Teen Creates “Sit with Us” App for Bullied Kids

- My HS best friend's Dad teaching us about dealing with bullies circa 1991

Of course, this only works in an environment without weapons and without excessive escalation. I'm not sure it applies to girls though, being violent for a guy is considered by other kids as manly and earns respect. If a girl snaps and punches another girl, she'll be seen as crazy and most likely bullied even more than before.

I was taken to the principal after breaking one of the bullies' head - her comment - "Surprised you didn't do that earlier" and that was all.

This was in the late '80s. One of the bigger bullies came up to him in the locker room out of the blue, said "hey geek" and punched him in the chest. Amazingly calmly he replied "Don't hit me" and punched him back, pretty weakly in comparison. I remember thinking at the time "what are you, fucking insane, hitting him back?" It immediately escalated into a full-on fight with the bully getting a good eight or so hard punches in which my friend futilely tried to avoid or hit back where he could. It was stopped pretty quickly when the gym teacher arrived and put the bully in a headlock.

So even though he basically got his ass kicked, nobody ever picked on him again. At least not physically.

Bullies are like thieves, and go for the easy targets. Putting up a fight, no matter how futile at the time, will likely remove you from the list of easy targets.

Your solution of landing 40 violent blows on a kid's face is probably not a better alternative to this app.

My then 8-year-old son was getting punched by another boy in his class on a regular basis and the teachers couldn't do anything about it because they "didn't see it." I told him that if anyone ever hits him, pushes him or punches him again he has my permission to hit back commensurately just as hard and he would suffer no consequences - even if the school wanted to suspend him.

So the next day he got punched and he punched the other kid back in the stomach. It's been 2 years now and that kid never hit him again.

There's a big difference between responding to physical bullying with force, and responding to people ignoring you and not allowing you to sit with them with violence.

At the end of the day, as unfair as it is, you're going to be the one that looks like the bully.

Edit: I'm being down-voted... but the app is meant to be a reaction to social/psychological bullying and not violence. Violence isn't appropriate here.

What if you are being bullied by someone who you can't really hurt all that much or prevent them from hurting you, except through higher channels?

If someone attacks me as an adult, I have every right to defend myself. The police will be called, and if it's possible to identify the perpetrator and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they attacked me, they will go to jail. If the police aren't able to find the attacker or prove that they did it, then I'm allowed to take countermeasures such as avoiding the area, carrying some sort of defensive measures (pepper spray, or even just a gun), or having someone escort me.

Do the same thing to a child, and there's often minimal punishment, the victim and perpetrator are not separated from each other in the long term, and the victim is strongly encouraged not to fight back.

Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens?

We create these Lord of the Flies type situations for children, then basically tell them that problems shouldn't be happening, if they are then we won't help, but the children shouldn't do anything about them either. And then we are shocked, shocked, when children suddenly go all psycho on their tormentors.

If a business had a constant known problem with physical violence among its employees and patrons, they'd be forced to reform or shut down, and people would go to prison. Schools should be the same. It's the responsibility of the people in charge to keep the students safe, both from outside threats and from each other. If they can't do that, then they need to be replaced by people who can.

Until and unless that ever happens, then students' best option will be to retaliate.

Teachers never notice vandalism or theft of pupils' property and since there's never any evidence they're not interested. If the victim responds to abuse with their fists then it can be reported to the teacher, who will believe the instigator of the verbal abuse. The abuser will have friends who will report that they heard nothing and the unprovoked attack caught them by surprise.

I wonder whether school children use smartphone apps to gather evidence these days (I left school before even mobile phones were common) and how teachers respond.

Maybe, just maybe, the best response depends on the situation and the bullies?

It's great that you found a solution that works, and obviously you want to help other children achieve the same, but I don't think this implied "if everyone just did what I did, bullying would be solved" attitude is very helpful.

Unfortunately schools have changed policies to so called zero tolerance policies, so that any violence can result in suspension, expulsion or event arrest and juvie. This is applied unfairly, it's worse for people who are racial minorities (studies show they are significantly more likely to be suspended, expelled or arrested, and suspensions last longer, this is why brown kids get arrested when they build clocks, and white kids get scholarships), and poor kids, who's parents are more limited in defending them because they have to work, can't afford legal representation, etc.

And remember bullying doesn't have to be physical. Responding with violence may get you expelled and nothing happen to the bully.

Also for people with disabilities or just physically weaker then the bully, violence may not be feasible as a response. And if girls are doing the bullying, or being bullied, violence may violate gender norms and not be the right choice.

Anecdotal, as every case of bullying is different, but it seems to be the more efficient solution than telling the teachers/administration, who do little to nothing about it.

In other words, I feel like the "snapping" is just as important -- if not more -- than the violence, per se.

I'm reminded of an anecdote which I think is attributed to Robert McNamara. Basically, he claims that a nuclear power shouldn't appear too rational. Adversaries should be left with a sense of "they're just crazy enough to use it". I think the same goes with bullying: "he's just crazy enough to actually kill me over this".

First, if the kid is bigger and you'd lose the fight, wait until in class then sucker punch the kid and beat on him in presence of a teacher. The teacher can prevent you from getting really hurt when the bully responds.

Second, after the fight, explain the bullying. You and the bully will end up in the principal's office. In the principal's office, sucker punch/surprise attack the guy again. This second step is to establish a pattern with the bully that he's in for a long battle if he keeps it up.

Third, after the principals office, it will be escalated to parents. Then dad would give me a high five.

We actually become pretty good friends for a few years after that, and I was one of the only guys he wouldn't try to hassle even when he was having real problems. Like you, heavily anecdotal, but a lot of cultures outside of the (last 50 or so years) in the US recognize the value of non-injurious physical confrontations, especially among young guys.

This is how humans work. There are a lot of comments here about how schools break down that sorta behaviour, and they might be right. But its also up to schools to teach kids how society works, so all that means is you have to tell your kid to punch the other kid, after school lets out. That's as much a societal lesson as standing up for yourself.

I'm imagining you as a 7th grader patiently sitting there and counting out 40 punches. That sounds like it would result in a concussion and a bloody mess.

I think proper response to bullies is pretty context-specific, but I'm glad this worked out for you.

Speaking from experience: yes. Nothing prevents violence and bullying more than to show the bullies "okay, you don't stop, so I'm gonna fight back". It's like with preventing a computer system from getting hacked by everone and their dog: raise the difficulty bar enough to chase away the masses.

Downside: bullies are going to choose an easier target, most probably the only friends you have (which makes that decision definitely harder).

Solidarity in a group of bullied kids tends to vary, too. Sometimes, they'll stick together and actually beat one bully so hard he's going to the hospital and staying there, and sometimes it's "okay, choose the guy next to me, kthxbai" (aka everyone fights for himself only).

I wasn't bullied, but I definitely had attempts made. Those attempts were usually resolved very quickly and permanently with a bit of school yard fisticuffs. My friends who didn't fight back physically stayed tormented for as long as they cared not to defend themselves. Arguing, going to teachers, parents, school administrators, counselors, none of it made a lick of difference. Physically fighting back did.

There were two things I think that made it possible for this to work however (my parents were informed by a healthy disdain for the public school system):

1. My father established a standing set of rules in my family about bullies. a) Don't be a bully or you'll get severely punished b) if you are getting bullied, you may reasonably defend yourself without worrying about getting in trouble at home c) you may reasonably defend another person who is getting bullied without worrying about getting in trouble at home. d) if you throw the first punch you'll get in trouble, but you don't have to "win", just defend yourself

2. My father taught me and my siblings how to box a little - basic punches, blocks, parries, enough to be more trouble than it was worth for a school yard tussle.

It worked, I was the perfect bully target in school, smart, bookish, glasses, I never was the victim of bullying after the first return punch.

But I saw other children be bullied mercilessly, beat up, made fun of, even getting urinated on in one occasion, and another pushed head first down a flight of stairs. The problem with defending them of course, is that once I'm not there the bullies will pounce. I've even lost friends who had to move away to go to another school district the bullying was so bad.

There are occasions though where this doesn't work, when the bully returns with a group, or if the parents don't teach and support their child's ability to enter, engage and resolve this kind of conflict on their own terms. Many very well meaning parents cannot imagine their child getting into a school yard fight to defend themselves and try to work through other adults at their level. But it very rarely resolves that way.

Basically I found trying that when your bullies are hardcore norteño gangbangers and you are 130lbs soaking wet with zero self confidence - and well it doesn't work out and it only infuriated them even more.

The key though is: If you are going to take a beating, then fight back and if you get your ass beat, you get your ass beat - at least 30 years later you will not look back on yourself in those moments with disgust, because only later did you decide to stand up for yourself.

I think this is a general trend with socializing and the internet. Before ~instantaneous communication in global forums, you had to "make do" or compromise with how you socialized among your peers, since you were limited to the immediate geographic area (less as you grow older and potentially get access to cars/more autonomy). But now, you can literally just take your socializing elsewhere, it's a "buyers" market for socializing where, if you don't like your current social network, you can pretty easily drop it and go somewhere more comfortable for you.

This is great from a curated safety standpoint but it breeds dependence on these social escapes. I think parallels nicely with "fight or flight" where you can either try to fight for your social standing in your current environment, or flee to a more welcoming one. If you always choose flee, you'll always be satisfied by some other group socially (assuming you can find one, which should be pretty easy on the internet) but you'll never learn how to handle social conflict in a healthy manner, and thus your boundaries of acceptability shrink more and more as you mature and come to better understand what you want (or at least what you dislike).

I think it's similar to having too hygienic an environment when growing up, your body doesn't adapt to various allergens and you end up less healthy the curation. Or the cliche spoiled child, who grows up to become extremely difficult to work on a team/interact with in general because they're not learned in compromise and are incapable of comprehending "not getting their way."

Technology in general allows us to better enact our will, which I think is also slowly spoiling those who fully take advantage of it. Just like it's healthy to keep physically and mentally challenging yourself, I think emotionally challenging yourself is also healthy, and while you don't need to seek out difficult social interactions, I think it's healthy to try to solve the problems without simply avoiding them.

edit: for age context, i'm in my mid-twenties

edit: ... but I still love the idea.

It's harder to find the lonely kids that might be friends with you. The bullies don't need the app but the lonely kids do!

I don't see the problem, I applaud the initiative.

It solves a simple issue: where do I sit when I know no one.

For those who are ambassadors, you can make new friends.

Google "Social Dining Apps"

Will you use it? I'd bet no. I know I thought it a good idea until I found one, and never used it.

It was specifically for finding people near you to eat lunch that day with. (Can't remember this exact one)

It's good in your head, socially awkward in practice.

Unlike dating apps, or large group apps like meetup.

See "We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?" https://medium.com/the-mission/were-f-cked-it-s-over-or-is-i...

Oh hell.. writing this.. I think I'll contact these people at least, help them out in their spare time.

Children are learning this stuff largely by trial and error. Adults have a responsibility to point them in the right direction.