Bullied?

One student used the term bullied, and now everyone wants to pity the idiot who killed students in Ohio. First off, the word bully, as many other words, has been made way too vague. In my school days a bully was someone who beat up smaller kids. Nowadays they want to say that any kid who gets made fun of is being bullied. Being made fun of by idiots is a part of growing up imperfect. I was ridiculed for everything from wearing buddies (no-name shoes) to the beatup cars my parents drove, to the secondhand clothes I wore. I was taught at home and on weekends by my grandfather to have enough character to ignore the idiots. I see some of those idiots on Facebook now with broken lives, getting to see their kids every other weekend, drowning their sorrows in alcohol and drugs. And they thought I should be like them???
My dad and grandfather always told me they would turn out miserable.
Back to the shooting : It turns out, the idiot was a troublemaker himself. He was not attending the school where the shooting occurred. He was attending a nearby school with his fellow delinquents. I wonder if they'll ever tell us what got him there?
Parents, if your kid is being picked on or isolated at school, find out why. Do you still dress him like your little toddler even though he's twelve? Let me clue you in on something. Just because Junior likes to wear his hair or clothes a certain way doesn't mean he needs to. Individuality is one thing. Looking like a freak, a queer, or a nerd will not help your child. You'll never control every other kid, but you can control yours.
My kids still occasionally get told to change clothes. Not usually because they're immodest, but because they were having a bad fashion day. I guess somedays the mirror is deceiving. 
Then there are things you can't change. I can't fix my daughter's cleft lip to where you can't tell she has it. But I've given her the gift of character and she doesn't let the idiots bother her. Jakie used to be a borderline midget. Hormone shots helped some, but eventually it was puberty that got him growing upwards. We toughened him up at home. I guarantee you he heard more short jokes at home than elsewhere. Ooh, I'm the mean parent, right? No, I'm the parent of a very well adjusted young man for whom I constantly get compliments about. Men he's worked for are always impressed and often tell me so. That's called parenting. Try it sometime.
Yes, there are some things I shield my children from, but my duty is not to create a perfect environment for them. My duty is to teach them how to survive in ANY environment.