Adults Who Bully Quotes

My mom says . . . there are bad people who hurt others for fun . . . and there are good people who do it by accident. Like, they make a mistake? I think you're a good person.

A little boy and his friends are being called bastards and bitches by bullies at school. The boy goes home and asks, "Dad, what are bastards and bitches?" And his dad replies, "Bitches are ladies and bastards are gentlemen." Then the boy goes upstairs to see his mom. As he enters the room, he accidentally drops a perfume bottle, and his mom says, "Shit!" "Mom, what is shit?" and she says, "Perfume." So he goes to see his dad (who is carving a chicken), and his dad cuts himself and yells, "Fuck!" The boy asks, "Dad, what does fuck mean?" and dad says "preparing." Then he follows his dad upstairs. A few minutes later his mom and dad are about to have sex when his dad says, "Where are the condoms?" The little boy asks, "What are condoms?" and his father says, "Condoms are coats and jackets." The following night his father invites over some important business clients. The boy opens the door for them and says, "Hello! Please come in, Bastards and bitches. Hang your condoms up here, my mom is upstairs rubbing shit on her face and my dad is downstairs fucking the chicken.

If I want my world to be less vicious, then I must become more gentle. If I want my children to embrace other children for who they are, to treat other children with the dignity and respect every child of God deserves, then I had better treat other adults the same way. And I better make sure that my children know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in God's and their father's and my eyes, they are okay. They are loved as they are. Without a single unless. Because the kids who bully are those who are afraid that a secret part of themselves is not okay.

Words have power, and sometimes, they stay with you for life. It’s up to you to allow those words to define who you become.

Here are some suggestions. Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere.

You can be the person who puts the 'kick me' sign on the back, or be the person that watches it happen and does nothing, or you can be the person who takes the sign off. That's it. Every day, every moment of your life, you're making this choice. Life doesn't stop for it, challenges don't make way for it, the choice is there and you own it. Welcome to adulting.

If someone is badly hurt at some point in life—traumatized—the dominance counter can transform in a manner that makes additional hurt more rather than less likely. This often happens in the case of people, now adults, who were viciously bullied during childhood or adolescence. They become anxious and easily upset. They shield themselves with a defensive crouch, and avoid the direct eye contact interpretable as a dominance challenge. This means that the damage caused by the bullying (the lowering of status and confidence) can continue, even after the bullying has ended.25 In the simplest of cases, the formerly lowly persons have matured and moved to new and more successful places in their lives. But they don’t fully notice. Their now-counterproductive physiological adaptations to earlier reality remain, and they are more stressed and uncertain than is necessary. In more complex cases, a habitual assumption of subordination renders the person more stressed and uncertain than necessary, and their habitually submissive posturing continues to attract genuine negative attention from one or more of the fewer and generally less successful bullies still extant in the adult world. In such situations, the psychological consequence of the previous bullying increases the likelihood of continued bullying in the present (even though, strictly speaking, it wouldn’t have to, because of maturation, or geographical relocation, or continued education, or improvement in objective status).

Why do you do it, Amber? Why do you go after people like you do? It’s not who you are.” “That’s the point,” Amber said. “I’m not allowed to be who I really am.

If you read many of my Middle Grade and YA book series, you would notice the common theme of how the main characters always choose to be good. That's because when you write for YA, as an author, you automatically become a person of authority. Be a good role model yourself as a YA author. Help teens grow up into responsible and good adults. YA Authors - Don't get accused of sexual harassment (like some authors) or of encouraging your teen readers to gang up on and bully /harass an author. I've been the receiving end of that kind of behavior, and it is cyberbullying and harassment. Authors and anyone in a position of authority who encourage teens and kids to cyberbully another human being is not a good role model. Parents and Teachers should help their kids choose books and role models. When a teen has committed cyberbullying as a minor, but grows it, they can still be held accountable for that. In many states, cyberbullying is a crime. - Strong by Kailin Gow

It's my belief that Dahmer didn't have to wind up a monster, that all those people didn't have to die horribly, if only the adults in his life hadn't been so inexplicably, unforgivably, incomprehensibly clueless and/or indifferent. Once Dahmer kills, however - and I can't stress this enough - my sympathy for him ends. He could have turned himself in after that first murder. He could have put a gun to his head. Instead he, and he alone, chose to become a serial killer and spread misery to countless people. There are a surprising number out there who view Jeffery Dahmer as some kind of anti-hero, a bullied kid who lashed back at the society that rejected him, This is nonsense. Dahmer was a twisted wretch whose depravity was almost beyond comprehension. Pity him, but don't empathize with him.

And for some reason, there seems to be no internal policeman for a bully that says maybe you're hurting somebody's feelings. Or worse, maybe you're going to push this perons too far and they'll do something terrible. Something's not processing correctly in a bully's head. It doesn't seem to occur to them that what they're doing is corssing a line that shouldn't be crossed. And it's really, in my mind, no different than taking on defenseless kids. You do it just because you can. It's an exercise in power; but it's also meant to dinsintegrate someone's Self. It's meant to take away their sense of who they are. And why? Because they're not as strong, or as bit, or as witty. Bullies are ball-less, soul-less creatures to me. And they're not just children, they're adults too. It's a terrorist act. It's meant to make you feel afraid. It's meant to make you feel powerless to take care of the situation you find yourself in.

there’s a lot of unnecessary meanness that happens while you’re trying to sort out who you want to be, who your friends are, who your friends are not. Adults spend a lot of time talking about bullying in schools these days, but the real problem isn’t as obvious as one kid throwing a Slurpee in another kid’s face. It’s about social isolation. It’s about cruel jokes. It’s about the way kids treat one another. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, how old friends can turn against each other: it seems, sometimes, that it’s not enough for them to go their separate ways—they literally have to “ice” their old buddies out just to prove to the new friends that they’re no longer still friends. That’s the kind of stuff I don’t find acceptable. Fine, don’t be friends anymore: but stay kind about it. Be respectful. Is that too much to ask?

The shadow self is what lies beneath the makeup. It’s those ugly parts that you haven’t accepted about yourself. You hide those parts in the shadows until you’re ready.” Her face remained a haunting calm. “When you realize the scars are who you are, that there was nothing wrong with you and that you were beautiful all along - that’s when you decide to take the makeup off.

Because I am, just as you are you. We don’t always get to pick who we are, Shelly Wynn, but we can choose to celebrate it.

To some of those girls, school will be the highlight of their lives. People like you…people who are beautiful inside and out…those are the ones who will shine in whatever they decide to do. [Alec]

A 2012 study reviewed the previous two decades of research and confirmed Gershoff’s findings, reporting that kids who are spanked have less gray matter in their brains and are more likely to exhibit depression, anxiety, drug use, and aggression.9 Spanking has repeatedly been shown to lower intelligence, while it increases tantrums, defiance, bullying, sibling violence, adult mental health problems, and later spousal abuse. No studies show that kids who are spanked are better behaved or grow up to be equally healthy emotionally.

exactly?” Here are some suggestions. Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere.

About the first principle, you might ask, “Limit the rules to what, exactly?” Here are some suggestions. Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere.

There are certain people who are what I call sparkly humans. These are people who have things just happen for them or to them because other people see them and seemingly inexplicably want to help them. Because they sparkle. From the inside out. I was always a sparkly human (still am, for the most part, on most days). Adults just liked me and wanted to help me. Not kids at my school. Sometimes sparkliness isn’t recognized by peers until much later. Sometimes sparkly people are even bullied as kids. Because other kids want to put that light out. They don’t understand it and they want to kill it. The secret is, if you’re truly sparkly, you survive all that bullshit and you don’t let them put it out. And at some point, you start to get rewarded for it. Sparkly humans aren’t always entertainers, and they don’t always become famous. There are sparkly humans everywhere. And there are also plenty of people who are wonderful and amazing, but aren’t sparkly. It’s a very specific thing.

In retrospect, I suppose it might be difficult to develop early as a girl. Guys talking to your chest rather than your face is one thing. Then you’re also surrounded by a bunch of girls with pre- adolescent bodies who wrongly think that no breasts and no ass are a good thing. Plus, if you own your sexuality at all as a teen girl you’re a slut with a capital S. God, I’m glad those days are over. Not like adulthood is void of sexist platitudes, it’s just easier to talk about. In high school, though, if you call someone out on their shit you get bullied. It’s really a horrible time in life. Honestly, I don’t even know why there is an entire genre of books dedicated to it.

The idea that we should campaign against hurtful speech among adults arises from a failure to understand that free speech is our chosen method of resolving disagreements, using words rather than weapons. Open debate is our enlightened means of determining nothing less than how we order our society, what is true and what is false, what wars we should fight, what policies we should pass, whom we should put behind bars for the rest of their lives, and who gets to control our government. This is a deadly serous business. While protecting children from abuse is a noble goal, an overly expansive definition of bullying cannot be allowed to hobble the gravely important exchange of ideas among adults upon which our nation depends. The new emphasis on collegiate "bullying" treats adults like kindergarteners and forgets entirely the gravity of the issues we face in our democracy every single day and the rightful passions they ignite.

The idea that we should campaign against hurtful speech among adults arises from a failure to understand that free speech is our chosen method of resolving disagreements, using words rather than weapons. Open debate is our enlightenend means of determining nothing less than how we order our society, what is true and what is false, what wars we should fight, what policies we should pass, whom we should put behind bars for the rest of their lives, and who gets to control our government. This is a deadly serous business. While protecting children from abuse is a noble goal, an overly expansive definition of bullying cannot be allowed to hobble the gravely important exchange of ideas among adults upon which our nation depends. The new emphasis on collegiate "bullying" treats adults like kindergarteners and forgets entirely the gravity of the issues we face in our democracy every single day and the rightful passions they ignite.

Imagine the daughter of a narcissistic father as an example. She grows up chronically violated and abused at home, perhaps bullied by her peers as well. Her burgeoning low self-esteem, disruptions in identity and problems with emotional regulation causes her to live a life filled with terror. This is a terror that is stored in the body and literally shapes her brain. It is also what makes her brain extra vulnerable and susceptible to the effects of trauma in adulthood.                              Being verbally, emotionally and sometimes even physically beaten down, the child of a narcissistic parent learns that there is no safe place for her in the world. The symptoms of trauma emerge: disassociation to survive and escape her day-to-day existence, addictions that cause her to self-sabotage, maybe even self-harm to cope with the pain of being unloved, neglected and mistreated. Her pervasive sense of worthlessness and toxic shame, as well as subconscious programming, then cause her to become more easily attached to emotional predators in adulthood. In her repeated search for a rescuer, she instead finds those who chronically diminish her just like her earliest abusers. Of course, her resilience, adept skill set in adapting to chaotic environments and ability to “bounce back” was also birthed in early childhood. This is also seen as an “asset” to toxic partners because it means she will be more likely to stay within the abuse cycle in order to attempt to make things “work.” She then suffers not just from early childhood trauma, but from multiple re-victimizations in adulthood until, with the right support, she addresses her core wounds and begins to break the cycle step by step. Before she can break the cycle, she must first give herself the space and time to recover. A break from establishing new relationships is often essential during this time; No Contact (or Low Contact from her abusers in more complicated situations such as co-parenting) is also vital to the healing journey, to prevent compounding any existing traumas.

The wounding legacy of segregation and growing up knowing adults who had worked for civil rights and equal opportunities for African Americans was part of what made me understand that many kids in my community and around the world were still treated differently because of the color of their skin.  My mothers work on behalf of girls and women, first in Arkansas and later around the world, helped me understand how being born a girl is often seen as a reason to deny someone the right to go to school or make her own decisions, or even about who or when to marry.  One of the unique things about SEWA [Self-Employed Women's Association] is that it brings together Muslim and Hindu women in a part of the world where fighting between people from different religious backgrounds has cost countless lives, both between countries and within India.  Women from all different backgrounds told us how they'd learned how much more they had in common than they'd first thought because of their different religions. Their support for each other gave them the confidence to stand up to bullying and harassment, and the relationships they'd built helped prevent violence between Hindus and Muslims, because they saw each other as friends and real people, not only as representatives of different religions.

The truth is, the vanity of protective parents that I cited to the court goes beyond look-at-us-we’re-such-responsible-guardians. Our prohibitions also bulwark our self-importance. They fortify the construct that we adults are all initiates. By conceit, we have earned access to an unwritten Talmud whose soul-shattering content we are sworn to conceal from “innocents” for their own good. By pandering to this myth of the naïf, we service our own legend. Presumably we have looked the horror in the face, like staring into the naked eye of the sun, blistering into turbulent, corrupted creatures, enigmas even to ourselves. Gross with revelation, we would turn back the clock if we could, but there is no unknowing of this awful canon, no return to the blissfully insipid world of childhood, no choice but to shoulder this weighty black sagacity, whose finest purpose is to shelter our air-headed midgets from a glimpse of the abyss. The sacrifice is flatteringly tragic. The last thing we want to admit is that the forbidden fruit on which we have been gnawing since reaching the magic age of twenty-one is the same mealy Golden Delicious that we stuff into our children’s lunch boxes. The last thing we want to admit is that the bickering of the playground perfectly presages the machinations of the boardroom, that our social hierarchies are merely an extension of who got picked first for the kickball team, and that grown-ups still get divided into bullies and fatties and crybabies. What’s a kid to find out? Presumably we lord over them an exclusive deed to sex, but this pretense flies so fantastically in the face of fact that it must result from some conspiratorial group amnesia. To this day, some of my most intense sexual memories date back to before I was ten, as I have confided to you under the sheets in better days. No, they have sex, too. In truth, we are bigger, greedier versions of the same eating, shitting, rutting ruck, hell-bent on disguising from somebody, if only from a three-year-old, that pretty much all we do is eat and shit and rut. The secret is there is no secret. That is what we really wish to keep from our kids, and its suppression is the true collusion of adulthood, the pact we make, the Talmud we protect.

MY PROCESS I got bullied quite a bit as a kid, so I learned how to take a punch and how to put up a good fight. God used that. I am not afraid of spiritual “violence” or of facing spiritual fights. My Dad was drafted during Vietnam and I grew up an Army brat, moving around frequently. God used that. I am very spiritually mobile, adaptable, and flexible. My parents used to hand me a Bible and make me go look up what I did wrong. God used that, as well. I knew the Word before I knew the Lord, so studying Scripture is not intimidating to me. I was admitted into a learning enrichment program in junior high. They taught me critical thinking skills, logic, and Greek Mythology. God used that, too. In seventh grade I was in school band and choir. God used that. At 14, before I even got saved, a youth pastor at my parents’ church taught me to play guitar. God used that. My best buddies in school were a druggie, a Jewish kid, and an Irish soccer player. God used that. I broke my back my senior year and had to take theatre instead of wrestling. God used that. I used to sleep on the couch outside of the Dean’s office between classes. God used that. My parents sent me to a Christian college for a semester in hopes of getting me saved. God used that. I majored in art, advertising, astronomy, pre-med, and finally English. God used all of that. I made a woman I loved get an abortion. God used (and redeemed) that. I got my teaching certification. I got plugged into a group of sincere Christian young adults. I took courses for ministry credentials. I worked as an autism therapist. I taught emotionally disabled kids. And God used each of those things. I married a pastor’s daughter. God really used that. Are you getting the picture? San Antonio led me to Houston, Houston led me to El Paso, El Paso led me to Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leonard Wood led me back to San Antonio, which led me to Austin, then to Kentucky, then to Belton, then to Maryland, to Pennsylvania, to Dallas, to Alabama, which led me to Fort Worth. With thousands of smaller journeys in between. The reason that I am able to do the things that I do today is because of the process that God walked me through yesterday. Our lives are cumulative. No day stands alone. Each builds upon the foundation of the last—just like a stairway, each layer bringing us closer to Him. God uses each experience, each lesson, each relationship, even our traumas and tragedies as steps in the process of becoming the people He made us to be. They are steps in the process of achieving the destinies that He has encoded into the weave of each of our lives. We are journeymen, finding the way home. What is the value of the journey? If the journey makes us who we are, then the journey is priceless.

The key point is that these patterns, while mostly stable, are not permanent: certain environmental experiences can add or subtract methyls and acetyls, changing those patterns. In effect this etches a memory of what the organism was doing or experiencing into its cells—a crucial first step for any Lamarck-like inheritance. Unfortunately, bad experiences can be etched into cells as easily as good experiences. Intense emotional pain can sometimes flood the mammal brain with neurochemicals that tack methyl groups where they shouldn’t be. Mice that are (however contradictory this sounds) bullied by other mice when they’re pups often have these funny methyl patterns in their brains. As do baby mice (both foster and biological) raised by neglectful mothers, mothers who refuse to lick and cuddle and nurse. These neglected mice fall apart in stressful situations as adults, and their meltdowns can’t be the result of poor genes, since biological and foster children end up equally histrionic. Instead the aberrant methyl patterns were imprinted early on, and as neurons kept dividing and the brain kept growing, these patterns perpetuated themselves. The events of September 11, 2001, might have scarred the brains of unborn humans in similar ways. Some pregnant women in Manhattan developed post-traumatic stress disorder, which can epigenetically activate and deactivate at least a dozen genes, including brain genes. These women, especially the ones affected during the third trimester, ended up having children who felt more anxiety and acute distress than other children when confronted with strange stimuli. Notice that these DNA changes aren’t genetic, because the A-C-G-T string remains the same throughout. But epigenetic changes are de facto mutations; genes might as well not function. And just like mutations, epigenetic changes live on in cells and their descendants. Indeed, each of us accumulates more and more unique epigenetic changes as we age. This explains why the personalities and even physiognomies of identical twins, despite identical DNA, grow more distinct each year. It also means that that detective-story trope of one twin committing a murder and both getting away with it—because DNA tests can’t tell them apart—might not hold up forever. Their epigenomes could condemn them. Of course, all this evidence proves only that body cells can record environmental cues and pass them on to other body cells, a limited form of inheritance. Normally when sperm and egg unite, embryos erase this epigenetic information—allowing you to become you, unencumbered by what your parents did. But other evidence suggests that some epigenetic changes, through mistakes or subterfuge, sometimes get smuggled along to new generations of pups, cubs, chicks, or children—close enough to bona fide Lamarckism to make Cuvier and Darwin grind their molars.

Kaffman (2009) described childhood victimization as a "silent epidemic", and Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, and Hamby (2010) reported that children are the most traumatized class of humans around the globe. The findings of these researchers are at odds with the view that children have protected status in most families, societies, and cultures. Instead, Finkelhor reports that children are prime targets and highly vulnerable, due principally to their small size, their physical and emotional immaturity with its associated lack of control, power and resources; and their related dependency on caregivers. They are subjected to many forms of exploitation on an ongoing basis, imposed on them by individuals with greater power, strength, knowledge, and resources, many of whom are, paradoxically and tragically, responsible for their care and welfare. These traumas are interpersonal in nature and involve personal transgression, violation and exploitation of the child by those who rely on the child's lesser physical abilities, innocence, and immaturity to intimidate, bully, confuse, blackmail, exploit, or otherwise coerce. In the worst-case scenario, a parent or other significant caregiver directly and repeatedly abuses a child or does not respond to or protect a child or other vulnerable individual who is being abused and mistreated and isolates the child from others through threats or with direct violence. Consequently, such an abusive, nonprotective, or malevolently exploitative circumstance (Chefetz has coined the term "attack-ment" to describe these dynamics) has a profound impact on victim's ability to trust others. It also affects the victim's identity and self-concept, usually in negative ways that include self-hatred, low self-worth, and lack of self-confidence. As a result, both relationships, and the individual's sense of self and internal states (feelings, thoughts, and perceptions) can become sources of fear, despair, rage, or other extreme dysphoria or numbed and dissociated reactions. This state of alienation from self and others is further exacerbated when the occurrence of abuse or other victimization involves betrayal and is repeated and becomes chronic, in the process leading the victim to remain in a state of either hyperarousal/anticipation/hypervigilance or hypoarousal/numbing (or to alternate between these two states) and to develop strong protective mechanisms, such as dissociation, in order to endure recurrences. When these additional victimizations recur, they unfortunately tend to escalate in severity and intrusiveness over time, causing additional traumatization (Duckworth & Follette, 2011). In many cases of child maltreatment, emotional or psychological coercion and the use of the adult's authority and dominant power rather than physical force or violence is the fulcrum and weapon used against the child; however, force and violence are common in some settings and in some forms of abuse (sometimes in conjunction with extreme isolation and drugging of the child), as they are used to further control or terrorize the victim into submission. The use of force and violence is more commonplace and prevalent in some families, communities, religions, cultural/ethnic groups, and societies based on the views and values about adult prerogatives with children that are espoused. They may also be based on the sociopathy of the perpetrators.

Reader's Digest (Reader's Digest USA) - Clip This Article on Location 56 | Added on Friday, May 16, 2014 12:06:55 AM Words of Lasting Interest Looking Out for The Lonely One teacher’s strategy to stop violence at its root BY GLENNON DOYLE MELTON  FROM MOMASTERY.COM PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN WINTERS A few weeks ago, I went into my son Chase’s class for tutoring. I’d e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home is math—but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.” She e-mailed right back and said, “No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.” And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me, using a soothing voice to try to help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me, I didn’t have to unlearn much because I’d never really understood the “old way we taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, but I could tell that Chase’s teacher liked me anyway. She used to work with NASA, so obviously we have a whole lot in common. Afterward, we sat for a few minutes and talked about teaching children and what a sacred trust and responsibility it is. We agreed that subjects like math and reading are not the most important things that are learned in a classroom. We talked about shaping little hearts to become contributors to a larger community—and we discussed our mutual dream that those communities might be made up of individuals who are kind and brave above all. And then she told me this. Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her. And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns. Who is not getting requested by anyone else? Who can’t think of anyone to request? Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated? Who had a million friends last week and none this week? You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down—right away—who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying. As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children, I think this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold—the gold being those children who need a little help, who need adults to step in and teach them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts. And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside her eyeshot and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But, as she said, the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper. As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said. Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord. This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All

Unfortunately these days, hardly a day goes by without news of an incident of childhood bullying. Some of these are so horrific or tragic that they defy understanding. Those really grab our attention. Others are all too easily dismissed as some sort of rite of passage, an acceptable part of growing up. The truth, though, is that bullying of any kind has the power to change who a child is, the kind of person he or she grows up to be. When ignored, the victim can be scarred for life, emotionally, if not physically. The perpetrator grows up with a skewed value system that suggests it’s perfectly okay to make another person’s life miserable, to feel powerful, even for a moment, at the expense of someone weaker. It’s up to adults—parents, teachers, entire communities—to take a stand, to say bullying is not okay, not ever, not by anyone! And that’s exactly what happens in Serenity when schoolteacher Laura Reed and pediatrician J. C. Fullerton realize a student is being bullied. Both Laura and J.C. have experienced the damaging effects of bullying, so what’s happening to Misty Dawson is personal and unacceptable. While there are often subtle messages tucked away in my stories, I hope the message in Catching Fireflies is loud and clear. There is nothing cute or normal or acceptable about bullying, whether it’s a toddler on the playground or a teenager using the internet to torment a classmate. Pay attention to what may be happening to your children, no matter how young or how old. Pay even closer attention to how they’re treating others. Bullying is wrong. It needs to stop. And alert parents and teachers and a united community can make that happen. I hope you’ll enjoy spending time with all the Sweet Magnolias once more, and that you’ll take their message—and mine—to heart. All best, Sherryl

In the Empire, the Scholars are not allowed to read and, like so many bullies and power-seekers who hide behind ideologies to justify the terrible things they do, their oppressors wear masks. 'An Ember in the Ashes' suggests that such masks (literal or figurative) don’t work. Not forever, anyway. Masks only cover faces. It’s actions that show who we are.

Megan was over at the Morgan brothers’ house, having a casual dinner with Drew and his brother, Alan. It was casual in the sense that there were only three courses and no ice sculpture. When Alan left the room to get dessert, Megan said, “If you don’t give me whatever’s in your pocket, I’m going to reach in there and grab it myself.” He got a devilish grin and threw his hands in the air. “Help yourself!” She reached in and found a ring. Not an engagement ring but a ring with a large stone in the middle. A cheap-looking stone. Megan frowned. “Is this plastic?” “It’s a mood ring,” he said. “I bought it at a carnival when I was a kid. I wore it to school once because I thought it was cool. I got my first black eye that day.” “You got bullied?” “Not exactly. The guy who punched me once got two right back.” She handed the ring back. “You can wear it now, if you want. You’re an adult. Nobody’s going to beat you up.” She made a fist and punched her palm. “Not if they don’t want me to tag in and finish the match.” He put the ring back in his pocket. “Never mind,” he said. She put her hand in his pocket and grabbed the ring back. “Don’t tell me to never mind. Why do you have this? Were you going to give it to me?” “I thought it would be funny,” he said. “You’re reading all those books Feather recommended, and you’re doing that thing where you name your emotions. I thought it would be funny if you had a mood ring to help you with that.” She tried on the ring. The only finger it fit was her ring finger, so she left it there. “I like it,” she said. “It’s not very funny, though. It’s actually kind of…” She was at a loss for words. It had been happening a lot lately. Coming up with words to describe feelings was much harder than being crass or sarcastic. “Romantic,” Drew said. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. It’s romantic.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Plus, now I know your ring size,” he said. They both looked down at her hand. She looked away. “For the future,” he said. “Relax. I don’t mean right now.” She looked at the ring again. It was changing colors. “It’s working,” she said. “It’s a heat-sensitive compound,” he said. “It doesn’t really tell you someone’s mood, just how warm their fingers are.” “But finger temperature means a lot,” she said. “I’ve been reading about the nervous system, and how everything works together in all these different feedback loops. When someone’s stressed, their hands get cold. Or when their hands get cold for some other reason, they might feel stressed and make up a story about why they feel that way. People make up a lot of stories to explain how they feel because it’s so confusing to not know, and sometimes we’d rather think it’s because of something bad than not know at all.” He looked down at the ring, which was still changing colors. “I had no idea.” “I’ll have to come into your clinic and give you some tips for putting your patients more at ease.” “You can’t do that,” he said. “It would really cut down on the screaming, which I have grown to love.” He gave her his mad scientist cackle. “You are so weird.” She kissed him again.

Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere.

Those afflicted with BPD suffer from emotional instability—in Katherine’s case, almost always caused by feelings of rejection or abandonment. They suffer from cognitive distortions, where they see the world in black and white, with anyone who isn’t actively ‘with them’ being considered an enemy. They are also prone to catastrophising, where they make logical leaps from minor impediments in their plans to assumptions of absolute ruin. BPD is often characterised by extremely intense but unstable relationships, as the sufferer gives everything that they can to a relationship in their attempts to ensure their partner never leaves but instead end up burning themselves out and blaming that same partner for the emotional toll that it takes on them. The final trait of BPD is impulsive behaviour, often characterised as self-destructive behaviour. In Katherine’s case, this almost always manifested itself in her hair-trigger temper. When she was enraged, it was like she lost all rational control over her actions, seeing everyone else as her enemies. This manifested itself in the ridiculous bullying she conducted at school, in her lashing out when she failed her test and in the vengeance that she took on her sexual abusers. It is likely that she inherited this disorder from her mother, who showed many of the same symptoms, and that they were exacerbated by her chaotic home life and the lack of healthy relationships in the adults around her that she might have modelled herself after. With Katherine, it was like a Jekyll and Hyde switch took place when her temper was raised. The charming, eager-to-please girl who usually occupied her body was replaced with a furious, foul-mouthed hellion bent on exacting her revenge no matter what the cost. In itself, this could have been an excellent excuse for almost everything that she did wrong in her life, up to and including the crimes that she would later be accused of. Unfortunately, this sort of ‘flipped switch’ argument doesn’t hold up when you consider that her choice to arm herself with a lethal weapon was premeditated. Part of this may certainly have been the cognitive distortion that Katherine experienced, telling her that everyone else was out to get her and that she had to defend herself, but ultimately, she was choosing to give a weapon to a person who would use it to end lives, if she had the opportunity. Assuming that this division of personalities actually existed, then ‘good’ Katherine was an accomplice to ‘bad’ Katherine, giving her the material support and planning that she needed to commit her vicious attacks.

It’’s very hard to know who is going to commit an act of violence. But... prevention does not require prediction. It does require, however, that we increase overall access to brain health interventions. ... A... tiered system is already working in some schools. At the tier-one level, everyone should have access to brain health screenings and first aid, to conflict resolution programs, and to suicide prevention education. Peer intervention programs teach kids to seek help from trained adults for friends they’re worried about without fear of repercussion. A second tier of attention is trained on kids going through a hard time—a student grieving a lost parent, one who has suffered teasing or bullying, or those in known high-risk populations. For instance, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender kids are at disproportionate risk for bullying, so special efforts might be made to connect those kids to resources. The third level of intervention comes into play when a child has emerged as a particular concern. Perhaps he or she has an ongoing emotional disorder, has talked about suicide, or—as Dylan did— has turned in a paper with violent or disturbing subject matter. The student is then referred to a team of specially trained teachers and other professionals who will interview him or her, look at the student's social media and other evidence, and speak to friends, parents, local law enforcement, counselors, and teachers. The real beauty of these measures is not that they catch potential school shooters, but how effectively they help schools to identify teens struggling with all different kinds of issues: bullying, eating disorders, cutting, undiagnosed learning disorders, addiction, abuse at home, and partner violence — just to name a few. In rare cases, a team may discover that the student has made a concrete plan to hurt himself or others, at which point law enforcement may become involved. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, though, simply getting a kid help is enough.

Though starting as a frail, shy boy, Kinsey grew up to be an “alpha” adult bully who controlled his underlings physically, psychologically, and behaviorally. Pomeroy confessed, “Kinsey dominated us.

Dear my older brother, I understand you love me, that you care for your little sister. I remember you beat up a bully once on the bus, and how you kept that frightening image of youself for the sake of my safety. I remember how ever since we were young and I cried, you would go out of your way to make me calm down.When you found out who I liked, you would secretly interrogate their older siblings to figure out what this guy was like. But you don't need to worry anymore. That was almost a decade ago. You're an adult now. I'm not yours to baby anymore, because soon I'll be an adult too. Love, Your little sister

Mooney was the class bully, a boy who had already failed two grades by the time he landed in mine. He was fat, sweaty and loud, and all the kids were scared of him. With good reason. If Mooney wanted something he took it, and woe to the child who tried to stop him. But Mooney was also crafty and sly. He never retaliated when an adult was near, preferring to ambush his prey when he could catch them off-guard, knowing it would be his word against the victims if the kid were stupid enough to tell. Sitting next to him was torture. I always carried extra pencils because I knew Mooney would confiscate the one I was using. And I considered myself lucky that pencils were all he’d taken so far. At least, I was lucky until the week before our midterm tests. Because the weather was nasty that Monday, our recess was taken in the gym. I was sitting on the bleachers taking a breather, watching Jenna chase Hugh in a game of tag, when Mooney confronted me. “You’re gonna let me copy off your paper when we take our tests next week,” he said. “If you don’t, I’ll stomp you into the ground.” He swaggered off, secure in the thought that I’d comply with his demand. I watched him in shock. Cheat? He wanted me to cheat on the tests? The Judge would disown me. I would never be able to look my grandfather in the eye again. There was no way I could let Mooney copy, even knowing he would kill me when it was over. Death before dishonor was my family motto.

You know what I have learnt, when you can't stand up for others you lack the spine, which means you can never truly stand up for your own self. And vice versa. It is as basic and simple as that, when you can't man up the courage and voice up against the evils of this society, you become a part of that evil cycle, you become the very vacuum through which the injustices flow. But it's not your fault, it's called Spine, and God hasn't really graced everyone with it. Anyway, this isn't gonna be a talk invested on such creatures, neither on those who try their hardest to pull others down by body-shaming, age-shaming, ganging up to mock and ridicule, in short being a bully to those their darkness can't withstand the Light of. This is for everyone, Woman and Man, who's faced such a bully in their personal space, workspace or even in their random space. You guys, stay in your Light and remember when someone is literally shaken by your power and feel their failures as a living success on your being, they try to pull you down. It's like their mind cannot fathom how you shine all along that too so spontaneously and palpably, while those poor insecure beings have to literally wear a mask or turn in tactics that their soul knows the cost of. This is for everyone, who stands up for their own selves and for every other soul who they see deserve (no, not need but deserve, these two words have very different connotations) their support at the moment, to fight the menaces of this evil system. This is a Thank You note to every soul who fights these Bullies with a fierce strength and sunshine. You go, guys. You've got this. Every day, we lose countless people from suicides to depression, and one of the core reasons to that is always going to be these cruel and worthless beings who try to pull down another only to feel their worth, because of their own insecurities; we lose good people from children to adults, because certain dark creatures are too loud in their derogatory treatment, and certain 'neutral' people find it difficult to take a stand (after all, those words weren't hurled at you, right?), but you see that's the thing we gotta tell the good people, that their goodness is their strength not weakness, we gotta tell them to raise their voices for themselves, because honestly one clear voice is enough, always enough. You don't have to be loud to be heard. And if you think, they are too many and you're just one, remember a sheep moves in a herd, a lioness, oh she roars baby, and that's just pretty much enough. And if this gives you Strength, remember every time someone tries to pull you down, someone bullies you, it's just a reflection of their own insecurities; it has absolutely nothing to do with you. Remember who you are, and walk with your Head up. And if you're fortunate, you will find some support coming your way in the shape of like-minded souls, true friends and souls who know what it takes to be human and stand up with a clear spine, and then be gracious enough to thank them with all your soul. So this one's for them, who know their worth and have the heart to stand up for what's important not only for their own sake but for others around. Because when you fight to let your goodness shine on an individual level, you also channelise the spirit of fighting for the good at the collective level. Hope this reaches and gives courage and strength to at least a single being, remember you've got this, already. Love & Light, always - Debatrayee

Anxious toddlers tend to grow into anxious adults, while avoidant toddlers are likely to become adults who are out of touch with their own feelings and those of others. (As in, “There’s nothing wrong with a good spanking. I got hit and it made me the success I am today.”) In school avoidant children are likely to bully other kids, while the anxious children are often their victims.

Experiencing trauma, abuse, or bullying may all be triggers that bring on both obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. Teenagers and young adults who were raised by anxious parents may learn obsessive compulsive behaviors. Teenagers and young adults who were raised by “helicopter” parents may find it difficult to cope in the world and may develop OCD to try and cope with the stress of adult life. Prolonged exposure to stress and the resultant anxiety seems to be quite a prominent OCD trigger. A sudden accident or trauma like a car accident or accidental death of a loved

You see, the thing about bullying is that it doesn't hold the same amount of power or strike the same amount of fear that the words murder and rape and suicide do. But sometimes it's worse. If I passed you on the street and told you that Sam had bullied me, you'd probably feel a bit sorry for me, maybe link it in your mind to your own experiences of bullying and never think about it again. But if I passed you on the street and told you that Sam had tried to rape me. You'd have a much stronger reaction. You'd probably feel really sorry for me. You'd probably ask me how I was doing and say how strong you think I am. Or you might blame me. You might say it was my fault for trusting someone who was obviously so evil. But you would have quite a powerful reaction. Why is that? Why doesn't the world bully cause the development of strong feelings the way the words rape and murder do? I really don't know. But it shouldn't be that way. True, sometimes bullying isn't that bad. Sometimes it is just children being stupid and a little bit mean. But bullying is never good.

We find that it is not the domineering, muscle-flexing, fear-inspiring, backstabbing types who gain elevated status in the eyes of their peers (apologies to Machiavelli). Instead, it is the socially intelligent individuals who advance the interests of other group members (in the service of their own self-interest) who rise in social hierarchies. Power goes to those who are socially engaged. It is the young adults and children who brim with social energy, who bring people together, who can tell a good joke or tease in ways that playfully identify inappropriate actions, or soother another in distress, who end up at the top. The literature on socially rejected children finds that bullies, who resort to aggression, throwing their weight around, and raw forms of intimidation and dominance, in point of fact, are outcasts and low in the social hierarchy.

Tolerable stress, which occurs for relatively brief periods, can also build resilience. Critically, there must be supportive adults present, and kids must have time to cope and recover. Let’s say a child witnesses her parents arguing a lot as they’re going through a divorce. But the parents are talking to her, and they’re not having blowouts every night. She has time to recover. This is tolerable stress. Another example of tolerable stress might be an episode of being bullied, so long as it doesn’t last too long, it isn’t repeated too often, and the child is supported by caring adults. A tolerable stress might even be a death in the family. In an influential study, graduate students took baby rats away from their mothers and handled them for fifteen minutes per day (which was stressful to the rats) and then returned them to their mothers, who licked and groomed them. The graduate students repeated this for the first two weeks of the rats’ lives. The baby rats who were removed and handled for a brief period showed much more resilience as adults than the pups who stayed in the cage with their mother.11 The researchers referred to them as “California laid-back rats,” as they were difficult to stress as adults. This is probably because in situations like these the brain becomes conditioned to cope, and this conditioning lays the foundation for resilience.

About the first principle, you might ask, “Limit the rules to what, exactly?” Here are some suggestions. Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere. About

An adult bully who made his children into his victims.

Let Me Tell You That You’re Beautiful   At a young age I felt the need to protect people. My soon to be friend who was pushed around by the fourth grade bully, who told her she was dumb, and ugly. I was at a loss because I wanted to be liked by the other kids in class, but I couldn’t help feel a vast amount of pain for the girl in the jumpsuit and red glasses. She was the outcast and I wanted to cry right along with her. As I got older these situations didn’t really change. Although the settings were no longer playgrounds or lunchrooms filled with adolescents, it was now an office with grown adults competing for a higher role. It was the guys at the bar on a Saturday night, laughing at the girl with a little extra weight, who was just trying to enjoy a drink without stares of disgust. It

Do not bit, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don't end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don't hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you're lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you're invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you're around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome anywhere.

These televised scenes grew dark and violent. Roaring and exploding as private cops and militias fired into crowds of young families; some still tiny and in diapers. “All too often,” came the narrator’s voice again, “Adults try to silence those who have seen what their leaders have been trying to hide. “Children learn very early that it is not socially acceptable to speak the truth. “Just play the game, they are told, just try to get along with how things have to be. “Life is just that way.” On the screen, children, many of them dressed in rags, had gathered in small, desperate knots behind The Walls. Begging for food, or for the simple right to speak, as PolitiChurch bullies fired into their small and loose clusters. Children fell. Bleeding. Moaning, blinded, crippled, or dead. Many of them weeping from the teargas. “Life is just that way,” came the voice again.......... Even there though, not every cop felt quite clear in his conscience. While some took aim even at cameras and film crews threatening to expose their militarized thuggery, others held their fire. Or maybe shot into the sky. The world was breaking apart into factions. No one could just turn his back on something like this. The repercussions from this kind of violence followed troubled souls even into their sleep. They would have to take a stand. Somebody had to do something.' From 'The Soul Hides in Shadows

Like many 2e children, he's endured more than his share of suffering because of academic underachievement, peer rejection, bullying, and even judgment by adults who thought he was too smart to be autistic and too autistic to be smart.

Yet the structure we have built to protect and nurture these children actually does the opposite. Imagine an impoverished six-year-old boy who rarely gets a healthy meal and rarely has parental supervision. He finally goes to school and falls in love with the first person who has ever been there every day for him—his first-grade teacher. She loves and encourages and teaches him. She won’t let the kids bully one another, and she makes sure he gets a good breakfast, lunch, and an after-school snack. Only the weekends are scary. The sixyear-old has a daily routine that includes a committed relationship for the very first time. Life is good; hope is learned. Then the school year ends, and this wonderful teacher says, “Good-bye. You will have a great teacher in second grade.” So the seven-year-old survives the short summer and begins the process all over. But now he has a homeroom teacher, a math and science teacher, a language arts teacher, and a music teacher. Which one is he to fall in love with? Who will fall in love with him? Each of these teachers has dozens of students to care for an hour at a time. And so, at the end of second grade it’s a little less painful to part with his teachers because he never really got to know them. But at least he was physically safe and was fed every day. And so, by the end of third grade, he hardly notices his teacher because he has formed a strong attachment to the friends who move along from class to class with him. They share multiple hours together daily. Instead of taking his signals of proper behavior from a committed adult, since he has none at home or school, he models his life after the future football captain, just as the girls in his class likely emulate the future prom queen. This child from an impoverished culture was taught, in effect, that no adult cares enough to hang out and teach him for more than the 150 hours required to complete a credit. And as he got older, he also learned that the teachers were not quite as able to physically protect him as when he and his classmates were small, and it’s humiliating to have to eat the government-provided free lunch. Even our elementary

Children, just like us adults, react badly to the unknown, to the strange and unfamiliar, especially when they themselves are trying to adjust to a new situation like the start of a school year. Although their social hierarchies aren’t always so easy to influence, most bullying and social rejection begins with fear of the unfamiliar, and adults have much more influence over the process than they may believe. When children understand why someone behaves oddly, they give him or her more slack, generally. And the younger the children are, the more easily they are influenced by both obvious and subtle cues of rejection and acceptance from adults. These cues often set the tone for the children’s status systems, and teachers and parents can either minimize bullying or unfortunately, maximize it, by either strongly discouraging or tolerating the scapegoating of those who are “different.