Do you think the mean kids get their comeuppance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I know I need to focus on my kid, I do, and I know that hoping for "payback" is fruitless, but I'm mostly curious. Why do they keep getting away with it? Will they have repercussions?

I don't know OP but I hope it happens for your child's bully. Sorry this is happening. A coworker for a parttime job I had in college married a mean girl. I only know about her background because we met some of their old friends at a party and they were saying how she was prom queen and very beautiful in HS but also really mean. At the time I met her she was overweight, pretty unhappy and still mean. The one thing going for her is she married my coworker who is a geeky guy and a bit odd but nice and reliable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some kids are mean at school because life sucks for them at home.

So what. Some kids from horrible homes are not a-holes.

NP. The whole point of the post is OP hoping that the "mean kids" will feel pain. Some of them are already feeling pain, so that should make OP happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is dealing with a bully right now. We are doing everything we can, but they keep getting away with it.


Do you think at some point the chronic "mean kids" get what they deserve? Or are they living a consequence-free existence?

The worse ones, and the ones most likely to get away with it, are the ones who know where the lines of "plausible deniability" are. They are just mean or a$$hole enough to make people miserable but not so mean that they can say "I didn't mean it that way" or "I didn't ACTUALLY do XXX, they just thought i did." Those little jerk faces never seem to get caught and are enable by the system and their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I know I need to focus on my kid, I do, and I know that hoping for "payback" is fruitless, but I'm mostly curious. Why do they keep getting away with it? Will they have repercussions?

Hopefully not - ideally they will receive empathy and guidance from trusted adults.

Your fixation is really misplaced here!!

It's not a "fixation" and it is also not misplaced. I would want them to feel some consequence, too. And, finally, one can focus on your own kid AND want to see the bully get his/hers, at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Many cruel people get that way because they are enabled by family and others, and don't change because that enabling continues. There is no guarantee that a mean person will "pay" for their cruelty later in life.

The mom of the bully in my neighborhood cared more than anything that her kid is popular. When we talked about her kid she was said that popular kids are always mean. The kid was mediocre at school and couldn't get in to his dream school but wherever he works he will aggressively go after other people so he is top dog. People still accept that behavior in men.

[Anonymous]

OP, it is totally natural to wish that someone was at least talking to the mean kids about what they’re doing! Rather than just issuing directives about kindness.

My DD5 is having a horrible kinder year because of one mean child she can’t disentangle from. At this age it’s not bullying but it also really sucks. The parents seem like lovely people and go through the motions of being responsive, but at the end of the day they don’t care if it stops—that’s what hurts and what enables the behavior to continue. They’re sure it will stop by age 6 or 7. Praying my child will be in a different class by then and I wont have to find out!

[Anonymous]

There is a mean child that I have observed since kindergarten. A kid on my street. Very good at it too. A liar and triangulates kids against each other but smart enough to keep her hands clean. Always advanced manipulation tactics even at a young age.

In middle school, all the kids turned on her. Called her out on the behavior. She still has some kids to hang around with it appears, but no one trusts her or likes her.

In any case, the repercussion for any mean person is the life they lead. Truly. People usually are "friends" with mean people to the extent they have to be or are afraid of them on some level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I know I need to focus on my kid, I do, and I know that hoping for "payback" is fruitless, but I'm mostly curious. Why do they keep getting away with it? Will they have repercussions?

Hopefully not - ideally they will receive empathy and guidance from trusted adults.

Your fixation is really misplaced here!!

It's not a "fixation" and it is also not misplaced. I would want them to feel some consequence, too. And, finally, one can focus on your own kid AND want to see the bully get his/hers, at the same time.

You certainly can focus on whatever you want, but I would recommend the high road instead. Ask yourself if a perfectly emotional healthy person would ever need to see a child “get theirs” in order to feel satisfied.

It can be tough and triggering to see our kids experience bullying and feel that pain. But that does not excuse your instincts here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I know I need to focus on my kid, I do, and I know that hoping for "payback" is fruitless, but I'm mostly curious. Why do they keep getting away with it? Will they have repercussions?

Hopefully not - ideally they will receive empathy and guidance from trusted adults.

Your fixation is really misplaced here!!

It's not a "fixation" and it is also not misplaced. I would want them to feel some consequence, too. And, finally, one can focus on your own kid AND want to see the bully get his/hers, at the same time.

You certainly can focus on whatever you want, but I would recommend the high road instead. Ask yourself if a perfectly emotional healthy person would ever need to see a child “get theirs” in order to feel satisfied.

It can be tough and triggering to see our kids experience bullying and feel that pain. But that does not excuse your instincts here.

+1 it’s hard to see your child with hurt feelings but your desire for suffering for the perceived wrong doer is seriously off base.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some kids are mean at school because life sucks for them at home.

So what. Some kids from horrible homes are not a-holes.

NP. The whole point of the post is OP hoping that the "mean kids" will feel pain. Some of them are already feeling pain, so that should make OP happy.

Some, not most. Many came from homes where this is entitlement and zero accountability

[Anonymous]

No. Our society tends to support them in their cruelty.

[Anonymous]

Just the other day I posted about a "mean" mom action that bothered me. I got no sympathy here. Instead, I was told that it shouldn't bother me that a parent was bragging about her kid when she knew full well that my kid was going through a rough time. People expect others to just have a tough skin and let the mean peoples' words and actions roll off like water on the back of a duck.

[Anonymous]

Op here--I don't want the bully to get hurt physically, that's not what I meant. But what if the bully is a girl who spreads rumors and lies about another girl (not my kids' situation), would at some point the bully's friends realize that this person could turn and do the same thing to them at any second, and choose to stop hanging out with her. Or, like a pp said, people confront her about it so she doesn't just get away Scot free. I don't want them to get bullied. I want them to have consequences for their bullying. I said it wrong in my original post.

[Anonymous]

Usually they get something unpleasant. Often this is learned behavior from their parents.

In our situation- the bully boy from elementary has unhinged parents. In MS- he gained a bunch of weight and hasn't gotten taller and is now on the receiving end of bullying behavior. my daughter actually feels bad for him.

[Anonymous]

No. They don't. Just like adults.

IME in my life I have found it more effective use of my emotional energy to change the things I have control of. I don't have control of other people's karma.