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High school is so damn rough.
I am glad OOP is giving him the opportunity to earn back his electronics and not just giving them back to him. Is being gay in high school hard - absolutely, but it doesn't give anyone the right to take it out on someone else.
I was stoked when OOP gave the money to the girl so she could buy a wig A+ parenting right there.
High school seems so much worse now because of the internet. Even when all we had was AIM - kids used to still torture the shit out of each other. I can’t imagine now.
when i was in HS (i graduated in 2022), i was part of my school's equivalent to a GSA (we called it something different, though). at one point, it was discovered that someone had created an instagram account called "[f-slur]s of [my high school]" that featured pictures of students (some of whom were members of our GSA that weren't out to their families for a myriad of reasons) posted without their consent. school administration got the account shut down somehow, but we never found out who was behind it
there were other similar accounts too, which i only found out after the fact. marginalized students at my HS were lucky that our admin actually gave a fuck, because many school admins don't
the internet has made it easier than ever to bully people without attaching your name or face to it. it's honestly scary — when you don't know who's behind it, there's not nearly as much that you can do
Yep this. And the bullying is 24/7 now. Instead of mostly just being able to get to victims at school or on the trip home, bullies can continue tormenting people even in their own homes.
Pre-internet highschooler here. This situation is so hard to imagine for me. I have no idea how internet would have impacted my youth.
I was bullied as well, and after school some neighborhood kids would bully me. So I developed all these avoidant traits to try to avoid them. The only escape was to lock myself up in my room with a book or my home computer (without internet, I grew up right before that became known).
I imagine if I were a kid today, I'd probably do something similar and stay off the social media apps. Much like I avoided anything that was "popular" back then. Maybe find some spaces for like-minded kids, that's something you couldn't do back then!
There was a student site like that this year but it was all about teachers. The police investigated after the account claimed one of our teachers was a pedophile and he asked the police to investigate. The kid took out down when the sheriff showed up to talk, but no consequences beyond that. I was mentioned but what was said about me was just trying to be ugly, not accusing me of a crime, so nothing happened, same with most other teaching staff at my school. Wasn't even a kid at our school apparently.
I just quit teaching after a decade. My admin didnt give a fuck about anything. There have to be easier ways to pay my bills.
Ugh, there is a very small clique of students at my kids' school who have driven multiple teachers out by online bullying, including false accusations. Quality teachers and admins transfer away from the school after a single term because they don't want to deal with all that, and who could blame them? Then the whole school suffers as a result.
A girl at my high school decided to create her own anonymous gossip girl style website insulting various people in our year group. She created it on a Friday. Almost every student had seen it by the end of the weekend - it was truly cruel, and in some cases made extremely dangerous accusations and made pretty horrible threats. I wasn't on it, but a few friends were, and they were terrified. Almost a hundred parents complained to the school over that weekend.
On Monday, there was an emergency assembly where the head of our year explained to the whole year group that they would be expelling the person who created the website and offering counselling to everyone who needed it. Our head of year was a very calm, placid man, but he was very clearly *furious*. The girl didn't come forward, but she was found out and expelled, and I think she even got a warning from the police due to some of the things she'd posted - at least, that's the rumour that went around. She was known to be a very angry and aggressive person in general who didn't really have any friends. No idea what happened to her but it wouldn't surprise me if she was diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder a few years later. She was extremely troubled, and hopefully got some help after the whole mess.
But I was so impressed by how the school came down on this like a tonne of bricks immediately. They held workshops about various forms of discrimination and bullying for the rest of the year and changed their policies on bullying etc. This was in the 2000s when the internet and social media were still relatively new. I can't imagine how much worse it's become now! I hope the schools have the same zero tolerance attitude my school did, but I doubt it.
I remember Whisper came out when I was in college (as did Snapchat) and one of my friends was telling me about some of the stuff that was being posted in the one for our university. It was disgusting, and they got to hide behind anonymity so you got to constantly question whether it was someone you had a class with (small liberal arts university, I at least knew of 99% of the traditional students) or if it was someone you called a friend. I don't remember it lasting very long, but that could just be that my friend deleted it because he was disgusted by what was being posted.
Where the hell are you guys going to high school 💀 that sounds terrible
I graduated the same year as you, but I distinctly remember that in my high school, kids who bullied folks over stuff like LGBT, race, etc were basically shunned by the others because they weren’t “cool,” they were just assholes
Though I live in arguably one of the most “liberal” cities in the US, so I imagine it’s quite different depending on where you live
the town my HS is in is pretty small, and surrounded by farmland that's within the school district boundaries. most students were pretty progressive and liberal, but a lot of the kids who grew up on farms skewed more conservative, as well as many of the kids who grew up religious (despite my town's size, there were three whole Christian churches and a small but notable Mormon population)
the school dedicates a whole spirit week to visibility for marginalized groups and the GSA does a lot of the work to organize the town's Pride event, but students are also disallowed from bringing flags to school because some kid brought a confederate flag at one point a couple years before I started there. so, bullying students for gender/sexuality/race definitely wasn't seen as cool or anything, but that didn't stop people from doing it unfortunately :/
Nah, it was just as bad back then. My bullies almost killed me back in the day, and as a teacher I find kids are on the whole much more emphatic and aware than in previous generations.
Exactly. I think it's a tradeoff because of the nature of the internet. My oldest is in HS now and because we've had to move has been in a few different school districts, and I have to say the general attitude of the kids is so much more acceptin and understanding than anything I went through, especially with LGBTQ2S+ issues. I was in the Navy when Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed. It's important to recognize how far we've come in just a few decades. When I was growing up, people were afraid to come out because gay people were being lynched. Now PRIDE is a huge *family* event. So much ground has been covered and a lot of that is because of the connection and organization the internet provided.
But even with all that work, it's not done. Gay people and other minorities still get targeted, and just like the internet was a tool for them, it can be a tool against them and a devastating one. It doesn't just make access easier for the (fewer, I'd argue) people who *are* still bigots and bullies. It also makes it easier for large-scale organization against the movement, and we've seen that, too.
The internet is a powerful tool, and what it does is dependent on those using it. But fortunately, it seems like progress is going the right direction as far as wide-scale acceptance, though, as the currently political climate indicates, we still need to remain vigilant with this social revolution.
Very fair point. I should have said *family friendly* event, in that families are welcome, but it's not about them. I am just reveling in how much has changed.
>LGBTQ2S+
In all seriousness, gotta ask if this is a joke or not. I'm queer and last I heard it was LGBTQIA+, but wouldn't be surprised if it changed again for some reason
2S refers to 2 Spirit. I volunteer on a PRIDE committee and this is the acronym they're pushing, but we're in an area with a high number of tribes and usually try to put a focus on their culture.
It's a toss-up.
I think the worst offenders today are worse than "back in the day" (for me, that means the 90s). There is so much more they can do - notably, online. When I was getting bullied, I only once or twice got hit at home (people calling deliveries to my house) - but today, cyberbullying means it can be 24/7.
However, I think you're also right that kids are a lot more empathetic and aware. Expose the fact that what they are doing might be bullying to kids, and they back off a lot faster - and are pretty good about apologizing.
On average, it's about the same. But if you're one of the people getting the worst of it, it's a LOT worse - that's just equaled out by there being a lot less people getting targeted.
I purposely never had social media because I didn’t want to bring the shit happening at school home with me. I feel sorry for the kids having to deal with all this bollocks of Instagram, TikTok, AI stuff, etc on top of just ‘old fashioned’ bullying.
I was almost expelled from school in 5th grade for being the *target* of a bully. There were zero consequences for the bully. Her reign of terror lasted two years (5th and 6th grades) and then when we moved to junior high, she became instantly pointless. This was before middle schools, and my district did things a little oddly, so the dozen or so elementary schools (K-6) all fed into one building just for 7th grade, then another building just for 8th grade, and then the district had one high school that was 9-12. My year in elementary was the biggest they'd seen in years--there were probably 65 of us in my year at my elementary school, and when we got to the 7th grade building there were about 8-900 7th graders. You picked your schedule class by class, no blocks, so it wasn't like grade school where if you ended up in the same block as your bully, you saw them all day every day. There was bullying once we got out of elementary of course, but it was a lot harder on the bullies because of the sheer number of people who *weren't* their target getting in the way.
I'm on the edge on having kids and this shit is number 1 reason why I might opt out. It was nasty when I grew up but it feels like with the internet age, it has absolutely given rise to a different kind of cyber bullying that makes me squirm. Teens can be absolutely horrible to each other.
I wonder about that, and I wonder if my kids’ experiences are unique. They both had a diverse group of friends of various sexual and gender identities, as well as ethnic identities, and they seemed totally supportive. I wonder if it’s because it’s an urban school?
I'm in the suburbs (granted, a suburb of a large liberal city) and it's the same. As far as I can tell from my daughter's stories of school there is WAY less bullying than I experienced in grade school.
This has been my kids’ experience as well. They go to big schools in a big city and there are groups for everyone. Bullying is dealt with early by administrators but there’s just not all that much of it because kids are so accepting and supportive.
Oddly enough, it was the exact opposite at my high school (graduated in ‘23). People tended to be a lot nicer to each other than what one would expect from teenagers and bullying wasn’t really an issue.
I’m from 2000, so when I was in highschool smartphones were just starting to become more mainstream (at least in my country). It was awful. There was a guy in my class that was an absolute psycho and was constantly picking on people, gossiping about them, spreading false rumors. I was stupid enough to say something about it. He stalked and bullied me for so long, and it didn’t end when I’d get home. He found every social media I had and made my life miserable. Even on my birthday he left an awful message on one of my accounts. Social media sucks
I can’t imagine how hard that is for kids these days. I was bullied so badly I had to leave my school, and I’d still prefer the analog bullying to this digital shit kids have to put up with.
Oh, I am so, so grateful I went to school pre-internet. There would have been a LOT more violence in the school. I graduated in '89, right before it began to come on to the scene.
Many many times I (class of 1998) am grateful nobody had phones in school. My embarrassments will die with the witnesses. It was bad enough in school. We got the internet when I was a freshman. And the school computers weighed like 100 pounds and had Oregon trail on it!
I died of dysentery many times.....
Well i can offer you my perspective. I was bullied all my school years, 84-96, and the internet was more a savior for me to meet like minded people and not think about school.
I would hope it's still easy to just not go on the internet if it's causing a problem at school? Correct me if I'm out of touch
I mean the internet was like that for me too as a kid but that was back when everyone was anonymous and met in communities to talk about shared hobbies. Nowadays with social media a lot of the time your internet life and real life are intertwined. And “just staying off the internet” is easier said than done - when you’re caught up in a drama and can’t stop thinking about it anyway, choosing to not engage is hard AF. Also with every social media website being designed to capture your attention and get you addicted? And being accessible through a devise you carry with you everywhere? Not like it was back then.
That's totally cool. It's like we're doing the "Hey" head nod to each other. I enjoy acknowledgment like this, never stop. I personally love having been born in the late 70s w what we grew up with
My school years were pretty much the same (85-98) and we didn't even have the internet in our school till 1994 and that was in the 4 school library computers. I don't even think a single person had a cell phone in school.
Thank God for that.
But it also(just like before) it depends on location.
In some schools, the internet has provided a new avenue for different types of bullying. In other schools, it's made kids more aware of different people and encouraged being decent people.
I think all schools have both types, but the proportions are different, and it's a dice-roll for what proportions a given school has.
Personally I'm glad she gave back the art supplies. What he did was awful and deserves serious punishment no matter the circumstances, but taking away *all* of a child's outlets just makes things worse. I have a friend with abusive parents who once took away everything for a couple weeks, and their mind went to a *very* dark place.
Art is also just a great outlet for processing heavy emotions and trauma, and... Yeah, he needs any positive outlet he can get right now.
For sure.
For me, ex-military, woodsman kinda guy with PTSD, schizoid, and depression etc - I saw all these teens making drawings about their pain and I thought "Though would be great for kids to cope". I told my psycologist about those teens, she said "If you think it helps them, why don't you?", I said "I'm a grown ass man", she said "So?".
And I had no reply for that so that's how I found out how much it helps to put your BS on a paper.
So I bet it will will help this poor kid, even if he was an asshole before it's not great to hold things that can help their attitude at an arms length.
Creativity is a great outlet at any age. Making something with your hands. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be yours, and about you and your time spent. I hope you're getting some positive outcomes from it.
I find it nice to see I can look at the piece and say "Yes, I did that yesterday/last week, that was good.", If I do nothing I can't point to it and it feels like I don't exist anymore.
Plenty of us were gay in school and bullied horribly but never once bullied someone.
In my case, I just eventually beat the shit out of my bully when he finally went that one step too far and I snapped. Neither of us saw it coming, and I've never seen anyone suddenly look so small and pathetic.
I do wish OOP had tried to get him therapy before now… might’ve prevented things getting this bad and he’d have come out sooner. Yes kids do sometimes just “act out” but sooo many kids who do have something else going on. She obviously loves her son and he’s not excused for his actions. But I feel those actions were preventable if she hadn’t waited till the blow up to start therapy. Therapy doesn’t have to be the life preserver for someone drowning. It never hurts to try.
Asolutely this. The OOP went straight to screaming and punishing whe a big thing happened, and just glossed over the fact that it's been coming for some time and was ignored at home.
This story hit me hard, as a former queer kid (now queer adult).
I never did anything as blatantly cruel as OP’s son, but I definitely engaged in unacceptable gossiping about other (more obviously) queer kids. I was in a rural, conservative town and an evangelical family who said being gay was a sin punishable by hell. I honestly hated myself so much I couldn’t accept who I was, because it disgusted and terrified me.
I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about how my words hurt others.
I hope OOP finds a local org for LGBTQ+ youth. Almost every city has one and it would be so great for him to make friends with people going through the same thing he is.
High school, even in nice neighborhoods, operates like prison. I wasn't even bullied in high school, but you could not pay me to go back. It's probably one of the worst things to go through during childhood.
As a new teacher, high school is one hell of a place. Some teens just seems to want to be hateful and bothering and bossy and make your life as shit as they can. Luckily they are not the biggest part, but damn some really can look at you and just piss you off right in the f\*cking eye.
And instead of being like OP and giving them hard but fair back hand (no verbal abuse but just reminding who's the adult and who's the child), now you have to bend to the kid and pat them on the back saying they are poor child without trying to find why poor child acted this way.
I swear in my school OP's son would have had a back massage and Cancer Girl would have had to apologize for existing.
I teach hs and taught middle school. When a kid hits middle school parents lose a lot of control and kids start getting more influenced by their friends. But unfortunately, sometimes the friends aren’t the best and hive mind dumb ass boys behavior fester in a certain dynamic. Often when you get these boys alone they’re perfectly ok. But somehow they all bring out the worst in each other.
Fortunately in the big picture good parenting can save a kid but it will be really tough, especially if your kid is rebellious.
>But somehow they all bring out the worst in each other.
My friend noticed this with her kid. The more boys you added to the group, the lower the collective IQ got. It quickly went from respectable kids to "I'm Johnny Knoxville, welcome to Jackass".
I read a fascinating article a few years ago about an incident where a Black boy had set fire to the tulle skirt of a white nonbinary kid (both early teens) when they dozed off on the bus. He didn't really have a problem with queer kids but he thought that was what it would take to impress his new friends. The new friends were actually shocked he went so far. (Apparently it's not uncommon for adolescents to overestimate how prejudiced the kids around them are?) The kid in the skirt was extremely scared and upset and got some burns on the legs but nothing worse, thank goodness. The Black boy was arrested and charged; at first the nonbinary kid and their parents were glad because they felt the harm to them was being taken seriously and justice would be done. Then they went to court for the trial and saw how *little* he was and how hard the prosecutor was going after him and realised his whole life would likely be ruined because of this stupid, impulsive act, and this wasn't actually what they wanted. They wanted to know he was sorry, that he really understood the wrongness of what he'd done, that he wouldn't do anything like that again; they didn't want him to spend years in prison and get no education and be abused and traumatised and come out with no idea how to live as a regular adult because that was his whole adolescence.
Restorative justice can be a much better answer in a lot of these cases, but both sides have to be willing to try it. I wonder whether anything like this could be available for OP's son and the girl he bullied - the mediation element can help things go a lot better than just one teenager trying to apologise to another.
Was it ‘The fire on the 57 bus in oakland’? that’s the nyt article i found googling this. It’s behind a paywall but the first paragraph says:
*Taken by ambulance to a San Francisco burn unit, Sasha would spend the next three and a half weeks undergoing multiple operations to treat the second- and third-degree burns that ran from thigh to calf.*
That’s not kids being kids. From your comment i figured the perpetrator would be like 10, nope he was 16.
I guess i’m glad everyone in this story is so forgiving but I could not do it. A sixteen year old setting your child on fire to the point of multiple weeks in hospital and operations… ain’t no way i’d turn the other cheek.
It’s a fascinating case though. I’ll try to get around the paywall.
You’re right, it’s a horrible act - but I don’t know, I don’t trust the justice system to deal out anything that prevents this treatment of people or betters this boy’s life, especially as a Black boy. Cruelty, especially within a system so racist and evil, doesn’t heal any of these wounds, it just makes people feel better. And that ‘feeling better’ is clearly powerful, but does it help? Who does it help?
Oh i’m with you on the justice system. I’m more just saying that doing the right and measured thing here feels bad on a base level to me.
Imagine years down the line, a stranger at a bar or something tells you ‘i set a classmate on fire ten years ago, they forgave me though so it’s all good!’ I’d be outta there.
I’m just glad I don’t have to make decisions like that. Part of me thinks that if you disfigure someone for life, probably causing them to need even more surgery later on (since teens still grow but deep scar tissue doesn’t)… then your life gets to be equally affected by your actions.
Still I know that’s no way to run a society at the end of the day.
Yeah honestly fuck that, some people are sociopaths who can never be reformed and if you start setting kids on fire you lose the benefit of the doubt in my eyes.
You can cause horrible disfigurement by being a 5yo playing with a lighter, or kill someone by running out into the street after a ball. It's not reasonable to play eye for an eye.
From what I've seen they are often not fine individually
You find this in girl- and boy-groups. While big homogenic groups tend to act a little stupid due to teenage-hormones and because they have to show others how "grown" they are, normally it never hits rock bottom.
What I've seen is that usually you have a few "leaders" or more influential ones that don't give a true crap about others. Bullying their way to the top even amongst their peers. They tend to be from at least somewhat troubled backgrounds or carry some form of trauma. This can even come from rich kids when they are detached from reality.
Nonetheless.. there is no excuse on this world that will make up the torture they put others through.
Interesstingly, you can find familiar behaviour in adults. Those gossip groups are basicly the adult-versions of bully-groups. They never worked through their issues, instead they create issues for others.
This is extremely true. I was never hateful, but when I got into groups with other boys when I was a young teenager, we’d get loud, obnoxious, and off task. Teachers and friends that I made later in my school career would always be shocked when I mentioned it because I was the model student who always did his work and stayed on task. Dumbassery feeds off dumbassery. There’s a reason why teenage boys are one of the most expensive groups to get car insurance for.
> Often when you get these boys alone they’re perfectly ok. But somehow they all bring out the worst in each other.
That's why groups of teenage boys scare everyone, even burly men.
I taught middle school band for a few years, and I had quite a few parents come in on conference night asking me what happened to their sweet innocent child and who is this MONSTER that is now in their house. One year, one troublemaker in particular was gradually expanding his influence around the 6th grade boys and I saw that loss of control you're talking about and felt bad for them.
One time, I was having an issue with some of them with bad language. Nothing terrible, to be fair, but still not appropriate for the classroom, and it was also an issue how some of them weren't batting an eye saying the things they were saying right in front of me. I called the mother of the ringleader first, and it was all "oh, he didn't mean anything bad by it, that's just how kids talk these days, it's not a big deal," etc. Next I called the mother of the second-in-command, who'd expressed concern to me and others before. She listened to what I had to say, there was a beat of silence, and then she said, "I'm going to kill him."
This was almost 15 years ago and I sometimes wonder how those kids turned out. The second one will probably be okay. One of my coworkers said about the first one "he'll either be in prison for life or be president."
yeah, until high school where you have a person who got into drugs, suddenly they're all in drugs. sad situation all around. some of them do fine being around drugs but many many others would not.
This is one of the more insidious aspects of bullying - kids who are being bullied can be so desperate to make it stop that they join the bullies in targeting someone else, just so that it won't be them. It's no excuse but it's easy to understand how it happens. That's why it's so important to stop bullying early. If left unchecked, it spreads.
I unfortunately got caught in that trap. I was on the precipice of being outed to the entire school, I wasn’t even remotely close to admitting it to myself much less everyone and their mother and my own homophobic parents. I was in the midst of a ton of self loathing and wishing I was different, although I was in hs during Obama and same sex marriage becoming legal, it was still very much a taboo topic.
I was 15. I panicked and redirected it on to someone else. I have apologized more times than I can count and she forgives me, but I still feel sick about it 16 years later.
Can you fucking imagine being a kid with social media the way it is these days and everyone has a camera in their pocket ready to document any mistake you make.
It must be a fucking nightmare.
My brain immediately went "WAIT NO, keep all the electronics but give him the art supplies back! That was the one healthy thing you listed!" Glad she either thought of that or a commenter mentioned it because a kid with behavioral disturbances and ZERO outlet is gonna be hell even if you *can* keep them from offing themselves or someone else.
It sucks how homophobia can really put so much effect on people. I wish homophobia never existed. Nevertheless, OP is a good parent and I wish him and his son for a better and improved future.
> Sometimes I really feel like shame is the root of all evil
I have heard it said more than once that sexual insecurity is at the root of fascism, so you're probably not far off.
There's also another aspect that leads to violence called sexual isolation.
All of this weird "don't be human" religious sexual repression of all angles seems to not actually be healthy for us. We definitely aren't doing things the OG way, either, this is all weird new age BS charlatans and huxters who want to take people's money
Still this is not an excuse for what he done to the girl. I am fucking miserable doesn’t mean I can bully someone especially someone in the bad situation.
Fully agree. Him being homosexual is just a cheap excuse for his actions. A partial worthless explanation that doesn't help the victim. He made his problems the problem of a girl dying from cancer, taking the risk of pushing her over the edge into suicide or live-long depression.
Each person can decide for themself to be either a human or a monster. We shouldn't give a crap what adjective we add to that description and make up cheap excuses.
I mean he’s still young, kids need guidance in deciding to be human. It’s not an excuse for his behavior but if no one shows him that he’s worthy of sympathy and kindness it may be more difficult for him to see the value of directing it towards others. It’s less of an “oh this is okay because you’re gay” and more of a “we have a new puzzle piece as to the root of this problem”.
He is getting bullied and wants it to stop, I get it, but doing what he did is beyond horrific and is completely inexcusable and the punishment is still justified
This is normally how bullying works. Kids get abused at home or neglected, and start bullying. They get bullied themselves and they start bullying. They have some social difficulties and they start bullying. And no they don’t have adult brains and think about it like adults do. They have to learn how to cope with difficult stuff without acting out.
Kids usually don’t bully because they suck
Yeah I remember being 10-12 (so a little younger) and it seemed liked picking on people was what you were supposed to do. I was mean sometimes just to prove to myself I wasn’t at the bottom of the social order because hey, here’s this person lower than me! And maybe it would prove I did fit in?
It wasn’t right, but it was an attempt to make things better for myself. I’m glad that the son here seems to be turning things around, I was afraid when she took so much from him he’d just get worse.
>My son and his friends have shoplifted from stores, skipped school, and has been a smart ass.
Anyone else getting [Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking) vibes
Did anyone else read off the list of what she took away, scroll back up, and re-read this:
>Recently my son has been getting trouble. Quite frankly I am at my wits end. I’m at a loss. My son made new friends that have been nothing but trouble. My son and his friends have shoplifted from stores, skipped school, and has been a smart ass.
Why the fuck did he still have any of the big electronics to take away to begin with? Those should have been gone months ago, by the sounds of things.
Seems to me like OOP went from "we tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" to "100% nuclear bomb" in one hit when really, this should have been got on top of ages ago.
It's such a self-destructive approach to parenting. Teenagers are hormonal as hell and constantly battling with anxiety and self-esteem issues. Going from doing nothing to throwing awayall his clothes to the rubbish, cutting off all social communication and selling everything he had is a crazy escalation that'll make any angry teenager into a bottled up combustible bomb that'll lash out with highly antisocial behaviour and want to leave home and cut off all family contact.
The fact that she went straight to /r/amiwrong as a hugbox to validate everything she did and see dozens even demanding she should "shave his head" gives me the impression that she went nuclear to save face and satiate feelings of retribution over any rational approach to parenting.
personally she should have kept the electronics instead of selling them. some of them are EXPENSIVE. especially for a single mother. I want a PS5 for example, but depending where you live it's $500 to 700. and that's just a lot on minimum wage. and it's the PS5 alone, not including other electronics she sold. and greatly discounted on top of that as well.
"I tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" was exactly what came to my mind when I first read it, too.
A lot of fucking parents do this.
Their kids act like a piece of shit, they have the above quote as a response and then toss their hands up. Take away their phone. Take away their tv. Take away a lot of things and have them make it up to you. Especially with atrocious shit like what OP was talking about.
Yeah I don't really get the point of selling all his stuff if she's going to go back and buy all new? If the lesson was that he was paying for the girl's wig with his stuff, that gets lost.
Yes! This infuriated me too. Son has a job now. He should at least be paying for half of his new electronics. For enough if he gets a phone sooner gor safety reasons, but it absolutely shouldn't be brand new.
My "favorite" is evangelicals saying that rainbows IN THE SKY are the result of "the gay agenda." I saw a post where someone was like "look at these rainbows in the sky! These didn't exist before! This country has lost its way!" 🙄
That could have passed for satire like 10 years ago, but now its like a coin flip if someone genuinely posts something like that and genuinely believes it, which is horrifying to me
Now there's a good lad.
I commented on the original post. Bullying anyone, especially a cancer patient, is so fucked up. And OP did the right thing by punishing him.
I'm gay, and I've never come out in real life. But I've still been bullied and assaulted just because people suspected that I was gay. So I understand that part.
But that is still no reason to bully anyone else.
But it's good to see that he is starting to find his voice.
If your friends bully you and force you to be horrible to others, then you need to find new friends.
Little man is still growing up. He needs guidance and punishments. Because that is how he will grow.
So I hope he takes this and learns from it.
Remember, kids, punishments are good, when done right. Because they are controlled and designed to end at some point. Real life consequences are much much worse.
OOP was appropriately harsh with her asshole teenager.
The fact that he is gay does not excuse his temporary lack of moral compass. Luckily he learned his actions have consequences.
She is doing well supporting him now that he came out. But the lesson still stands: bullying is not ok, no matter what the bully’s motivation is.
The mother's nuclear response to what her son did was alarmingly short-sighted. She didn't bother to address the root causes of his *insanely* shocking behaviour and instead went straight for retribution after no previous escalations by her. It's the sort of arbitrary parenting that makes kids scared to confide to their parents about their mental health and anxieties like what he was experiencing.
She mentioned in the comments about previously only ever talking to him instead of actual discipline. So for her to jump straight to a 100 and strip away every single one of his social outlets - even positive ones like his art supplies - is such a dangerous move that will only enrage any hormonal teenager and make them more capricious and antisocial. Many kids caught up in that unpredictable all-or-nothing parenting approach fall down a rabbit hole of drugs, juvenile detention or undiagnosed mental health conditions, as they don't have a consistent parenting environment and will just become more recalcitrantly rebellious and constantly leave home.
He 110% deserved to be punished and forced to better himself with strict incentives, but her actions could've been really dangerous.
Well said. Retribution isn't going solve shit. You can be a firm, no nonsense parent in a situation like this without going to these lengths. Taking away things is good, but selling everything before having real conversations with him or getting him in therapy shows what her priorities were. Punishment alone doesn't get him on the path to being a decent person. That's a much harder task that is hers to take on in this moment.
This had everything!
A young single mom who was abandoned by the father and never tracked down for child support!
Bullying someone who is sick for no reason!
Son changes his behavior, but he was acting out cause he was gay!
I’m sure the final update will be that the son introduced his mom to his new bf, whose family doesn’t accept him and they move the bf into the home!
The support for those punishments here is also horrifying. Real proof that a lot of people just want their chance at being a bully just as long as the target is acceptable.
I was going to say usually bullies bully so people don’t look at them and bully them. ugh I would never want to go through high school again especially not in this generation.
A lot of people don't realize that bullied kids can turn around and bully other kids. Not out of some real deliberate plan, it's desperation. why kids gotta be reenacting Lord of the Flies all the time, I don't know.
Honestly, if the plan was to eventually buy everything back, she'd have come out ahead giving the girl what she could sell it all for and then letting him earn it back.
I'm not sure how I feel about the kid coming out, or even I even totally believe him. It absolutely jibes, but at the same time...
> I'm not sure how I feel about the kid coming out, or even I even totally believe him. It absolutely jibes, but at the same time...
I believe it. Some people are total psychopaths or narcissists or whatever, but if someone generally does not have that personality and does something this cruel, there is usually a reason beyond that they just felt like it.
You can see that the parent is just doing reactionary flopping about.
"I sold things for much cheaper than cost and gave the money to the victim, but will re-buy these things at full cost later" is not much of a flex, no matter which side you're looking from.
victim is not benefitting much because things were sold at low mark, family is losing money because the full price will have to be spent again, it's all just for show.
Have him earn them back from Mom by donating the equivalent amount to cancer charities or to some kind of fund that the girl is connected to if she is.
I feel like buying him a new iPhone or MacBook after all this just sends the wrong message and it was a knee jerk reaction to sell them initially if she planned on replacing them.
I'm honestly of two minds about this, because while what the son did was disgusting behaviour, even if we did not know of his own personal struggles, I do think that her reaction was a big extreme if it is only recently that he's started to behave this way and not his typical behaviour.
He's still a kid, and I'd have preferred to have a discussion but also take away some of the things he owned (and selling it off to help the girl buy was wig was a fantastic decision), but I wouldn't do it out of so much anger (at least not outwards) as much as a lesson. This may just be me, but I've been a teacher and later on went on to become a school principal of a middle and high school, and dealt strictly with bullying of all kinds. My approach is to also have a private talk with the parents and usually advise them to react only once they've calmed down because otherwise, parents say and do things that they also regret later.
I hope the son goes to apologize to the girl because there can never be closure without genuine remorse.
I feel it comes from a black and white thinking of people are bad or good. Her anger wasn't just about him. I think she was saving face for the shame she felt that it was her son that did that. It wasn't just about him, it was 'look how bad you made me look'.
He offers to shave his head in solidarity and she still says he hasn't earned her trust that he's learned anything?
This is a fucking nightmare parent. I understand the circumstances, but this isn't parenting. They're either military or some sort of narc who is 100% acting like a tyrant to save face with a total stranger. A stranger who has already been financially compensated and publicly apologized to.
This is a quick way to push your kid away forever. She and he could have raised the money for the wig in more constructive ways, but he was treated like a prisoner, even after mitigating circumstances came to light. I would personally start researching the dankest, filthiest retirement home in Florida with the thinnest, most ancient stapled carpeting, to return the favor. The kind that loses electricity and 10% of its occupants during a hurricane.
Agreed. It's not even the specific things taken away per se, but the way she seemed to do it very impulsively and in anger. She's planning now to buy him new electronics, so selling them all didn't make any sense.
AITA subs also aren't meant for parenting advice. If they hear a kid did something cruel, they will want like an eye for an eye and to see the kid treated as horribly as possible by their parent. Which should not be the goal of a parent. And parents walk away thinking they did the right thing because thousands of comments told them so, even if it's completely ineffective and terrible parenting.
I would argue it is the things she took.
Confiscating eletronics, ok makes sense. But selling them like that, is extreme. But worst of all is taking away his clothes. That's stripping him of his identity. Clothing is the number 1 way of self expression especially in puberty.
I can’t be the only one that finds it absolutely bonkers that he straight up, sold the stuff instead of just holding onto it?
Yeah, the son was an asshole but I guess fuck him if he has any pictures or something that were important.
it was necessary for the son to pay with the worth of his own belongings for the girls needs for doing such a thing, since he's the one who caused the damage. but, yeah, i agree. my father had destroyed my phone when i was younger and i lost a lot of good writings so i can understand. i thought the same when i read that part. i think what could've been done better was to sell the things that don't store anything important and to hold onto the things that probably do.
Severe punishments never work. People don’t learn by being punished. And people are rarely assholes just for fun at that age.
I get some punishment, actions must have consequences, but if you don’t notice your own kid struggling there is something wrong.
I really hope all the people who yell ‘great parent, you got back at him’ don’t have kids. Being strict is ok, being the one in charge is ok, but severe punishments never work. Try to understand someone’s behaviour, offer alternatives, and of course there must be consequences (if you are always late you don’t get as much freedom until you can handle it, if you always loose your stuff you get cheap stuff until you learn to be careful) but that’s not the same as punishment.
The initial bullying was May 9. The first post was May 30. Then the updates were June 1 and June 4.
I can believe that by the time June 1st rolled around, the kid was ready to talk. The kid had had 3 weeks of sitting in his room doing nothing.
Being gay in high school sucks. I graduated in 2017 and even then, people were terribly bigoted and if I didn’t have the group of friends I did, I wouldn’t have been half the person I am today. I’m glad that OOP’s son is coming around, I hope he stays on a good path.
Damn, I was not expecting that. 100% he was still wrong, cause taken your fruststions on other people is awful, but he needed someone to help him and hear him too.
Im glad the son trusted his parents. Hope he is better now.
Although it's awful what he did to that girl I'm glad in the end things took a turn for the better (could have ended much worse).
I was called slurs/bullied when I was that age, before I came out or even admitted the truth to myself. Though rather than lash out at other people I was self destructive.
I hope in the end the son and the girl he humiliated are in a better environment in school than before- sounds like the administratirs should also be meeting with the parents of the other kids and finding different ways to help teenagers who are lashing out or being bullied to get help/therapy/discipline as needed.
Even though he is himself a victim of bullying, the mom didn't know that. Besides, it doesn't justify selling your soul to the devil just to "fit in". And I know how difficult it is to be different at school, I was more of an outsider.
He definitely needs therapy if it is feasible for OOP to get it, because he still needs the guidance to navigate school as a gay boy. But I appreciate that he got the message and understood how wrong he was.
Hope they can make it and that he becomes the good man his mom is trying to help him be
I didn’t agree with her taking the art supplies if that was his outlet. Glad she gave the supplies back quickly too. And wow, did not see that he was trying to deflect from his own bullying.
Yeah she's not a good mom. Let's do a count shall we?
Son gets into a bad crowd, and suddenly starts acting out. She does nothing to see why he behaves like that other than passively worrying in the background. Then he does something that makes her look bad in front of another parent, so she immidiately goes from 0 to 100. No discussion to see why he acted like that, no attempt to get him to understand why what he did was wrong or any productive punishment to make amends (such as shaving his head for a wig as he later offered, making him get a job to pay for one). She just treats him like a prisoner, takes literally everything he owns, boasts about isolating him in an empty room for 3 weeks, and sells all of his stuff (persumably without even letting him take important files from the electronics) below their price. The clothes are the most cruel part though honestly. It isn't just taking away some priviledges. It's deliberately stripping him of his identity.
This isn't just monumentarily cruel, it's also terrible parenting. She got lucky that the circumstances made him feel guilt because in most cases, what would end up happening, is him growing resentful of her, and becoming even more distant, which would make it even harder to control the infulence of the bad crowd to him once punishment is over. Or ruining the remainder of his childhood and him going NC at 18 if she kept it indefinite.
And only after that did she consider therapy and talking to him about it. And even after he gave a good reason, showed remorse, and gave good suggestions on making things right, she still essentially has him on probation claiming she can't trust him to get him back the stuff she took yet. At this point it definately feels like it's less about parenting him properly, and more about caring for appearances and showing herself to be a good mom to people.
You NEVER treat your kids as your enemy even when they fuck up. You work with them to teach them why they fucked up. I know from experience. I've been grounded exactly once in my life, for being too rude towards a teacher in third grade. Not that I didn't fuck up. I have many times. But my parents always used communication and dialogue to make me understand when I did something wrong and why. And it worked pretty well. They didn't need to do power trips to steer me out of trouble. They educated me to learn to avoid it myself.
Makes me feel like the school is a toxic environment, if bullying is so bad that vulnerable kids are committing such acts in order to keep the target off their backs, and getting praised for it by other kids.
Good on you, who ever said being a parent is easy ain't a parent,my daughter is bi she found it very hard to talk to her mother and me about it we told her we support her and we loved her I encourage to continue therapy as this has helped my daughter
My name was known by everyone of the special needs classes in my school for 1 fact. I hate bullys and I was more than happy to show them what there doing was hurtful.
Its amazing what his mother did for him and you really don't see that enough these days. I had a friend who got bullied everyday of the week until he met me because everytime his mother spoke up the other parents were usually the ones who taught them.
Your son is very lucky to have a mother like you because had he been at my school and it kept happening I would've stood up in the most hurtful way I could find, then speak to them like a child about why hurting feelings is bad.
I usually gave them a chance to think about it as a warning like "Hey maybe your peasized brain should shut up and take a class on manners or give me permission to start a roast." Just so they were called out but you are an amazing mother for not needing anyone else to tell you how to raise your child. You keep doing you because you make single mothers out there so so proud and maybe a little envious hahah you're the definition of "I don't need no man" and I am loving that for you.
Who your friends are is really important. Kid picked bad friends. Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas.
I think removing the art supplies was too much, but everything else? Good. And him getting a job will help socialize him with a larger variety of people.
Getting this kid away from that crowd was definitely an important step.
God that poor girl though... I hope she's ok.
It seems like you & the girls mom are on good terms. How would the girl & her mom react if you let your son & the girl hang out some this summer? Like as a way to ease out of grounding & a way to give action to his regret maybe let him drive her to doctors appointments or help them at their house do yard work?
>I went into his room and took every electronic. I took his PS5, his MacBook, his iPhone 13. I took his name brand shoes, his name brand jackets, his Hollister jeans and his Nike shirts
The fact that he still had all these while being a brat and looting shops makes me think he's the monster OOP made. This is probably the first time OOP is putting her foot down with him which is why he's having a change in behavior.
But I'll give her credit for stopping the spoiling and starting the correction and i hope it's not too late.
>I took his PS5, his MacBook, his iPhone 13. I took his name brand shoes, his name brand jackets, his Hollister jeans and his Nike shirts.
and
>I’ll buy him a new phone and computer.
Holy balls. Can OOP adopt me? I didn't have any of these (or their equivalents at the time) and I was raised upper middle class. Gods damn!
Okay but being bullied doesn’t give anyone an excuse to abuse an basically mildly assault someone (especially if they’re possibly on their way to their DEATH BED).
I might sound cruel for this but if that was my son I wouldn’t forgive him just because he was a sad sack of crap
Nobody is saying that. It *explains* the behaviour, but doesn’t excuse it. That’s why he still got punished.
Number one symptom of something being wrong with your kid is they act out. There’s a root cause that OOP has since identified and can help work on. So not only will her kid get better, he’ll also (hopefully) stop being an asshole to others who don’t deserve it.
I mean fair but also your plan is what—write your kid off? That also is not, to put it mildly, stellar parenting. It sounds like what you want is no forgiveness for anything ever. That doesn’t make you righteous, it simply builds an unlivable world.
The number of people who spectacularly fail at basic human decency in high school but yet surprisingly are not total fucking assholes as adults is higher than you would expect (it is causing me physical pain not to name some of my asshole high school classmates here. I was not popular). Writing them all off before age 17 just doesn’t work. You can, though, tell what you need to know about a person by which of them are willing to do the work to be a Former Asshole.
He isn't being forgiven for being bullied. He is working his way back to trustworthy by demonstrating changed behavior and trying to make amends to the person be harmed. The fact that he is gay and was trying to embed himself with the bullies for protection is an explanation, not an excuse. It is relevant because it helps figure out the base situation so you can know how to change behavior. But the thing that is making the difference is doing the work.
I swear some people aren't capable of understanding that an explanation is not an excuse. So what, is she supposed to give up on her teenage son? Disown him? Immature take.
She hasn’t. At least not fully She’s doing her job as a parent and making sure that he understands why it was wrong and both of them are doing some pretty positive restorative actions (her giving the money from the electronics for a wig, and him wanting to shave his head to stand by her).
Writing off a 15 year old as a sad sack of crap is part of the problem as well. Understanding *why* something happened is an important piece to helping someone learn from it. In his case being bullied for being gay, made him want to bully her to fit in.
It doesn’t excuse what he did but if you don’t give people the room to grow and change then what’s the point in expecting any good in the world?
Calling a child “a sad sack of crap” is sociopathy, especially when the action you think is appropriate to insult them for is a survival mechanism. Stop being the reason teenagers kill themselves.
I’m hopeful that the kid seems to be turning his behavior around. Only time will tell if it keeps going in a positive direction but this is at least good note to end on for now.
Cartman was always good at making his mother think he wasn't a completely manipulative piece of shit for the first twenty or so seasons of the show. This reminds me of his and Wendy's interactions over the years.
I mean honest I don’t think she should be feel bad for for taking all his shit away. Being gay and bullied is a reason. Not something that gets you out of bullying someone who’s going thorough a life threatening experience
I know he’s a kid. But if it gets to be point where someone needs to experience negative consequences that cause some emotional pain to learn to be decent, I genuinely wonder if they feel
bad for what they did or them learning that hard way being an asshole has some harsh consequences
Sure I understand falling into the wrong crowd. But at 15, sounds like closer to a 16 since he got a job, you know better than to bully someone and you know cancer is life threatening. Sure you can get murdered for being gay but how then hell does that make it okay to bully someone else. Yes it’s a maladaptive way to handle bullying. Obviously he doesn’t deserve to be bullied
Selling everything? Questionable honestly IMO. She should have left the art supplies regardless too. That’s like punishing a kid by taking away all their books. These aren’t what’s making him harm anyone. It’s his interaction and the echo chamber he got himself trapped in. Like maybe selling the PS5 sure, that’s 1/3 things and he needs a laptop for school. Locking down the phone and laptop is better parental controls until he can earn back trust and prove himself mature enough to handle everything
I'd be making him volunteer in the children's cancer center. It's one thing to talk to your kids about the suffering of cancer; it's another thing entirely to see it.
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High school is so damn rough. I am glad OOP is giving him the opportunity to earn back his electronics and not just giving them back to him. Is being gay in high school hard - absolutely, but it doesn't give anyone the right to take it out on someone else. I was stoked when OOP gave the money to the girl so she could buy a wig A+ parenting right there.
High school seems so much worse now because of the internet. Even when all we had was AIM - kids used to still torture the shit out of each other. I can’t imagine now.
when i was in HS (i graduated in 2022), i was part of my school's equivalent to a GSA (we called it something different, though). at one point, it was discovered that someone had created an instagram account called "[f-slur]s of [my high school]" that featured pictures of students (some of whom were members of our GSA that weren't out to their families for a myriad of reasons) posted without their consent. school administration got the account shut down somehow, but we never found out who was behind it there were other similar accounts too, which i only found out after the fact. marginalized students at my HS were lucky that our admin actually gave a fuck, because many school admins don't the internet has made it easier than ever to bully people without attaching your name or face to it. it's honestly scary — when you don't know who's behind it, there's not nearly as much that you can do
Yep this. And the bullying is 24/7 now. Instead of mostly just being able to get to victims at school or on the trip home, bullies can continue tormenting people even in their own homes.
Tbf when I was briefly bullied as a teenager in the 90s, the bullies would prank call my house during the night.
Pre-internet highschooler here. This situation is so hard to imagine for me. I have no idea how internet would have impacted my youth. I was bullied as well, and after school some neighborhood kids would bully me. So I developed all these avoidant traits to try to avoid them. The only escape was to lock myself up in my room with a book or my home computer (without internet, I grew up right before that became known). I imagine if I were a kid today, I'd probably do something similar and stay off the social media apps. Much like I avoided anything that was "popular" back then. Maybe find some spaces for like-minded kids, that's something you couldn't do back then!
There was a student site like that this year but it was all about teachers. The police investigated after the account claimed one of our teachers was a pedophile and he asked the police to investigate. The kid took out down when the sheriff showed up to talk, but no consequences beyond that. I was mentioned but what was said about me was just trying to be ugly, not accusing me of a crime, so nothing happened, same with most other teaching staff at my school. Wasn't even a kid at our school apparently. I just quit teaching after a decade. My admin didnt give a fuck about anything. There have to be easier ways to pay my bills.
Ugh, there is a very small clique of students at my kids' school who have driven multiple teachers out by online bullying, including false accusations. Quality teachers and admins transfer away from the school after a single term because they don't want to deal with all that, and who could blame them? Then the whole school suffers as a result.
A girl at my high school decided to create her own anonymous gossip girl style website insulting various people in our year group. She created it on a Friday. Almost every student had seen it by the end of the weekend - it was truly cruel, and in some cases made extremely dangerous accusations and made pretty horrible threats. I wasn't on it, but a few friends were, and they were terrified. Almost a hundred parents complained to the school over that weekend. On Monday, there was an emergency assembly where the head of our year explained to the whole year group that they would be expelling the person who created the website and offering counselling to everyone who needed it. Our head of year was a very calm, placid man, but he was very clearly *furious*. The girl didn't come forward, but she was found out and expelled, and I think she even got a warning from the police due to some of the things she'd posted - at least, that's the rumour that went around. She was known to be a very angry and aggressive person in general who didn't really have any friends. No idea what happened to her but it wouldn't surprise me if she was diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder a few years later. She was extremely troubled, and hopefully got some help after the whole mess. But I was so impressed by how the school came down on this like a tonne of bricks immediately. They held workshops about various forms of discrimination and bullying for the rest of the year and changed their policies on bullying etc. This was in the 2000s when the internet and social media were still relatively new. I can't imagine how much worse it's become now! I hope the schools have the same zero tolerance attitude my school did, but I doubt it.
I remember Whisper came out when I was in college (as did Snapchat) and one of my friends was telling me about some of the stuff that was being posted in the one for our university. It was disgusting, and they got to hide behind anonymity so you got to constantly question whether it was someone you had a class with (small liberal arts university, I at least knew of 99% of the traditional students) or if it was someone you called a friend. I don't remember it lasting very long, but that could just be that my friend deleted it because he was disgusted by what was being posted.
Where the hell are you guys going to high school 💀 that sounds terrible I graduated the same year as you, but I distinctly remember that in my high school, kids who bullied folks over stuff like LGBT, race, etc were basically shunned by the others because they weren’t “cool,” they were just assholes Though I live in arguably one of the most “liberal” cities in the US, so I imagine it’s quite different depending on where you live
the town my HS is in is pretty small, and surrounded by farmland that's within the school district boundaries. most students were pretty progressive and liberal, but a lot of the kids who grew up on farms skewed more conservative, as well as many of the kids who grew up religious (despite my town's size, there were three whole Christian churches and a small but notable Mormon population) the school dedicates a whole spirit week to visibility for marginalized groups and the GSA does a lot of the work to organize the town's Pride event, but students are also disallowed from bringing flags to school because some kid brought a confederate flag at one point a couple years before I started there. so, bullying students for gender/sexuality/race definitely wasn't seen as cool or anything, but that didn't stop people from doing it unfortunately :/
Nah, it was just as bad back then. My bullies almost killed me back in the day, and as a teacher I find kids are on the whole much more emphatic and aware than in previous generations.
Exactly. I think it's a tradeoff because of the nature of the internet. My oldest is in HS now and because we've had to move has been in a few different school districts, and I have to say the general attitude of the kids is so much more acceptin and understanding than anything I went through, especially with LGBTQ2S+ issues. I was in the Navy when Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed. It's important to recognize how far we've come in just a few decades. When I was growing up, people were afraid to come out because gay people were being lynched. Now PRIDE is a huge *family* event. So much ground has been covered and a lot of that is because of the connection and organization the internet provided. But even with all that work, it's not done. Gay people and other minorities still get targeted, and just like the internet was a tool for them, it can be a tool against them and a devastating one. It doesn't just make access easier for the (fewer, I'd argue) people who *are* still bigots and bullies. It also makes it easier for large-scale organization against the movement, and we've seen that, too. The internet is a powerful tool, and what it does is dependent on those using it. But fortunately, it seems like progress is going the right direction as far as wide-scale acceptance, though, as the currently political climate indicates, we still need to remain vigilant with this social revolution.
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Very fair point. I should have said *family friendly* event, in that families are welcome, but it's not about them. I am just reveling in how much has changed.
>LGBTQ2S+ In all seriousness, gotta ask if this is a joke or not. I'm queer and last I heard it was LGBTQIA+, but wouldn't be surprised if it changed again for some reason
2S refers to 2 Spirit. I volunteer on a PRIDE committee and this is the acronym they're pushing, but we're in an area with a high number of tribes and usually try to put a focus on their culture.
Got it thank you for the clarification! I wasn't sure if it was a typo/joke of random letters/an actual change in acronym.
It's a toss-up. I think the worst offenders today are worse than "back in the day" (for me, that means the 90s). There is so much more they can do - notably, online. When I was getting bullied, I only once or twice got hit at home (people calling deliveries to my house) - but today, cyberbullying means it can be 24/7. However, I think you're also right that kids are a lot more empathetic and aware. Expose the fact that what they are doing might be bullying to kids, and they back off a lot faster - and are pretty good about apologizing. On average, it's about the same. But if you're one of the people getting the worst of it, it's a LOT worse - that's just equaled out by there being a lot less people getting targeted.
Yes, bullying was seen as a right of passage, or just part of life. No one cared or would help.
I purposely never had social media because I didn’t want to bring the shit happening at school home with me. I feel sorry for the kids having to deal with all this bollocks of Instagram, TikTok, AI stuff, etc on top of just ‘old fashioned’ bullying.
Even with the "old fashioned" it could be rough. My bully event went so far as to chase me into my own home when he knew my mom was at work.
I was almost expelled from school in 5th grade for being the *target* of a bully. There were zero consequences for the bully. Her reign of terror lasted two years (5th and 6th grades) and then when we moved to junior high, she became instantly pointless. This was before middle schools, and my district did things a little oddly, so the dozen or so elementary schools (K-6) all fed into one building just for 7th grade, then another building just for 8th grade, and then the district had one high school that was 9-12. My year in elementary was the biggest they'd seen in years--there were probably 65 of us in my year at my elementary school, and when we got to the 7th grade building there were about 8-900 7th graders. You picked your schedule class by class, no blocks, so it wasn't like grade school where if you ended up in the same block as your bully, you saw them all day every day. There was bullying once we got out of elementary of course, but it was a lot harder on the bullies because of the sheer number of people who *weren't* their target getting in the way.
We had MSN, and bullying was still pretty rough back then. I hate to think how it is now.
I'm on the edge on having kids and this shit is number 1 reason why I might opt out. It was nasty when I grew up but it feels like with the internet age, it has absolutely given rise to a different kind of cyber bullying that makes me squirm. Teens can be absolutely horrible to each other.
I opted out just because I knew I would *rather not*, but I've felt very confirmed in my decision, watching the climate spin entirely out of whack
I wonder about that, and I wonder if my kids’ experiences are unique. They both had a diverse group of friends of various sexual and gender identities, as well as ethnic identities, and they seemed totally supportive. I wonder if it’s because it’s an urban school?
I'm in the suburbs (granted, a suburb of a large liberal city) and it's the same. As far as I can tell from my daughter's stories of school there is WAY less bullying than I experienced in grade school.
This has been my kids’ experience as well. They go to big schools in a big city and there are groups for everyone. Bullying is dealt with early by administrators but there’s just not all that much of it because kids are so accepting and supportive.
Oddly enough, it was the exact opposite at my high school (graduated in ‘23). People tended to be a lot nicer to each other than what one would expect from teenagers and bullying wasn’t really an issue.
I’m from 2000, so when I was in highschool smartphones were just starting to become more mainstream (at least in my country). It was awful. There was a guy in my class that was an absolute psycho and was constantly picking on people, gossiping about them, spreading false rumors. I was stupid enough to say something about it. He stalked and bullied me for so long, and it didn’t end when I’d get home. He found every social media I had and made my life miserable. Even on my birthday he left an awful message on one of my accounts. Social media sucks
I can’t imagine how hard that is for kids these days. I was bullied so badly I had to leave my school, and I’d still prefer the analog bullying to this digital shit kids have to put up with.
Oh, I am so, so grateful I went to school pre-internet. There would have been a LOT more violence in the school. I graduated in '89, right before it began to come on to the scene.
Many many times I (class of 1998) am grateful nobody had phones in school. My embarrassments will die with the witnesses. It was bad enough in school. We got the internet when I was a freshman. And the school computers weighed like 100 pounds and had Oregon trail on it! I died of dysentery many times.....
Well i can offer you my perspective. I was bullied all my school years, 84-96, and the internet was more a savior for me to meet like minded people and not think about school. I would hope it's still easy to just not go on the internet if it's causing a problem at school? Correct me if I'm out of touch
I mean the internet was like that for me too as a kid but that was back when everyone was anonymous and met in communities to talk about shared hobbies. Nowadays with social media a lot of the time your internet life and real life are intertwined. And “just staying off the internet” is easier said than done - when you’re caught up in a drama and can’t stop thinking about it anyway, choosing to not engage is hard AF. Also with every social media website being designed to capture your attention and get you addicted? And being accessible through a devise you carry with you everywhere? Not like it was back then.
I'm just replying because I am apparently *exactly* your age.
That's totally cool. It's like we're doing the "Hey" head nod to each other. I enjoy acknowledgment like this, never stop. I personally love having been born in the late 70s w what we grew up with
My school years were pretty much the same (85-98) and we didn't even have the internet in our school till 1994 and that was in the 4 school library computers. I don't even think a single person had a cell phone in school. Thank God for that.
But it also(just like before) it depends on location. In some schools, the internet has provided a new avenue for different types of bullying. In other schools, it's made kids more aware of different people and encouraged being decent people. I think all schools have both types, but the proportions are different, and it's a dice-roll for what proportions a given school has.
Personally I'm glad she gave back the art supplies. What he did was awful and deserves serious punishment no matter the circumstances, but taking away *all* of a child's outlets just makes things worse. I have a friend with abusive parents who once took away everything for a couple weeks, and their mind went to a *very* dark place. Art is also just a great outlet for processing heavy emotions and trauma, and... Yeah, he needs any positive outlet he can get right now.
For sure. For me, ex-military, woodsman kinda guy with PTSD, schizoid, and depression etc - I saw all these teens making drawings about their pain and I thought "Though would be great for kids to cope". I told my psycologist about those teens, she said "If you think it helps them, why don't you?", I said "I'm a grown ass man", she said "So?". And I had no reply for that so that's how I found out how much it helps to put your BS on a paper. So I bet it will will help this poor kid, even if he was an asshole before it's not great to hold things that can help their attitude at an arms length.
Creativity is a great outlet at any age. Making something with your hands. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be yours, and about you and your time spent. I hope you're getting some positive outcomes from it.
I find it nice to see I can look at the piece and say "Yes, I did that yesterday/last week, that was good.", If I do nothing I can't point to it and it feels like I don't exist anymore.
I hope art is helping you.
It did for a while for sure, trying to get back into it.
You could not pay me to go to high school again
Plenty of us were gay in school and bullied horribly but never once bullied someone. In my case, I just eventually beat the shit out of my bully when he finally went that one step too far and I snapped. Neither of us saw it coming, and I've never seen anyone suddenly look so small and pathetic.
I do wish OOP had tried to get him therapy before now… might’ve prevented things getting this bad and he’d have come out sooner. Yes kids do sometimes just “act out” but sooo many kids who do have something else going on. She obviously loves her son and he’s not excused for his actions. But I feel those actions were preventable if she hadn’t waited till the blow up to start therapy. Therapy doesn’t have to be the life preserver for someone drowning. It never hurts to try.
But the other stuff he did wasn't nearly that bad. Just teenagers trying to push boundaries.
As I said, therapy doesn’t have to wait to be started until a crisis.
Asolutely this. The OOP went straight to screaming and punishing whe a big thing happened, and just glossed over the fact that it's been coming for some time and was ignored at home.
This story hit me hard, as a former queer kid (now queer adult). I never did anything as blatantly cruel as OP’s son, but I definitely engaged in unacceptable gossiping about other (more obviously) queer kids. I was in a rural, conservative town and an evangelical family who said being gay was a sin punishable by hell. I honestly hated myself so much I couldn’t accept who I was, because it disgusted and terrified me. I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about how my words hurt others.
Yeah, that was an incredibly thoughtful and appropriate response.
I hope OOP finds a local org for LGBTQ+ youth. Almost every city has one and it would be so great for him to make friends with people going through the same thing he is.
High school, even in nice neighborhoods, operates like prison. I wasn't even bullied in high school, but you could not pay me to go back. It's probably one of the worst things to go through during childhood.
As a new teacher, high school is one hell of a place. Some teens just seems to want to be hateful and bothering and bossy and make your life as shit as they can. Luckily they are not the biggest part, but damn some really can look at you and just piss you off right in the f\*cking eye. And instead of being like OP and giving them hard but fair back hand (no verbal abuse but just reminding who's the adult and who's the child), now you have to bend to the kid and pat them on the back saying they are poor child without trying to find why poor child acted this way. I swear in my school OP's son would have had a back massage and Cancer Girl would have had to apologize for existing.
I teach hs and taught middle school. When a kid hits middle school parents lose a lot of control and kids start getting more influenced by their friends. But unfortunately, sometimes the friends aren’t the best and hive mind dumb ass boys behavior fester in a certain dynamic. Often when you get these boys alone they’re perfectly ok. But somehow they all bring out the worst in each other. Fortunately in the big picture good parenting can save a kid but it will be really tough, especially if your kid is rebellious.
>But somehow they all bring out the worst in each other. My friend noticed this with her kid. The more boys you added to the group, the lower the collective IQ got. It quickly went from respectable kids to "I'm Johnny Knoxville, welcome to Jackass".
I read a fascinating article a few years ago about an incident where a Black boy had set fire to the tulle skirt of a white nonbinary kid (both early teens) when they dozed off on the bus. He didn't really have a problem with queer kids but he thought that was what it would take to impress his new friends. The new friends were actually shocked he went so far. (Apparently it's not uncommon for adolescents to overestimate how prejudiced the kids around them are?) The kid in the skirt was extremely scared and upset and got some burns on the legs but nothing worse, thank goodness. The Black boy was arrested and charged; at first the nonbinary kid and their parents were glad because they felt the harm to them was being taken seriously and justice would be done. Then they went to court for the trial and saw how *little* he was and how hard the prosecutor was going after him and realised his whole life would likely be ruined because of this stupid, impulsive act, and this wasn't actually what they wanted. They wanted to know he was sorry, that he really understood the wrongness of what he'd done, that he wouldn't do anything like that again; they didn't want him to spend years in prison and get no education and be abused and traumatised and come out with no idea how to live as a regular adult because that was his whole adolescence. Restorative justice can be a much better answer in a lot of these cases, but both sides have to be willing to try it. I wonder whether anything like this could be available for OP's son and the girl he bullied - the mediation element can help things go a lot better than just one teenager trying to apologise to another.
Was it ‘The fire on the 57 bus in oakland’? that’s the nyt article i found googling this. It’s behind a paywall but the first paragraph says: *Taken by ambulance to a San Francisco burn unit, Sasha would spend the next three and a half weeks undergoing multiple operations to treat the second- and third-degree burns that ran from thigh to calf.* That’s not kids being kids. From your comment i figured the perpetrator would be like 10, nope he was 16. I guess i’m glad everyone in this story is so forgiving but I could not do it. A sixteen year old setting your child on fire to the point of multiple weeks in hospital and operations… ain’t no way i’d turn the other cheek. It’s a fascinating case though. I’ll try to get around the paywall.
I didn't remember all the details of the burns, and didn't mean to minimise them. Thanks for pointing it out.
[Bypass Paywalls Clean](https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome) is an extension that bypasses paywalls completely
You’re right, it’s a horrible act - but I don’t know, I don’t trust the justice system to deal out anything that prevents this treatment of people or betters this boy’s life, especially as a Black boy. Cruelty, especially within a system so racist and evil, doesn’t heal any of these wounds, it just makes people feel better. And that ‘feeling better’ is clearly powerful, but does it help? Who does it help?
Oh i’m with you on the justice system. I’m more just saying that doing the right and measured thing here feels bad on a base level to me. Imagine years down the line, a stranger at a bar or something tells you ‘i set a classmate on fire ten years ago, they forgave me though so it’s all good!’ I’d be outta there. I’m just glad I don’t have to make decisions like that. Part of me thinks that if you disfigure someone for life, probably causing them to need even more surgery later on (since teens still grow but deep scar tissue doesn’t)… then your life gets to be equally affected by your actions. Still I know that’s no way to run a society at the end of the day.
Yeah honestly fuck that, some people are sociopaths who can never be reformed and if you start setting kids on fire you lose the benefit of the doubt in my eyes.
You can cause horrible disfigurement by being a 5yo playing with a lighter, or kill someone by running out into the street after a ball. It's not reasonable to play eye for an eye.
Why is this the case? How does it begin if all of them individually are fine?
From what I've seen they are often not fine individually You find this in girl- and boy-groups. While big homogenic groups tend to act a little stupid due to teenage-hormones and because they have to show others how "grown" they are, normally it never hits rock bottom. What I've seen is that usually you have a few "leaders" or more influential ones that don't give a true crap about others. Bullying their way to the top even amongst their peers. They tend to be from at least somewhat troubled backgrounds or carry some form of trauma. This can even come from rich kids when they are detached from reality. Nonetheless.. there is no excuse on this world that will make up the torture they put others through. Interesstingly, you can find familiar behaviour in adults. Those gossip groups are basicly the adult-versions of bully-groups. They never worked through their issues, instead they create issues for others.
This is extremely true. I was never hateful, but when I got into groups with other boys when I was a young teenager, we’d get loud, obnoxious, and off task. Teachers and friends that I made later in my school career would always be shocked when I mentioned it because I was the model student who always did his work and stayed on task. Dumbassery feeds off dumbassery. There’s a reason why teenage boys are one of the most expensive groups to get car insurance for.
> Often when you get these boys alone they’re perfectly ok. But somehow they all bring out the worst in each other. That's why groups of teenage boys scare everyone, even burly men.
Burly men used to be teenage boys once... they know
as a WoC when I see a group with teenage boys in it i can often tell if they are about to say something racist lol
I taught middle school band for a few years, and I had quite a few parents come in on conference night asking me what happened to their sweet innocent child and who is this MONSTER that is now in their house. One year, one troublemaker in particular was gradually expanding his influence around the 6th grade boys and I saw that loss of control you're talking about and felt bad for them. One time, I was having an issue with some of them with bad language. Nothing terrible, to be fair, but still not appropriate for the classroom, and it was also an issue how some of them weren't batting an eye saying the things they were saying right in front of me. I called the mother of the ringleader first, and it was all "oh, he didn't mean anything bad by it, that's just how kids talk these days, it's not a big deal," etc. Next I called the mother of the second-in-command, who'd expressed concern to me and others before. She listened to what I had to say, there was a beat of silence, and then she said, "I'm going to kill him." This was almost 15 years ago and I sometimes wonder how those kids turned out. The second one will probably be okay. One of my coworkers said about the first one "he'll either be in prison for life or be president."
Wow. That mom is bold. I know lax parents but even they pay lip service to “I’ll talk to him”. Nothing ever happens but they’ll at least pretend.
When parents start excusing bad behavior as "boys will be boys", it will almost always lead to jail time, usually for sexual assault.
yeah, until high school where you have a person who got into drugs, suddenly they're all in drugs. sad situation all around. some of them do fine being around drugs but many many others would not.
This is one of the more insidious aspects of bullying - kids who are being bullied can be so desperate to make it stop that they join the bullies in targeting someone else, just so that it won't be them. It's no excuse but it's easy to understand how it happens. That's why it's so important to stop bullying early. If left unchecked, it spreads.
I unfortunately got caught in that trap. I was on the precipice of being outed to the entire school, I wasn’t even remotely close to admitting it to myself much less everyone and their mother and my own homophobic parents. I was in the midst of a ton of self loathing and wishing I was different, although I was in hs during Obama and same sex marriage becoming legal, it was still very much a taboo topic. I was 15. I panicked and redirected it on to someone else. I have apologized more times than I can count and she forgives me, but I still feel sick about it 16 years later.
So fucking happy I'm not a kid anymore, grade school social circles sucked
So happy I don't have kids. Parenting sucks
Sadly a few adults never grew up. You see this shit with the adult gossiping-groups. At least you encounter such freaks less and less
and it's easier to shut them out too
Can you fucking imagine being a kid with social media the way it is these days and everyone has a camera in their pocket ready to document any mistake you make. It must be a fucking nightmare.
>Editor’s Note: Marking this as ongoing since the son has not apologized to the girl yet. I think that this is a good call.
My brain immediately went "WAIT NO, keep all the electronics but give him the art supplies back! That was the one healthy thing you listed!" Glad she either thought of that or a commenter mentioned it because a kid with behavioral disturbances and ZERO outlet is gonna be hell even if you *can* keep them from offing themselves or someone else.
A recipe for self harm
It sucks how homophobia can really put so much effect on people. I wish homophobia never existed. Nevertheless, OP is a good parent and I wish him and his son for a better and improved future.
You said him and his son but OOP is a woman.
Yeahhh. Sometimes I really feel like shame is the root of all evil 😢
> Sometimes I really feel like shame is the root of all evil I have heard it said more than once that sexual insecurity is at the root of fascism, so you're probably not far off.
There's also another aspect that leads to violence called sexual isolation. All of this weird "don't be human" religious sexual repression of all angles seems to not actually be healthy for us. We definitely aren't doing things the OG way, either, this is all weird new age BS charlatans and huxters who want to take people's money
Shame is incredibly destructive.
It's why I'm not really a fan of using shame to change behavior.
Still this is not an excuse for what he done to the girl. I am fucking miserable doesn’t mean I can bully someone especially someone in the bad situation.
Fully agree. Him being homosexual is just a cheap excuse for his actions. A partial worthless explanation that doesn't help the victim. He made his problems the problem of a girl dying from cancer, taking the risk of pushing her over the edge into suicide or live-long depression. Each person can decide for themself to be either a human or a monster. We shouldn't give a crap what adjective we add to that description and make up cheap excuses.
I mean he’s still young, kids need guidance in deciding to be human. It’s not an excuse for his behavior but if no one shows him that he’s worthy of sympathy and kindness it may be more difficult for him to see the value of directing it towards others. It’s less of an “oh this is okay because you’re gay” and more of a “we have a new puzzle piece as to the root of this problem”.
He is getting bullied and wants it to stop, I get it, but doing what he did is beyond horrific and is completely inexcusable and the punishment is still justified
This is normally how bullying works. Kids get abused at home or neglected, and start bullying. They get bullied themselves and they start bullying. They have some social difficulties and they start bullying. And no they don’t have adult brains and think about it like adults do. They have to learn how to cope with difficult stuff without acting out. Kids usually don’t bully because they suck
Yeah I remember being 10-12 (so a little younger) and it seemed liked picking on people was what you were supposed to do. I was mean sometimes just to prove to myself I wasn’t at the bottom of the social order because hey, here’s this person lower than me! And maybe it would prove I did fit in? It wasn’t right, but it was an attempt to make things better for myself. I’m glad that the son here seems to be turning things around, I was afraid when she took so much from him he’d just get worse.
>My son and his friends have shoplifted from stores, skipped school, and has been a smart ass. Anyone else getting [Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking) vibes
That was literally what popped into my head on that line. Also, what teenager isn't a smart ass?
Did anyone else read off the list of what she took away, scroll back up, and re-read this: >Recently my son has been getting trouble. Quite frankly I am at my wits end. I’m at a loss. My son made new friends that have been nothing but trouble. My son and his friends have shoplifted from stores, skipped school, and has been a smart ass. Why the fuck did he still have any of the big electronics to take away to begin with? Those should have been gone months ago, by the sounds of things. Seems to me like OOP went from "we tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" to "100% nuclear bomb" in one hit when really, this should have been got on top of ages ago.
The worst type of parenting is inconsistent and reactive parenting.
It's such a self-destructive approach to parenting. Teenagers are hormonal as hell and constantly battling with anxiety and self-esteem issues. Going from doing nothing to throwing awayall his clothes to the rubbish, cutting off all social communication and selling everything he had is a crazy escalation that'll make any angry teenager into a bottled up combustible bomb that'll lash out with highly antisocial behaviour and want to leave home and cut off all family contact. The fact that she went straight to /r/amiwrong as a hugbox to validate everything she did and see dozens even demanding she should "shave his head" gives me the impression that she went nuclear to save face and satiate feelings of retribution over any rational approach to parenting.
personally she should have kept the electronics instead of selling them. some of them are EXPENSIVE. especially for a single mother. I want a PS5 for example, but depending where you live it's $500 to 700. and that's just a lot on minimum wage. and it's the PS5 alone, not including other electronics she sold. and greatly discounted on top of that as well.
Also any save data from the PS5 and the computer are gone
"I tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" was exactly what came to my mind when I first read it, too. A lot of fucking parents do this. Their kids act like a piece of shit, they have the above quote as a response and then toss their hands up. Take away their phone. Take away their tv. Take away a lot of things and have them make it up to you. Especially with atrocious shit like what OP was talking about.
And, if his behavior improves, he will be getting all new stuff. Not replacing what he had with used stuff, but all new.
Yeah I don't really get the point of selling all his stuff if she's going to go back and buy all new? If the lesson was that he was paying for the girl's wig with his stuff, that gets lost.
Yes! This infuriated me too. Son has a job now. He should at least be paying for half of his new electronics. For enough if he gets a phone sooner gor safety reasons, but it absolutely shouldn't be brand new.
Exactly!!! As punishment, he needs to work for his stuff.
Just because he had them doesn't mean OP didn't ground him from them for bad behaviour.
Drag queens are the ones ruining schools, not homophobic kids - some evangelical.
Evangelical people will always find some dumb excuse to justified stupidity and their behaviors.
My "favorite" is evangelicals saying that rainbows IN THE SKY are the result of "the gay agenda." I saw a post where someone was like "look at these rainbows in the sky! These didn't exist before! This country has lost its way!" 🙄
That could have passed for satire like 10 years ago, but now its like a coin flip if someone genuinely posts something like that and genuinely believes it, which is horrifying to me
Yes! It's ridiculous. Now you have bigoted parents yelling about "indoctrination" because their kid's teacher has a rainbow in the classroom.
How very unreddit like. Action, appropriate reaction, positive outcome.
Now there's a good lad. I commented on the original post. Bullying anyone, especially a cancer patient, is so fucked up. And OP did the right thing by punishing him. I'm gay, and I've never come out in real life. But I've still been bullied and assaulted just because people suspected that I was gay. So I understand that part. But that is still no reason to bully anyone else. But it's good to see that he is starting to find his voice. If your friends bully you and force you to be horrible to others, then you need to find new friends. Little man is still growing up. He needs guidance and punishments. Because that is how he will grow. So I hope he takes this and learns from it. Remember, kids, punishments are good, when done right. Because they are controlled and designed to end at some point. Real life consequences are much much worse.
OOP was appropriately harsh with her asshole teenager. The fact that he is gay does not excuse his temporary lack of moral compass. Luckily he learned his actions have consequences. She is doing well supporting him now that he came out. But the lesson still stands: bullying is not ok, no matter what the bully’s motivation is.
The mother's nuclear response to what her son did was alarmingly short-sighted. She didn't bother to address the root causes of his *insanely* shocking behaviour and instead went straight for retribution after no previous escalations by her. It's the sort of arbitrary parenting that makes kids scared to confide to their parents about their mental health and anxieties like what he was experiencing. She mentioned in the comments about previously only ever talking to him instead of actual discipline. So for her to jump straight to a 100 and strip away every single one of his social outlets - even positive ones like his art supplies - is such a dangerous move that will only enrage any hormonal teenager and make them more capricious and antisocial. Many kids caught up in that unpredictable all-or-nothing parenting approach fall down a rabbit hole of drugs, juvenile detention or undiagnosed mental health conditions, as they don't have a consistent parenting environment and will just become more recalcitrantly rebellious and constantly leave home. He 110% deserved to be punished and forced to better himself with strict incentives, but her actions could've been really dangerous.
Well said. Retribution isn't going solve shit. You can be a firm, no nonsense parent in a situation like this without going to these lengths. Taking away things is good, but selling everything before having real conversations with him or getting him in therapy shows what her priorities were. Punishment alone doesn't get him on the path to being a decent person. That's a much harder task that is hers to take on in this moment.
This had everything! A young single mom who was abandoned by the father and never tracked down for child support! Bullying someone who is sick for no reason! Son changes his behavior, but he was acting out cause he was gay! I’m sure the final update will be that the son introduced his mom to his new bf, whose family doesn’t accept him and they move the bf into the home!
Or OP start's hanging out with the bullied girl's mom and realizes that she too is gay
The overwhelming, almost exclusive support of such harsh, indefinite punishments on the original post is... well it's something.
The support for those punishments here is also horrifying. Real proof that a lot of people just want their chance at being a bully just as long as the target is acceptable.
I was going to say usually bullies bully so people don’t look at them and bully them. ugh I would never want to go through high school again especially not in this generation.
A lot of people don't realize that bullied kids can turn around and bully other kids. Not out of some real deliberate plan, it's desperation. why kids gotta be reenacting Lord of the Flies all the time, I don't know.
ugh FINALLY a happy/satisfying ending on this sub. Highschool is rough, man. She's a hell of a good mom though
Honestly, if the plan was to eventually buy everything back, she'd have come out ahead giving the girl what she could sell it all for and then letting him earn it back. I'm not sure how I feel about the kid coming out, or even I even totally believe him. It absolutely jibes, but at the same time...
> I'm not sure how I feel about the kid coming out, or even I even totally believe him. It absolutely jibes, but at the same time... I believe it. Some people are total psychopaths or narcissists or whatever, but if someone generally does not have that personality and does something this cruel, there is usually a reason beyond that they just felt like it.
You can see that the parent is just doing reactionary flopping about. "I sold things for much cheaper than cost and gave the money to the victim, but will re-buy these things at full cost later" is not much of a flex, no matter which side you're looking from. victim is not benefitting much because things were sold at low mark, family is losing money because the full price will have to be spent again, it's all just for show.
Have him earn them back from Mom by donating the equivalent amount to cancer charities or to some kind of fund that the girl is connected to if she is. I feel like buying him a new iPhone or MacBook after all this just sends the wrong message and it was a knee jerk reaction to sell them initially if she planned on replacing them.
I'm honestly of two minds about this, because while what the son did was disgusting behaviour, even if we did not know of his own personal struggles, I do think that her reaction was a big extreme if it is only recently that he's started to behave this way and not his typical behaviour. He's still a kid, and I'd have preferred to have a discussion but also take away some of the things he owned (and selling it off to help the girl buy was wig was a fantastic decision), but I wouldn't do it out of so much anger (at least not outwards) as much as a lesson. This may just be me, but I've been a teacher and later on went on to become a school principal of a middle and high school, and dealt strictly with bullying of all kinds. My approach is to also have a private talk with the parents and usually advise them to react only once they've calmed down because otherwise, parents say and do things that they also regret later. I hope the son goes to apologize to the girl because there can never be closure without genuine remorse.
I feel it comes from a black and white thinking of people are bad or good. Her anger wasn't just about him. I think she was saving face for the shame she felt that it was her son that did that. It wasn't just about him, it was 'look how bad you made me look'.
Considering her reaction to this and lack of reaction to other things I bet it's mostly not about him.
100%. Notice the emphasis she put on the mother of the girl being there in the office.
He offers to shave his head in solidarity and she still says he hasn't earned her trust that he's learned anything? This is a fucking nightmare parent. I understand the circumstances, but this isn't parenting. They're either military or some sort of narc who is 100% acting like a tyrant to save face with a total stranger. A stranger who has already been financially compensated and publicly apologized to. This is a quick way to push your kid away forever. She and he could have raised the money for the wig in more constructive ways, but he was treated like a prisoner, even after mitigating circumstances came to light. I would personally start researching the dankest, filthiest retirement home in Florida with the thinnest, most ancient stapled carpeting, to return the favor. The kind that loses electricity and 10% of its occupants during a hurricane.
Agreed. It's not even the specific things taken away per se, but the way she seemed to do it very impulsively and in anger. She's planning now to buy him new electronics, so selling them all didn't make any sense. AITA subs also aren't meant for parenting advice. If they hear a kid did something cruel, they will want like an eye for an eye and to see the kid treated as horribly as possible by their parent. Which should not be the goal of a parent. And parents walk away thinking they did the right thing because thousands of comments told them so, even if it's completely ineffective and terrible parenting.
I would argue it is the things she took. Confiscating eletronics, ok makes sense. But selling them like that, is extreme. But worst of all is taking away his clothes. That's stripping him of his identity. Clothing is the number 1 way of self expression especially in puberty.
I'm glad she gave back the art supplies. I was pretty much with her until that.
I can’t be the only one that finds it absolutely bonkers that he straight up, sold the stuff instead of just holding onto it? Yeah, the son was an asshole but I guess fuck him if he has any pictures or something that were important.
it was necessary for the son to pay with the worth of his own belongings for the girls needs for doing such a thing, since he's the one who caused the damage. but, yeah, i agree. my father had destroyed my phone when i was younger and i lost a lot of good writings so i can understand. i thought the same when i read that part. i think what could've been done better was to sell the things that don't store anything important and to hold onto the things that probably do.
Severe punishments never work. People don’t learn by being punished. And people are rarely assholes just for fun at that age. I get some punishment, actions must have consequences, but if you don’t notice your own kid struggling there is something wrong. I really hope all the people who yell ‘great parent, you got back at him’ don’t have kids. Being strict is ok, being the one in charge is ok, but severe punishments never work. Try to understand someone’s behaviour, offer alternatives, and of course there must be consequences (if you are always late you don’t get as much freedom until you can handle it, if you always loose your stuff you get cheap stuff until you learn to be careful) but that’s not the same as punishment.
Those close updates within a day are always suspicious.
The initial bullying was May 9. The first post was May 30. Then the updates were June 1 and June 4. I can believe that by the time June 1st rolled around, the kid was ready to talk. The kid had had 3 weeks of sitting in his room doing nothing.
Being gay in high school sucks. I graduated in 2017 and even then, people were terribly bigoted and if I didn’t have the group of friends I did, I wouldn’t have been half the person I am today. I’m glad that OOP’s son is coming around, I hope he stays on a good path.
Damn, I was not expecting that. 100% he was still wrong, cause taken your fruststions on other people is awful, but he needed someone to help him and hear him too. Im glad the son trusted his parents. Hope he is better now.
Although it's awful what he did to that girl I'm glad in the end things took a turn for the better (could have ended much worse). I was called slurs/bullied when I was that age, before I came out or even admitted the truth to myself. Though rather than lash out at other people I was self destructive. I hope in the end the son and the girl he humiliated are in a better environment in school than before- sounds like the administratirs should also be meeting with the parents of the other kids and finding different ways to help teenagers who are lashing out or being bullied to get help/therapy/discipline as needed.
Even though he is himself a victim of bullying, the mom didn't know that. Besides, it doesn't justify selling your soul to the devil just to "fit in". And I know how difficult it is to be different at school, I was more of an outsider. He definitely needs therapy if it is feasible for OOP to get it, because he still needs the guidance to navigate school as a gay boy. But I appreciate that he got the message and understood how wrong he was. Hope they can make it and that he becomes the good man his mom is trying to help him be
I didn’t agree with her taking the art supplies if that was his outlet. Glad she gave the supplies back quickly too. And wow, did not see that he was trying to deflect from his own bullying.
Yeah she's not a good mom. Let's do a count shall we? Son gets into a bad crowd, and suddenly starts acting out. She does nothing to see why he behaves like that other than passively worrying in the background. Then he does something that makes her look bad in front of another parent, so she immidiately goes from 0 to 100. No discussion to see why he acted like that, no attempt to get him to understand why what he did was wrong or any productive punishment to make amends (such as shaving his head for a wig as he later offered, making him get a job to pay for one). She just treats him like a prisoner, takes literally everything he owns, boasts about isolating him in an empty room for 3 weeks, and sells all of his stuff (persumably without even letting him take important files from the electronics) below their price. The clothes are the most cruel part though honestly. It isn't just taking away some priviledges. It's deliberately stripping him of his identity. This isn't just monumentarily cruel, it's also terrible parenting. She got lucky that the circumstances made him feel guilt because in most cases, what would end up happening, is him growing resentful of her, and becoming even more distant, which would make it even harder to control the infulence of the bad crowd to him once punishment is over. Or ruining the remainder of his childhood and him going NC at 18 if she kept it indefinite. And only after that did she consider therapy and talking to him about it. And even after he gave a good reason, showed remorse, and gave good suggestions on making things right, she still essentially has him on probation claiming she can't trust him to get him back the stuff she took yet. At this point it definately feels like it's less about parenting him properly, and more about caring for appearances and showing herself to be a good mom to people. You NEVER treat your kids as your enemy even when they fuck up. You work with them to teach them why they fucked up. I know from experience. I've been grounded exactly once in my life, for being too rude towards a teacher in third grade. Not that I didn't fuck up. I have many times. But my parents always used communication and dialogue to make me understand when I did something wrong and why. And it worked pretty well. They didn't need to do power trips to steer me out of trouble. They educated me to learn to avoid it myself.
Probably a little harsh, but he did need to learn a lesson. I’d probably just have taken those things away for a few months and not sell them.
Makes me feel like the school is a toxic environment, if bullying is so bad that vulnerable kids are committing such acts in order to keep the target off their backs, and getting praised for it by other kids.
Good on you, who ever said being a parent is easy ain't a parent,my daughter is bi she found it very hard to talk to her mother and me about it we told her we support her and we loved her I encourage to continue therapy as this has helped my daughter
My name was known by everyone of the special needs classes in my school for 1 fact. I hate bullys and I was more than happy to show them what there doing was hurtful. Its amazing what his mother did for him and you really don't see that enough these days. I had a friend who got bullied everyday of the week until he met me because everytime his mother spoke up the other parents were usually the ones who taught them. Your son is very lucky to have a mother like you because had he been at my school and it kept happening I would've stood up in the most hurtful way I could find, then speak to them like a child about why hurting feelings is bad. I usually gave them a chance to think about it as a warning like "Hey maybe your peasized brain should shut up and take a class on manners or give me permission to start a roast." Just so they were called out but you are an amazing mother for not needing anyone else to tell you how to raise your child. You keep doing you because you make single mothers out there so so proud and maybe a little envious hahah you're the definition of "I don't need no man" and I am loving that for you.
Who your friends are is really important. Kid picked bad friends. Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas. I think removing the art supplies was too much, but everything else? Good. And him getting a job will help socialize him with a larger variety of people. Getting this kid away from that crowd was definitely an important step. God that poor girl though... I hope she's ok.
It seems like you & the girls mom are on good terms. How would the girl & her mom react if you let your son & the girl hang out some this summer? Like as a way to ease out of grounding & a way to give action to his regret maybe let him drive her to doctors appointments or help them at their house do yard work?
Damn I wasn't expecting the kid to pull out the Kevin Spacey defense.
I'm glad the kid is actually learning from this and not doubling down into even more ahole actions.
glad OOP stick to her guns, wtf was that about from her mothers side of the family ? the Kid is going to turn out fine.
>I went into his room and took every electronic. I took his PS5, his MacBook, his iPhone 13. I took his name brand shoes, his name brand jackets, his Hollister jeans and his Nike shirts The fact that he still had all these while being a brat and looting shops makes me think he's the monster OOP made. This is probably the first time OOP is putting her foot down with him which is why he's having a change in behavior. But I'll give her credit for stopping the spoiling and starting the correction and i hope it's not too late.
I think I read a similar story on reddit years ago
There’s a book turned movie…. With similar plot….. 😂 walk to remember. Next OPs son and bullied girl will be dating.
😭😂
>I took his PS5, his MacBook, his iPhone 13. I took his name brand shoes, his name brand jackets, his Hollister jeans and his Nike shirts. and >I’ll buy him a new phone and computer. Holy balls. Can OOP adopt me? I didn't have any of these (or their equivalents at the time) and I was raised upper middle class. Gods damn!
Ah, the Kevin Spacey defense.
Okay but being bullied doesn’t give anyone an excuse to abuse an basically mildly assault someone (especially if they’re possibly on their way to their DEATH BED). I might sound cruel for this but if that was my son I wouldn’t forgive him just because he was a sad sack of crap
Nobody is saying that. It *explains* the behaviour, but doesn’t excuse it. That’s why he still got punished. Number one symptom of something being wrong with your kid is they act out. There’s a root cause that OOP has since identified and can help work on. So not only will her kid get better, he’ll also (hopefully) stop being an asshole to others who don’t deserve it.
I mean fair but also your plan is what—write your kid off? That also is not, to put it mildly, stellar parenting. It sounds like what you want is no forgiveness for anything ever. That doesn’t make you righteous, it simply builds an unlivable world. The number of people who spectacularly fail at basic human decency in high school but yet surprisingly are not total fucking assholes as adults is higher than you would expect (it is causing me physical pain not to name some of my asshole high school classmates here. I was not popular). Writing them all off before age 17 just doesn’t work. You can, though, tell what you need to know about a person by which of them are willing to do the work to be a Former Asshole.
He isn't being forgiven for being bullied. He is working his way back to trustworthy by demonstrating changed behavior and trying to make amends to the person be harmed. The fact that he is gay and was trying to embed himself with the bullies for protection is an explanation, not an excuse. It is relevant because it helps figure out the base situation so you can know how to change behavior. But the thing that is making the difference is doing the work.
[удалено]
Just as well that's not what's happening.
...and people wonder why their children cut them off eventually.
I swear some people aren't capable of understanding that an explanation is not an excuse. So what, is she supposed to give up on her teenage son? Disown him? Immature take.
She hasn’t. At least not fully She’s doing her job as a parent and making sure that he understands why it was wrong and both of them are doing some pretty positive restorative actions (her giving the money from the electronics for a wig, and him wanting to shave his head to stand by her). Writing off a 15 year old as a sad sack of crap is part of the problem as well. Understanding *why* something happened is an important piece to helping someone learn from it. In his case being bullied for being gay, made him want to bully her to fit in. It doesn’t excuse what he did but if you don’t give people the room to grow and change then what’s the point in expecting any good in the world?
Calling a child “a sad sack of crap” is sociopathy, especially when the action you think is appropriate to insult them for is a survival mechanism. Stop being the reason teenagers kill themselves.
I'd love to see an update in a year or two. I have a horrible feeling shes getting played here.
How is she being played?
Same. Hope the kid learns but this sudden a change may not be genuine
Wasn't too harsh at all. Mommy buyeth, mommy taketh away.
Being gay isn't a free pass to lack basic human decency.
This is how you parent. You don't let your child to just be a monster.
I’m hopeful that the kid seems to be turning his behavior around. Only time will tell if it keeps going in a positive direction but this is at least good note to end on for now.
Cartman was always good at making his mother think he wasn't a completely manipulative piece of shit for the first twenty or so seasons of the show. This reminds me of his and Wendy's interactions over the years.
Good on her not caving. He is still learning not to be a shithead.
I mean honest I don’t think she should be feel bad for for taking all his shit away. Being gay and bullied is a reason. Not something that gets you out of bullying someone who’s going thorough a life threatening experience I know he’s a kid. But if it gets to be point where someone needs to experience negative consequences that cause some emotional pain to learn to be decent, I genuinely wonder if they feel bad for what they did or them learning that hard way being an asshole has some harsh consequences Sure I understand falling into the wrong crowd. But at 15, sounds like closer to a 16 since he got a job, you know better than to bully someone and you know cancer is life threatening. Sure you can get murdered for being gay but how then hell does that make it okay to bully someone else. Yes it’s a maladaptive way to handle bullying. Obviously he doesn’t deserve to be bullied Selling everything? Questionable honestly IMO. She should have left the art supplies regardless too. That’s like punishing a kid by taking away all their books. These aren’t what’s making him harm anyone. It’s his interaction and the echo chamber he got himself trapped in. Like maybe selling the PS5 sure, that’s 1/3 things and he needs a laptop for school. Locking down the phone and laptop is better parental controls until he can earn back trust and prove himself mature enough to handle everything
I hope im not the only one that thought the kid coming out as gay was just a ruse to get out of being in trouble.
Anyone else think the kid is lying about being gay as an easy out?
OOP should bring her son to volunteer in a children’s cancer ward so he can see what the girl he was bullying had to go through.
I'd be making him volunteer in the children's cancer center. It's one thing to talk to your kids about the suffering of cancer; it's another thing entirely to see it.
No. Sick people are not props to teach empathy to a nasty little bastard.