Do you think bullying has become more prevalent because of all the coverage on the issue?

I have not seen any data on bullying, but my impression is that things are far less violent and brutal than they were when I was a kid. Although, it’s likely just my experience.

I grew up in a “good” middle-class suburb. From grades 1 to 7, there probably wasn’t a week that passed without getting into a fist fight. That’s just what you did. For boys in my town, it was a rough scene. Occasionally, one of the parents would call some other parent because there were excessive black eyes or missing teeth, but that would just result in more torment. The most that would happen for getting into a fight in the school would be a scolding by the principal, and maybe a day after school in detention.

I have told my kids about kids used to fight a lot when I was a kid, and they are shocked. I believe them. It just doesn’t happen (at least in the town I live in now).

My wife says that she wasn’t exposed to it when she was a kid, and we’re the same age. But she grew up here, in my current upper-middle-class suburb. But my friends who grew up in East Boston or Malden have similar or worse experiences than I do.

So, I don’t know if it’s worse. I suspect it isn’t. I suspect that it depends on where you live. And I suspect that overall, the intolerance of this type of shit has probably reduced the incidence of bullying/fighting.

EDIT: I failed to mention that besides the actually fighting, the bullying (verbal) was intense. Legally-blind kid was just tortured. Smaller, less “masculine” boys were faggots for the entire school experience. Fat kids (ahem, me) were just referred to as “fat [insert last name here]” in school and out. The teachers didn’t do shit. There were times that everyone in class would know that there would be a kid beaten to shit after class for being ugly or fat, and the teachers wouldn’t do anything.

The things you described were happening in my area when I was little and even when my mom was going to school in that area. It’s still like that as far as I know, but I no longer live in that area.

<- did not do this question the courtesy of even a Google search

I think now that people have cellphone cameras and can record anything at a moments notice, it is becoming harder to deny it exists and is a problem.
But I also think certain budding sociopaths see the videos, and it becomes somewhat normative in their minds, so they are encouraged to do it.

Well, yeah. There were the occasional fist fights in school. I found myself in one myself, totally against my will! That’s a different genre than bullying though, especially bullying by multiple people on one poor kid.

GA @drhat77 They see it, think it’s the in-thing, they do it. Same with all the sex pictures they pass around.

Bullying is more documented now than it previously was, however I do not think that media coverage is making it more prevalent. It was always prevalent. Both my parents (grew up in Southern California) and my SO’s parents (who grew up in Mexico) experienced bullying at various stages in their life (my mum mostly in high school and my SO’s mother mainly as a child.) Both my siblings and I faced bullying growing up, to varying degrees. I am not even sure who received the worst of it between us.

I think some parents are also more open now as to what constitutes bullying whereas previously some dismissed behaviour as “kids being kids” (particularly “boys being boys”) or as “character building” situations.

We are only now considering anti-bullying legislation due to the heavier documentation and coverage devoted to suicides that were prompted by intense bullying. This does not mean that this is a new phenomenon—it just wasn’t spoken about.

I have a friend who was beat up by other children as a child (that was about 50 years ago). She was hospitalized and in a coma for about a week. She still deals with trauma and injuries from that encounter.

A girl walked up to me when I was leaving my German class during my sophomore year of high school (1986) and punched me in the eye. She was a nasty bully.

Bullying has always been around, but I don’t think it’s worse. I haven’t heard of anything like that in the area I live now, though I’m sure it happens.

My mother in law shares stories about her first day in first grade as the only jewish kid in school. An older boy messed with her, she punched him square in the head. he fell backwards onto a radiator, and apparently was out of school for a long time. My mother in law told me he had bleeding in his head, although I’m not sure how she knows that.
My mother in law proudly says no one messed with her ever again.
like first day in prison…

Some kids today are raised like animals and are never taught right from wrong or to respect anyone or anything. if bullying is on the rise it would not surprise me.

It was much worse when I was going to school. I got the shit kicked out of me on one occasion because I refused to push a penny around a toilet seat in the boy’s room with my nose. Things like this happened on a daily basis. I took quite a few ass beatings because I refused to demean myself. I remember being incredibly pissed with my father because he told me to fight back and that would end it. They would look for easier prey. It just made them double their efforts. I will say that I never pushed a fucking penny.

I think bullying has become less prevalent because of all the coverage on the issue. Because of some of the shit I had to endure I was incredibly worried when my boys went to school. They never had a problem.

My first bullying experience was similar to @jonsblond. A girl came up to me and said ” is your name L” . I thought wow, an older girl knows me and wants to be friend, then she punched me and I just walked away. I got bullied constantly for being a red head. I was never severely beaten up though. I would hate to go to school these days. There is always bullying stories in the local papers, and then there is all this cyber bullying with poor kids having to result in suicide.
I think a lot of it is to do with kids having kids, and parents not being free to discipline how they want to, with the fear of the police or social services getting involved.

@Headhurts hit it on the head. That, and in spite of authorities making a big deal about bullying, it’s clearly ignored all the time, even when kids or parents report it to the school administrators.

In addition, when parents are the bullies (threatening teachers and other people in the community, you can hardly expect less from their kids).

@Headhurts May I ask what year that happened to you?

No. It is an issue, because the culture has discouraged children from fighting back.

My husband tells of one of the greatest injustices of his young life – the several times he was whipped by the principal in front of the class, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.

He found out years later that it was a kindness – a way to ward off the bullies who travelled in packs, and save my hubby a few after school beatings.

Didn’t prevent all of them, mind you. One can prevent teacher’s pet beatings, but not “you have a paper route and it’s payday” and “you’re friends with the wrong crowd”, or even “it’s your dad’s fault my dad is on strike” beatings.

Aah, factory towns in 1980.

@Dutchess_III It was my first week in secondary school so it would be 1990.

This is one reason why I homeschooled. When we stopped, we got the kids in a private school ASAP.

I feel that bullying needs more attention, not less. I’ve seen many horrible thing while attending compulsory level schooling. I’d seen a girl almost literally have her finger tips ripped off when another girl slammed a locker door on this girl’s fingers. I’d seen, and have been a victim myself, of groups of kids beating another very badly. I’ve seen worse than those incidents too, so I won’t spare any more details here.

I just think that things were more hush hush in the past, and that we were told to fight our own battles. The problem is that when the victim attempts to do this they usually get in worse trouble than the bullies/instigators. I’d rather see a culture where being violent or mean is considered to be retarded, rather than a culture that attempts to intergrate us into accepting violence, and learning to live with it. Kids get many of their mean habits from their parents too, as is so evidenced by the little league games I’ve been a part of and attended.

When was that @Paradox25? I just never experienced, or heard of, such savage violence in school.

I took my son out of the middle of a little league base ball game and went home because of parents acting like assholes. In the middle of the game I went out on the field, took my son’s hand and we left.

The 1980’s. Well, there you go, and now you know that these incidents are not only common, but were so even back in the day. Many people obviously don’t want to hear how bad their peers or ‘fellow, averge’ humans can be. As a result we try to coax ourselves that there either must be something odd about these victims which drew this type of negative attention to themselves, that we would never allow this to happen to ourselves, or that these incidents have been blown out of proportion.

“Back in the day” was the 60’s and 70’s for me. What in the hell happened? We had fights, threats, BS like that, but where did the mindless, sadistic viciousness come from?