Absolutely not! Instead, teach your children how to get medievel on those bullies’ buttocks. If it is a group of them just focus on the leader and take him or her down. Once you do that the problem disappears for the most part.
When the schools don’t let students defend themselves, then yes. They should be criminalized.
Tha Zantops of Dartmouth would probabably think their murders were more than stupid teenage pranks.
These kids should be punished to the full extent of the law.
I’m not a fan of anti bullying legislation but something has to be done.
Bullies are part of growing up but this goes well beyond anything I ever saw when I was in school. Someone would have stepped in and tried to help the girl.
Probably not, but we should stop teaching our kids to run and hide from them. And that crap carries over to adult life...”just give the robber what he wants and don’t make him angry”.
BS. Make scum afraid to be scums and they’ll stop eventually.
Teach kids to fight back and without mercy, then punish the bullies, not the victims for it. Bullies only get their kicks because people run or back down from them. Many bullies get off scott free and their victims get punished for finally pushing back.
And sometimes “stupid things” are crimes, other times they are torts, and other times, they are just stupid things.
At minimum the “South Hadley 6” are guilty of the tort of outrage against Phoebe Prince and her family.
First — I don’t know the gory details of all that happened, so I probably shouldn’t comment. But, here goes.
Bits and pieces of this story have bubbled to the surface over the past week that raise some questions. As I understand it, (1) Phoebe moved here from Ireland and immediately got involved in a dating relationship with a popular senior. This made other girls in the school jealous. The dating relationship did not last.
(2) The other kids started harrassing Phoebe. Suddenly, she was in a consensual sexual relationship with the 2 boys who have been charged.
(3) Furthermore, there are reports that Phoebe had been bullied in her Irish school before she arrived here.
1, 2, & 3 put together make me wonder if there was a consensual sexual relationship between Phoebe and the first boy. He broke it off and blabbed to his friends. Then they black-mailed Phoebe unless she performed certain acts and they blabbed about that and threatened her. Girls got wind of it and started gossiping on-line and sending viscious notes to Phoebe. Girls can be very nasty when jealosy is part of it.
The school should have stepped in as soon as they knew what was going on, and Phoebe’s parents should have been informed. Phoebe should have been transferred to another school immediately, and they should have taken her to a counselor.
I’d like to know more about the previous bullying in Ireland and the cause. And I’d like someone to recognize that high school is too young for sexual relationships. I hope these boys are not let off the hook for their actions, and I’d like to see the girls punished too, depending on what they did. All of them involved need psychological counseling, as well as their families.
May Phoebe RIP and may God have Mercy on her soul. Such a tragedy! I hope that every parent of every teenager makes an extra effort to train your kids (boys and girls) to keep their pants on and their feet on the floor. It’s not healthy, mentally or physically to do otherwise.
(Ducking the incoming fire.)
Bullies are a part of growing up. Not necessarily a good situation, but it's going to happen as sure as the sun will rise in the morning. It's a part of the adolescence experience.
Perhaps what was missing in the recent suicide case was a strong family/friend network. I don't know. What I do know is that while the bullies were a major contributor to Pheobe's suicide, she was the one that ultimately decided to do so. She is not an innocent third-party. She isn't really the guilty party either.
Tough one to call overall, but I will say this - we CANNOT use this case as a tool to circumvent the first amendment. While undesirable speech is potentially a factor here, the slippery slope of banning undesirable speech is bound to also lead to the banning of unpopular speech, regardless of how true that speech is. And I don't think any of us is unable to see how the left wants to silence their opposition.
How about we just do away with government schools? The society of public schools is like that in prisons. Kids are forced to endure treatment at school that no adult would ever tolerate at work. If someone threatened you at work or assaulted you, you would call the police. Kids are expected to just take it.
I don’t get it. No matter what it would take, I would not allow my child to be subject to that kind of terror day in and day out.