<font color="purple">Well, there are two problems that I had with the programs:

1.) The kids never litsened when people told them that bullying is wrong. Adults think only teenagers develop their own social systems? Kids do it too. Just based different things. It's just instinct do develop different social groups. So you can tell kids all you want that bullying is wrong, they have their own systems that work for them that they go by.

2.) Like you were saying, adults never ENFORCE the rules against bullying.

I don't think even if my parents got the connection that they couldn't do much for me anyways. So, they left it to me to deal with by myself. Maybe they were the ones who decided I should be in or agreed to me being in child therapy in elementary school (or maybe it was just a part of my program?), but they weren't very helpful on the day to day basis. I loved my teachers- but they couldn't do much either because it all occured when they weren't looking, and I hardly ever told them because when I did as an even younger child the adults either told me to stop being a tattle-tale or just gave me the cold shoulder.

I managed to get by though, I read books on animals or drew during recess, I hated the outdoors, and during latchkey I liked to draw or play with the toys they had there after they banned us from bringing our pokemon stuff to school. When I got home I did my homework (until the 3rd grade and onwards when I "forgot" to bring it home, for a year or so this was legit forgetfullness, but the rest of the time I just got lazy) I absorbed myself in creative pursuits, built a wall around myself from my parents and other kids too, I guess I didn't act depressive- except for a few episodes.

I remember breaking down once, I had a bad day as it was, and gym class just made it worse. I finaly just broke down and started crying and when the teacher asked why I just said "Nobody loves me" I guess I touched the hearts of everyone in class because I swear every kid in class went up and gave me a hug and said they loved me. I think that made it a little better- not by much though, at least most of my classmates left me alone at that point. but that didn't stop the other kids, some older, some younger. the only time the bullying stoped is when I moved froma big school to a small little rural one at the very last year of middle school.

My best friend and I just refer to our childhood pains jokingly as "8 year old angst" and the other day I told her that the sad thing is that every kid goes through "8 year old angst" it's the very reason why I took this one little boy under my wing, he just seemed to echo my brother and I as kids.

I went through a period of bad friends- but I'm happy to say I've got really good ones now. My best friend and I will have been friends for 5 years once the next year of school starts. </font>