Quote From: bc9701I sat there today and watched that little boy, and it literally brought tears to my eyes. That little boy was me, 26 years ago. The only difference is that my parents always said "I must be doing something to deserve what I got."
I could go on for hours telling horror stories of my experiences. Instead I'm going to talk about how they stopped.
The day they stopped, I got beat up just like any other day. Except this day I fought back. I fought back until a Vice Principal of my school came and pulled me off the kid.
It was then I realized that bullies don't like being hurt any more than I did.
Now that I'm a parent, AND have been a horrible victim of bullying, I am teaching my daughter to be nice and respectful to everybody. To her everybody is an equal - UNTIL she gets bullied. If she gets pushed, she's allowed to push back harder. If she's hit, she's allowed to hit the kid until that kid doesn't get up. Period.
We as parents can instill all kinds of great advice and "you're a good person, so believe in yourself" dogma into our children, but the reality is that when kids are sitting on your child's chest, having a spitting contest on your child's face, it's pretty hard to reinforce that type of teaching.
All you can do is give them the tools to be able to fight back, and teach them the ability to judge when the right time is to use the tools. That is the ONLY way to stop bullies.
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It is so difficult to discuss this because I was also bullied and although I noticed some differences in
the behavior of those who bullied me after I hit them, there were more where they came from. I totally believe in defending yourself when being attacked but I think I do believe that it might be possible to make a plan. Many times when people are attacked they are attacked verbally first
and then then it escalates. Have a plan on how you're going to handle it verbally before it escalates to violence. Even as an adult, I have been verbally acosted and I just retort back, something. I found that even sometimes ignoring if it is a situation where there's no one around. If someone messes with you verbally and you display to them that you are just as witty I believe that you can
fend them off. I found out that adult males do have a game in which they insult each other. I perfected it where I would plan what I was going to say to them. I got so good that they stopped
or we just had fun poking and prodding at each other. I also built up my skills in other areas of my life, sports, music, lifting weights, learned spanish. People started respecting me more and now I teach in high school and make my efforts to prevent any bullying that goes on. I believe that it will not stop because in the halls and outside after school there are so many opportunities for kids to talk stuff. There are many angry children who need to take out their frustrations on some weaker or more sensitive soul.
Just an opinion.
(Original air date 04/19/05) They're not just lurking on the schoolgrounds. Now, bullies can come into your home and torture your children over e-mail, instant messages and other Web forums. It's an epidemic that has kids withdrawing socially, dropping out of school, and in some cases, tragically taking their own lives. Dr. Phil and his son Jay talk to two teens who can't escape the intimidation and abuse. Then, pop star Clay Aiken, who was picked on as a child, shares how he got the bullying to stop. Share your thoughts here.
