As parents across the country read the story of Rebecca Ann Sedwick, the bullied 12-year-old Florida girl who killed herself last month, it’s impossible not to imagine what we’d tell our own kids to do in her situation.
Central to that conversation is the question of why. Why does this happen?
The world has changed, we tell ourselves. There were always bullies, sure, but now there is a nonstop barrage in the form of text messages, tweets, Facebook statuses, Snapchats and probably a dozen other social-media sites that kids are using that we haven’t even heard of yet.
Or we say: It’s the parent’s fault. They didn’t monitor their children closely enough, didn’t care that their child was being abusive.
But there have always been absentee parents and mean children. Yes, the Internet provides more opportunities for a kind of bullying, but what’s really changed is that real bullies don’t face consequences anymore.
It used to be that bullies had something to worry about. The bullied kid might catch them alone and beat them up. These days, that’s hardly a risk at all. We’ve become a society that views physical force, even in self-defense, as unacceptable.
Never mind that children are jumping off rooftops because of words; it’s fists we’ve banned completely.
Across the country, there are stories of bullied kids who fought back . . . and were promptly suspended or expelled. Last year, 9-year-old Nathan Pemberton of Colorado Springs fought back after his bully physically attacked him. He was suspended.
The school district issued a statement: “District 11 schools employ many anti-bullying teaching techniques . . . and none of these methods include violence or retaliation.” Silly!
Last week in Stafford, Texas, a bullied girl who was getting beat up by her tormentor dared to not just take it. She was promptly expelled despite the fact that this was a modern sort of fight — that is, caught entirely on cell-phone video. Is the official policy to just quietly surrender when you’re being pummeled?
After Sedwick’s death, her 14-year old tormentor kept up her online bile, posting: “Yes ik [I know] I bullied REBECCA nd she killed her self but IDGAF [I don’t give a f - - - ]” on her Facebook page. This is not a person worried about repercussions.
While the Polk County sheriff’s office is bringing charges against the girl and her 12-year-old accomplice, they’re unlikely to really be punished.
The bullies of our youth could be stopped with a surprise punch. The ones of today have protection from that, thanks to our zero-tolerance policies. We’re raising a generation of superbullies.
We don’t give the good kids a fair chance to stand up to the bad ones.
We let the bullies hide behind their keyboards and never have to see the real-world consequences of their actions. If they did, maybe they’d GAF.
Karol Markowicz blogs at alarmingnews.com