled Peas]

It's usually not the strong praying on the weak. It's normally the weak ganging up on the stronger. You're not allowed to hit people in school or you get suspended as one of these girls was. But you can mouth off all day. What allows great numbers to mouth off is the assurance no one can hit them, and little dogs love to bark more than anything else.

People say fighting doesn't solve anything. I say bullshit. Fighting is the perfect way to resolve young school type tensions. There is a natural pecking order but what school does is reverse evolution.

I am for legalizing unarmed fighting for people under 18,

I actually don't know if I agree with this. I think you're right when it comes to the people that WANT to fight and sure why not if they know HOW to fight. But think of all the kicks to the nuts that the inexperienced will give. Or the nasty fighting because one's anger flared up and now its about killing. I know you say its supervised but it could get carried away and carried on outside of the arena. You're talking about a fight club of sorts and I personally disagree. I know that humans have been doing this for eons. I get that. But isn't it time to stop?

As for strong and weak - I seriously think that high school kids don't even know where they are on the stong / weak scale and I think that it moves along the scale at any time during the teen years.

And if I was the one being picked on and someone said c'mon lets go to fight club and duke it out - I would sit down and cry. And then they'd beat me. And if this was 30 years ago, my single parent would have been too busy to help and then I would have caused them stress.

Nope, fighting will be good for some of them but not most of them. Some of us don't like fighting.

[Ry]

no people tease in controlled environements like school because they know you can't fight. They dont act like that after school or in town because they know there can be cosequences. Its just like the fear of the gun prevents way more break ins than actually shooting does.

Knowing a person can clock you prevents it from happening.

[dicktater]

Its just like the fear of the gun prevents way more break ins than actually shooting does.

Knowing a person can clock you prevents it from happening.