[Suzi]

I suppose what most of All kids went through in school could now-adays be called bullying. I never thought of it that way - there were cliques, and mean girls but I honestly believe that those trying times made me what I am today. Sure some of the stuff was hurtful. You'd get ridiculed if you didn't have the right clothes, or if your period made your pimples bad or whatever.
I know there will be people that will say that all that stuff is bullying and is bad. But I disagree. If everyone had a perfect life with no bumps and bruises, we'd all turn out like clones of each other. When someone is mean, you have to learn how to deal with it. If you get pushed down, you get up again and learn another tactic/lesson and how to deal with it. Now I DON'T advocate beating up anybody......some grown-up needs to step in, but short of that, some of this has to be sorted out by the kid. And parents need to monitor and be part of their kids life. I always knew what was going on in my kids lives.......just by the look on their faces.
Its just my opinion that the term bullying is currently being used too liberally. Having a bunch of your friends at the lunch table and not letting someone else (outside of your group) sit down, in my opinion, is not bullying. Thats just me though.

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by Suzi

I suppose what most of All kids went through in school could now-adays be called bullying. I never thought of it that way - there were cliques, and mean girls but I honestly believe that those trying times made me what I am today. Sure some of the stuff was hurtful. You'd get ridiculed if you didn't have the right clothes, or if your period made your pimples bad or whatever.
I know there will be people that will say that all that stuff is bullying and is bad. But I disagree. If everyone had a perfect life with no bumps and bruises, we'd all turn out like clones of each other. When someone is mean, you have to learn how to deal with it. If you get pushed down, you get up again and learn another tactic/lesson and how to deal with it. Now I DON'T advocate beating up anybody......some grown-up needs to step in, but short of that, some of this has to be sorted out by the kid. And parents need to monitor and be part of their kids life. I always knew what was going on in my kids lives.......just by the look on their faces.
Its just my opinion that the term bullying is currently being used too liberally. Having a bunch of your friends at the lunch table and not letting someone else (outside of your group) sit down, in my opinion, is not bullying. Thats just me though.

Suzi, I agree with your post. Sure, there are some really mean and sadistic kids, and they are true bullies and deserve to be reported and dealt with harshly.

But there is also a lot of teasing and cliques and snobbery that goes on in every high school. And that is part of growing up and finding your place and learning how to be accepted, or learning to be independent and rise above the situation. I think these types of situation strengthen character. I think true bullying is loathsome. But I agree with Susi that the term is currently being used too liberally.

[jblum315]

I do remember right after WW2, when I was in second grade, we had a new little girl whose family I think were called "displaced persons." Now they would be immigrants. I think she was from Poland. She knew very little English, and we bullied her unmercifully. Not physical, just teasing and being really mean. I'm still ashamed of it.

[tainsley]

A couple of weeks ago there was a segment on CBSs Sunday morning gathering red heads together in one place to break a record (with Bill Geist). Several redheads talked about how they were teased growing up for having red hair. I was called Carrot Top, I'd rather be dead than red in the head, etc. Although I was reassured by family that I had beautiful hair and freckles were indeed a sign of beauty...it hurt but mom still wouldn't let me dye my hair! Just had to wait it out. I always seemed to befriend the kids who were made fun of though. Had some good friends throughout school.

[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by tainsley

A couple of weeks ago there was a segment on CBSs Sunday morning gathering red heads together in one place to break a record (with Bill Geist). Several redheads talked about how they were teased growing up for having red hair. I was called Carrot Top, I'd rather be dead than red in the head, etc. Although I was reassured by family that I had beautiful hair and freckles were indeed a sign of beauty...it hurt but mom still wouldn't let me dye my hair! Just had to wait it out. I always seemed to befriend the kids who were made fun of though. Had some good friends throughout school.

I had a girl friend in elementary and high school that had beautiful red hair, pale white skin with freckles and green eyes. She was a beauty, but also hated her hair. I'll bet yours was just as beautiful.

To me, that is nothing at all to be teased about.

It is rare and I did see that segment with Bill Geist. It was great to see all of those red heads together..........

My girlfriend's grandparents were both born in Russia; her parents were born in the U.S., as was she........but I also had a brother in law of German descent who was a natural red head. Neither of his sons ended up with red hair. One had dark brown hair and the other blonde hair.
Go figure.

So, in my book, red hair is rare..........they are the only two I can think of.

You didn't really dye your red hair, did you????

[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by jblum315

I do remember right after WW2, when I was in second grade, we had a new little girl whose family I think were called "displaced persons." Now they would be immigrants. I think she was from Poland. She knew very little English, and we bullied her unmercifully. Not physical, just teasing and being really mean. I'm still ashamed of it.

We had a similar incident at our elementary school , also with a girl from Poland (after World War II). I was just telling my husband about it (again, as he's heard it a zillion times)........

We might have been in sixth grade; back then it went up to eighth grade..........however, she was SIXTEEN YEARS OLD to our younger ages.

Definitely should have been in high school, but back then they did not have teachers who taught English as a Second Language or any of the other English courses taught to those without a command of English.

It was not the GIRLS at all, but the BOYS..........who would surround her in the schoolyard and make fun of her "endowments", her "clothes", her inability to speak English very well (broken English).......it was sad.
We all knew it was wrong. But no one broke up these boys' verbal attacks on her.............she was the nicest girl.

I still remember her name. Wanda Demianek. It stays in your memory; these childhood incidents.

My mom's parents came from Austria-Hungary (of Ukrainian / Rusyn descent) and my husband's grandparents also came from Poland.

That group of immigrants could not speak English upon arrival so relied on their children (who were born in this country) to enter the school system and learn the language.........

At age 7, my mom also had to go to Ukrainian school after public school ended for the day, in order to learn the Cyrillic alphabet so that she could READ the Ukrainian newspapers to my grandmother.

I imagine that group of children (the children of immigrants) might also have been teased by those who had been in this country a longer time.

[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by boomerbaby

I remember both boy bullies and girl bullies. They were really mean and if you told on them the nun would punish them but they really had no one at home that stayed on them. Parents did nothing about it so they would just keep picking on you. I did all I could to avoid them even taking a different bus home from school and having to walk from that stop home and it was a distance, I am very glad that we did not have the internet back then because what we had to go through was in our neighborhoods and school but today the world can here someone being bullied. People put their names and pictures up.It is very sad.

You are no doubt younger than we are, but I can relate to your mention of different ways of avoiding the bully (such as taking a different bus route, etc.).......yes, it is worse today with the internet.

Our "Alice Kondrowski" and I hope she's out there somewhere and reads this..........would literally be lurking "halfway" between our school and our neighborhood...........so there was no way a teacher, nun (from her school), or our parents or any relative for that matter, could apprehend her or protect us..........it didn't happen near our home or near our school.

It was the "inbetween zone"............there were three different streets we could take to get to our neighborhood. She must have had built in radar.

No matter which street we walked down (going home from school) she was on it with her little "gang".........now mind you, these were not teens.

She might have been ten years old to our eight years old? They would surround us and terrify us..........it never came to blows. It was just fear.

She enjoyed instilling fear in people. I hope she turned her life around.

I always think that bullies learn it at home.......someone has picked on them and they , in turn, direct this rage or insecurity, whatever it is, towards others. But it was her filthy mouth that was worst of all.

Long long time ago, but she was ahead of her time as far as being a bully.
Nowadays, it seems that her parents would have been contacted......

Back then, kids didn't necessarily "tell" what happened to them enroute to or from school.........Really.

[Yorio]

In elementary school, we went from a big city to a smaller city. Initially I was bullied by kids because I was the only one from big city. I dressed differently and acted differently. Three or four kids were waiting for me outside the school entrance to bully. After few such incidents, mother complained to school and I was let go a few minutes before the rest of the class so could leave before the bullies could get me. Though things got better after few years, my parents sent me to a small Catholic boys' school in big city where there were no bullying.

[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by graciegirl

Nope. My grandfather who together with my dear grandmother raised me.
He was six foot five and a cop.

Unfortunately, all of us who were bullied by that troubled girl, had working parents who were not there while we were traveling to school and back.

The incidents did not happen in our neighborhood, nor in our school.

They occurred as we were walking home from school.....and as I mentioned in a different post, she seemed to have built in radar and seemed to intuit which of the three routes (we had a choice of three streets to take enroute home from school).........she was there with her little gang.

We were just about 8 years old to her 10.....and again, back in those days, kids did not tell their parents........

However, someone must have told on her as she was kicked out of many schools, both Catholic schools and public schools.......and just liked to terrorize innocent kids walking home from school , spouting the "F" word.

Also, we were "latch key kids" (anyone remember what that was like?).
All of our parents worked outside the home.........school let out before they returned home from work........so we had our own keys to get in.
Wish we did have a cop waiting at the door for us, but not so...

p.s.
I was most fortunate to be able to raise my two children as a stay at home mom.......so I was there for them when they left in the morning and when they returned home, with home baked cookies and milk for all their friends as well. My husband was also home as his studio was at home. we had the best of both worlds.........it was the way I wanted it, after having two working parents. After ours were in high school and away at college, I began my own little at home business..........and actually, everyone in our neighborhood worked at home.........we had artists of all kinds, craftsmen, attorneys who brought their work home, school teachers who were home all summer, doctors who walked home from the hospital for lunch or to attend their kids' school projects/sports.....we were ahead of our time.........now everyone can work at home via their computers. This was the 1970's and 1980's when our children were home........before college.

But back then, in the 1950's, no protection against bullies......

[senior citizen]

[QUOTE=Taltarzac725;768817]My mom was sick with me while she was pregnant so I had all kinds of speech and coordination problems growing up in Wisconsin and then Reno, Nevada. A great English teacher Mrs. Mitchell of Wooster High School in Reno, Nevada in 1975-1976 turned me around by making me fall in love with books and education. Bullies still have been a huge problem for me after high school but I got quite used to them from the high school counselor at Wooster High School who said I did not deserve the Michelle Mitchell Memorial Scholarship (after my teacher's murdered daughter on my birthday of 2-24) because I was not one of her "in" kids to my huge fight with various law librarians about getting practical information for victims/survivors of crimes into or accessible through libraries of all kinds. I just enlisted people to battle the bullies along with my using the wisdom taught to me by Mrs. Barbara Mitchell and teachers who came after her. I have had some great ones after Mrs. Mitchell too. The love of education planted by Mrs. Mitchell pushed me to get four degrees and take courses of some kind from the University of Nevada, Reno; BYU Law School (dropped out though); the University of Denver; the College of San Mateo (Spanish); and the University of Minnesota Law School as well as courses in Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Chinese at the regular or correspondence University of Minnesota college.

I could probably write a book or a screenplay about my extensive experiences with bullies. Doubt if many would believe it however. There's a lot I have trouble believing and I lived through it and probably e-mailed hundreds of thousands of people and organizations trying to document it as well as improve the situation for survivors/victims of various legal systems in the world. I managed to get nominated to 24 Marquis Who's Who publications from 1992 through 2002 fighting for the right of survivors/victims of crimes for access to practical information based on sharing my story with many.

The best way to battle bullies is to create your own tribe of supporters.[/QUOTE
************************************************** *******************************************


I wasn't aware of your long struggle to rise above the naysayers and bullies you experienced while growing up.......lingering into your adult life.

Apparently you are endowed with great inner strength to have "survived" and excelled...........for sure. They can't take that away from you.

You have excelled.......so hold that thought.

Love that last sentence:

"The best way to battle bullies is to create your own tribe of supporters."

Thanks for sharing some of those painful moments in your life.

[redwitch]

I found the worst bullying to be in the US. The second-worst was in London. I truly dreaded coming to the States, would cry when Dad told us were going "home". I wanted to be in any country, anywhere but here. I loved the Middle East -- no teasing, no meanness, just acceptance. Ditto Northern Africa (never was in the southern part). I do remember being the only white girl in one school in the Congo. I was touched a lot to see if I my whiteness would come off but it was never done in a mean way, just curiosity. Japan just ignored most foreigners. China was too insulated and had to have tutors at the embassy there. Hong Kong and Singapore kids didn't care if we were different; if we could follow what was being taught, all was good.

In the US, I had swastikas drawn on my clothes, desk and books. I was pushed hard enough to fall and break my wrist. "Dirty Kraut" was common. Fortunately, I always knew it was temporary and I would be leaving this torment and on to a new experience. It also helped that I had very loving parents and knew I was safe at home.

Now, before you misunderstand, I had a lot of good times as a child in America but it was usually with just one or two other children and after school. School here was something to survive. It was not a place of joy until college.

I do love America and Americans. I am proud of my American heritage, just as I am proud of my German heritage. I wouldn't want to live in another nation at this stage of my life (well, maybe Denmark if it didn't have snow). I just think US kids are inherently mean and small.

[tainsley]

Originally Posted by senior citizen

I had a girl friend in elementary and high school that had beautiful red hair, pale white skin with freckles and green eyes. She was a beauty, but also hated her hair. I'll bet yours was just as beautiful.

To me, that is nothing at all to be teased about.

It is rare and I did see that segment with Bill Geist. It was great to see all of those red heads together..........

My girlfriend's grandparents were both born in Russia; her parents were born in the U.S., as was she........but I also had a brother in law of German descent who was a natural red head. Neither of his sons ended up with red hair. One had dark brown hair and the other blonde hair.
Go figure.

So, in my book, red hair is rare..........they are the only two I can think of.

You didn't really dye your red hair, did you????

Never! It is still red with touches of blonde (actually grey)! Looks frosted now! I am thinking about washing this grey right out of my hair! My daughter and one of my sons both have red hair and they had been teased in grade school. I guess if someone doesn't like you for whatever reason they will pick out something about you that is different.

[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by tainsley

Never! It is still red with touches of blonde (actually grey)! Looks frosted now! I am thinking about washing this grey right out of my hair! My daughter and one of my sons both have red hair and they had been teased in grade school. I guess if someone doesn't like you for whatever reason they will pick out something about you that is different.

There you go. Frosted.

I finally let my dark brown hair grow out all silver.
Everyone likes it. No more dye jobs.

But, if you want to undo your "frosting" there are great shades of red out there now, even for slightly faded natural redheads......

Our 19 year old granddaughter is a natural honey blonde/lightish brown but she recently did her hair red....and it is beautiful. She has the freckles and blue eyes and naturally pale skin.....so it looks natural.

Go for it.

[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by redwitch

I found the worst bullying to be in the US. The second-worst was in London. I truly dreaded coming to the States, would cry when Dad told us were going "home". I wanted to be in any country, anywhere but here. I loved the Middle East -- no teasing, no meanness, just acceptance. Ditto Northern Africa (never was in the southern part). I do remember being the only white girl in one school in the Congo. I was touched a lot to see if I my whiteness would come off but it was never done in a mean way, just curiosity. Japan just ignored most foreigners. China was too insulated and had to have tutors at the embassy there. Hong Kong and Singapore kids didn't care if we were different; if we could follow what was being taught, all was good.

In the US, I had swastikas drawn on my clothes, desk and books. I was pushed hard enough to fall and break my wrist. "Dirty Kraut" was common. Fortunately, I always knew it was temporary and I would be leaving this torment and on to a new experience. It also helped that I had very loving parents and knew I was safe at home.

Now, before you misunderstand, I had a lot of good times as a child in America but it was usually with just one or two other children and after school. School here was something to survive. It was not a place of joy until college.

I do love America and Americans. I am proud of my American heritage, just as I am proud of my German heritage. I wouldn't want to live in another nation at this stage of my life (well, maybe Denmark if it didn't have snow). I just think US kids are inherently mean and small.

I'm truly sorry for what you had to go through as a child, etc.

I always taught my children to be nice to everyone and not to fight back.
They grew up to be kind and decent people with great loving children as well.

However, there always were , especially in Jr. High (now called middle school) a group who will find any reason to pick on kids, especially intelligent kids.......and it's a very sensitive age.

I'm a pacifist at heart.........and that's what I taught my kids to be.
But, there are all kinds in this world. Sad that you had to meet up with some of them.

[Yorio]

It was in kindergarten. You know the usual stuff of kids sitting around in circles. Circle was already made up when I came it. I wanted to be sitting next to my friend so I took out a small pocket knife and opened the blade. Didn't do anything with it except I think I said, let me in. Don't know why I did it. I thought it was cool? It was stupid. When teacher saw that, I was told to stand in the corner until the class was over and took my pocket knife away. Don't remember whether I got it back. Additionally, I had to take a letter back to my parents and the fact I remember it to this day means the action taken by the adults were appropriate. I think that is the last time I bullied.