For thinking that the little shits who bullied a little boy so much he hung himself should not be getting fecking counselling ??

[OldCrusty]

I've namechanged because i'm a wimp...

On sunday night a 10yr old boy hung himself, he hung himself because he'd been bullied.

He'd tried to kill himself on numerous occasions, because he was being bullied.

Because of this, his poor mother was on constant 'suicide watch' and got her neighbour to put a ladder to the window when he locked his bedroom door.

He was found hanging from his bed.

So tell me AIBU in thinking that the nasty little bastards who caused that poor boy so much pain and upset should be told YOU my child are a nasty little shit, because of you and others like you a boy suffering became so much he decided he didnt want to live anymore ??

Not given a pat on the back and 'helped' to feel 'better' ??

Also, this is such a distressing thing to have happened. I'm guessing you must know the child (??). Obviously, all my sympathy to the poor child, and his family.

Agree with other posters. How did the teachers etc let this get so far? Disgraceful.

This is heartbreaking :(

It's hard to have any sympathy for the bullies or to want anything other for them than to experience an iota of pain that that boy and his family experienced.

But, we are a civilised society and that dictates that we try and rehabilitate these children.

I'm not sure that if it were my son that hung himself that I would be able to control my rage. I think I'd end up doing something regrettable.

yanbu. My ds is 11yrs and he threatened to kill himself last year after being badly bullied. When i pleaded with the bullies mum to get her ds to leave my son alone she laughed at me.

Therapy would be more use than counselling, surely?

Do you really think that at 10 a personality is completely formed and it's possible for someone to lack empathy to such a degree that they are actively malicious?

I don't know what I think but I really, really hope that this isn't the case :(

I've gone berserk at teens who threatened to batter my 6 year old on our street. They shit themselves and will never ever threaten one of my children again. My boys have been taught to come to me, not the teachers, if any bullying happens. I've seen the pussyfooting around before, where the bullies are pandered to and the victims ignored. That will never happen to my kids, I'd do fucking time first.

Oh elmofan :(

Fucking hell, my DS is three and honestly, reading this kind of shit makes me worry to the point of sleeplessness for when he gets to school.

How is your DS now? I hope things are better for him. I can't imagine that there's a more heartbreaking thing to hear your child say than they want to end their life.

I have no faith in schools what so ever to deal with even minor bullying, first sign of it we will be out of the system, nobody would stay in a place of work where you felt unsafe.

but people are NOT saying that the bullies must have desperately unhappy home lives

counselling isn't a form of emotional compensation for people who have unhappy lives

counselling in this context is about addressing a warped, unhealthy mentality and reprogramming, basically

a bully I know, for example, has a very happy home life. His mum, dad and sister are all just as odious as he is and they all seem very pleased with themselves. He has everything he wants

counselling for a child like that, if his behaviour was destroying other people's lives, would be about exploring the attitudes, assumptions, learned behaviours etc and trying to get him to see things differently, perhaps learn to empathise

I am not very articulate tonight, but I am trying to say that the perceived link between offering counselling and seeing the bully as a victim is a false one

I understood what you meant, Greensleeves.

After reading Elmofan and other posts, I've changed my mind. If anyone made my little angel want to kill himself, I'd want them breaking rocks in blistering sun.

"Do you really think that at 10 a personality is completely formed and it's possible for someone to lack empathy to such a degree that they are actively malicious?"

I have a ten year old and have seen the kind of girl she is/will be since she was 2.
I know people can change but none of mine have, the funny one was funny as a toddler, the serious one was a serious baby.
I look at the preschooler I know that lash out and they will still be doing that as teenagers in my experience and they have parents you know don't hit them or get physical with them.

yes me too

if anyone hurt my ds I would be a ball of blazing violent anger

but that's why it's not a good idea for the families of victims to b the ones who decide how the culprits are dealt with! IMO

I don't think a 10 yr wil stop, I have seen the girl up the road and the hell she has caused us and many others, and it was only the intervention of the police that finally stopped her(well she has stopped for now)

imo she needed to be punished, not just warned, same way these kids need to be punished(I am not talking prison/hanging ) but something to make them take notice,

I jsut think it wouldnt do the bullies any harm to be told, you lot are nasty little fuckers with nasty little minds.

I didnt know the boy personally (it happened 7 ish miles away from where I live) but know some of his family. He was related Mick Hucknall, some may have heard about it ?

It barely got a mention in the media, it happens so often these days

imo she needed to be punished, not just warned

Trouble is that's down to the parents who are usually just as bad as the kids.

I'm not sure, I think even kids as young as five/six have a fairly good understanding of right and wrong and by the time they are 10 I do not think you can just put it down to aving terrible upbringings or parents although that obviously has some bearing in many cases. But I also know of terrible bullies who come from priveledged homes and who have very devoted parents.

I think that recent cases of children abusing others or getting themselves into trouble at a young age need to be dealt with more seriously as the message is not getting across.

As the victim of bullies throughout my secondary school career, having thought on several occasions in my teens about committing suicide, and given that I am still struggling with the legacy of depression from the years of bullying, I have to agree with the OP.

But I can also see the need for children who have acted like this to be counselled and helped to turn their lives around. I think this is vital, if they are to be prevented from doing this again.

In my opinion, there needs to be both justice and help for these bullies. They have done wrong, and in my view, there should be consequences for that - and at 10 years old (if that's how old they are) children have been exposed to plenty of anti-bullying education in schools, so they should have some idea that what they are doing is wrong. So I believe in punishment and rehabilitation.

I say that as the victim of bullies, the parent of a victim of bullies - and I would be saying the same thing (and carrying it out too) if one of my dses was bullying another child.

Greeny the bully you have just described sounds exactly like the boy who has made my son so unhappy. He is spoiled rotten and had already been thrown out of two other schools before joinging my ds's school.
Cupcakes. ds is ok now thanks, he has suffered from. Panic attacks +a nervous tic since the bullying started two years ago but i had to threaten the school with legal action to get them to protect ds.

The satisfying thing, a lot of the time, is that karma wreaks revenge on these twats eventually anyway.

Through being able to soy on Facebook I know that three bitches from two years above me that made a lot of other girl's lives a misery have very shit lives now. I have a good life. There's no greater come-uppance than that.

There is an old spanish proverb which says the best revenge is to live well. It's true. Had as it may be to grasp when you're being bullied every day, holding your head up and doing well is the best revenge. That's what they don't want you to do.

*spy on FB

And they cover things up. My son was almost bullied at after school club, I phoned up and got told that the worker on duty wasn't aware and there was an insinuation it didn't happen. Well they soon changed their tune when I approached the childs dad and gave him a bollocking he'll never forget. There is no point pussyfooting around these useless shit parents. I don't care if the school thinks I'm a PITA. It takes them too long to react