Fucking bullies

[James Deuce]

What if you have a kid with no concept of hitting back, who gets back up off the ground and immediately wants to start playing with these bastards, who won't tell anyone because he doesn't want to miss the opportunity to be their friend? Not in a needy "please be my mate" way either. He just keeps hoping for things to change, despite no evidence that they ever will. If ever you wanted the definition of an enlightened soul demonstrated I have the perfect candidate. Shame we aren't Hindu, because then at least there's the potential for some sort of reward in the future.

He WON'T fight back.

So they just escalate the level and intensity of the violence. Schools will pay lip service to "fixing" bullying, but when the perpetrators have been doing it since Kindergarten it's now an entrenched behaviour, and often the schools have been prepped to expect this sort of relationship dynamic and the victim is entirely at fault.

My case isn't extreme. Start digging and you find hundredss of thousands of tales of physical harm dished out in NZ schools by children to other children. You also find thousands of people for whom it all went wrong the moment they stood up to the bullies, or worse, told an adult who was doing what to them.

[MSTRS:Me]

At the risk of sounding flippant - is the Messiah among us again?

Sorry Jim, I can understand how awful this must be for you and the child in question. I only know how it was for me, with the fighting back. One of YTs kids was the same - victim written all over him. He got the same advice as my father gave me, with the same result.

[superman]

At my school things were a lot more verbal luckily, probably due to the fact that if you did anything violent towards someone you'd get expelled.

Luckily most bullies are jock retards, and can't handle being verbally abused without wanting to get physical. They don't take too kindly to being told they have a brain deficiency causing them to want to touch people when their testosterone starts pumping because someone has retaliated and called them some clever name.

If you wanted a bully to get hurt you could easily manipulate another one to beat him up. Crazy mind games on dumb ape men, it was almost a sport. Funny thing is one went to England to become a cop...

The only physical abuse I seem to remember getting is from my older brother. And fair enough really I was an annoying little shit. I don't know when I started seeing bullies as people to have mind games with, but seemed to work quite well. Just had stupid teachers telling me that the friends I decided to hang out with when I was 12 made me "socially inept", just because they were trouble makers who hated school. But he got fired a few years later for touching a female student innapropriately... but did he?...

[Brett]

What if you have a kid with no concept of hitting back, who gets back up off the ground and immediately wants to start playing with these bastards, who won't tell anyone because he doesn't want to miss the opportunity to be their friend? Not in a needy "please be my mate" way either. He just keeps hoping for things to change, despite no evidence that they ever will. If ever you wanted the definition of an enlightened soul demonstrated I have the perfect candidate. Shame we aren't Hindu, because then at least there's the potential for some sort of reward in the future.

He WON'T fight back.

So they just escalate the level and intensity of the violence. Schools will pay lip service to "fixing" bullying, but when the perpetrators have been doing it since Kindergarten it's now an entrenched behaviour, and often the schools have been prepped to expect this sort of relationship dynamic and the victim is entirely at fault.

My case isn't extreme. Start digging and you find hundredss of thousands of tales of physical harm dished out in NZ schools by children to other children. You also find thousands of people for whom it all went wrong the moment they stood up to the bullies, or worse, told an adult who was doing what to them.

I get what you are saying. Despite my earlier post, I was a kid that also just wanted to be friends with everyone. My luck was my size, I was always big for my age and even today an 6ft 3 and 100kg. I always struggled with the likes of rugby because even though I could smash the living shit out of anyone standing in my way and none of them could touch me, I lacked the aggro streak to do so and was so called the "gentle giant".
The same went with bullies. I can count on 1 hand the times in school when I struck back (usually very aggresively with devastating results) and those times were because I really had finally had enough (once) or was because someone attacked me physically first and hurt me or because someone was picking on a weaker kid who could not defend themselves and thus I would get enraged at the injustice and jump in.

But, I can fully understand that some kids (admittedly I would imagine they are a rare breed) just would not have the impule to fight. I don't think that this is at all a bad thing because I would also imagine that such kids have gentle spirits and make awesome mates. I think that the only real defense for a child or person such as this is to recognise when someone is not a good person and to steer clear of them.
Secondly, the body posture and disposition thing is a big part. I am not talking about walking around like a puffed up turkey acting tough (usually just a cover) but teaching a person a self respecting, confident posture with shoulders back and chin up to meet the world. Bullies seldom pick on a person who looks confident and self controlled.

The second thing that I think dissapoints me is how few kids will stand up for others.
However, i did a bit of work with a mate of mine who went around talking in schools, it is amazing some of the stories that these kids have. Never forget, most kids who act strangely, are bullies etc. are displaying complex emotions that come from what is going on in their lives. Some are just nasty little shits, but some are very unhappy and have sorry stories and do not know how to a) deal with what is going on and b) have not been taught another way of dealing with their issues but through intimidation and violence.

That said, I am not quite the gentle giant I used to be as I have realised the need to be able to protect myself. 4 years of boxing and now 1 year of Military CQB (which is an incredibly brutal but efficient form of self protection) has definitely left me willing and able to defend myself, however it has also taught me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with turning around and walking away.

If I have a kid that is on the gentle side, I will nurture that in them, train them to avoid the nasty bitches but do my best to train them how to defend themselves so that if they decide to strike back, they win.

[aprilia_RS250]

Psychologically I remember I always felt good/relieved from a fight with a bully/dickhead. I either beat them or they smacked me up, didn't matter either way as I found out they can't hurt you that much, just a few cuts or bruises.

[Winston001]

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.....

Kids are good at spotting other kids who are "different". If you're not large and robust and weird to boot, you're screwed....

School should be safe.


I've a kid currently getting the shit kicked out of him and he strives to see the good in everyone and simply wants friendly consistent behaviour from kids....

Jim, you have my admiration and utmost respect for this post from your heart. Thank you for your honesty and realism.

My own thoughts on fighting back aren't that the bullies will be intimidated, but they might respect and approve of the effort. Others are simply nasty and will redouble their efforts.

Thinking about boarding school, I wish I had struck back. I'd have lost big-time but the masters would have heard about it, as would the rector (feared by all), and my parents 250 miles away. I was a good kid and something would have been done. Fighting back would have worked in exposing our culture of intimidation.

Still, I need to be honest and say I wasn't bullied much, and physical and verbal abuse was normal experience for all 3rd, 4th and 5th formers, but not constant. Actually besides older boys, some of my peer group were the pricks and living in a dormitory you can't get away from that. Bullies in my experience are not necessarily older.

I do think it is significant that after 4 years of boarding school, I only have 3 close friends from those days. By contrast I have a raft of friends from university.

Jim -your calm kid who sees the good in others is a gift to society and is a winner in the long term.