Where Politics And Video Games Collide

Thanks for the save! I almost forgot this was coming out soon. I need to pick it up for the Wii. I didn't get in last time.
As for bullying. I've had my nose broken and my finger broken bad (took steel pins through the joint to piece it back together). I've been thrown into a patch of poison ivy and various other unfun things. I was the butt of my class.

Guess what. Going to the faculty doesn't help. I've been punched as soon as a techers back was turned. If you go to the faculty, it just means you will get beaten up more. Being caught by a teacher didn't teach the kids to not hurt, it only taught them to not be caught.

The solution turned up right after getting my nose broken. Fighting back. Someone hurts you, and you go to a techer, you will get hurt again. If you say nothing, you will get hurt again. Fighting back, effectively, means that person won't tangle with you again. It helped that, in my case, the guy was older, bigger, and stronger. The fact that this didn't stop me pretty much told others that if I would fight back against him, I might do anything.

Is it the right message to be giving children? I don't know. I do know I wish I had gotten it earlier. Teachers (like my mother) and faculty like to think that school is all safe and friendly. It isn't. Even when I was growing up in a relativly rural, no weapon environment, school was war. You had diplomatic alternatives, but they didn't always work. I was a good talker, people would say that I laid the blarney stone. But you can't talk your way out of things all the time.

The key is propper retaliation. Public shaming is bad, so is anything that will warrent their own retaliation. A few punches in the gut with an explanation that you are doing them a favor for not marking them up or humilating them. Afterwards, I've actually made friends once or twice (not good friends, but no more violence between us).

The idea that you can make it through the world by talking or bending over is unrealistic. However, you shouldn't teach that violence is the best solution.

Parents keep thinking that children are being made violent by videogames. Guess what, children are violent from the get go. Raising a child to be non-violent merely means they will be the target of others' violence. They will still be exposed to violence, but with the additional leason that being bigger means it is right to hurt others. This, in turn, leads them to abuse anyone smaller. Anyone who thinks that you can fight violence with kindness hasn't really seen violence. They have probably seen pettiness and thought it was violence.

Violence has it's place in our society, as it has had it's place in every other society since the dawn of time. The key is to fight violence with inteligence. In movies this usually has the smart kid pulling embarrasing pranks on the bigger kids. In real life, you are lucky if that only leads to some broken ribs. To really fight violence with inteligence means the propper mix of violence, talking, and face saving.You let them know you don't want to be messed with. You have to demonstrate that you are capable of doing worse in retaliation (you actually HAVE to be able to do worse). You have to also not humiliate the other person, or they will have to retaliate. Let them know that you aren't trying to change their social standing, you just want to be left out of it. Explain you have your own problems, and that you would rather not have any more if you can help it.

After a talk like that (and a small butt kicking) I've actually had one bully telling another bully to lay off me, I was cool.