Stigiophobia
I totally agree with this. I understand someone could also want attention and cry "bully" and life outside of school should also be investigated more. I didn't really think about that while reading, but it's hard to find those details when nowadays articles such as this leave out so much valuable information.
I never really got beat up in any way but there was the occasional name-calling, statements, etc. (Some kid came up to me and joked that his friend "wanted to **** me" when I know I'm not their "type" nor have I ever had any relations with them. I've been called more names, and I'm not saying it's bullying necessarily but it's definitely harassment and shouldn't be excused for "socializing".) I also never really hit anyone because then I would (probably) be suspended or something for getting angry and punching a kid in the throat for being a dumbass and crying assault...it's a funny little world we live in.
But I do agree with what you're saying. This is why we need more details about it instead of "He was bullied and yeah...there's lots of support for him! Look!"
One reason you don't hear more about it is because once it becomes a "bully story" it has typically already missed the opportunity to be a "abused child story". Most news agencies these days are trying to cover more news with less staff / money than they used to and rarely do much in the way of investigative reporting - especially for "public interest" type stories that most folks have forgotten about by next week. Half the time most of the news is just copy/pasta from a source like Reuters. You can often google on a sentence or two from an article and find that same article, often verbatim, on 20 different news web sites.
So when it comes to messed up kids we typically get one of two kinds of stories -
1. The poor child who was abused by his parent(s) / relative / pervert down the street and everyone focuses their hate on the adult in question.
2. Johnny killed himself (or others) due to the abuse he got from schoolmates and everyone focuses on how evil bullying is. And if Johnny died in the process the parents are full of love and praise for their lost child and "How could people do this to our beloved child!?" Which often may be 100% sincere but it's also pretty much exactly what an abusive parent would say who is happy to have the spotlight of accusations on anyone else but them.
And of course everyone is quick to jump on the bully conversation because those are typically the only details offered in the news and it's a trendy (and legit) thing to hate on.
I think in the majority of cases where death is involved - either suicide or kid goes off the deep end and kills others (or both) that most likely the true story is a combination of both 1 and 2.
Millions of children suffer some form a mistreatment that the PC crowd would call "bullying". Only an extremely small few kill themselves or someone else. I'm not saying bullying alone can't cause a death, only that it's a handy scapegoat and I think most of the time there is more to the story.
As to this comment -
"shouldn't be excused for "socializing""
You may have misunderstood my intent. I was not excusing it. What I said was "learning to socialize". Children learn what is and is not acceptable and that is a process over time starting with a baby who screams to get what he/she wants, then later hits or grabs to get the toy they want from a sibling. Many pre-teens / teens have dysfunctional social skills. Sadly in part that is likely due to many of them have dysfunctional parents. You can walk around just about any mall or big box store and listen to families talk and hear examples of wrong or unkind communication skills at work.
And - kind of nit picking here - but technically it is socializing by definition.
It's a very bad form of it but people interacting is socializing even if what they do is a very sucky version of it.
smile