how to address bullying

[john turner]

what do you folks think can be done to address bullying? with the noteriety that it is getting lately due at least in part to a few recent cases of bullying resulting in suicides, it seems to be a focus of a lot of folks' attentions - i know it's been on my mind a lot, mainly in relation to my kids and what they may have to endure - but i'm not hearing any specific solutions that i think would be effective.

personally, as someone who was very heavily bullied almost daily between the ages of 12 and 15, i think the only way to really successfully stop a bully is having authority figures outting them as such, publicly - sort of the "day in the stockade"-style punishment. coupled with some humiliating fact about them publicly shared (let's face it, teenagers all have some humiliating skeletons they don't want out of their closets) and i think most bullies' attitudes and behaviors would be changed.

instead, too many folks, especially grown men in positions of authority over kids, such as in schools or coaches of teams, allow, encourage and even reward this kind of behavior. this perspective has to change, i think.

you know, the last time i was successfully bullied was almost 30 years ago, and it still makes me mad. i can still remember they guys' names who engaged in it, at least the ones who did the most often. isn't that pathetic?

even more pathetic is one episode i remember back around that time (i was probably 15 or thereabouts) when i witnessed someone being bullied, and having been bullied myself (by the same folks iirc), you'd think i'd have stepped up and helped him. but no, i just stood there and watched him get beaten, thankful that it wasn't me.

i still wish i could do something to somehow balance the scales about that.

 

[MonetBass]

I wish I could provide some good suggestions, but honestly I don't know. The problem is (to me) that teachers and administrators are reluctant to step in, for whatever reason.

I was never bullied at school, but my older brother bullied me quite a bit. I eventually learned to not be afraid and fight back. When I changed elementary schools going into the 3rd grade, a bully tried to pick on me and it escalated to a playground fight. I bloodied his nose and that was the end of that.

We have a 9-year-old son, and he's had some issues with some kids at school. The one idea I've put in his head is that bullies can't win if you don't show fear. Fight back and they'll leave you alone. Do most school systems allow for this? Do the kids who are being bullied have the support system to help them fight back? I'd say the answer is no. It's especially worse when the parents either aren't aware or simply don't care. Again, I don't have any answers or suggestions to help. But there it is.

 

[john turner]

The one idea I've put in his head is that bullies can't win if you don't show fear. Fight back and they'll leave you alone. Do most school systems allow for this? Do the kids who are being bullied have the support system to help them fight back? I'd say the answer is no. It's especially worse when the parents either aren't aware or simply don't care. Again, I don't have any answers or suggestions to help. But there it is.

yeah, that's a common refrain - i heard it a lot too when i was a kid, and even now it still is a common response - i'll probably say it to my guys when they are old enough to require that talk. i think on paper it's a decent response to the situation, but in practice it wasn't really that useful, at least for me when i was a kid.

the problem i see with this is that it puts the onus on the victim to do something about the situation, when this is not the victim's responsibility. it implies that the continued bullying (should it continue) is in some manner the victim's fault, by failing to not show fear (which is a natural reaction to a thread and monumentally difficult to control when one is very afraid and sees no way out of the situation), and failing to fight back successfully, which only compounds the damage done by the bullying, ime.

to me, the issue is the guilty party needs to be punished, not the victim.

the bullies need to be punished, and punished in a manner that doesn't make them look tough, or cool, or otherwise builds on the self-image that they manufactured for themselves through their bullying as powerful and above the law. the punishment needs to be humiliating, as they humiliate their victims. let's face it, this is the only way a bully will learn empathy - when he requires it from others. after all, if he naturally felt empathy, he wouldn't be a bully in the first place.

 

[Oneirogenic]

What's even scarier is that bullying has taken on new sadistic forms. Cell phones and the internet have made the issue more complicated and even more difficult to address. I wish I had an answer.....I was bullied a little bit as a kid but I think my attitude of "you don't intimidate me" made me less fun of a target. I do remember stepping in a couple times when I saw other kids getting bullied. I remember saying "are you really that pathetic that you have to pick on a kid who doesn't deserve it to make yourself feel better?" It actually worked that time but I wouldn't be surprised if that kid just moved on to someone else.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

I really don't know.

I just don't think there is a one size fits all approach, my school experiences with bullies varies quite a bit.

You had the types that were getting a kick by basically showing off infront of their friends. An authority figure stepping in there would probably stop them.

The gangs that simply picked on the weaker individuals.

There were also the crazies, that didn't care what anyone said to them. Though those are also the ones which have spent most of the time, post-school, in prison.

When I was about 8-10ish, one of my friends and I were bullied by a few older students. That one was resolved with the stepping in of an authority figure. I also bumped into one of the bullies a few years back, he sheepishly came up to me in a shop and asked if it was me, he then apologised, he'd come from a broken and abusive home.

Though in high school, I managed to avoid any real bullying. Though I have had some of the people who were dregs at high school talking to me when I've been out back home and apologising for anything they may have done. Though, as said, it wasn't anything beyond a one off name calling or kids just being dicks to each other at high school. Though after what had happened when I was younger it was fairly well instilled not to back down, not to give them easy prey.

I do suspect a great deal of that comes with being 6ft4 and over 300lbs these days...

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

What's even scarier is that bullying has taken on new sadistic forms. Cell phones and the internet have made the issue more complicated and even more difficult to address. I wish I had an answer.....I was bullied a little bit as a kid but I think my attitude of "you don't intimidate me" made me less fun of a target. I do remember stepping in a couple times when I saw other kids getting bullied. I remember saying "are you really that pathetic that you have to pick on a kid who doesn't deserve it to make yourself feel better?" It actually worked that time but I wouldn't be surprised if that kid just moved on to someone else.

I think this in many ways makes things worse these days.

It's no longer just physical interaction. People get a power trip hiding behind the anonymity of the internet, bullying types don't need to be bigger or stronger, they can just track you and pick on you virtually.

It really does make me wonder how good social networking type environments are for high school aged (and younger) kids.

 

[spade2you]

This topic has come up in the past. It's fun to think that showing no fear and/or fighting back will make them stop. I know a guy who stood up to bullies. These bullies brought more friends and put him in the hospital the next time.

I'm quite disappointed in the sense that bullying and drunk driving were things I remember as a kid. These happened when my parents were kids. All this time and we haven't fixed anything other than bigger TVs and smart phones.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

This topic has come up in the past. It's fun to think that showing no fear and/or fighting back will make them stop. I know a guy who stood up to bullies. These bullies brought more friends and put him in the hospital the next time.

It just comes back to the point that it isn't a one size fits all approach. What will work in some situations could make things worse in others.

I'm quite disappointed in the sense that bullying and drunk driving were things I remember as a kid. These happened when my parents were kids. All this time and we haven't fixed anything other than bigger TVs and smart phones.

We can make better technology. But that's not going to hinder the potentials for human cruelty (if anything it's just a new avenue of abuse for many). Sadly that seems hard wired into some people.

 

[yodedude2]

is bullying an instinctive or a learned behavior? i've always assumed it was learned, i.e. most bullies are bully victims themselves. if so, i'm not sure what the purpose 'bullying the bully' would serve--it might stop the stupid ones but the terribly stupid ones and the clever ones would continue.

as an aside, is empathy instinctive or learned? is learned, how do we teach it?

 

[Biggbass]

I was bullied by the same guy from 7th grade to 11th grade. He was much taller and bigger than I was and always had that bully mentality and attitude. The guy normally ran around with a small gang of bullies but I always knew that, by himself, he was a follower and a wimp and one day I'd have my chance to shut him down. Well that day finally came in 11th grade Spanish class, where he sat next to me in the row to my right. He kept messing with me..reaching over and knocking my papers and book off my desk onto the floor and punching me in the arm. But that day something inside me switched on. I remembered my dad, who was an Army drill sergeant, always told me, "If some guy tells you he's gonna knock the crap out of you then don't wait for him to do it, swing first and let him have it." So I got up, walked to the front of the row, then back down his row to his desk, stood right in front of him, looked him square in the face, grabbed the front of his desk and flipped his AZZ, desk and all, over backwards onto the floor. I yelled at him and told him I'd had enough of his S**T for the past 4 years and it was ending right now. And that was the end of it. The guy never jacked with me again. The way I see it, sometimes you gotta stand up for yourself. It took me 4 years but after that I didn't have any problems with bullies at school.

Now I'm not saying what I did was right, or wrong. That was a long time ago and that's just the way I handled it. I didn't run off and whine to my parents, or the teachers, I had just avoided the guy whenever I could for 4 years. But one thing is for sure...the day I stood up for myself was the last day I had to deal with bullies at school.

I realize it's a different society with a different set of rules today. But the whole bullying thing has gotten way out of hand, IMHO. You can probably thank the media and instantaneous news coverage that has nothing better to cover for that, along with parents who don't teach their kids how to find strength in personal character and value themselves for who they are. Too may kids are left to socially educate themselves these days. And they sure aren't getting those elements of life's lessons from computer screens, video games and texting.

 

[DwaynieAD]

I could go off on this subject for hours with hardly a coherent point to be found under it all.

I find it hard to believe the number of adults that claim they were bullied actually were. Call me a cynic if you must.

I feel like school officials want nothing to do with dealing with the bullies. anecdotal evidence: I was given detention for telling someone to go eff themselves at the bus stop because that is "considered being in school" but when a bully beat me down at the bus stop the school did nothing because "that's not school property"

I call BS on the ignoring them front, again from personal experience, I had absolutely zero success.

Standing up to them was a mixed bag for me. A small percentage backed down, most of the time it escalated into a fight landing me into trouble for defending myself and as I said before the school had zero interest in protecting the bullied. I'd be told I should have ignored them, or told a teacher, when I say I've tried both of those things to no success they don't care. then you have the ones that back down only to get back up and beat you more severely then they planned on in the first place.

you wanna stop it? Money. parents and administrators who do nothing get fined; most cases will be gone in no time. Although I also agree with JT humiliation would have a great effect as well.

 

[pie_man_25]

this is just the thing though, half the time the bullies are bullied themselves in some form, or have bad/absent role models - jerk behaviour tends to inspire more jerk behaviour. Simply punishing them might not do any actual good, and just might make bullying worse. Bullying seems to be portrayed in movies as "you beat the bad guy up, he goes away forever", I tried fighting back with bullying a couple times, and even the one time it DID work it only made him beat me up harder and with more people on his side than the time before - bullies pick (or at least they used to) on smaller kids for a REASON-, not to mention the fact that I was suspended for fighting at school. I think you can figure out what my parents thought about me fighting at school, regardless of whether or not the guy was a bully.

Unfortunately with bullying, much like any "bad" behaviour, there is no REAL answer. The only thing I can say is, bullying can teach kids that not everyone in the world is nice, that there aren't always easy answers, and that ******** tend to breed ******** - I was grounded for a couple of months for getting into a fight, my parents didn't want to raise a kid that gets in trouble and such, but the bully? his parents didn't care, they might have even supported it, I really have no idea. I'm out of that load of crap now, and I still don't have answers, other than telling the kids to keep their chin up and not off themselves.

Another thing, people told me that high school was "the best years of my life" - to that I say it's a load of crap. Being bullied, and then trying to build up self-esteem, all while looking for a job, considering your future, and keeping up with homework, all lead to making high school some of the WORST years of my life, now that I'm out it only seems to get better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Y7qpiu2RQ

 

[LexD]

As someone who was bullied, abused, robbed, jumped, and mugged from the time I was 5 to age 15 I'm interested in how others managed to survive.

In NY boroughs (Brooklyn & SI), where I grew up and went to school it was dog eat dog, survival of the fittest. You learn street smarts, how NOT to be a target, safety in numbers, how to drop someone bigger than you --and of course, the most important, RUN.

 

[Unprofessional]

Even as adults, everyone is going to run into a situation where they will need to defend themselves. Under the best of circumstances, its still going to take the police some time to get there.
Teach your children to stand up for themselves and to defend themselves. Nobody in this country has to stand there and be beaten on. If they attack your child in a gang, press charges. If bad behavior has no consequence, it will be repeated and probably escalated. A person's dignity is worth fighting for.

 

[aborgman]

yeah, that's a common refrain - i heard it a lot too when i was a kid, and even now it still is a common response - i'll probably say it to my guys when they are old enough to require that talk. i think on paper it's a decent response to the situation, but in practice it wasn't really that useful, at least for me when i was a kid.

the problem i see with this is that it puts the onus on the victim to do something about the situation, when this is not the victim's responsibility. it implies that the continued bullying (should it continue) is in some manner the victim's fault, by failing to not show fear (which is a natural reaction to a thread and monumentally difficult to control when one is very afraid and sees no way out of the situation), and failing to fight back successfully, which only compounds the damage done by the bullying, ime.

It's just another case (like teen sex, monogamy, etc.) where social conditioning is at direct odds with evolutionary biology.

We can make it socially unacceptable, but we're still fighting a battle with human nature.

 

[spade2you]

Even as adults, everyone is going to run into a situation where they will need to defend themselves. Under the best of circumstances, its still going to take the police some time to get there.
Teach your children to stand up for themselves and to defend themselves. Nobody in this country has to stand there and be beaten on. If they attack your child in a gang, press charges. If bad behavior has no consequence, it will be repeated and probably escalated. A person's dignity is worth fighting for.

Funny you should mention adults running into bullying. I stood up for what was right at work...I mean a friend did. Ultimately, this got me denied a raise when they still gave out raises. I almost got terminated, too.

Fortunately, I simply outlasted a lot of these people. I may not be the winner, but I can live with being a survivor.

 

[Biggbass]

As someone who was bullied, abused, robbed, jumped, and mugged from the time I was 5 to age 15 I'm interested in how others managed to survive.

In NY boroughs (Brooklyn & SI), where I grew up and went to school it was dog eat dog, survival of the fittest. You learn street smarts, how NOT to be a target, safety in numbers, how to drop someone bigger than you --and of course, the most important, RUN.

Funny but not "ha ha funny" that you mention these things. It was similar in my area growing up. And you nailed the instruction manual on street survival!
I had to pay to pass thru a certain neighborhood to get to school. And if I wanted to avoid the payment I had to go a long way out of my way to get around it. Some days it was worth the payment but other times, when I didn't have enough change to pay the price AND eat lunch, I took the long walk. About 10 years after I got out of high school I saw the SOB who ran the roost in that area and collected the payment. He was still the same...a total loser. I had evolved but he had not. I felt a bit sorry for him...for about 15 seconds.

 

[Unprofessional]

... I stood up for what was right at work...I mean a friend did. Ultimately, this got me denied a raise when they still gave out raises. I almost got terminated, too. ...

Do you mean that you were verbally and/or physically assaulted at work?

 

[Joe Nerve]

I don't have an answer, but a couple of stories. I too was bullied. Not as much as some others, but the few times it happened were like a branding on my psyche. One time in particular in grammer school when a nun had the bully of the grade count out students that were standing against the curtain on a stage waiting to do something. She stepped out for a second and this guy walked down the line pointing to each student as he counted. When he got to me he smashed my chest with both hands and immediately leveled me. My body wound up behind the curtain, with my feet sticking out, and everyone thought it was hilarious. I laid there completely helpless. I weighed about 60 ibs, this guy about 150, and he was the toughest kid in the school. There was nothing I could do.

Anyhow, that guy spent a lot of his adult life in jail (thank you facebook), and yeah... the incident still burns a bit inside.

I work in a HS so I see bullyling from time to time. I'm pretty well known where I work, and the majority of kids like and respect so I feel I have at least a little bit of power. When I see bullying I immediatly either call the bully out of the class, or confront him on the spot and let him know just how unbelievably uncool he's being, and how bad it actually makes him look. Whether or not any of it ever gets through I haven't a clue, but I know it always gets the other kids to look at the bully for what he really is, and not go along with whatever garbage the guy is putting out. I keep saying "he" because I rarely see it with girls, although I know it happens too. Come to think of it, nuns were bigger bullies to me than any of the kids ever were.

 

[MatticusMania]

I faced my share of bullying growing up, most of it between the ages of 8 and 15 or so. Various bullies were dealt with in different ways, but I can say that most of them likely went on to find another victim when I stopped being their target. I remember getting into a large brawl when I was in 5th grade. Myself and a few others were accosted and dealt with by the principal, who threatened a call to the police. We ended up sitting on the bench during recess for the week, alongside our bullies. I was made fun of by nonviolent bullies in middle school. Being too scared to threaten me with violence, they were easy to overcome, being that I was smarter and had more wit, making them look like fools. Another guy I had to physically stand up to, he never went through with throwing that punch, and I never saw him again. When I was around 15 or so I fell in with the crowd of musicians and stoners, and I guess I became less awkward to people.

I dont have an answer as how to address bullying on a larger scale other than addressing it as it arises on a case by case basis.