.. I can't help wondering about falling standards & expectations in the UK.
I suppose I really should not watch the news but tonight there was a piece about Hanna Smith, the teenager who killed herself because of cyber bullying. I think it is a tragic thing for a family to go through but why are our youngsters not taught to ignore such cr*p? I could understand a person being scared of being physically & verbally abused by a group of their peers but why should anyone be so frightened of words which are sent remotely? Are kids no longer taught to ignore the nastiness of other children? I sometimes came up against some nasty kids at school - bigger blighters who seemed to revel in name calling & shoving. These kids were best avoided where possible as they were actually there, not at the end of a wire. I remember being told that "sticks & stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me". I do not like emails which are in some way nasty but it is more because I feel that somehow I have failed to leave a good impression on the sender. They can say what they like but a threat sent from a distance can do me no physical harm. I am in no danger. I have enough "moral fibre" to discount a threat made by someone who does not have the balls to make that threat to my face.
But I am not a tough, ex-oil rigger or some such, (I cried when Lassie died) but I managed to clown my way through school without too many problems from my fellow pupils to become this well adjusted member of society you see before you. I coped with REAL - as opposed to cyber - bullying. So much "stuff" comes at us through our electronic devices. We need to teach our children to react to what is physically real rather than what they imagine.
The government, as a result, is to pass laws which make sending hurtful messages illegal - it would be easier to teach children common sense!
Then the news covered a protest in Sussex against Fracking - a way of extracting oil & gas by injecting water into the ground. The company concerned are currently only drilling to explore the possibilities. The protesters say that using this method of extraction can damage the environment.I am not about to argue the case for either but it occurred to me that the company is being bullied - physically - by some protesters. These few are in effect trying to bully truck drivers & other workers to stop what they are legally allowed to do, sometimes in quite a hostile way. THIS IS BULLYING! This kind, however, is allowed, it seems.
Our old friend "double standards" is still with us!
that would only encourage him to carry on, as he already thinks it's ok to knock over younger kids, and later say he didn't mean it... I was thinking more along the lines of waiting till he went to the loo, and turn off the lights and block the door shut... little shyster. He boasts about kids he bullies in school
maybe if at a BBQ or similar with him, think I would accidentally spill my glass of water over him if he was doing something unpleasant, then smile at him and say...oh dear, soooo sorry.....
There is a boy that hangs around with the son of a colleague, and they have an apartment behind the hotel, needless to say, we see them a lot. The son of my colleague is about 7 or 8, very respectful, will always say hello, faire les bisous, and politely answer when spoken to. His little friend is what I can only describe as evil.
We were having a bbq one night, and he took issue with a slug that happened to be making it's way across the lawn, and buried it in dirt, later picking it out, only to burn it with a stick he held in the fire with the sole intention of doing harm. When I found out what he was doing, and told him to stop, he laughed at me, and when I approached him, he waved his burning stick at me, threatening to burn me with it. Of course his parents were not there, but if they had been, I am sure they would have only defended him.
This child will pass me on the terrace of the hotel, and say "bonjour" to my face whenI am in front of him, but as soon as he makes it to the safety of the stairs, he will say "sale gouine", and run off up the stairs. This doesn't bother me.. well, calling me names doesn't bother me... but I know that saying the same thing to a girl in his class, and egging on other kids his age to follow suit could potentially be very damaging. How do we tackle this?? his parents are both police, obviously it comes from there. bullied or not bullied, he needs a wake up call before he actually does harm someone.
Jo, Zoe & Carol, you have indeed hit the nail on the head!
Jo, bullying in any form is still bullying but Carol & Zoe are right - it needs to be tackled from both angles! Bullys need to see the error of their ways but others need to be taught how to react emotionally to an attack in whatever form otherwise we will end up with a rather emotionally unstable generation, vunerable to even a minor threat This does NOT mean that you have to fight back (though this can sometimes work) it just means that our children must be taught to handle a situation in a more sensible way. I guess it means that some adults need to stop reading & believing the soft twaddle printed in some "family" publications & actually interact with their kids - you only have to look at some TV cop shows to see some unsupervised 10 year old brat setting fire to dustbins at 1 in the morning. As no sense is taught them they progress into the thugs you see throwing missiles at others who only want to do their jobs.
This brings me back to the fracking comment, Jo. I mentioned the use of water based on information on Wikipedia " hydrofracturing, commonly known as fracking, is a technique in which typically water is mixed with sand and chemicals, and the mixture is injected at high pressure into a wellbore to create small fractures" It goes on to say "Documented groundwater contamination has occurred from seepage of the stored water from the hydraulic fracturing from unlined surface ponds." I do not work in the industry but neither am I going to take the words of proponents or antagonists as to the safety or not of the process. I take it, Jo, that you are a geologist or have some first hand experience of fracking which enables you to confidently tell me that it involves the use of a "very volotile mixture of toxins" (not that oil or gas is benign - ask a sea bird)? Can you tell me the formula? I am not well enough informed to take sides & I will not be swayed by emotion - I will not be bullied, if you like, to take a side. My objection to some of the protesters is not that they are wrong to voice their opinion (my god, where would that leave me?) but that a few go further & try to bully employees to stop work by physical threats. This bullying is NOT being addressed while cyber bullying is. Perhaps after a certain age one's emotional & physical welfare ceases to matter to others.
Bullied kids are often bullies. Parents who, as you say Zoe, propagate bigotry and racism in the home environ, parents who instil in their children they must never let anyone 'get one over on them'. Twice I dealt with bullying at school, once my daughter was bullied, another time my eldest son. Both times I spoke to the parents and discovered why the kids bullied, they were bullied by very unpleasant fathers.
Interestingly once my kids got through this, they would go out of their way to help other kids being bullied at school. Was delighted to be told by a teacher that my son had turned on group of his peers who were circled around a child with learning difficulties, and extricated the child being bullied. My youngest son would protect his older brother and sister at school...one teacher told me he was a nuisance and shouldn't get involved....I begged to differ and pointed out if the teachers couldn't be bothered to stop bullying, I was delighted my 7 year old felt obliged!
I think instead of teaching our children to be tough against bullies, or to not let them hurt us, we should be more focused on teaching our kids not to bully in the forst place... So much emphasis is put on the victim, their life, why they may have been bullied, and why they might have had nowhere to turn to, but nobody looks into the mind of the bully, and questions what are we doing wrong that we are allowing children to be so harsh on each other. I have a small handful of friends with small children that are most definitely bullies, or bullies in the making... an act such as pulling a dog's ear, or swiping a toy or teddy from a younger sibling is seen as "normal", and "curiousity".... some parents let this continue too far... some go as far as to propagate bigotry and racism in the house, and in turn, the child teaches it to others. Five or six children ganging up on the indian boy, the nerdy girl, or the fat kid can become very difficult for a child to endure... my question is where is the compassio, and why can these children get to the level where they are able to see bullying in a positive light*. It was never like this when I was in school.
Zoe you are right, when did people stop finding ways of coping and instead decide their life was so worthless they may as well end it? people have always had to cope with bullies, but the suicide option is so much more likely these days, I wonder why? do we just not prepare our children to cope with bullies?
As for adults being bullied...yes...it happens so frequently, certainly in the NHS it is rife. Ive come across many bullies within work, but interestingly, only once has anyone tried to bully me, needless to say the attempt lasted about 3 minutes before it became clear it wasnt going to work.....but I have employed bullies and had to dispense with their services. Ive always found that if you tell the bully you wont permit them to bully you and you will report their behaviour, it ends before it begins.
it's not just with schoolyard bullying... how many grown men get into trouble for smacking someone around because "he called my mother a b1tch", or thereabouts..
People can no longer just keep on keeping on, yet refuse to stand up to the bully, talk about it to a third party, or involve authorities.Suicide seems to be their only option. Instead of telling us why their job drives them to such an act, people will just silently creep out the back door, and go down the lonely road of suicide.
As for the facebook nay-sayers.. I agree with Carol, and will add that the quality of your facebook experience depends on whom you add as "friends" there are privacy settings, and a block buttong, and what can I say, some people, instead of using those, prefer to have the negative drama in their lives... I don't make time for people I don't like in real life, what business would I have being an online friend of someone who bothers, bullies, or snoops.
Mark, you are right, saying both these things does not make you more popular. Bullying is bullying, no matter what the method, and fracking is illegal in France because it is dangerous and does NOT use water to extract gas, it uses a very volotile mixture of toxins, polluting water supplies. The only reason fracking is being allowed elsewhere, is that the people investing in it don't care and tell lies. They are also paople with influential friends or directly in control of the regulations They can potentially make huge profits from exploiting their powerful positions. It's called raping the planet in my book and it's wrong. We have to stick together and stop this nonsense.
Kind of what I thought, but then the review was in Corriere della Sera and (not sure why) Italians and objectivity on the Di topic never seem to sit it the same boat.
Oh well, having a fit of pique. Back to Asterix :-(
;-) Mistaken identity m'dear, Tolstoy 'plodding', not me. I shall admit his books are a bit long but then so are the Manns, Joyce, Dostoevsky and various others who I use as an excuse for disappearing in a book for month or two :-D Just read a review of the new version released last Xmas but not yet reached the wilderness by somebody who thinks there is a link with the new Di story. Now there is a great emergent comic strip....
Do you read the Spectator online or on paper Cate? My cousin Alex does a column for them but I don't know if he's in both, he's certainly in the online one (Alex Massie)
I know me spellins Torygraph, Grauniad, Wail, etc. Keira Knightley, pretending to be Karenina with a whiff of Di about her, is actually bumped off by a bloke, however...
A very elderly friend of ours who is over 80 recently had a horrible scare. He probably looks at soft porn sites occasionally, and was terrified when a message flashed on his screen, purporting to come from the police to say they knew what he was viewing and he would be contacting shortly advising him what would happen.
He panicked and told his wife (with a slightly untrue version that he was looking at this porn site for a friend who teaches media studies!).....she was frightened as well and they went along to the local police station. The policeman on the desk, smilingly told our friend, that unless he was looking at child porn, it wasn't illegal to view porn and that the police didn't flash messages on screen, but would come and knock at your door if you were in trouble.
Blackmail is all around us, whether from advertisers or unpleasant individuals online. Its something we all have to deal with now and we need to make sure our children are aware of and able to deal with these events.
I have a pay as you go...and put about £50 a year on it....(yes quids as it is a UK mobile)....when I go off in my unreliable 10 year old car...I like to know that when the inevitable happens and it conks out, I can ring my OH who will be home and can come and get me and hopefully sort out my car. Used to need one for work, visiting elderly blind people who often appreciated me ringing and saying I will be with you in 5 minutes....they knew who they were opening their door to. Ive also had emergency calls from friends in all sorts of situations.
My OH who lives here on his own for half the year went down a sheer drop in our garden to cut back wild figs, he fell when attempting to get back up. He managed, but if he had broken his leg, without a mobile, he could have been there for a week before anyone discovered him. You will never turn back technology and from my point of view, I enjoy all the new toys.
Norman, mine was a cycling accident where the car driver didn't stop and it would have taken a lot longer to ride to call the pompiers - as it was they took almost an hour to get to me!!!! as for cost, they used to be expensive but at 2,99€ a month it's a small price to pay but I do appreciate that not everyone wants one. The problem with many jobs now is that people expect to be able to contact you all the time so you can never truly escape :-O
Bullying takes various forms, but to me it is the additional 'blackmail' - emotional or monetary that I find worrying. Young people have always responded to belonging to their 'peer groups', again a well-known and used fact in advertising, and we did use this when trying to set up fashionable trends. Companies in sport and fashion wear etc., still do it.
This can be a form of blackmail. I used the technique often in the Middle East in the 1980's to encourage Arab businessmen that without a major credit card they would not be taken seriously - another form of blackmail?
It is part of the day-to-day pressures of life and these have become greater and greater as wider access has opened up more and more opportunities for promoters of all types - legitimate and spurious. As I practised over several years, and wrote a major SE Asian article on it, we regrettably parhaps, need to add 'cynicism' to our teachings with kids. This often seems to fly in the face of the norm, but is even more vital today for everyone, not just kids.
Just one for the adults. A couple of years back my computer was suddenly invaded by a swarm of porno sites, and I use the term 'swarm' advisedly, as they were (curses!) momentary flashes of dozens of these sites which then went on for about 15-20 seconds - far too fast to even enjoy! At the end of this came the blackmail of 'how would your wife/friends/business acquaintances like to know you frequent pornographic sites? To get rid of this sites now on your hard disc it will cost you $US30' or something like that slightly worded differently as 'protecting yourself against these sites' Clever eh? Blackmail definitely.
I just told them to re-send, but more slowly! Hey, I need all the help I can get! Never heard another word of course, and the hard disc was totally clear anyway.
I'm afraid Big Business, Media and Governments are all totally capable of Bullying, and the best thing to do is give them all a symbolic cyber-wave - it's the middle finger that counts isn't it?