Bullying and being bullied

Ya know this bullying stuff is getting out of hand. I don't quite understand why tho. I was always a small kid but I was tougher than hell because if I lost a fight my father would beat me when I got home.

Besides being small, I had another problem. I was smart. Way smarter than the rest of the kids in my class. It made me a big target because it made me different.

I was also very quiet and loved to read. Being quiet made me a target. So I'm small, quiet and smart and I don't have new clothes to wear. Oops, left off poor, too.

For whatever reasons people at school and out of school would try to bully me and it never, ever worked. That's why I don't understand the problems kids have with being bullied nowdays.

If I had to place blame I'd place it on both the parents and the schools. The parents have abdicated their parenting to the schools and the schools don't know how to handle it very well. At least that's the way it seems to me.

Any kid who is even remotely different from the other kids, in the way they dress, their stature, having a disease or even their intelligence seems to be fair game for other kids.

How I solved the problem with my being bullied isn't really appropriate but it worked so well. I had a very hard time when my stepson was being bullied as I didn't want him to do what I did even tho it was effective. It probably would have gotten him kicked out of school and I didn't want that to happen.

So I told him when someone did something he didn't like or was picking on him, just ask them to stop. If they don't stop then go tell the teacher what they are doing. If you see others being bullied go and tell the teacher.

What I was telling him went so against the grain of what I would have done it was hard for me to do. I've always believed in solving my own problems and that tattling or telling on someone wasn't the right thing to do.

Just like when I was a kid, hitting them in the nose or otherwise getting them bloody would probably have put a stop to it. Of course now and then I had to apply the lesson twice but never a third time. If it went to twice the second time was going to be worse on him than the first.

Uh, now you know why I told my stepson not to hit. I know it works but I learned, over time, that it's not the right thing to do. However I have a suggestion for the schools.

XERO TOLERANCE for bullying. None, Zero, Zip, Nada, ever. No slap on the fingers for punishment either. If a teacher see's bullying that person should be instantly suspended for 2 days. Anyone watching, who didn't intervene or speak up to stop it would be required to spend 2 hour in detention for two days.

Not that it will ever happen that way but it would sure grab someones attention, be it student or parent.