Articles labeled: beaverton

Apparently kids don’t have to wait until high school to be tormented by cliques anymore. It’s now trickled down to the second grade.

“They started taunting and teasing her,” said Allie’s mom, Trudy Ludwig. “She was on this play structure and they blocked all of the exits and wouldn’t let her off. They started moving closer to her. Allie just freaked out. One of the girls realized it was getting out of hand and got a teacher to help.”

Bullying among adolescents has captured the attention of researchers, educators and parents alarmed by a parade of mean girls and cyber-bullies caught in mid-punch on viral video. But such aggression may not just happen in a whirl of adolescent hormones, some in the growing anti-bully movement argue.

Some older bullies were “Barbie brats” first.

A girl trying to make her way onto a boys sports team is the stuff of after school specials and Lifetime movies. But usually the girl isn’t wanted because she’s viewed as a weak link on the team. But for Jaime Nared, a 6 foot tall 12-year-old in Oregon, it would appear that the parents don’t want her to play because she’s kicking their sons’ collective asses.

“If she were 4-feet-9 and no good, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” said the coach, Michael Abraham. “To appease a small minority of parents, in this day and age, is stupid. This is a decision that really targets her. She’s a well-adjusted kid who happens to be great.”

Neal Franzer, the Hoop’s director of operations, said the parents were “adamant” that it wasn’t because Nared was too good.

“They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against her because she was a girl,” he said. “They’d been taught to not push a girl, so they weren’t fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them.”

Also, it’s believed there was great concern about cooties.