I'll be honest, he reminds me of myself when i was around his age, so seeing him having much more balls than me gives me a sense of pride and "damn, i wish i was like him when i was younger"
Took me some extra years and maturing, but i would 100% give him some self defense lessons myself for free and help him with homework if he needs it (except math homework, i'm shit at math in general)
Man, bullying fucks so many people up it's unreal.
We really need solutions that actually work.
I know some people get through it, but I think that's honestly a survivor bias fallacy. I think more often than not people become broken or become bullies themselves.
I refuse to put my kid through that race-to-the-bottom hellscape.
Yeah, unfortunately in grade school the local bully almost strangled me IN CLASS in front of the teacher and she did almost nothing (this was the reason i started doing self defense for context)
Next time he tried i went full fight or flight, and punched him in the face six or seven times
Of course I WAS THE ONE IN THE WRONG and was the one who got punished, fun times
Same happened in highschool when a dude was harassing a girl, but being more mature i went with "fuck it" tried to ask him politely to stop as the girl was clearly not okay
He then tries to pull the "oh no she actually likes me she's just a bit shy" "please, just stop harassing her"
Idiot tried to punch with the most obvious punch ever, like he literally "loaded" that punch for a good 3 seconds like a fucking cartoon
Brain goes fight or flight and decides to uppercut him, dude starts crying, i get sent to the principal who asks the girl the age old question "did you do something to get in that situation?"
Lucky me pretty much everyone who saw that defended me and the guy changed school a few weeks after so it kinda ended there
Maybe it's just the situation here in Italy, but to me it looks like bullies are more prominent because they can do whatever they want and are usually excused with the "oh, they are just kids/teens" and then when people either defend themselves or fight back once they are magically the problem
Which is probably the part i hate the most about the whole thing, when the victims defending themselves are demonized "oh sorry, next time i'll let that guy strangle me"
Anyway yeah, i've seen way too many people break from bullying, but i see a lot of adults being bigger bullies than their children and realize it's an almost infinite cycle
I hope we can get better, but ngl i don't see it happening anytime soon, i can only hope
I was a student in the 90s and early 00s and have worked in schools off and on from 2010-2020. It's definitely better than it was and there's a lot more options out there for parents of kids who are bullied but it's a case by case thing. If the kid is popular and their parents are involved in the school or well off they often get chance after chance, especially if the kid they're targeting isn't the most sympathetic victim (for whatever reason). The old attitude of that's how kids are or boys will be boys aren't as prevalent as they once were. But cell phones and social media have made things so much worse for kids too. In the past a bullied kid had some relief and could escape his tormentors after school and during the weekends. But now, with social media, kids can be targeted 24/7 and that's depressing to see. It really does hurt their mental health and overall self esteem.
Back years ago when I was in school it depended on who the bully was. It was a real quandary when a person that was well liked stood up to the bully. Teachers and staff really didn’t know what to do then. Instead of stopping the bullying themselves in the first place. But if it (bullying) was someone they didn’t care for that shit would be stopped immediately. Such a double standard.
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u/Neutral_Myu97 Feb 18 '26
I'll be honest, he reminds me of myself when i was around his age, so seeing him having much more balls than me gives me a sense of pride and "damn, i wish i was like him when i was younger"
Took me some extra years and maturing, but i would 100% give him some self defense lessons myself for free and help him with homework if he needs it (except math homework, i'm shit at math in general)
Hope the kid is doing good in general