7-year-old's suicide shocks Detroit community

reply to post by getreadyalready


I wholeheartedly agree with you. Children need to be taught to stand up to bullies.
I did and I am female and the bully was a male.

The bully was in my junior high and kept at me and others until, at a school football game, I'd had enough !!
The bulling changed from just verbal, and had now become physical with shoving,
prodding,poking,tripping and throwing junk at people.
So I waited 'till he was right up behind me. I let him say whatever he had to say...ignore...then
came a couple of pokes and a shove. I turned around quick, punched him in the stomach
as hard as I could.
He was surprised and off balance. He stumbled back, tripped and fell on his butt.
I was on top of him, straddling him and had his shoulders pinned to the ground so fast he
didn't know what happened. His eyes looked like they would pop out of his head
I kind of growled at him and said
"you quit effin with me or I'll bust your head wide open!! Got it!?"
I got up off of him and walked away. I could hear his cronies laughing and making fun of him.

He actually apologized about a week later and never bothered me again.
When he said sorry he also said "I don't know why I do that stuff " I said
"I do. You want attention and that's the only way you know how to get it". He didn't respond.

Just say'en, it worked for me.

reply to post by getreadyalready


My daughter is in JK as well. There is a boy that hits everyone. During observation day, I noticed he doesn't hit my daughter. I asked her about this later and she simply said "oh he KNOWS". LOL, I have no idea what she means because she has never been a hitter herself but apparently she has protected herself somehow.

WRT the 7 year old who committed suicide. I would imagine bullying plays a very small part. Seven year olds haven't developped the social skills to be really cruel, that will come in middle school. Generally they hate someone one day and will be best friends the next. My bet is there was something going on in the family. Perhaps one parent was cruel and the other was protective and the thought of losing the protective parent is what brought on the suicide. Many people failed this child, but I will not put the blame on his 7 year old classmates.

reply to post by getreadyalready

Well this issue is much bigger than bullying.

(i was bullied a lot growing up, honestly. but it's not an excuse to fail.)

It's about freedom.

Do we:
a) Let the natural order settle it? (with some tragic losses)
b) Enforcement of house rules - NO bullying! (less freedom, more rules, more police)

It's kind of like asking whether we should allow corporations to act freely without excessive regulation in the hopes that the dynamics between consumers and producers will level the field and create balance? When we find out that a corporation is doing something bad, it will always be after the fact. This is the cost of freedom. In theory, corporations that consistently pollute and overwork their employees will be less popular and accepted than corporations that have a ethical policy and refrain from polluting. This is because people will see the results of corporations that polluted and overworked their employees. Conversely, if we have excessive regulations to prevent pollution and overworking, it could potentially be a stifling atmosphere that impedes innovation. This is because corporations have to constantly deal with the rules and pay higher costs. Furthermore, since people will see the results of pollution and overworking less, they might start to take it all for granted.

Look at the housing bubble that happened recently. Same thing! Do we let the economy freely regulate itself (the magic of the free market) or do we implement regulation to prevent bubbles?

Too many rules also have the danger of making people less dynamic and too rulebook-oriented. Just imagine a new situation occurs and the rulebook-oriented person can't respond because there's no rule for it. The person that's free will respond quickly and more dynamically even in the absence of a rulebook. Rulebooks are nice for unchanging things, but change can change the circumstances.

For some situations, rules are good. For others, we need to shoot from the hip. Wherever we think we have a great handle on something and it's unlikely to change, we can enforce rules. But for things that we might not understand fully and could change, we should let nature handle the details.

So sad. My heart is broken about that child.
I love my boys so much and pray that I will know if they are that lost or depressed.

I have always taught my boys to walk away if at all possible. If not, defend yourself.

Here is kind of a funny story for you. My youngest, when he was 9 years old, witnessed a another boy getting beat up by an older much bigger boy. My son stepped in grabbed the bully by the arm and said"if you touch him again, I am going to show you what pain is! " LOL! A teacher witnessed this, called me and told me the whole story.

Now the crazy part. My son was punished with In School Suspension for 3 days.

He was only doing what I had taught him to do, and that is help people that can't help themselves.
The teacher said she personally had no problem with it, but school policy was to punish for any type of threat.

So, even with good parenting, children will get confused on issues like this as long as schools do idiotic things like that.

Originally posted by Daz3d-n-Confus3d
My youngest, when he was 9 years old, witnessed a another boy getting beat up by an older much bigger boy. My son stepped in grabbed the bully by the arm and said"if you touch him again, I am going to show you what pain is!"

Consider yourself and your son lucky. because now-a-days he could be arrested for making a domestic terrorist threat!

Times have changed greatly. I know every generation says and feels that but you know what my prediction is? Public schooling will be obsolete in a few decades if not sooner.

Charter and private schools will be the only choices and if you can't afford them then you're child will be taught on-line at home.
And at that rate society as a whole, we will lose all social skills and will be unable to interact with others. That much is almost a guarantee!

reply to post by Human_Alien

This is off-topic, but this has always been true as technology has always changed the circumstances. For example, we used to not have cars and airplanes, so we had to live much closer to each other. People HAD to live in communities because there was no easy travel or easy communication. Thus, we were always more social in the past because technology didn't enable us to spread out so much. There's so much privacy in the modern world that's alien to history.

But I agree that computer-based learning is on the rise. I agree that our connection with others is looser than it was in the past (this was always true). I'm not sure about public schools. The idea behind public schools is to give students a standard education. Since we cannot duplicate the entire educational experience yet on computers, it's unwise to do all of this at home. But from a broad perspective, it's true that once we're able to achieve a standard level of education on a computer that we might have fewer on-location public schools. More and more of them might be almost entirely virtual places. But also keep in mind that in the future we will travel online like we travel in the physical world. Technology is fast changing and we're approaching full-immersion VR at some point. Once more, we may be able to "download" lessons directly into our mind. It's possible, why not?

I would be very afraid if children stopped being exposed to each other in open environments. I actually think home-schooling can harm a child if they're protected from the real world too much. Computers are a long ways still from being able to give us a full experience.

But anyway, I think bullies will always exist. And we will always over-regulate and deregulate.

I cannot swallow this and not feel something is terribly amiss here. A 7-year-old would not use death as a means of escape. The overwhelming need for a mother or any other such nurturing would overpower any thoughts based on the fact that there is no coming back from death.

I highly doubt a child of this age would understand death and could have "acted out" but not with the intent of not ever coming back. This is ultimately why children do not "run away" until they have a better capacity of how to "manage" on their own in some form or another.

I don't know, but I could simply imagine a very angry woman whose husband left her or worse (what ever the situation of divorce) and ranting on and on about either killing herself or that we should all just kill ourselves, and going into how and why on levels that a 7-year-old might misinterpret and act upon.

It all does not work in my mind; no amount of rationalizing can bring me to the understanding of a child of this age actively pursuing this avenue at solving anything.

NO, this is not a truth in my mind, not a suicide, it is either an accident or it is malicious at best! No less horrible and no less frightening to imagine.

reply to post by azureskys

He actually apologized about a week later and never bothered me again.
When he said sorry he also said "I don't know why I do that stuff " I said
"I do. You want attention and that's the only way you know how to get it". He didn't respond.

Just say'en, it worked for me.

I've heard that word for word from guys that ended up becoming friends of mine, and guys that were once bullies that I've seen stand up against bullies. They think it makes them cool, or they think it gets them respect, or they just don't know any other way to get attention. In your case, it might have even been a crush, but he didn't know how to act on his feelings other than to poke and prod you.

When they come up against someone where the bullying doesn't work, they have to learn other life skills. They have to converse, or they have to be polite, or they have to think about the motivations of their actions and what they intend to accomplish.

I'm thinking of a very close friend right now, and he turned out to be such a big, sweet, teddy bear of a guy, but I just realized he was a bully when I met him, and he turned into a huge anti-bully. Great football player, state champion wrestler, and a rescue swimmer for the Navy later in life. It just took one person standing up to him for him to realize he didn't even want to be a bully.

reply to post by jonnywhite

Rulebooks are nice for unchanging things, but change can change the circumstances.

For some situations, rules are good. For others, we need to shoot from the hip. Wherever we think we have a great handle on something and it's unlikely to change, we can enforce rules. But for things that we might not understand fully and could change, we should let nature handle the details.

What you're talking about is something that is widely missing in today's children. Parent Involvement.

You're exactly right. Every situation needs some flexibility and should be handled on a case by case basis. We need teachers that are mature and confident enough to handle the situations without panicking and calling for help from authorities. We need parents that are aware of what is going on, and providing coaching and advice to the kids, and also providing nurturing and love so the kids don't feel like their alone on an island.

I agree with you. We need rules, but rules should also have exceptions. What we really need are good teachers and good parents.

Originally posted by azureskys
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

I wholeheartedly agree with you. Children need to be taught to stand up to bullies.
I did and I am female and the bully was a male.

The bully was in my junior high and kept at me and others until, at a school football game, I'd had enough !!
The bulling changed from just verbal, and had now become physical with shoving,
prodding,poking,tripping and throwing junk at people.
So I waited 'till he was right up behind me. I let him say whatever he had to say...ignore...then
came a couple of pokes and a shove. I turned around quick, punched him in the stomach
as hard as I could.
He was surprised and off balance. He stumbled back, tripped and fell on his butt.
I was on top of him, straddling him and had his shoulders pinned to the ground so fast he
didn't know what happened.

His eyes looked like they would pop out of his head

I kind of growled at him and said

"you quit effin with me or I'll bust your head wide open!! Got it!?"
I got up off of him and walked away. I could hear his cronies laughing and making fun of him.

He actually apologized about a week later and never bothered me again.
When he said sorry he also said "I don't know why I do that stuff " I said
"I do. You want attention and that's the only way you know how to get it". He didn't respond.

Just say'en, it worked for me.

But you learned a valuable lesson from the unfortunate situation though? It must have made you a better person unless of course you're lying
peace

reply to post by Greensage

I had a friend growing up that was very angry with his mother and father for separating. He wanted them to get back together and hated the step-in mom. So many factors. Not every child responds the same way, right? I can imagine a bullied kid doing this, but that's just me.

Some 7-10 year olds are very present-minded and not just off on distant worlds. I mean, I know this is creepy, but some of the 9-10 year olds I knew were already talking about sex and other things. This didn't just suddenly happen. They had been doing it for a while and probably got some from their parents. Me, on the other hand, I never talked about that sort of thing and I was much older.

You don't think a 7 year old can get bothered by bullying? Of course they can.

This doesn't mean they understand it. They don't. But they can feel hurt. That's enough.

If someone feels hurt and they don't feel there's a way out, this can happen.

Bullying has always, and will always happen. And i can't exactly support the biggest anti-bullying campaign seeing as how the guy that runs it (Dan Savage) is an ignorant nutjob.

I don't mean this to be rude, but to be completely honest i think at least part of the problem is that people are just way too sensitive these days. And even in the cases where it is severe, all anti-bullying laws will do is restrict freedom of speech.

reply to post by Liquesence


You ask,

Why is everyone focusing solely on the bullying? What with the recent (national) campaigns against bullying, which is terrible (i was bullied as a kid, 'cause i was the dorky smart kid, and i ended up bullying some too), why is no one even mentioning the fact that the kids parents had separated.

This is a good question and I feel the answer is...
No proof here but I feel there are MUCH more broken and mixed homes than there are families that stick together.
We are numb to the fact that marriages are as disposable as a paper cup and generally do not last as long.

I'm concerned this attention on bullying will continue bringing suicides. For children who are constantly being ostracized, I worry that some may believe that their only real chance of anyone trying to understand, or of anyone being angry with the bullies, is suicide, based upon what they see on the news about once a week now, ever since Phoebe Prince.

I remember when cutting wasn't trendy.

I'm not trying to play this down - it's awful. But media, as we all know, is very, very influential. More so with youth.

Bullying has always been around. Kids committing suicide like this is tragically on the rise. My opinion is the poor excuse of a home life is a large factors in these poor kids feeling like they have no worth. If a child is secure and grounded in their home life and knows they have people that love them for who they are no matter what happens it makes a difference. Let me guess, the mom had no idea her kid was being bullied. Of course not, ship the kid off to school no need to be a parent. The govt will raise them.

When is that people are gonna start getting the picture that we're all on this planet together, and that stepping on each others toes only makes life more difficult for everyone as a whole?

reply to post by usmc0311


That's a pretty messed up situation. I live about 40 minutes or so from detroit, and i can vouch for the cruelty of the children there. Not necessarily from personal experience because i never went to school there, but my nephews tell me all the time just how mean and antagonistic a lot of those kids are. The bottom line is that a lot of those kids aren't getting nearly the amount of attention and love that they need. Not only have our state legislators abandoned them, but a lot of their parents just don't give a # either. Mind you this isn't every child. But the number of have-nots is high enough to make life pretty hard for the haves. I really hope my sisters get my nephews the hell out of that town before it eats them alive.

reply to post by VoidHawk


Seriously? How can you lump the "Powers That Be" to a child committing suicide due to his family falling dividing for who knows what reason and what is alleged to be bullying buy his peers. The reality is kids are mean at his age and more or less through highschool. Forgive me for saying this but how are kids suppose to know how to deal with uncomfortable situations if we continue to shield them from every bad thing out there. Certainly this is horrible that he decided to take his life at this age but bullying will never stop..kids are becoming to some extent more sensitive and in some cases growing up quite entitled and having less and less of clue about the real world. Not sure what the solution is but is stopping bullying really the answer or working with children and teachers on how to deal with it...rather than avoiding it. Just horrible

There has always been bullying.
But kids didn't commit suicide over it.
Why are today's kids doing this?

We're all bullies at times, we're all bullied at times. All this "bullying has to stop" crap makes me think of the anti gun movement, let's pass more laws, cameras everywhere. Blame it on guns. If your kid gets bullied teach him how to deal with it, stand up to it or just ignore it. Victimization is a mentality. If you can't learn to deal with human interaction without crying about bullying then you've got no chance at success. Mommy can't be there for you your whole life. Half you people who think your brave kid is standing up to bullies would probably be shocked to learn that your kid is viewed as a bully. It's the old, "My son was holding marijuana for his friend," thing. Your kid ain't perfect, let him experience life a little bit, stay out of it as long as you can. Don't freak out when he gets in a fight, it's a natural part of growing up. If he's getting bullied tell him you love him but that he's got to learn to deal with it, that's life.