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[quote=Anonymous]I think there are a whole bunch of sanctimonious people on this thread — and none of us have 100% certainty of what our kids get up to. I don’t think my kid is a bully, she doesn’t have social media and I pretty much read all her texts to keep an eye on things. But I don’t actually know for sure what she gets up to at school.

Kids can be mean. Tweens and teens are figuring things out and sometimes they get it very wrong. It is a pretty good sign that your daughter has proactively disclosed this and feels remorseful. You definitely need to have some consequences. But, you also need to talk to her and help her work through ways in which she could handle this differently next time. Being an up-stander is harder than you think. Plenty of people on this thread probably have their own struggles with being an up-stander as an adult.

I have also seen that kids move past these things much faster than parents. My daughter was sort of stuck between two friends in fifth grade and one of them viciously turned on the other. There was all the “I wish you would kill yourself” kind of stuff. It was so horrible that in sixth grade, the parents of the bullied kid told her to never be within 10 feet of the bully at all costs. My kid stuck with her bullied friend, and the bully cussed my kid out for not inviting her to my kid’s birthday party in sixth grade. By the end of seventh grade, the bullied kid and the bully ran track together and are close friends. In fact, my kid, the bully and the bullied kid will all be at the bully’s birthday party next week. The bully and the bullied kid did slumber parties together during the school year. I’m totally shocked at the change. My kid is like “listen, we all got over it and moved on and this is for the best.”

What happened to this girl at camp is horrific. But at this point, your kid needs consequences and a lot of discussion about how to do better. She doesn’t need to be tarred and feathered or have to wear a scarlet B for the rest of her life.

And while cyberbullying and social media have made things worse, there was plenty of “I hate you and wish you would kill yourself” going around in the 80s, along with fat shaming, calling people the “r” word, using gay slurs, etc. This isnt some new thing with Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Tweens and teens have a lot to figure out and good parent guidance can help.

I now have a kid with profound intellectual disability. While I don’t think I ever bullied someone directly using the “r” word in the 80s, I am sure I used it casually to refer to situations and maybe people. I’m not proud of myself and wish I had done better. But I didn’t know better then. I certainly work hard now not to be a jerk as an adult. I didnt grow up to be a horrible person.[/quote]

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