}:-)4
You are supposed to negotiate with bullies. After all, that’s what they say we are supposed to do with the Iranian nutjob and other dictators.
My father was confronted with an older bully when he was in the first grade. His father told him to learn to fight his own battles, so he taunted the bully until the guy chased him around the corner...where he had stashed the 2 X 4. Knocked the guy out cold. Was never bothered by him again.
When I see someone employing a ‘zero tolerance’ policy then I know I am dealing with someone who has mush for brains.
WTF??? My kids don't go to public school, but about a year ago some random kid at a softball game started kicking my two year old daughter. (They were with grandma at the time) I told my older kids that if anything like that ever happened again, they all needed to jump on him clawing and biting and I would make sure they didn't get into any trouble. Some kids are like animals and there's no reason to just sit there and take it.
Bullies are somewhat “inside cowards”. They bully only those who are scared of them. Stand up to a bully and, even you loose a fight, you’ll be left alone and will win respect - bullies needn’t trouble. If you win - even better. But if you stand - you loose anyway.
I was bullied in middle school.
I grew up in a pacifist religion and my mother forbade me from fighting. She told me that if I got bullied I “should do what Jesus did and just run away”. I soon found that that was the WORST advice as the predators smell blood, chase you and then beat the hell out of you even worse.
While there are multiple ways of dealing will bullies I agree that fighting back is the best. However, if you have a kid who is going to come up on the short end of the stick in every fight I believe the next best avenue is a lawyer.
Many schools (and this is not as true as it once was) believe that “boys will be boys” and fighting just happens. When you bring a lawyer into it who threatens to sue EVERYBODY the dynamics change and the school finds a way to take the bullies out of the equation.
i developed a good method for dealing with bullies in school. i would wait until a teacher was in the area and not looking, and then unprovoked totally unload on the bully. by the time the teach looked over the fight was well underway with at least a couple good licks in on the target.
this had a bunch of good effects:
-scared the heck out of the bully cause the attack was unprovoked and unexpected
-got the bully in trouble because it turned out the teachers already know who the bullies are and automatically assume they started it.
-teacher always stopped the fight before it went too far and i got really beat
never had a problem with a bully after one treatment.
i guess they call it pre-emptive these days
Teach him to fight.
“Yes, tell your parents and the school when bullying is going on, but also make it very clear that you WILL defend yourself.”
I understand your logic, but what if your kid responds to being shoved by throwing a punch, and it turns out that bully has a knife or a gun? People say that bullies will back down, but I think some are itching for a fight. Do they care about being suspended? The larger problem is that many kids do not want to be in school and prevent those who do from getting an education. A recent story “Texas To Track Truant Students By GPS” was discussed at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2067328/posts .
Some amount of teasing is normal, and I don’t think administrators should treat that the same as physical bullying.
My dad had a simple policy that worked for me. His rule was, if you get into a fight, I’m going to give you 10 licks with the belt. If you loose the fight, I’m going to give you 10 more.
I only got into one fight with a bully over a game of marbles. After doing all the “stop” and other crap the teachers taught ... I popped him in the mouth and split his lip. While I got my 10 licks, I did not get the extra 10 and I was never bothered again.
Never start the fight, but always FINISH it.
When my son was bullied and jumped by two kids in the boys bathroom, he defended himself and defeated both of them.
When called in to see the principal about the incident, she said it was school policy that he would be suspended for three days, and, she wanted to know what other punishment we would consider.
My response: well, he's going to the zoo with his grandmother on one day, and to an amusement park with me on another...because my son didn't start the fight, he simply did what anyone should do - he defended himself!
She was apoplectic! Could not understand - oh well - we went ahead and rewarded him for doing the RIGHT thing!
Even though my oldest kid is not quite two years old, I wonder if it would be worthwhile to enroll him in some sort of martial arts program when he hits 5 or 6.
I'd welcome thoughts on this from others.
December 20th, 2006
The summer I turned 6 years old, some of the neighborhood boys started bullying me. Back then, I owned a pair of cabbage patch kid roller-skates and my favorite activity was skating around the block singing nursery rhymes at the top of my lungs. One day, a few boys in the 8-10 range thought it would be pretty humorous to push me around and watch me flail. I tried to run from them, but I couldn’t skate faster than they could run. They taunted me for a while and then knocked me down. Angry, humiliated, and with two freshly skinned knees, I did what any 6 year old girl would do in my position.
I went home and told my Dad.
My Father was an ex marine and always preached the benefits of learning self defense. Unlike most parents, he had no interest in calling the parents of my bullies to ‘open up a dialogue’ or some other such tripe. Instead, he planned to teach me to kick a little ass.
My Mother balked at this idea. She didn’t think little girls should be fighting. Little girls were supposed to have tea parties and then play dress up. Fighting was for little boys.
“What if someday a vicious serial killer kidnaps her?” my Father asked, “Do you want her to die weeping and begging for her life? Or would you rather she have the courage to wrench the knife from the killer’s hand and stab him in the throat?”
He paused, mid tirade, and said to me, “If that ever happens, V, stab and twist. Stab and twist.”
With my Mother temporarily mollified, My Father took me into the back yard to teach me how to fight.
Nervously, I explained to my Father that not only was I outnumbered by the boys, but they were bigger and stronger than I was. There was no way that I could beat them. My Father merely brushed my fears aside. He said that while they had the advantage of size and strength on their side, I could develop my own advantages. Here are some tips that he gave me:
1. Always Respond to Threats with Complete Confidence
Sometimes all it takes to make a bully re-think pounding you into a pulp is to make it very clear to him exactly how unafraid you are of a physical confrontation. When a bully threatens you, he is trying to invoke in you some fear in which he can feed off of. If you respond to his threats with confidence, even eagerness, it will give him a pause. If he doesn’t chicken out right then and there, he will enter the fight with a slight feeling of unease. His apprehension is your advantage.
2. Fighting Dirty is Fighting Smart
A fist fight isn’t the same as a karate tournament with judges and points. Your opponent is trying to hurt you, so don’t let some silly moral argument prevent you from kicking the little bastard in the nuts. Throw sand in his eyes, kick him in the back of the knees, bite him, or punch him in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of him. If he’s got you pinned down and you happen to see a rock out of the corner of your eye? Don’t be afraid to grab that rock and smash his face with it. There is no shiny trophy waiting for you at the end of this fight, so everything goes.
3. Talk Some Shit
Nothing will rattle your opponent faster than you screaming a steady stream of shit at him while you’re engaged in combat. The crazier you sound the better. If you can’t think of anything tough to yell, yell nonsense like, “I’m going to eat your eyes!” If you can’t think of any nonsense to yell, just plain scream. The second your opponent suspects that you’re a freaking lunatic he’s going to get scared. Fear causes people to make mistakes.
4. When You Lose, Claim It Didn’t Hurt
Sometimes you’re just outmatched. But even losing a fight can be used to your advantage. When it’s over, feel free to spit blood in his face and tell him that it ‘didn’t hurt.’ Laugh when he walks away. You might have just gotten your ass kicked six ways from Sunday, but I guarantee you that anyone watching that fight will think twice about ever messing with you in the future. No one wants to fuck with the crazy kid who feels no pain.
Armed with my new tips and tricks, I laced up my skates and headed out to face the jungle that is childhood. When the boys confronted me again, I dared them to mess with me. One ballsy kid lunged towards me with the intent of pushing me down. Quickly, I kicked that kid squarely between the legs with my skate. He crumpled to the ground as I hysterically screamed at his friends, “I’LL EAT YOUR EYES! I’LL EAT ALL OF YOUR EYES!” Terrified, those boys got up and ran like Hell. I’ve never felt so empowered in my entire life.
In retrospect, I think my Father was just trying to teach me a little something about fear and courage. Back then, and even more so today, it became quite popular to advise your children to: Run. Hide. Look away. Go get someone bigger. Be afraid. As a result, modern children and adults alike are easily paralyzed by fear and have no idea how to defend themselves.
After reading certain articles on my website, I’ve even seen people comment, “What is she going to do if she says the wrong thing to the wrong person? She’s going to end up getting hurt or killed.”
I feel sorry for those people. So paralyzed by fear of what might happen, that they lack the courage to stand up for themselves or for someone weaker. I refuse to live my life afraid to say what I feel or do what is right because there might be some mysterious villain lurking in the shadows who is bigger and stronger. Better to be dead, than to live your life afraid.
Besides, I could just as easily spend my life acting meek and compliant only to still end up with a bullet in my head. However, because my Father taught me courage, it’s not likely that I’d go down without a fight. Who knows? I may even end up wrenching a knife from some psycho’s hands and stabbing him in the throat with it.
Of course, I’ll remember to stab and twist.
Who among us has not been marked and some of us seriously by devastating comments or actions while in the early year?.
Some things we carry with us and forms a bit of our responses/actions lifelong.
SERIOUS TRAUMA.
Pray God's protection over your children every day. Read the Bible with them, ‘Proverbs’ are great. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs. Much wisdom. and if you and your child read a chapter a day and repeat it everyday, month after month, for a year they will have a form hold on truth and some wisdom in how to think about life. They need our direction and example of relying on the Word of God for living.
“Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6
I agree. I got bullied pretty mercilessly up to the seventh grade. After that, I started to grow and they left me alone. I was a good target. I had the Birth Control black plastic glasses...you get the idea.
The last time a kid really bullied me, he was two years ahead of me, and would mess with me every single day. Just little things, never beating me up.
One day I got on the bus, and as I walked by him, he stuck out his foot and tripped me, all my stuff went flying everywhere.
Something just snapped in me, and I leaped on the kid and began swinging wildly in every direction. I think I connected once, maybe twice out of all the wild punches I threw, but he never bugged me again.
See...George W. Bush knows what he is doing...:)
Time to HOMESCHOOL your kids. Bullying? Come on - I bet the school won’t do anything!!
“I was getting bullied all through school (as the fat, squishy, uncoordinated, academically advanced kid), but I’m going to make sure to pass it on to my daughter.”
I was raised in a “challenging” neighborhood back in the 50’s-60’s and was graced with the kind attentions of a 17 YO Hispanic gang member whose family had moved from LA to Nashville for some reason. I was 13 and this Einstein decided I had “looked” at his homely girlfriend and proceeded to beat the crap out of me at every opportunity.
I learned two things from his painful attentions. Strike first and never give up. It was a turning point for me. I told my mom about the problems I had with him and she told me to go kick his A**. She was tough.
Parents should be finished teaching their kids about how to deal with all kinds of other kids before middle school starts. Listen and be humble with everyone. Correct when the Bible standard has been challenged. Walk away from a fight but physically defend yourself when you or someone else is injured. Revenge is left to God. Flee temptation of other’s wrong invitations.