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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2013 17:13:18 GMT -5
The tragic thing is that the words of people who don't give a flying rip about her had more power over her life than the people around her that truly loved and cared for her. And, that is tragic. OK...needed a minute to get over a shock...agreeing with Shooby here. I think it's so so important to know your kids and give them support/comfort/understanding that they need that something like killing themselves is nowhere on their radar. I agree, that is important. Sometimes though, kids try in their own way, to protect their parents or whatever, and don't always tell them when they're having problems that they find difficult to deal with. You can't help them if you don't know there's a serious problem and what the problem is. Kids are good at hiding things sometimes, even when it seems illogical.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Oct 16, 2013 17:20:54 GMT -5
Depending on the nuances of "direct contributor", I agree.
Even so, if you default on a loan and your bank goes bankrupt three days later, you directly contributed to that bankruptcy. That still doesn't make you responsible for the bank going under.
It's cruel, which is why the laws exist to prevent it. But cruel words don't reasonably lead to suicide. As I said, insults of this nature were extremely common during my school years.
As other posters have suggested, there must have been other things wrong in Ms. Sedwick's life. Her perspectives on whose opinions to value were obviously deeply corrupted. To me it suggests that she didn't have a support structure--or more generally, anyone whose opinion she valued more than the bullies'. All kinds of factors could also be at play. Mental illness. Abuse at home. Social problems at the new school. Who knows.
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Post by whoisjohngalt on Oct 16, 2013 17:22:13 GMT -5
OK...needed a minute to get over a shock...agreeing with Shooby here. I think it's so so important to know your kids and give them support/comfort/understanding that they need that something like killing themselves is nowhere on their radar. I agree, that is important. Sometimes though, kids try in their own way, to protect their parents or whatever, and don't always tell them when they're having problems that they find difficult to deal with. You can't help them if you don't know there's a serious problem and what the problem is. Kids are good at hiding things sometimes, even when it seems illogical. This might be one of the most scariest things to me regarding my kids - not knowing what REALLY is going on with them. That's why I started brainwashing them before they could talk "you have to tell mommy EVERYTHING, we are best friends and have no secrets from each other". Hopefully that will work.
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 16, 2013 17:26:59 GMT -5
I didn't tell my parents anything because they wouldn't have given a shit. I knew that years before the bullying ever started. Probably contributed to it. If you feel worthless already, this just adds icing to the cake. Bullies smell victims a mile away.
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Post by The Captain on Oct 16, 2013 18:20:00 GMT -5
Virgil Showlion - I think your analogy is comparing two totally different things though. While the lady at work is getting counseled on her performance, her boss isn't saying "you should kill yourself" or "you're worthless, fat, ugly, whatever." They're addressing performance, and if they're a decent boss they would ask more questions once they realised something was wrong. It's comparing two totally different situations.
While the tormenters didn't "pull the trigger," they were direct contributors. If you don't find the situations comparable, sour the first one a bit more. Suppose you're in a raging bad mood, you call an employee in, and you tell her to get off her fat, lazy butt and stop submitting crap work or else her job is history. You tell her to get out of your sight and take the rest of the day off to think things over. You're still not responsible if she steps in front of a train. Morally, I would hope you'd feel some shame for deepening her suffering and failing to recognize her tenuous mental state, but suicide is in no way a reasonable response to a flame-out by an employer. You're guilty of being a mean boss, not guilty of murder--which is what responsibility for a suicide would imply. You alluded to something here that I have to address (and again I disagree with you) If you deliberately take actions that cause a person already in pain, to experience more pain, then you are MORALLY responsible if they choose any means necessary to avoid additional pain. You may not be responsible (yet and there is I believe case law in the works) legally, but you most certainly have committed actions which contributed to the death from a moral aspect. It is much more than a sin of omission, it is an active sin of commission IMHO.
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Post by Miss Tequila on Oct 16, 2013 18:43:19 GMT -5
If you don't find the situations comparable, sour the first one a bit more. Suppose you're in a raging bad mood, you call an employee in, and you tell her to get off her fat, lazy butt and stop submitting crap work or else her job is history. You tell her to get out of your sight and take the rest of the day off to think things over. You're still not responsible if she steps in front of a train. Morally, I would hope you'd feel some shame for deepening her suffering and failing to recognize her tenuous mental state, but suicide is in no way a reasonable response to a flame-out by an employer. You're guilty of being a mean boss, not guilty of murder--which is what responsibility for a suicide would imply. You alluded to something here that I have to address (and again I disagree with you) If you deliberately take actions that cause a person already in pain, to experience more pain, then you are MORALLY responsible if they choose any means necessary to avoid additional pain. You may not be responsible (yet and there is I believe case law in the works) legally, but you most certainly have committed actions which contributed to the death from a moral aspect. It is much more than a sin of omission, it is an active sin of commission IMHO. I have to disagree. I am 100% against bullying but I have to side with Virgil and say that suicide is not a normal outcome of bullying. Mentally healthy individuals do not commit suicide. Don't misunderstand me, as a parent I would kick my kids ass if she bullied someone. I will not handle picking on someone just because they have been targeted for whatever jackass reason kids target other kids. As an adult I have a hard time understanding how any child could ever want to end their life. If I can't understand it, how can 12 and 14 year old kids understand that tormenting a child can lead to their death? This case is also different because these two girls just don't give a shit. I can't help but think sociopath.
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Post by The Captain on Oct 16, 2013 19:00:04 GMT -5
It is much more than a sin of omission, it is an active sin of commission IMHO. I have to disagree. I am 100% against bullying but I have to side with Virgil and say that suicide is not a normal outcome of bullying. Mentally healthy individuals do not commit suicide. Don't misunderstand me, as a parent I would kick my kids ass if she bullied someone. I will not handle picking on someone just because they have been targeted for whatever jackass reason kids target other kids. As an adult I have a hard time understanding how any child could ever want to end their life. If I can't understand it, how can 12 and 14 year old kids understand that tormenting a child can lead to their death? This case is also different because these two girls just don't give a shit. I can't help but think sociopath. I see this as no different then when a spouse psychologically abuses their spouse, to the point where the spouse is in fear of their life/sanity and kills the abuser. This is not a case of a one off statement but a long-term campaign of hatred and harassment toward the victim. www.psychiatrictimes.com/suicide/bullying-and-suicideIn addition there are studies that show a correlation between bullying and suicide. "Whether by traditional means or via cyberspace, bullying and peer victimization puts adolescents at increased risk for suicide, especially when comorbid psychopathology is present." - See more at: www.psychiatrictimes.com/suicide/bullying-and-suicide/page/0/4#sthash.h0NsgEpH.dpufAnd those 12 and 14 year old "children" you're defending knew exactly what they were doing and in their own words "IDGAF". A bully intends to cause pain.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Oct 16, 2013 19:22:39 GMT -5
I have to disagree. I am 100% against bullying but I have to side with Virgil and say that suicide is not a normal outcome of bullying. Mentally healthy individuals do not commit suicide. Don't misunderstand me, as a parent I would kick my kids ass if she bullied someone. I will not handle picking on someone just because they have been targeted for whatever jackass reason kids target other kids. As an adult I have a hard time understanding how any child could ever want to end their life. If I can't understand it, how can 12 and 14 year old kids understand that tormenting a child can lead to their death? This case is also different because these two girls just don't give a shit. I can't help but think sociopath. I see this as no different then when a spouse psychologically abuses their spouse, to the point where the spouse is in fear of their life/sanity and kills the abuser. This is not a case of a one off statement but a long-term campaign of hatred and harassment toward the victim. www.psychiatrictimes.com/suicide/bullying-and-suicideIn addition there are studies that show a correlation between bullying and suicide. "Whether by traditional means or via cyberspace, bullying and peer victimization puts adolescents at increased risk for suicide, especially when comorbid psychopathology is present." - See more at: www.psychiatrictimes.com/suicide/bullying-and-suicide/page/0/4#sthash.h0NsgEpH.dpufAnd those 12 and 14 year old "children" you're defending knew exactly what they were doing and in their own words "IDGAF". A bully intends to cause pain. How the hell was I defending those kids? I specifically said in THIS case those two were sociopaths...I was talking bullying in general. A wife shooting her husband over abuse I can understand. A wife killing herself I can't. You aren't comparing apples to apples
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Post by moon/Laura on Oct 16, 2013 19:37:17 GMT -5
A wife shooting her husband over abuse I can understand. A wife killing herself I can't. You aren't comparing apples to apples I can see how a wife might kill herself. after many years of being emotionally and/or physically abused, your thought process changes. you can't see things the same as someone on the outside of that relationship does. you begin to believe you're whatever the abuser says you are. you may believe you're better off dead, and that no one cares or will help you. at some point, i can see how the victim would decide to just escape the situation via the only means they feel they have available - suicide.
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Post by Opti on Oct 16, 2013 20:53:55 GMT -5
I had two girls who ended up living on my same street who tried to bully me for at least 10 years. I never kept track of the amount of fights, scuffles, etc. but I know the number is much larger than 5. I probably have more empathy for the girl who chose suicide as I had to listen to these idiots every day at the bus stop for both junior high and high school. Not including classes, etc.
I don't for minute think its necessary to be mentally ill to choose suicide. You just have to lose all hope and be willing to go through with it. Suicide rates are way too high for kids in junior high and high school, because they don't yet know how to survive it and it seems too long and hopeless.
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Post by Opti on Oct 16, 2013 21:20:20 GMT -5
I think many people don't understand suicide because they can't relate to the type of harrassment many of these bullied kids go through before deciding to kill themselves. I also think people tend to respond with anger or sadness to bullying, and if overall your response is sadness it can turn chemical and you will feel hopeless.
If anger would be your dominant reaction, you might not be able to relate.
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Post by Opti on Oct 16, 2013 21:22:03 GMT -5
Wait a minute here, how did I go from no status in the Zombie game to suddenly displaying as dead! V I R G I Llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by mmhmm on Oct 16, 2013 21:23:54 GMT -5
I'm unable to make a connection between an employed adult, or a married adult, and a thirteen year old child. Kids that age cannot be expected to make rational decisions when confronted with unreasonable behavior. They don't know how. They don't have the experience, and they don't have the brain development to do so. Heck, at one time or another most kids could be said to have "emotional problems". Of course, they do! They haven't learned to deal with such things logically and rationally so they try to muddle through the best they can. When the hits keep coming they're sometimes overwhelmed.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2013 21:28:22 GMT -5
Wait a minute here, how did I go from no status in the Zombie game to suddenly displaying as dead! V I R G I Llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wonder how that happened... how somebody chose to draw you into their contrived Drama... Co-incidentally, the thread topic is "bullying".
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Post by moon/Laura on Oct 16, 2013 21:43:08 GMT -5
no one is forcing anyone to play the game. YOU happen to be the one and only person i've heard whine about how it sucks. but, then again... you whine about everything, as near as i can tell.
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Post by mmhmm on Oct 16, 2013 21:51:32 GMT -5
Wait a minute here, how did I go from no status in the Zombie game to suddenly displaying as dead! V I R G I Llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wonder how that happened... how somebody chose to draw you into their contrived Drama... Co-incidentally, the thread topic is "bullying". Hey, patience! Listen up, man! The exit is on your right. There is no exit charge.
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Post by Opti on Oct 16, 2013 22:09:45 GMT -5
Patience, I posted on EE. If I wanted to avoid the game entirely I wouldn't have posted there. I'm just dismayed I didn't really play as I saw nothing special status-wise about my avatar until it displayed me as dead.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Oct 16, 2013 22:23:43 GMT -5
That touches on the three major distinctions between spousal abuse and Ms. Sedwick's suicide.
Firstly, that every discussion we've had on spousal abuse emphasizes the reasonable belief that the abuse is inescapable. Posters have stressed that a decision to leave an abusive spouse may mean losing custody of children, loss of livelihood, peril due to wrath of the spouse, alienation of friends and family, abandonment of a commitment, etc. These are all reasonable barriers to escape. None of them apply in Ms. Sedwick's case.
Secondly, we would ordinarily argue that any battered spouse who had achieved Ms. Sedwick's degree of separation from the bullies to have "escaped" her spouse. If a breakup occurred and the worst thing the abuser did was write things like "drink bleach and die" on Facebook, no one here would reasonably argue that she hadn't escaped him. Or at least nobody would argue this if they were confident that the ex-husband and ex-wife wouldn't encounter each other again, which is the case with Ms. Sedwick.
Thirdly, it is understandable if a battered wife still valued the opinions of her bullying ex-husband. In Ms. Sedwick's case, there's no rational basis whatsoever for valuing the bullies' opinion.
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Post by Opti on Oct 16, 2013 22:48:53 GMT -5
She was physically safe in another school, however, she would have needed to cut herself off from all social media and likely get a new cell phone number and give it to almost no one.
She may have become clinically Depressed, but perhaps no one figured that out and treated her as emotionally fragile instead. On your second point, I disagree. If the battered spouse still lived in the same house and he did not or she merely moved somewhere in the same town, most of us would consider the odds of her/him turning up dead by the hands of the spouse they had left to be unreasonably high. She may have left that school, but I expect they are still in town. Not much of an escape, just no exposure during school.
I don't think its about valuing the bullies opinions. Most bullies usually bring others into their circle and the article states she was harassed by at least 15 girls total. That can be daunting especially as a minor who can't choose to move away, can't choose to get a new cell phone number, who is at the mercy of her parents and other adults on how the situation will be addressed. Water wears down rock over time and likewise hearing bad crap wears down most people. She was past her ability to take it. I wonder if a week or more at a nicer mental hospital could have prevented her suicide and helped her cope.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2013 22:53:48 GMT -5
I find these kinds of events/outcomes frightening. The bullies were behaving with a pack mentality & wouldn't back off the girl. I can't imagine the trauma for the parents who tried so hard to remove her from the situation, but couldn't get her fully away from it.
It makes me worry so much for GKids who have had a rough time in their very young life (very problematic home environment). They have normalized over the last 2 years, but I just don't know how resilient they would be in the face of focused bullying.
I bought one of the girls a black raincoat with a plaid fabric inside. Someone started a rumor that she is wearing a plastic garbage bag as a raincoat. What little sh*t-heads. Does an 8 year old really need to be picked on about something like that? She was quite upset about it. Because I worry about their prior experiences I will swoop in to try to fix this (she gets a new raincoat). But seriously, life isn't challenging enough & kids need to be nasty? We need to figure out how to build up their self esteem fast because this is minor stuff and there is worse they will need to get through. Can't wait until the really mean girls mature into their full on nastiness. GrandDD really does not enjoy this new school and laments that she doesn't have any really good friends in this place (last school EVERYONE was really nice and the entire class was all friends). So sad that the nasty bullies can develop followers and rule other kids lives.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Oct 16, 2013 23:11:11 GMT -5
Nobody is disputing that she was worn down. But if mean comments motivated the suicide, she obviously valued what the girls had to say about her, and she just as obviously shouldn't have.
She was no longer in physical contact with these girls. If hanging up on them or ratcheting up privacy settings on Facebook weren't her cup of tea, then throw Facebook in trash, join the rest of us that see it as the liability and waste of time that it is, and switch to a new phone number with a single phone call. Don't throw away your whole life.
I simply do not see the "inescapable" angle here from any rational standpoint. I do get that young girls aren't the most rational beings in existence, but I see no reason at all in Ms. Sedwick's decision, and I don't hold the bullies responsible for it.
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Post by Opti on Oct 16, 2013 23:31:18 GMT -5
If she had been sad long enough that her sadness became chemical, i.e. hit a more permanent stronger state, also known as clinical Depression she was not capable of thinking objective thoughts with any ease. My guess is the entire arc brought her to her decision. If she was clinically Depressed one of the indicating beliefs of that state is feeling hopeless, believing nothing will get better, and the known risk of suicide because of those feelings. Except for someone dying, suicide is rarely about reason. It is about feelings and a belief nothing will get better, among other things. If she was clinically Depressed they weren't just comments anymore than someone newly diabetic can eat any sweet they want because its just sugar. You are thinking like a non-depressed person. The girl was 12 and likely on the family's phone plan. She has no authorization to do that.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Oct 17, 2013 0:07:32 GMT -5
I was put on an SSRI at age 11. I get absolutely debilitating symptoms--emotional, mental, and physical--without it. You better believe I needed it then.
If she was suffering from depression, it sure as heck wasn't chemical depression.
That's what people don't understand about chemical depression. The principal symptom is anhedonia--the inability to experience joy. You walk around feeling like your whole family just died, and you feel like that for no reason whatsoever. You could win the lottery and it would mean nothing. You cannot experience joy.
But it works the other way, too. Bad news doesn't make you feel worse, because you can't feel worse. You already feel like your family just died. If bad news makes you feel worse, it means you don't have full-blown chemical depression. If good news makes you feel better, it means you don't have full-blown chemical depression. With chemical depression, your brain lacks the very ability to translate good and bad experiences into positive and negative emotions.
You feel hopeless, miserable, obsessive, overwrought. Your mind fixates on anything it possibly can to explain the symptoms. If you spill a glass of milk, your brain leaps on that. If there's nothing wrong, you become even more obsessive. You wonder why your mother didn't smile longer. You start agonizing over a dead insect. The rational mind struggles to make sense of irrational emotions. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. The only escape is sleep. Or eventually, if it isn't treated and people lose perspective, suicide.
If that's what Ms. Sedwick had, then my heart goes out to her. But if she had full-blown chemical depression, some mean words on Facebook aren't a thousandth of what drove her to taking her own life. They'd be less than buzzing in the wind. Or they might happen to be the thing she fixated on, but if it hadn't been those, her next biggest concern would have rushed right in to take its place. If she didn't have that, she'd spend her hours crying in her bedroom agonizing over how she'd accidentally bumped her sister into a pit while playing Super Mario Kart. Don't laugh, because I reached that point. There's nothing the slightest bit rational or reasonable in chemical depression.
As soon as you're in territory where people's actions towards you make a difference in how you feel, you're a mile away from chemical depression. Take it from somebody who's had to vigilantly guard against it for 20 years, complete with lifelong medication, monitoring, and psychiatric care.
If she had that and wasn't getting treatment for it, she was a dead girl walking. No ifs, ands, or buts. And no amount of bullying or lottery winning would change that outcome.
Whoever has authorization to change the number would do it. Her parents were obviously aware of the problem. I don't know whether they were aware of the texting.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2013 0:16:11 GMT -5
Virgil Showlion - I think it's different for girls at that age than boys. I'll probably catch some grief for this, but women/girls are a lot more vicious with their bullying. I think the social interactions and all that are also more important to girls than to boys as well. No grief here. I remember what it was like to be a 13 year old girl. It was awful. I wouldn't wish a 12/13 year old girl on my worse enemy. They are seriously vicious!
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Post by Opti on Oct 17, 2013 0:42:45 GMT -5
Virgil, I had one chemical Depression and I don't fully agree with what you wrote. It certainly could have been your experience, but mine was a bit different and others I've talked to as well who have had more bouts than I have.
I agree joy or things you like in general become foreign concepts. But my Depression was not a constant flat thing. It had hills and valleys, they were just unfortunately degrees of misery. I took Psychology in college where I actually read about how clinical Depression manifests. In the book it didn't sound all that different, but I did remember the three week window. I was older than you when I had my experience, in my 20s, and I could actually feel when it turned chemical. I don't think its that your brain lacks the ability as much as the new chemical status quo that gets locked in prevents one from experiencing joy and brings hopelessness and other emotions to the fore.
My experience and at least one relative of mine was that time seemed to crawl on forever. Sometimes it seemed just making it to the next half hour or hour was a Herculean task. I remember begging my XH not to go to work even though I wasn't feeling joy at his presence, but I wanted that buffer from laboriously making it through hour by hour. When he said 'No, I have to leave' *I* did feel sadder. In the throes of it, I'm not sure what would have counted as good news. I do think when you are recovering from it whether with the help of drugs or not, you can start building on better feelings, better thoughts, minute by minute and day by day.
I am sorry to hear of your experience. I wonder if being older impacts how its experienced as well. My relative still fights against it too, probably at least 30 years by now. Reading your post make me want to reread some of the first person accounts I read many years ago.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Oct 17, 2013 1:12:15 GMT -5
I can't claim to be an authority on what is and isn't classified as chemical depression.
All I can say is that with whatever I had (have), there are no "hills and valleys" without medication. It's one massive valley regardless of anything and everything.
And not only that, the emotional symptoms are accompanied by specific, debilitating physical symptoms. It's one of the many ways I can tell my natural depressions and chemical depressions apart. The two aren't even the same thing for me. It's like comparing "the giggles" with a sense of satisfaction at the end of a good day's work. Both are "happy" feelings in that case, but they're completely different. One is controlled, rational, sedate. The other is chaotic, irrational, uncontrollable. Chemical depression to me is like the exact opposite of the giggles. You feel an overwhelming irrational sadness and obsessively project it onto anything you can.
I also suffer from natural depressions, especially during the winter months and high-stress periods. Those are very much affected by positive and negative happenings in my life.
You mention feeling sad when your ex-husband left. I must admit, when I'm at about 70% or lower (psychiatrists always get you to rate your mood in terms of percentages, or at least mine always have), I crave any kind of distraction. Company can be distracting. So I can empathize with your experience of time dragging on and wanting somebody around.
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Post by happyscooter on Oct 17, 2013 6:31:46 GMT -5
One of the news stations was showing the sheriff holding up the 2 girls pics. Then another news story blurred them out. Sorry, but the community where this happened needs to see what the girls look like to keep them away from the other kids. I saw mom and dad of the 14 year old and mom said she checks her daughter's facebook page EVERY night to see what is on there. Then I saw that she had 7 kids and the news commentator said there is NO way she had time to check every little detail on the page.
She is 14, this behavior didn't happen overnight. And it was learned somewhere.
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Post by happyscooter on Oct 17, 2013 6:35:08 GMT -5
Why are some of you 'dead'?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2013 7:18:59 GMT -5
I bully, mock and ridicule my kids at home so they're well equipped to deal with it at school. D'oh! BAD MM!
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Deleted
Joined: Jun 2, 2024 8:32:08 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2013 7:24:25 GMT -5
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