I Am Against All Forms Of Abuse

I disagree about bullies having a real choice. Until you get to a certain age, kids are like positive/negative reinforcement machines. If their parents model bullying behaviors, or if mom bullies dad and doesn't punish her daughter for bullying dad too, then the kid will go to school and bully other kids. It's truly not their fault. They're too young to have a choice. I don't blame bullies below a certain age for being bullies - kids are cruel without knowing any better. But the teachers and other adults - there's no excuse for just letting it happen.

I agree to disagree. Unless there is an actual crippling , underlined condition that renders the thought and logic process inept, they are at fault. Right and wrong are taught first and foremost from the parents, yes. But what's right and wrong is enhanced upon our minds from birth.When you are so angry you could kill, but don't. Ask yourself why

I've never been so angry that I wanted to kill anyone, but I've certainly been angry enough that if I were the kind of person who took swings at people, I would take a swing at someone. The reason I didn't was because my parents taught me that fighting back would just make everything worse. And now that I'm older and have made a point of moving away from the dumber things my parents taught me, I continue to not take swings at people because that's something they taught me that actually makes sense (though, I have made a point of defending myself and fighting back verbally, plus setting boundaries and all that good stuff). But seriously - you're way too harsh and unforgiving toward people. Most of the kids who bullied me stopped being bullies by high school. They grew out of it. A few didn't - they're the ones who deserve that kind of scorn. There's way too much real evil in the world to lump 8 year old bullies in with them.


Everything I know about psychology and childhood development tells me that kids are biologically and emotionally incapable of defying the path laid out for them by others. Everything I've experienced in my life supports that. That path isn't always what their parents want them to do - but it's always what their parents actions (and to a much lesser extent, everyone else around them) push them toward, usually with positive and negative reinforcement, though sometimes kids will move in the negative-reinforcement direction if that's the only way to emotionally survive. Take a hundred kids and make their situation and genes identical, and they'll all take the same path. I can't tell you at exactly what age that changes. The law says it's 18, but I've known kids who turned things around quite a bit younger than that. Still, it certainly doesn't include kids 10 and under.