Bullying

Ok, I don't know if this exact thread has been made already, but I thought I'd give it a crack.

Lets say for example, you have a child who is getting bullied, How would you fix this issue?

We see everywhere/ know that by taking the issue to the principal/ teachers only makes it worse. What would you do? Get your child to learn martial arts, teach them to troll? (depending on the form of bullying, be it physical or just verbal)

I'm curious about what you would do. You see in the news how children get bullied and the parents tell the principal, then it only gets worse/ the family moves the child to a different school, etc.

Kgo

i'm not in 'possession' of a child, however i have an idea of what I would do if I had one.

if it was just a few (probably 1-3) i would find out who they are, and take my child to those 3 bully's parents/places (depends on age obv) and have a serious word with them.

i'm not entirely sure what i will say, since it will depend on the situation and such, but i have experience with being bullied, and i know that most bullying people don't have a walnut capable of understanding anything either way, so it's probably coming the hard way(without the use of violence though).

Same with Shadowspyes, I don't have a child.

The only reason I see other children would bully other kids would be because they are alone. Generally having more friends would affect their status. If they had more friends than the bully/bullies, the bullies tend to target others.

Get your kid to be popular/have more friends.

I have a kid and I'd stick to the recommendations of people who know their stuff:


Great article on this topic can be also found on kidshealth.org (just click on the link, it leads you directly to the article).



This one can backfire badly, as you might turn your kid into a person, who is trying to be popular at any cost - even if it means to do very harmful and dangerous things (i.e. taking drugs).

If I had a kid, I would do what my mom did with my brother... I'd take my child by the hand, have them show me who's been bullying them, and then simply give my kid permission to beat the living daylights out of the bully. It seemed to be effective with my brother. My brother never actually hurt his bully, even though my mom was urging him on, but it seemed to scare his bully away. The next day, his bully started being nice to him, and later even became his friend.

Now that is some good advice. Excellent. :D

"Son... there is only one true solution to the issue, study hard, join a sports team, get good friends, become a model student, then find out where he wants to work and what he wants to do. Become successful, invest wisely, save money and maintain your friendships, when the time comes become a person of influence at his job, then constantly remind him who is coming out on top in life, talk about your gorgeous wife (or good-looking life partner, who am I to judge), your expensive car, nice house, plans to see the world after retiring, then leaving that job to get a better one dismissing the company as "going nowhere" and become more successful. Find out where he drinks, then "coincidentally" show up, order top shelf drinks and offer to buy a few rounds. Use that time to him about your successes in life to have him see the failings in his own. He'll notice that you're a nice guy and hatred yourself for not being your friend. The best revenge is to thrive. It may not always get the level of revenge you may have wanted, but in there and you're better than that kid so who cares?"

I would say this while sipping a Scotch on the rocks and smoking a cigar.

Use Violence. Certanly worked for me. And the bullyes got expelled to.

And secondly I tell him to listen to this and follow it:




Before this video was made, i solved my problems with 1 thrown chair. Suddenly Everyone seemed to care. But before that. NOONE. I repear NOONE. FOR 2 YEARS!!! Not even my parents.

The token response when children are being bullied, and they ask an adult for advice, is "Just ignore them, and they'll stop." I know from an exorbitant amount of personal experience that this is complete and utter bullshit.

I was in third grade when I had my first showdown with a bully. I was walking around the playground looking for something to do when I noticed that the new transfer student was picking on some of the kids from a different class. He was quite a bit taller and larger than I was -- he had been held back several grades. The kids weren't particularly friends of mine, but before I knew it, I was staring up at his ugly mug, with my hands on my hips. "Leave my friends alone. Now." I ordered. I did not request the bully to stop, I demanded it. He glared at me and told me I was a 'stupid mother fucker' for 'thinking I could take him on'.

I was not prepared for a battle, but as it turns out there wasn't going to be one anyways. I was so completely pissed off with his treatment of the other kids, that it must've shown on my face. I was so much smaller than him but inexplicably, he just snorted at me and walked off. He never picked on anyone after that.

The only legitimate way to deal with a bully is to confront them, and in no uncertain terms, demand they cease their unjust treatment. It's not enough to say "Please stop!". Saying 'please' to a bully is to respond to malice with manners. It shows weakness. You have to take back your power, and command them to cease and desist. "You -will- treat me with respect, damn it."

When it is my time to become a parent, this is the same advice I will impart to my child/ren. If they are to get into it with a bully, and the bully were to ignore them and take a swing, I would stand by my child's choice to swing right back. It's irresponsible to 'discipline' someone for standing up for themselves after they have already given someone the opportunity to depart peacefully.

My boyfriend agrees with this, and adds that he would wrestle with our kids, teaching them to be resilient, and not to mention.. how to throw a right-hook when they have to.

Also an excellent reply. This is something well worth it's 5cents :D
rep would be given to you if i hadn't given it out already ><

Also Yukito-kun's was good too, but more of a after ít's all gone and done approach.

I'd simply ask my child "what do you want me to do?"

"I can call the principle, and have him put a stop to it. If you don't want me to, I could still try to help you. If he is non-physically bullying you, then you need to stay surrounded by friends and ignore him. If he is physically bullying you, I can help teach you martial arts."

(I say "martial arts", because the goal of a martial artist is to stop a fight before it starts")

I remember when some kid tried to bully me back in grade school. Luckily I was able to stop him pretty quickly because I knew karate. One punch to the gut shut him up real quick. I would enroll my kid in karate boy or girl.

Depending on how bad it is, I'd ask him how he'd like to handle it. If it's serious like repeated physical abuse or incessant verbal abuse, I'd intervene in a heartbeat.

But for something like verbal abuse that isn't frequent, I'd want to find out how he feels about it and what he thinks he should do. As a parent, I'd want to protect my son, but I also have to give him room to learn how to handle and solve his problems. Because he's still young I'll give him a helping hand when he wants me to and act when I feel things are out of his control, but I want him to learn to depend on himself whenever he can.

I want to be a good shoulder to lean on, but I don't want to become a crutch to completely depend on.

Bullying is such a sensitive topic, so it's hard to really give a definitive answer because each case of bullying is unique with some more serious than others. So that's the best I can give.

Just like what Lelouch24-san said, I will ask what my son/daughter want, do they want to beat the living shit out of the bullier, or do they not want any violence involved?

I got bullied back in Junior High, and what I did is I beat the shit out of him, it got him through severe injuries and his parents literally was trying to kill me, and the school almost expel me because of what I did, but my parents know what was going on because I told them what happened and they told me that they got my back and even prepared to move me to other city because of what I did.

I solved the situation on my own, but my parents got my back, so I want my children to solve it by themselves and I will make sure that I got their back and ready to support them whatever they do.

This may sound irresponsible because it's literally agreeing your children to fight, but we're talking about bullies, and bullies are not acceptable wherever you live. My parents didn't encourage me to solve it through violence, but I chose to do so because it's already over the limit.

I won't encourage my children to do what I did, but if they want to do so, then I will make sure I got their back.

I agree on this. Expert advice is expert advice, but even the experts say that parents should act depending on the situation and circumstances.

To be honest, bullying is something we will never be completely protected of through our whole life. It's just that the label is different, it's called mobbing on the workplace or simply rude/violent/unpleasant behavior.

I had to deal with a bully at my workplace for over a year. His actions were always at the margin on sexual harassment, but never quite that obvious and at that time Serbia didn't have any laws regarding mobbing. I tried ignoring him - it just got worse. I tried answering back - it got worse. I tried reasoning - it just got worse. At the end I snapped and hissed (not screamed) him down that I will go not to our manager, but to the head of the department directly and not even tell him about his behavior but also how many times he skips work and about all the mistakes he ever made and I noticed.

He didn't talk to me for a month, but eventually calmed down and kept his distance.

Threats worked in that case, but that is not guaranteed to work every time. I saw colleagues, who did the same, and just got a war over who finds the other guys mistake first and gets to rant it out to the head of department to get the other one fired. Not a nice working environment, I can tell you.

My daughter is 6 years old now. She is going to preschool and will start elementary school in September this year (2012). She is training Aikido now for over a year and has already the orange belt.
I chose this particular martial art, because ultimately you don't even need to throw someone over the shoulder or break arms ... you just grab them nicely by the hand and make them kneel and squeal in pain, without any lasting damage or harm.

That is what I can give her on her way for being a female in a rough society, because I don't want her to get expelled from school or later on get into prison because she got into a fight.

Psychologically I can only strengthen her ego. The ability to shake off harmful and mean comments of other people. I can teach her to know who she is and to be rock solid about that. I can teach her how to say NO and stick to it. I can teach her to think fast and flexible and to know how to improvise. I can give her a wide knowledge base, so she can draw from it to find the BEST way in every situation no matter how hard it is.

And I am making sure with every minute of my life with her that she knows that she can always count on me and my support.

That all will hopefully make her a kid and later a person who can deal with such things, even if that means that she asks me or someone else for help.

Edit: BTW let's not forget that bullies may be children who get abused themselves and are as much victims as the kids they bully.

Agree with everything you said, ESPECIALLY this. For a parent, it may often be easy to overlook the fact that sometimes the people bullying our children are children themselves facing personal issues of their own.

Kinda mind-boggling how many things actually influence these kind of situations. Social psychologists would have field days with these cases.

I don't believe the ones that are bullied are weak. They just don't fight coz' they don't want to make any trouble...

If i had a kid who is being bullied, I'll say that it is a part of life. Sometimes in life, you will be criticized and stepped on, but you have to move on and fight (not literally fight back the bully ). Coz' life is unfair, and weaklings cannot survive a world like this.

I agree with you here, not all bullied kid don't fight back because they are weak, they just don't want themselves to get into meaningless trouble and maybe they think they still can handle it.



I agree partly, but your statement makes me think that you will tell your kids to solve the bully by themselves without you giving a hand, forgive me if I'm wrong but I hope I'm wrong though.

The most simple answer is.
Give the child thats bullied a fake but real looking machine-gun. this will scare the bully away.
Story the child has to make up: My father is an army general and told me to handle guns so i can join the army when i come of age.
The bullies never come back

I agree with you, there is a lacking in my side. Perhaps I am raised that way. Independent. Though, i still yearn for parental support. Thank you.