Bullying

[Gypsy Ram]

Got bullied mercilessly the first year of school, until i stood up to the biggest bully (with no tray in hand) in the dinner que. Got the crap kicked out of me, but automatically got the respect of all. Plus it helped that i played sports and represented the school and county at a sport. That helped. But i remember other kids that got systematically bullied for 5 years, and I feel guilty that i didn't do more to stop it.

What helps is joining clubs, or social groups. Bullies tend to pick on individuals who they think are alone or weak.

[Van der MoodHoover]

6 minutes ago, Gypsy Ram said:

Got bullied mercilessly the first year of school, until i stood up to the biggest bully (with no tray in hand) in the dinner que. Got the crap kicked out of me, but automatically got the respect of all. Plus it helped that i played sports and represented the school and county at a sport. That helped. But i remember other kids that got systematically bullied for 5 years, and I feel guilty that i didn't do more to stop it.

What helps is joining clubs, or social groups. Bullies tend to pick on individuals who they think are alone or weak.

Precisely what happened to my lad. It’s difficult. Well done for coming through. 

[LesterRam]

I was bullied on a football forum ( I won't name which one)....

It started when I first joined, I could feel the sexual tension and the overwhelming nature of the emails sent through to me from the owner of the forum, I tried to ignore his advances  but they were getting more and more intense, I blocked the emails and then he became vengeful, he started to edit posts that made me look bigoted and I couldn't take the pressure, I left for 3 months whilst he undertook therapy but alas it failed, since Dear Deidre retired I don't know where to turn 

Any help would be appreciated 

[Gypsy Ram]

18 minutes ago, HantsRam said:

Precisely what happened to my lad. It’s difficult. Well done for coming through. 

I hope your lad comes through it soon and I'm sure he will.

I was just thinking about this - my little one, 9, is growing up in Cape Town. At her school, not one child is left out of activities, sports and social clubs.

They don't have the option but to be part of something and at that age, sport is already competitive and schools play each other (cricket, Rugby, netball and swimming) in friendly local tournaments once or twice a year. 

In addition, they are taught about their history, and encouraged to help those in townships - with the school itself, taking children from the local township on scholarship.

Can't help but think that it's a better model than letting kids run around the playground bored and kicking lumps out of each other.

[Van der MoodHoover]

8 minutes ago, LesterRam said:

I was bullied on a football forum ( I won't name which one)....

It started when I first joined, I could feel the sexual tension and the overwhelming nature of the emails sent through to me from the owner of the forum, I tried to ignore his advances  but they were getting more and more intense, I blocked the emails and then he became vengeful, he started to edit posts that made me look bigoted and I couldn't take the pressure, I left for 3 months whilst he undertook therapy but alas it failed, since Dear Deidre retired I don't know where to turn 

Any help would be appreciated 

What you need is a bit of @Boycie luuuurve 

[Van der MoodHoover]

2 minutes ago, Gypsy Ram said:

I hope your lad comes through it soon and I'm sure he will.

I was just thinking about this - my little one, 9, is growing up in Cape Town. At her school, not one child is left out of activities, sports and social clubs.

They don't have the option but to be part of something and at that age, sport is already competitive and schools play each other (cricket, Rugby, netball and swimming) in friendly local tournaments once or twice a year. 

In addition, they are taught about their history, and encouraged to help those in townships - with the school itself, taking children from the local township on scholarship.

Can't help but think that it's a better model than letting kids run around the playground bored picking on each other.

Absolutely. Responsible citizenship should be the first compulsory course on the curriculum imo 

I should have been clearer in my story. Young Hants is now just 16 and well adjusted. Working now on his future 

[SSD]

I was bullied at primary and secondary school because I was a loner and very quiet in class. Not being awkward with people, was always polite with the other kids. They just thought I was an easy target, small and skinny and quiet. I couldn't take it at all, I remember sobbing to my parents when I couldn't take the constant verbal barrage. Some of it looking back was kids just having a laugh and I didn't take the jokes very well, other times it was personal attacks which nowadays as a full grown man I'd confront. 

 

I'm more angry with the school. My parents must have mentioned it to my form tutor and head of year multiple times and yet they wouldn't let me move forms where I had other friends, some I still socialise with today. All it took was for me to move into another form with kids I spoke to and communicated with, I'm sure that would've solved the problem because they would have backed me up and I'd have grown in confidence to stand up to the bullies. But because I didn't take a full on beating, the school didn't seem to bother.

 

I've only witnessed one incident of bullying at work which was a group of men in their 40's constantly harass this other bloke of a similar age by going up behind him and performing fake sex acts. I thought it was a silly joke at first but then after awhile it wasn't funny anymore. In the end 4 of the group were sacked for bullying. What the hell were they thinking, especially when some of them had kids to provide for?

[Zag zig]

Very short and extremely edited version of a bullying episode.

Background being a kid I grew up with was a bit of a lad, fairly hard and never turned the other cheek to even older lads/bullies. Many schoolmates from my village didn’t take him on, though I confess to giving him a cut above his eyebrow as an 8year old and in return I got a knock down. Despite that and having different friends as we grew older, I’d occasionally bump into him and we would reminisce about our cowboys and Indian scraps, Allies v Germans etc whenever I went back to our old village. Why once fairly drunk, he even let me kip in a sleeping bag on his floor rather than get an earful from my mum for forgetting my key.

One night, now in his early twenties, he saw 2 lads being bullied and petrified by some harder more intimidating sorts. Cutting a very long story short, he ended up outside with one of them, sticking up for the bullied lads and ultimately the exchange left him in a Coma and sadly to lose his life.

My old school mate, was a bit of a scrapper, sometimes irresponsible, jack the lad, but for all that he was a likeable rogue and never a bully; quite the opposite, he mostly looked after those that were being bullied.

I’m not sure what the moral of the little story is, other than I found it quite sad, had he turned the other cheek he might still be here. Unfortunately, thing is he always found trouble and never ran away from bullies, but it sure cut his life short.

[Gypsy Ram]

18 minutes ago, Zag zig said:

Very short and extremely edited version of a bullying episode.

Background being a kid I grew up with was a bit of a lad, fairly hard and never turned the other cheek to even older lads/bullies. Many schoolmates from my village didn’t take him on, though I confess to giving him a cut above his eyebrow as an 8year old and in return I got a knock down. Despite that and having different friends as we grew older, I’d occasionally bump into him and we would reminisce about our cowboys and Indian scraps, Allies v Germans etc whenever I went back to our old village. Why once fairly drunk, he even let me kip in a sleeping bag on his floor rather than get an earful from my mum for forgetting my key.

One night, now in his early twenties, he saw 2 lads being bullied and petrified by some harder more intimidating sorts. Cutting a very long story short, he ended up outside with one of them, sticking up for the bullied lads and ultimately the exchange left him in a Coma and sadly to lose his life.

My old school mate, was a bit of a scrapper, sometimes irresponsible, jack the lad, but for all that he was a likeable rogue and never a bully; quite the opposite, he mostly looked after those that were being bullied.

I’m not sure what the moral of the little story is, other than I found it quite sad, had he turned the other cheek he might still be here. Unfortunately, thing is he always found trouble and never ran away from bullies, but it sure cut his life short.

What a tragic tale. Hope those responsible are in prison.

[Zag zig]

Just now, Gypsy Ram said:

What a tragic tale. Hope those responsible are in prison.

From what I was told and I was out the country at the time, they largely got off on technicalities and a lack of witnesses, hence why I’ve not said more detail. 

Yeah. Could get into all sort of debate about standing up to bullies, having a go when people being victimised. My old man was a similar character in some ways but there can be consequences, sometimes unintended. I’m not easily intimidated, even on my own but I have thought about his plight on more than one occasion in tense circumstances and i often look to defuse confrontation rather than ramp it up because of it.

Sometimes though you can’t turn the other cheek, which is why the phrase have a go hero is quite often used eh.

[Wolfie]

I was bullied at school in Bakewell from the age of about 11-16. This was mainly low-level stuff I suppose but it predominantly came from my "friends". I had a stammer and lived on a farm, which wasn't cool & meant I wasn't as well off as most of the rest of the group - I would have had free school meals but for my dad's pride. Bless him. I don't remember ever really standing up to it because living in a village, it's not as if there was alot of choice of people to hang out with.

What it taught me in later life was to choose friends carefully. Outside of my family, I enjoy my own company and have maybe 3 close friends and I'm fine with that.

I have since learned to stand up to bullies though. 20 years ago, I worked for a metals company in Sheffield & the female Operations Manager was a bully & often sent people (usually women who worked under her) away in tears. I was an up & coming Sales Team Leader at the time and we had a strained relationship on & off but she once laid into one of my team for something very minor. I snapped & verbally tore a strip off her in the middle of an open office & in front of about 20 people.

Not very professional on my part maybe, bearing in mind she was about 25 years older than me and more senior in the business but she never spoke to my boss about it and her attitude towards me & my team changed to one of respect & cooperation from that moment.

If anyone bumped into her outside of work, she really couldn't have been nicer & I came to realise she probably felt she had to be a hard bitch at work in order to get as high up as she did in a massvely male dominated industry. Or maybe she was just nuts.