Fucking bullies

[Crasherfromwayback]

Don't forget the kids round the back of the bike sheds smoking became bikers.
(the seat sniffers raced them)

Some of us already were! I used to ride my RM400 to school and sniff seats!

See you at the world vintage ATV champs?

[Oakie]

Common thread in this thread. Stand up to the the bully and they leave off. That was my experience too. After months of it from 3 guys at school I lost it and whacked one of them. He whacked me back and it was me who needed 3 stitches in my eyebrow but they never hassled me again.

I was talking to a workmate a couple of weeks ago and she told me a story about her son. He and his mates were playing football at school and as luck would have it the ball finished up at the feet of the local bully boys who were hanging around. They refused to give the ball back when asked by the son. The biggest started pushing the wee fella around ... not knowing he was already a black belt of some description. After much dodging of the bully's pushes, a flying roundhouse kick to the bully's head settled things. The wee guy now owns 4 dojos in Japan.

[oldrider]

Don't forget the kids round the back of the bike sheds smoking became bikers.
(the seat sniffers raced them)

Ahhhh, them were the days but not all of them sniffers raced bikes. (too busy sniffin and beyond!)

[Winston001]

I remember back in high school if someone bullied me a punch up was inevitable. Just cause a mad ruckus show 'em you're not scared and try and land a few good punches. It show's 'em you're not scared and can put up a fight, it was my old man's advice.

Yeah I wish someone had told me that years ago. Not that I was bullied much but I was a boarder at Waitaki Boys and life was pretty tough for everyone. We had the English school system of fagging and seniority which actually worked, except there were always pricks who enjoyed the power and became bullies.

I tried to tell my son to physically resist and fight bullies. That way the event couldn't be denied or ignored by teachers and parents. However...my wife was horrified and so were the teachers who were strongly pushing the non-violence ethic in the school. Pretty hard to argue with that so I shut up.

It has turned out fine for him because he's a laid-back popular boy and doesn't get picked on. Plus he's a gymnast and fit as a buck rat so not an easy target.

?

The one constant with bullies is they are almost always cowards too.

I know everyone says this but some of the bullies I remember from high school weren't cowards by any stretch of the imagination. They just took advantage of their age, and physical size, or position if they were prefects. Basically they were immature youths who liked to humiliate others. At the same time they were talented cricket and rugby players who showed no fear and played while injured.

[Brian d marge]

I landed off the boat in CHCH in 1974 , I was about 9 years old from East London

that bell for playtime was round one

round two was called lunchtime for some strange reason

then home for buttered scones and tea

Bullies usually have character deficiencies , and if you are smart enough , you can make them look small

but sometimes , you need to hit the reset button.

My two will have the same problem being Half Japanese and not speaking English as their main language, I am going to have to enroll them in an Akido type self defense class , more of a Zen ish defense type of Martial art or something similar

The oldest is gentle and good with people , the youngest ,,,well I wouldn't be surprised if I get a phone call from the police one day,,,,,,,

Stephen

Dont get me started on office management ,,,,,

and the knobel art of

and my favorite is ..all mouth and trousers
and then theres Margret

[Gremlin]

I was bullied for most of college (and some before that, but that was South Africa). It stopped in 7th form because I was no longer the little one (seriously, for those that went to Howick College, I walked under the lockers in 3rd form, 7th form I looked over the top).

One of the common games was to get pushed into me hard by a mate, sending me sprawling, him apologising that he got pushed. That stopped in 7th form as well, when I saw one coming, side stepped and sent him on into the lockers. The school tactics to deal with bullies were so shit that I never bothered reporting it (not to mention the retribution). Their idea was to put you in a monitored classroom for all breaks.

The net effect of the whole lot had its pros and cons. I no longer tolerate shit from anyone (but don't go looking for fights... I still prefer to avoid them, but my size helps in defusing the situation before it gets out of hand), but its also made me reasonably unemotional and I gain satisfaction from some people's pain and suffering. One of the reasons I actually ride is that I really enjoy it, so its one of the few occasions I actually get emotional about something.

The hard part was learning to control my rage, and I had major anger problems as a teenager. Parents got worried when I literally shook with rage. The kind of rage where consequences have no meaning, and the person being dead is a perfect outcome.

Now I have a nice long fuse and deliberately try to keep a funny demeanour by seeing the funny side of everything, but when I do occasionally lose it (less than once a year), it's not pretty.

[Str8 Jacket]

School - Possibly the worst time of my life. I was moved to 5/6 different primary schools due to bullying and none of them could control it. Unfortunately I was a kid born covered in ezcma and physical defects from a hard birth (not that I remember) along with other factors so I was always picked out to be bullied by other kids as I was ugly, strange and a complete retard in their opinion.

Growing up in a small town (Rotorua) was hard too as the shit just follows you through your school life. I know what it is like to be the 'nerd of school' where they would arrange for people to bash me on the school bus or school field along with so many other nasty things. Bullying caused me to attempt (really attempt) suicide at least half a dozen times. Fortunately I have moved on from that part of my life now.

I have to honestly say that the school teachers and principals were useless, but then again what could they really do. I just started wagging school which was a shame as I was quite bright as a youngun.

Moving on in life I have to admit that I am glad to have experienced the crap as I have truly learnt that I really don't give a flying fuck what people think about me now, I have very thick skin and can stand up for myself verbally and physically. I don't think I would be anywhere near as mentally strong as I am now if I hadn't experienced such bullying.

Bullying will alway's exist because their is always someone who has to put down someone they perceive as weaker than them to build themselves up. Kiwibiker is rife with Internerd bullying and those people are probably breeding too......

[doc]

The new idea is that those that see bullying and don't do something about it are part of the problem.

[Goblin]

Bwahahaha........a bully who became a cop.........how bizarre !!

One of the "main" bullies at my school went on to become a cop too.....

not realy, bullys love power so cops is a gud choice for him to bully people for a living, not saying all cops are bullies, but ive met a few tht thnk there job is to make your life hard

Clint rikard springs to mind. He and an islander thug were at high school with my sister and a few of my friends today remember them(and most of the 1st 15) being bullies at school. My sister had a run in with the islander fulla when he was a cop here. He would follow her around then pull her over looking for anything to ticket her for so she ended up complaing of harrassment. He eventually moved to Oz. Saw a bit in the paper a few months back about him being questioned on historic rape charges.

My youngest son has been bullied at school too. His bully was a kid from Murupara with a mongrel mob father, domestic violence a normal part of life. This kid moved to Rotorua to live with his grandma who has shown him some love, routine and some boundaries. He still loses the plot on occasion but my boy now knows he can outrun him! End of last year the principal phoned me to tell me the kid was stood down from school for bullying.

The problem with kids these days is the celphones. Text all their mates there's gunna be a fight and they all gather round and film some poor kid getting the crap kicked out of them, then send it on to their other mates. What I want to know is wtf are their parents teaching them? Just last week driving home I saw 4 cop cars down the road. Got home and told my 13yr old and his mate not to go down there and his mate says "oh yeah theres a fight on today". WTF??

[Jdogg]

Bullies are weak....look what happens when they figure out they are not dealing with someone weaker then them

[Winston001]

Bullies are weak....look what happens when they figure out they are not dealing with someone weaker then them

I'm not sticking up for bullies - I detest them - but really, isn't that video just about a young aggressive guy, possibly slightly intoxicated, trying to be smart? Billions of young men act like that. Its driven by testosterone.

[James Deuce]

Fighting back doesn't always work and is the worst advice you can give anyone. It just escalates the level of violence the bullies will use in retribution. Sure, there's plenty of tales where habitual bullying is broken by a kid deciding to stand up for himself and the bullies suddenly click that they've been getting away with picking on a kid much bigger and faster than them because they've been doing it since kindergarten.

But.

I got my arm broken 15 minutes before I was due to go on stage to collect the prize for 1st in my class for academic achievement.

How did that happen?

The ringleader cracked a raw egg on my head 20 minutes before I was due to go on stage. I tried to wash it out in a drinking fountain and the ringleader's bigger mate pushed my face into the bowl and held me there with the tap running.

I lashed out with a foot, caught him in the balls and he went down. There was stunned silence and then all half a dozen piled in on me, breaking my arm in the process.

The next year, I made the hockey first XI and was playing representative level soccer as a reserve for North Shore. This upset one of the bullies as he fancied himself as a football player and he wasn't selected. He waited for me in the changing room after PE, his mates locked the door and he took to me with a hockey stick. The injury to my left knee got infected, I got septicaemia and spent two weeks in bed unable to move and my football and hockey careers were over permanently. Knee is still dodgy. I never told anyone who did it. Still got first in my 4th form class.

I was little, unassuming and good at my school work. I never, ever started anything, but after months of torment it would build up and I'd snap inappropriately at an inappropriate time. Then, as it is now for bullied kids, it was obviously my issue due to my inability to moderate my reaction to the torment or deal with the problem by becoming friends with the bastards. No one saw or acknowledged the months of torment, I just used to over react. Stalked on the way home from school, dogs set on me on my paper run, kids stealing and hiding my bike while I was doing the paper run, they'd just keep doing it until they got the reaction they were after.

I started reading Science Fiction in the library at lunch times because there was some invisible force field at the door that the dunderheads couldn't breach, plus the librarian was the scariest woman you've ever seen (but looking back I think she got it) and then started playing Dungeons and Dragons with some other victims, some of bullies, others victims of life in general, in a science lab that a friendly teacher would let us nerds use. One teacher in all that time and when I look back she would have been about 25, a very junior teacher and the only one willing to provide a haven. She used to hang out in the store room of the science lab to scare the bullies off when they started throwing stuff at windows and trying to break into the locked room.

Kids are good at spotting other kids who are "different". If you're not large and robust and weird to boot, you're screwed. They'll steal your stuff, pretend to be your friend one minute and then hold you down for the bully to spit in your mouth the next.

It's character building in a way, but it's not the sort of character I'd like my kids to develop.

School should be safe. Many of the "weird" kids come from homes or backgrounds that aren't exactly safe or conventional and many of the bullies seem to come from either privileged homes full of opportunity or out and out crack houses. Girls shouldn't end up with brain injuries because three other girls decide to beat the shit out of a "weird" kid for no reason other than they're different.

The thing I would say, is if the bullied kids don't end up dysfunctional drug-dependant psych patients, they tend to be made of sterner stuff once they get out of school and seem to avoid some of the classic traps that the "cool" kids do. You know, pregnant girlfriends, a couple of divorces before 22 and a stalled career in waste management.

I've a kid currently getting the shit kicked out of him because he simply can't understand that some people are fundamentally nasty oxygen thieving scum and he strives to see the good in everyone and simply wants friendly consistent behaviour from kids programmed to claw their way to the "top" (Top of what? Life sucks. You should do your best to make it better for other people) at any cost, by any method.

[Gremlin]

I was little, unassuming and good at my school work.

I don't know about others, but that's definitely how I think my bullying started in NZ. I was new, so no-one knew me (ergo, no history from previous schools), but I was too smart for my peers. I quickly learned not to study, do bugger all, blend in, and still achieve respectable results above average. The bullying was still there, as I had already come onto their radar, but it lessened when I attempted to blend in...

[Teflon]

My advice:

Don't look like a victim. Simple things like correcting their posture, make them walk with confidence. Fuck wits look for weak looking targets.

Boxing - simple and effective

Teach them to walk away because its not worth it. It fucking sucks when you have look over your shoulders every second of the day for weeks/months on end and wondering when that crack head you've just knocked out decides to fuck you over.

[MSTRS:Me]

That's a shocking tale, Jim. Definitely an extreme case.
But I still stand by the advice to dish it back. I reckon for every tale such as yours, there'd be 5 where hitting back worked.
I, too, was little as a kid. Skinny. Knock-kneed. Not very self-confident. At around age 10, I was bullied by a same-age kid and his mates, who were all much bigger than me. Life was miserable at the bus stop. I convinced Mum to have a word with the bully...you can guess how that turned out. So my father 'advised' me. One bully sent home crying, his nose splattered all over his face. Him and his mates all wanted to be friends after that. And I never had another issue with bullies. Something about me must have changed.
Teflon is right about the targeted types. We can all recognise people who are 'different', or weak or whose demeanour screams of not wanting to be noticed. It's almost as though they carry a blazing sign on their head that says Pick On Me.
Surely fighting back gives some self-confidence, let's the current bully know you're not scared of them, and reduces the victim look so future bullies don't have a 'reason' to start?