My American friend has claimed this. I live in Europe, I’m not saying I think bullying is worse or better than over here, but my friends claim seems unlikely to me, in such a big country.
Anyone else find this to be true? Is there barely any relentless extreme bullying in American schools?
Edit: my question is less about one’s ability to move, and more about extreme bullying
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I’m sure it’s happened, but probably pretty rare.
I’ve only personally heard of someone changing schools because of bullying once in my life and it was a few years before I got into high school.
The poor girl got her nudes leaked by her ex-boyfriend and she was horribly harassed to the point she needed to leave in-person school.
But sadly, I did see the permanent results of extreme bullying. While in high school 4 kids in 2 years killed themselves at a nearby school due to bullying and a really toxic social culture. Really horrific and sad. One of the girls was the granddaughter of a family friend
It’s absolutely untrue. Where there’s kids, there’s bullying. Any country. And to be quite frank, it continues into adulthood. Your friend is probably projecting his own experiences and worldview onto the nation.
Kids get bullied into suicide here (and not only in the US, just saying it happens here too) so a statement like “extreme bullying hardly exists” is, uh, not correct.
I’m sure it varies enormously but I’ll also say there are plenty of areas where it’s very difficult to move from your assigned public school unless you pony up $10,000+ to go to a private school.
In my district as a child it was entirely discretionary and bullying or school quality wasn’t an acceptable option for changing schools plus we have very few lower cost private schools near me. So that means to change schools the family would have to literally move to a new house or apartment in a different zone which most people aren’t willing to do n
I’ve gone into detail about my experiences with bullying before. Long story short, it was traumatizing and even 15 years after graduating high school, the bullying from my childhood still affects me. My experience seems to be far worse than most people on this sub want to admit exists.
It never hit the point of us moving, but that’s largely because I either wasn’t telling adults or when I did, they just didn’t believe these things were happening. Had they believed me when I said my bully had chased me with a knife shouting he was going to murder me, we likely would have moved. But no one ever believed me when I told them. Hell, I’m in my 30s now and tried to explain how bad it really was to my dad a few months ago and he still doesn’t believe me.
So it didn’t happen in my case, but it should have. And I am pretty sure it has happened in other cases, although no one is ever going to admit to you that the reason they’re the new kid is because they were bullied into leaving their last school.
In most of the US, you can’t just change schools easily. You are assigned a school based on where you live and the school district you’re in. And while many urban and suburban school districts may have multiple K-8 schools, its pretty common to only have one or two high schools. So most can’t switch high school because that’d be going into another district, and that’s more hoops to jump through.
In my experience it is vanishingly rare. If bullying was that bad the perpetrators of the bullying would be in serious trouble. You can’t just switch schools for no reason and if the reason was extreme bullying then the school would rather crack down on the bullies than transfer you.
That isn’t to say it hasn’t happened in rare cases.
I’ve never heard of anyone moving schools because of bullying, no.
It can happen but it isn’t normal. You won’t likely hear of a child that has had to do this.
I’ve never known anyone who had to move schools bc of bullying. is this very common in your country?
I’m sure it happens, but I don’t know of anybody who had to do so, such cases are vanishingly rare. I used to teach at schools in Germany, the UK and Denmark and the bullying in all 3 was much worse than anything I ever saw back home.
It definitely happens
There’s definitely bullying in American schools, but in my experience it wasn’t nearly as bad as it’s reputed to be. Then again, mine was the generation after all the extensive anti-bullying campaigns became a thing, so that’s probably part of it. My parents tell stories about things that happened in their high school days that are way worse than anything I heard or saw personally. Nobody left my high school because they were being harassed.
I had a teacher in high school who had taught in UK schools for several years, and he said that the relentless bullying he witnessed there was much worse than anything he saw while teaching stateside. Lots more violence and targeting of individual people, and a lot more tolerance of bullying by the teachers. So there may be a slight cultural difference.
It’s probably happened somewhere, but I’ve never heard of it happening at any of the schools I went to. I actually know one person it happened to, but she was Canadian.
There’s plenty of bullying in US schools. It’s not necessarily easy to change schools though. Probably easier to switch to homeschooling. I doubt there are records kept of reasons why kids leave when it would make school authorities look inept, and people are very good at not seeing things which don’t personally affect them.
I went to high school 15 years ago and there was basically not any traditional bullying the way you would see in old tv shows
It’s not extremely common, but it is far from rare. It happens.
I want to say that it’s less common now than it was in the old days. A lot of schools used to not give a shit about what was going on, but I think that changed after Columbine.
Also, it is a *lot* easier to change schools in most European countries. Here in my corner of Italy I actually know a few families who did this very thing, to get away from a toxic situation (certain little shits, with even worse parents). It is not tied to your address like in the States, so the only thing preventing you from putting your kid in a different school is whether or not you can arrange transportation.
I honestly think it’s a better system in that regard. The janitor’s son sits next to the millionaire business owner’s daughter, and it’s perfectly unremarkable.
I moved states to get away.
My parents divorced when I was a baby. My mom got a job offer so we picked up and moved to TX when I was 8ish. Dad stayed behind in CA. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up with these kids? Maybe they were just cruel? Maybe I was the only redhead? Who knows?
People can be very cruel. I learned that at a young age. The bullies didn’t stop until I moved in with my dad for Highschool back in CA. This was when MySpace was dying out and Facebook was becoming more popular. I still got hate messages until my Sophomore year.
What did my school do? Absolutely fucking nothing. They didn’t believe me. They figured since we were all good students with good grades. “There’s no way Hannah could say something like that”
I was bullied in HS. It was mostly ignored by the teachers. Being 30 years removed and 500 miles has made it considerably easier but it has made me really uncomfortable in large groups where I don’t know people. I have learned to fake it though.
The only case of this I’ve heard of was the bullying being a symptom of inadequately addressed specifical needs, so that the student was sent to a school in the district with a stronger reputation for that type of disability.
My sister changed schools (but did not *move*) due to a kind of weird bullying situation.
My niece changed schools (also did not move) due to a typical bullying situation.
My SO works for an online charter school (homeschool) and *many* of his students/former students have faced bullying issues, which is why they’re homeschooled. Bullying is actually a huge factor for which kids end up with homeschooling. It’s like bullying, chronic illnesses, religious reasons, and kids with careers (actors). Those are the main reasons that families go with homeschooling in our area.
So although I wouldn’t say it’s *super* common, I do think it’s more common than your friend thinks it is, and perhaps more common than a lot of commenters here think it is. The kind of bullying my sister experienced wasn’t dealt with by teachers – it was rumor spreading, and she was able to switch schools by using my mom’s address (instead of her dad’s) to go to the next town over. For my niece, she was bullied because of her (baby) teeth, and ended up at a private school. For others, they may go with an online charter school. It doesn’t cost $ so it’s an option for some people.
It happened to me, but it’s a rare thing.
Oh it’s most likely happened but to the extent that it does in movies or shows? Everything from Hollywood is exaggerated. Just keep that in mind.
It’s extremely rare. One of my nephews has a severe learning disability and was zoned to a school with a weak special education program. As such, he spent a lot of time with non-needs kids and he was picked on and bullied pretty heavily because of it. Fortunately my cousin was able to get him transferred to a different school within the district that had a better special needs program.
At least here, districts will try to get kids in different schools within their radius if bullying or other problems become too drastic. Having to completely relocate is a last resort.
Only happened to one kid when I was still in school. He was a pompous ass who constantly challenged kids to fights and kept talking about how he could kick anyone’s ass. One day someone actually accepted and a bunch of kids showed up outside the school to watch the fight, a few filming it. Kid dodged one punch, then turned around and ran away. He was such a laughing stock to everyone after that that he switched to cyber school the rest of senior year.
Not exactly “bullying”, though.
In my district you are not able to move into or out of the school that isn’t assigned to you. I have a dozen elementary schools within a ten minute drive and unless I moved I couldn’t change schools.
If bullying got that bad, I would expect the bully to be sent to an alternative school (I forget the the technical term tbh)
Never seen or heard of it getting that bad though.
My sister dropped out of school partially due to bullying (the biggest reason was due to academics). I was not bullied in the same way…kids were mean to me occasionally but I didn’t internalize it as much and didn’t engage back with them (usually the mean-ness was met with my confusion as to why they feel the need to act that way which I guess isn’t the reaction they’re looking for). I was much quieter than my sister and didn’t do things like naruto-run through the hallways or cosplay to school. That said, my sister had WAY more friends at school than I did so it’s not like everyone was bullying her, it was just a handful of guys that wouldn’t leave her alone. I think extreme bullying has become very rare in high school. It seems to be at its worst in middle school.
Yes. My school district, when I was in middle school, tried to transfer me from one school to another to get away from the bullying. Then it came out, being a town of only 20k, that kids between middle schools talked. My old school had kids contacting kids in my new school with instructions on what to do.
The only time I really saw my dad look like he was ready to kill was when the district tried justifying the bullying. It was their policy that it was best for one kid to be bullied instead of many, and I was the target.
My locker was trashed so many times, it was sad. And the office just kept giving out my new locker combinations to the bullies as they would not take time to verify identities.
And of all this, was the teachers who were the worst bullies.
Fuck you, John Smull. I did not drop out like you told me. And I amounted to more than your kid ever would have.
I work in education, in the department that would transfer a kid for crewmen safety concerns, bullying included.
This does happen, more than I think you are aware.
I was bullied so severely by students and staff I had to change schools. The staff singled me out and always punished me for my bullies actions. I had my books ruined, clothes literally ripped and destroyed while I wore them, and physical and verbal abuse. The office staff would see it and say nothing unless I defended myself, then it was a trip to the office for me. Those kids would lie and say I did this and said that and were believed even though I had witnesses that said otherwise. A few other teachers tried to speak up for me but it didn’t help.
I hate our public school system with such a burning passion I can’t even begin to articulate it. I like most teachers, though. Teachers are not the same as the general staff of the front office morons.
I know of at least one person I went to school with who left for another school in fifth grade due to bullying. He was a bit effeminate and my 2009 classmates (both boys and girls) were super intolerant and mean to him. I was kind of a loner so I only sort of realized what was going on but not the extent of it – it seems like it was a lot of making fun of him and excluding him though. I wish I had done more to help
I’d say 5th-8th grade was prime bullying time. Apparently the girls in my grade had been having a bunch of issues in 7th/8th grade (I went to a small catholic school for K-8 so everyone had known each other a long time but people were splitting up for high school the following year.) The Vice principal got all the girls in a room together near the end of the year and gave a speech about being nice to each other and next thing I know a bunch of girls are crying and confessing rumors they started and hugging and apologizing. It seemed like a lot of people had been targeted but a few in particular had borne the brunt of it. My friend (who had started there in 7th grade) and I were out of touch with everything so we were mostly just really confused by the whole thing. The following year I watched mean girls though and I thought it was funny that the last part is basically exactly what happened in eighth grade. I don’t really know of any bullying in high school though – it was big enough that people just made their own friend groups and left everyone else alone
It happens, but physical bullying is definitely on the decline. Social media is probably where the brunt of it happens these days
The bullying definitely happens. Moving because of it seems less likely. Teachers and parents can be pretty awful sometimes and downplay the severity of the situation.