Tag Archives: bullies

Bullying, Child Safety, SYN Digital Enrollment Director, SYN The Bully Expert

Lessons learned from my childhood bully

Hello, my name is Ed and I’d like to share with you a story from my past about dealing with bullies.

When I was in the 6th grade, I had a bully named Dave who would put me down and pick on me every chance he got. He was particularly good at saving his biggest insults for when there were as many other students around as possible.

That of course only compounded the hurt and humiliation that Dave had become so adept at hurling my way. Until one day something changed.

 

Know thy enemy

My parents knew that I had been getting picked on. They also happened to know Dave’s parents.

As it turns out, Dave’s home life wasn’t all that great and my parents assured me that he wasn’t focused on me because of any issue he had with me, but because I presented an easy target for him to turn his frustration out on.

Of course, I didn’t think that fact was helpful to me at all. It’s not like I could change the way he was being raised. It took me a little while to figure out, but I realized that while I couldn’t change the cause of his bullying, I could change myself so I wouldn’t be such an easy target.

bullying

 

 

Finding the strength

One afternoon as class was letting out for the day, I found myself alone with Dave in the classroom. I frantically tried to gather my things and slip out the door before he noticed this too, but to no avail.

He began walking over to me.

Afraid of what he would do with no one around to help me, I knew this was my time to change his perception of me or face a potential beatdown. As he approached, I stood up and before he had the chance to say anything I took the initiative and finally confronted my bully.

In a firm, loud voice I asked him what exactly it was about me that made him choose me as his target. I still remember what I said.

“Is it because I’m short? Sorry, but I can’t control that. I don’t wear glasses so that can’t be it. What is it? Why do you pick on me?”

And for the first time, he turned around and walked away without a word.

 

What I learned

It took me a while to realize but appearances truly can help or hurt your cause. There was nothing I could do about being shorter than my classmates but standing up, speaking assertively and having a preplanned practiced response put my bully on his heals.

Dave never bothered me again and I learned a lesson that holds true regardless of age; if you don’t want to be a victim, don’t look like one.

Bullying, SYN Digital Enrollment Director, SYN The Bully Expert

Getting Bullies to Stay Away

As a parent, there is nothing more agonizing than knowing your child is suffering from the emotional abuse of a bully.

If you, too, were bullied as a child, you know yourself that the scars can take a lifetime to heal.

Sadly, children who are quiet, shy and unassuming tend to get bullied. For such children, it is essential that they turn their attitude around and learn the steps they must take to avoid this problem.

Martial arts schools teach children exactly how to make the bullying stop — and it doesn’t involve fighting. Along with the martial arts skills, children learn how to deflect verbal and physical confrontation through role-playing exercises and guidelines.

We clearly spell out the procedure to use in dangerous situations: When they are harassed by a bully, children need to understand there is a very specific course of action that must be taken.

Martial arts students learn how to be in control during such situations – so on the playground, bullies get the message.

Bullying, Child Safety, SYN Digital Enrollment Director

Help, I’m Being Bullied!

One of the most difficult challenges we can face as a parent is to help our child develop the appropriate social skills necessary to deal with a bully.
Let’s face it. We all have to learn how to interact with others in a complex variety of relationships and settings. We begin to acquire these skills almost from birth. Each attempt to communicate our needs elicits a response from our parents and we slowly learn to adapt our self centered behavior to incorporate the needs of other people.
But these skills don’t happen by accident. Children begin life being engaged with and interested in the people around them but are largely incapable of empathy. In other words, they lack the social skills required to put themselves in another person’s place, to recognize their impact and consider the feelings of others.
Bullies often share some common characteristics. They are most often focused on themselves and try to intimidate other people. In general, they have poor social skills and questionable judgment. They seem to have no empathy or interest in other people’s feelings.
Most bullies think they are cool and in control but others put people down to make themselves feel good because they are insecure. When your child is faced with a bully, the following are some behaviors that can help:
  • Practice being confident: ways to you can practice ways to respond to a bully verbally or through your behavior both by yourself and with a friend or a parent. The most effective thing you can do is to practice feeling good about you, about being confident about who you are.
  • Talk about it: if you are being bullied it can help to talk to a parent, a teacher, or a friend about your feelings and frustrations. It’s always a good idea to ask for help when you feel insecure or threatened.
  • Don’t get angry, walk away: When someone is bullying you it’s tempting to get angry and fight back. But if you don’t respond and walk away, sooner or later they will probably get tired of harassing you. Be confident and walk away proudly. Body language like this sends them a message that you’re not vulnerable.
If you know, or suspect, that your child is being bullied, you can help them to build the confidence to walk away and learn to deal with the situation appropriately. Martial arts training can help them to develop the necessary skills to stand up to bullying with self confidence and a thoughtful response.
Bullying, Child Safety, SYN Digital Enrollment Director

Bully This

Safety is a topic high on every parent’s priority list. We all worry about the safety of our children in an uncertain world where danger lurks around every corner and we may feel inadequate to provide them with the necessary training for self defense.

The question is how can I help my child to develop the skills and the judgment they need for adequate self defense and safety? How safe is safe?

When we talk about safety and self defense an overwhelming list of hazards crowd the picture and we may not know where to start. Food safety, fire safety, gun safety, playground safety, stranger awareness, and the list goes on.

We can’t protect our children from every scratch, fall or insult and we can’t prepare them to deal with every situation with which they might be faced.

But when we get right down to it one safety topic heads the list in every parent’s mind. Stranger awareness. Does your child know what to do if approached by a stranger say, in the playground, at the mall, or in the park?

Practice role playing with your child. Teach them what to say if a stranger tries to give them a ride home from school, for instance, or tries to buy them a treat. As them to tell you what they would do or say in a variety of situations and help them to memorize phone numbers and addresses to use in an emergency or unsafe situation.

It may even be wise to test their behavior by asking someone the child doesn’t know to act out one of these scenarios with your child. You might be surprised at their response and it can help you to identify areas that need reinforcement.

How safe is safe? The safety of your child in every potential situation relies on their ability to be aware of their surroundings and to make the right decision when they need to act in their own self defense. We can’t control our children’s safety 100 percent of the time but we can help them to acquire the skills necessary to help maintain their own safety.

Bullying, Child Safety, SYN Digital Enrollment Director

The Bully Cycle: Who is Responsible for Keeping Us All Safe?

Bullying is a complex event. Since my undergraduate work was in sociology, I usually look at systems when dealing with problem-solving. So it was only natural that my examination of the bullying problem focuses on system failures rather than the action of the individual bully. It is important for us all to understand that if we have a bullying problem in our school, social group, or workplace, we have a bigger problem than just one person, the bully, acting badly.

A bully doesn’t operate in a vacuum. The problem encompasses the entire group whether that is a school, a social group, or a workplace.

The Bullying Cycle is made up of:

1. the person who bullies,

2. the victim who gets bullied, and

3. the larger group that allows the bullying to continue. This larger group is made up of both peer group members and persons in authority who allow bullying to occur and continue.

A key point is that bullying continues in any setting only when the group permits it through a sick sort of co-dependency.

In order to disrupt the Bullying Cycle all three of the following components need to be addressed and mobilized.

• The bullied person needs to be empowered to stand up to the bully and to solicit support from both his/her peer group and appropriate authority figures.

• The peer group needs to be empowered to stand up to the bully, resist him/her with their peer group pressure, and solicit support from person in authority figures.  The authority figures who witness or are notified of bullying activities must then take appropriate action to keep everyone safe.

• Even the bully is part of the equation – s/he needs to be reached out to in order to try to stop that behavior.  The bully must be placed on notice that the behavior needs to cease or appropriate action will be taken.

Bullying occurs because we — the bully, the bullied, the peer group and persons in authority – – allow it.  We need to practice the same type of Ethical Intervention that Verbal Defense & Influence trained police officers to use when a member of their group acts badly.  Who is responsible for keeping members of our school, group, or workplace safe from bullying?  We all are.  We need to establish a “Caring Watch” of each other to keep us all safe from inappropriate, intimidating, and possibly physically threatening behavior.

• Persons who act like bullies need to be taught that they don’t need to bully, that they can change, and that their bullying will not be tolerated.

• The person being bullied needs to learn that bullying is not okay and that they have the right not to be bullied.  This victim should be taught ways to interrupt the bullying cycle and how to seek out support from his/her peer group and authority figures.  Bullying targets must feel that they are able to reach out to their peer group and authority figures for support.  This person should expect that their peer group will support them and, if needed, that authority figures will protect them.

• Peer group members need to be trained to understand how to appropriately intervene or, if necessary, notify authority figures to help them manage the bullying.  Finally, authority figures need to be trained to recognize bullying behaviors and how to respond appropriately to manage the bullying and that ignoring the problem is harmful to persons under their supervision and harmful to themselves  due to liability concerns that rise out of a “failure to protect” someone in their “care and custody.”

Remember bullying doesn’t occur in a vacuum.  It occurs within a system and therefore a systematic approach is needed to manage the problem.  We all need to do our part to keep everyone safe from this kind of misbehavior.  Most people who become abusers were themselves abused.  Let’s stop the Bullying Cycle now by managing bullying one incident at a time.