Bullying - Austin,MN

My girl scout leader ( from 30 + years ago) went back to teaching full-time after I left the town. I recently talked with her for the first time in all these years. I was bullied badly in a day when it wasn't cool for anyone to intervene. But she had a heart for kids. She said later she taught sensitivity classes in the schools. I think it needs to be something that the schools actively include as part of their over all curriculum. Kids do not understand the damage they are doing and the children being bullied don't know how to stick up for themselves.

I just want to say that I think that this is an excellent idea. Our school district is very "strict" and zero-tolerance about bullying as well. I always think that perhaps their hopes of no bullying is more than a school can handle because they have a lot of different challenges to face (as well as 1000 kids) and they also may not be able to go about tackling bullying in the best way.

A committee on bullying would be great because that way there could be a sole purpose and main focus on bullying. I would say to talk not only to the school, but also the police department and get some ideas. Get some laws and rules to back you up as well as educate yourselves further on the technicalities of bullying and work from there. It would be nice if the school district could let you give a handout to all parents who may want to join... at the very least let you post a notice of this idea on the bulletin bords at schools and other county buildings. Good for you! I wish you luck.

I think it's a wonderful idea that you, the parents, are standing up and saying you won't tolerate it from your kids!

Try www.thewaytohappiness.org. They have a set program to bring in to your school (along with DVDs, handouts and teacher books). This program not only handles bullying, but other behaviors as well. It has a wonderful success rate!

Bravo to you!

It's all about adults stepping in and making things right. I was at the grocery store today and two girls about the age of 12 were in line behind me. They were talking about a kid at school that looks like sasquatch so they call him sasquatch. I listened to their stupid conversation while my stuff was being rung up and then I looked over at the girls and said "So, you girls are making fun of someone at school and you think it's funny?" They looked at me with big eyes and then left the line. Grown ups are too afraid or too intimidated to get involved, and WE NEED TO. I think your committee is a great idea ... it will empower ADULTS to take back the world instead of the children running things.

Check out www.battlebullying.com and www.pacer.org, they are great resources! And the zero tolerance policy may need some more definition and action behind it.

We pulled our son out of school last year and he's being homeschooled. He's a very smart kid and all his teacher's loved him. He's a good boy and the students made fun of him because he's so quiet. It got to the point that he would come home from school and sit in his room for several hours and stare at the wall. He wouldn't tell us what was going on. We were worried he could get suicidal.
He's doing much, much better now. We had another child in the same school and so we chose not to make problems with the school. We just pulled him out. My son feared that the kids would just make fun of him more if we said something to the teachers. We did tell the school counselor and she was sympathetic, but didn't feel obligated to report what was going on. I don't trust the school systems to advocate for my child.

This site has lots of great info.
http://www.olweus.org/public/index.page

as a former bullying victim, I can say that what you are trying to do is wonderful. I had a few teachers growing up, who stepped in and stopped things, but that only works if the students respect the teacher. And that was only 2 teachers out of all of them throughout school k-12...The more we get people involved and really teach the kids that it's not okay to hurt someone else, hopefully the more things change for the better. I'm not sure what you can do, other than keep talking to the schools and the students. Have assemblies, do research, provide information to the schools and the students. just keep at it, and sooner or later, something will change for the better (hopefully sooner rather than later!!)

Look on the Internet. There is a whole lot of educational material on stopping bullying available. My granddaughter's grade school uses a curriculum and have a counselor that works with kids who are bullied and who bully.

Yes I did.

You know the principle had the audacity to say that my child did sometimes go around the child. Kinda insinuating he had it coming or something. I was ignored and ignored and ignored. Went to the teacher, the gym teacher, recess watchers, vice and eventually principle! Nothing ever got better.

So one day the kid put his hands on my kid. He had a scratch! I called up that principle and again called back and tried to act like my kid had it coming. I told him how is it you guys CAN'T get this under control! I got kinda rude at that point. He threatened with maybe my son and this child should be separated and insinuated because it was me who had the problem it should be my child! He had scratched my son. So I called his bluff and said SURE beings you guys can't handle the children he's got another chance at least. Well I called his bluff. Said he couldn't really do this. He was threatening me basically. I was furious so then he did the whole again your child could stay away. There room is what a standard size room and they have stations... how exactly? I said hey he put his hands on my child. There is no excuse for this and said so if a girl goes around some guy after he's made passes at her she deserves to be raped! Then I told him he'd escalated to violence and beings they weren't taking this serious and he was now being physically assaulted.... I was contacting a lawyer! My god did they fix that situation quick. They were kept in the same class but everyone kept them on opposite sides of the room. My child was told he wasn't allowed on the black top during recess he had to stay on the play equipment and that child black top. I felt bad he couldn't go on the play equipment anymore because that would have made me sad but I'm a sap.

But man how fast they jumped when I got actually aggressive. It was fixed and now they will permanently never be in a class ever again. But you are right the zero tolerance thing is bull. They wouldn't even help me! I tried and tried and tried. My son was coming home in tears and this boy was popular too so it segregated my son if he did indeed stay completely away from this child which is bull too. So all his friends were girls and he had one guy friend which again was why he'd be even near that child sometimes. Funny how penalized my son was... I was always pretty much told oh I'm sorry and it was left at that.

Does your school have a Friends of Rachel club? Friends of Rachel was started in the aftermath of the Columbine school shooting in memory of Rachel who was shot and killed. I am sure you can find information on it on the internet. Our school has it for 5th grade on up. The organization has resources and offers speakers that addresses bullying. It creates awareness among the students and the school. I believe it is rather easy to administer. Another idea is our community started a Year of Peace campaign that was so successful they extended it for another year. It addresses everything from global peace, domestic peace, peace in the home, and schools, and contributing to missions. They have forums and speakers, and community members and students have essays published in the local newspaper on achieving peace. Bless you for wanting to do something about the problem!