It breaks my heart into a million peices. I am not joking.

I feel SO BADLY for all parties involved.

The aggressor - because something happened in their life to lead them to beleive it is ok, or right, or fun to hurt another living being.

The defender because they have to defend themselves from a traumatic experience, pain, and possibly disability.

The people veiwing because whether they cheer them on or not I fully beleive that kids that young are still traumatized by seeing violence. I do not think there is such a thing as full on desensitization in the sense that it does not make SOME impact.

And one day, those involved parties will (hopefully, but also sadly) look back and be sad and maybe depressed that they were involved in such activities, and by then it may be too late to try and make amends directly.

We are all human. And when people choose not to recognize that, it hurts me as another human being. How sad it must be to not be able to realize that anger can be dangerous when used improperly. How sad and ugly it must be to have to grapple with anger that is misplaced, or to truly want to hurt another human being who feels, bleeds and thinks just like we do.

Now - I understand there are times when anger is justified. I even think sometimes violence is NECESSARY. However, teen girls DO NOT NEED TO FIGHT. They are not fighting for survival, to protect themselves or a child. They do it for FUN??!?! What the hell is fun about being hurt and bloodied.

Also, this type of thing can have amazingly long repercussions. That beaten up child? She could end up committing suicide. Maybe she gets beaten at home too, and school is her only escape, now shes beaten at school too - what does she have left? You know.. you just never know.

I think we should be teaching relationship skills, kindess, compassion and tolerance from the first grade and even kindergarten. We do in fact in the younger grades - why stop it during junior high or high school? Its been proven team building and friendship excersizes negate bullying.