Tim, I'm not sure what this particular piece of self-flagellation was about. I'm sorry to hear that you regret so deeply your childhood experiences. If it helps, I'm sure the targets you speak of can't even remember your name. I certainly can't remember more than one or two especially memorable bullies in the parade I encountered at school.

You say:"Childhood traumas are not easily overcome." which I say is nonsense. If you had said "childhood experiences are highly formative of our views into adulthood"eed wholeheartedly. Childhoos is the time we are developing. Every young mammal, bird, reptile, possibly even some fish, bullies others of its kind. It's a survival trait. If I eat more than you I grow faster, so I do my best to make you uncompetitive. In young humans it's also about learning the boundaries of behaviour. Part of that is learning that one may not use physical means of negotiation and part of it is learning how to deal with those who are unreasonable.

If it makes you feel better, your targets are probably better, more resilient people because of you. Well done.

Thank You for this article.
And for being able to both admit
that you did bullying, but mostly
for seeing that it was wrong to doso.

We can never know the full consequences of
bullying actions. It's simplistic to say
"deal with it," to the victims. And "it
makes them stronger." Because we're not all
people are the same, and different people deal with
bullying differently. Some children can cope
but others - are more
vunerable and fragile/ You never know who
you're dealing with. As we can tell
from the rate of suicides that have occurred
even with teenagers - who were bullied relentlessly
at school.

I can still recall a young boy who
lived a few doors down from us. He was a lovely
teenager, but a bit "slow," (for want of a better word).
Anyway, one afternoon, coming home from school, we
saw the police outside this boy's home. Later we
learned that he'd been bullied all year at school,
and his mother had come home this particular afternoon
to find the boy in their garage.
He'd hanged himself.

Lexi:"As we can tell
from the rate of suicides that have occurred
even with teenagers - who were bullied relentlessly
at school. "

Just what is that rate? I can recall about 3 or 4 cases, mostly involving teenagers with little family support and emotional/social deficiencies of one sort or another. Normal children don't do it, it seems to me.

You've given an example of a kid who could have done with being given more support from parents, butIi went to a boarding school where bullying was not just rife and severe, but it was essentially condoned by the school. My parents were over 2000km away and they basically had given my care to the school anyway. I don't believe there's been a case of anyone at the school taking their own life in the 100-odd years it's been in existence.

What you advocate is bound to lead to young people being left with no resources to cope with bad experiences - resilience. Part of that resilience comes from the knowledge that bad experiences will end. If one has never had a genuinely bad experience as a child, when most bad experiences in our Western society are pretty minor, then one has no frame of reference for worse examples.

My son had a bad experience in his last year at primary school, involving a whispering campaign started by a friend he had a falling out with. He was very distraught, since it developed as these things sometimes do into his being effectively sent to Coventry, for no reason other than this rather silly primary school rumour mill.

His mother approached the school against my advice and the principal spoke to the children involved. As expected, the campaign got worse.

The whole time, I had been telling him not to worry, it will blow over and lo and behold, about 3-4 months after it started, the primary school attention span could no longer hold itself fixed on my boy and so he had his friends back.

Funnily enough, after a few weeks he dropped them all...

He'd become resilient.

Lexi, I just looked up that rate you mentioned. apparently, according to the ABS, the rate of suicide among teenager males is 9 per 100,000. Among teenage girls it is 3 per 100,000. It seems unrealistic to assume that all of these were caused by extended and virulent bullying.

Once again, you're trying to impose an unreasonable constraint on the vast mass of people because a few have been disadvantaged in your eyes.

I'll bet you still drive a car, yet there are far more children killed by cars every year than take their lives. Surely even one death is too many and we should ban cars immediately?

Dear Antiseptic,

What I am saying is that bullying is wrong and
should not be tolerated. There are better ways
to make children "resilient." As for statistics -
I'm sure that the children who committed suicide
are not statistics to their families. The example
of the child that I gave - was very loved by his
family and supported in every way. However as I
explained not everyone is the same - some people
are more fragile than others. Some people can cope,
others cannot. You can't make sweeping generalisations
when it comes to people. We are all individuals.
You of course are entitled to your opinion. As I am
to mine - however it does not make you right or me
wrong or vice-versa. We're simply seeing things
from different perspectives. And they are merely our
opinions.

Cheers.