meritocrat

Intending to harm someone with verbal insults is still teasing.

Walross

Teasing may be a tool of the bully, but no more than that. As I said before, bullying is a pattern of humiliation, threats, and often physical assault. It goes way beyond mere teasing.

No, once the intention becomes to harm, it becomes verbal assault.

Walross

Soyin Milka

Can we tease you by calling you "Meritocrap" from now on at IIDB?

Soyin

BadBadBad

I haven't read all through this thread, but my kid was getting bullied in 2nd or 3rd grade. Mainly some name calling and perhaps some pushing. He was pretty upset about it. I read a little on the Internet. I found an interesting site.

bullies2buddies

This guy's perspective is that bullying is the victims fault. Yeah, it's kind of eye opening. The victim is sensitive to teasing and taunting. The bully victim doesn't like it and reacts to it. That's what the bully wants so he keeps on doing it. Not all fat, ugly, brainy, glass wearing, uncoordinated, sissy, geeks get teased. The solution was illustrated quite nicely by Farren early on in this thread. It stopped the bully dead in his tracks. He took the wind right out of the guy, and this web site has some specific techniques that might give the same results without getting punched out.

The guy has some very interesting perspectives on it, and I suggest you take a look not only for the school yard bully, but for fighting and whining and complaining between your kids. Read some of his stuff. Try it on your kids or your bully, and look at their faces. It works. There's probably some caveats and limits but his perspective is very interesting.

Catseye

I took a look. It's interesting, all right, but from my own experience, it's not too accurate. From the 'How to Stop Being Teased and Bullied Without Really Trying' page:

To a degree, yes. Bullies like getting a reaction, and most kids will react pretty strongly when they're getting picked on. So, I'd agree the advice to not react, and to not do anything to try and stop it, will probably work in a few cases (it's certainly worth a try). However, in a lot of other cases, it's not going to do a thing.

I was bullied, and I did react to it. No screaming fits of rage, or anything, but the bullies knew it was bothering me. That lasted a couple of weeks - maybe a month, at the most. After that, I stopped reacting. In fact, I followed the advice on the site almost to the letter - I didn't do anything to stop the bullying, I didn't tell teachers, I didn't get angry, I didn't shout back. I even tried the 'You can call me names if you want to' tactic. And, well, it didn't work.

I wasn't faking the lack of reaction, either. After a while, it really didn't bother me as much any more. Sure, my school life was made pretty miserable by them, but when 'pretty miserable' became the default state, another day of bullying didn't come as any surprise. Regarding the OP and the discussion following it, I should stress that bullying undoubtedly made my life absolute hell - my lack of reaction wasn't an indication that it no longer bothered me, or that I developed any new strength, but that I got numb. Bullying was part of my school life - it didn't occur to me that there was any way to make it stop, or that it even should stop. I was weird, right? To a degree I deserved it, right? Nobody around me saw a problem with this happening to me, teachers included, so I should accept it too, right? So, I thought it was only to be expected. And while I hated the fact that I was being bullied, I got kind of immune to the everyday instances of bullying. I didn't scream, I didn't cry, I didn't get angry, I didn't yell at them, I didn't tell a teacher, and so on. And did they stop? Did they hell.

For the next six years or so, the bullying was pretty constant (if anything, it got worse after I stopped reacting to it). I'm sure the bullies would have liked a reaction, but the lack of one didn't make them move on to pastures new. Of course, my experience might have been the exception rather than the rule, but I've got a feeling more than a few of the people on this thread who've mentioned being badly bullied can tell the same story. I know several people who were bullied for long periods of time, and the exact same thing happened - after a while, they stopped reacting, but it had no effect on the bullies. I don't intend to dismiss the 'don't react, and they'll leave you alone' idea entirely - as I said, there are a lot of cases where it would work. On the other hand, though, there's also a lot of cases where it wouldn't. Sometimes, there truly isn't any reaction, or lack of one, which would make the bullies leave the victim alone.

Incidentally, it was one of the main points of advice given by my school in the 'how to avoid being bullied' talks they gave us from time to time. The other points were 'Make eye contact when the bullies talk to you' and 'Tell the bullies they're hurting your feelings - maybe they don't realise' (ha, ha). My school claimed to have a very strong anti-bullying policy, too. Like most schools, and like many people, they seriously underestimated the problem.

BadBadBad

Catseye,

I feel for you. I was bullied and beat up by a couple of kids on my street when I was in grade school. So I don't mean to minimize what you've gone through. I think there's something to what this guy is saying though. Maybe it's like advice on how to control a car when it skids. If you follow the good advice from the time you leave your driveway all the way through the rough spots maybe you'll be OK. If you only take the advice after you're going 90 on ice, probably doesn't help.

I tried some of his techniques on my kids when they came to complain about their siblings. It makes sense, and it stops them cold and makes them think. Plus I agree with many of the messages he's trying to get across that name calling and teasing aren't a tragedy, and that a lot of the culture we pass on to kids is that it is a tragedy they shouldn't have to endure. That getting hit by your brother isn't the worst thing that could happen to you. That you should learn to deal with normal agressive behavior and other negative childish behavior on your own both at home and in school. It can't be avoided. It's not the end of the world.

There are plenty of instances, where I see these techniques fall down though. For example, I have twin girls and when they get into a playful wrestling match somebody usually gets mad. The other one will continue until it goes well beyond play and turns in to torture, and it will continue way beyond my comfort zone. So, I don't see where his hands off let them deal with it position ends and the Mom needs to step in and solve the problem position becomes the right thing to do.

My son was 9-10 in fourth grade. He started complaining about some bullying. Mostly some name calling and some shoving and pushing. Why him? After talking with his teacher and her discussions with the "bully," it became clear my child was part of the game. Pestering made him a target. The same negative behavior that was causing problems with his sisters at home. Plus, he has a mad little temper going when he doesn't get his way. So, there was some room for him to have avoided the whole thing.

In my case, it's been so long ago, I don't know what started it. I was the new kid on the block, and as I recall, problems started right away. I don' know if it played into it, but my mother got really involved in problem solving between me and my brother. It was very much like the viscious cycle that's described on this web site. Perhaps that did play into it.

I'm sure there are no easy answers, but I was very interested in his spin on the political correctness going on in school and our culture with respect to kid's behavior. I have noticed for example that kids these days seem to have their whole day very rigid and structured. Walk in a straight single file line. Don't talk in class. Free recess time is a thing of the past. Then come home, go to soccer practice, then baseball, then watch TV. Parents have to schedule play time with the neighbors on a calender. Sure doesn't seem like the right plan for learning how to interact with other kids in the unstructured environment that bullying usually takes place in. I thought he had a very interesting viewpoint on that and how it fits into the kind of bullying you experienced.

Soyin Milka

I'll use the big "E" word.

Empowering the victims of bullying should be part of a strategy to deal with bullying. I basically agree with your points about this brettc.

I think all kids should be taught about these strategies tho, not just those who happen to be victims at a specific moment, if only to avoid the bullies from simply picking new targets unaware of the strategies. All kids should know they can fall back on the adults at any time if the situation gets out of hand also. The adults have to be the "Plan B", because no strategy is foolproof. Teaching these strategies to kids should not be an excuse for adults to wash their hands of what happens next.

Bullies need to be dealt with too. If they need help, they should receive it. Dealing with bullying should include dealing with the bullies themselves, not just the targets.

We should never tell the victims of bullying they "deserve" what happened to them because of their own behavior. To me, that makes as much sense as telling a rape or spousal abuse victims they brought this upon themselves. Because bullying happens to kids doesn't mean it's no big deal.

Soyin

MzNeko

I've got to admit, I have a bit of a problem with the "don't react" option as some kind of cure-all solution.

Maybe that works fine if you do it to begin with, the first time a bully tries to start something. However, in my own experience - once they've gotten a reaction from you the first time, not reacting just causes them to escalate until they DO get a reaction.

Catseye

brettc,

True, and I agree it's good advice at times - there's certainly a vicious cycle at work when kids do react to bullies. I saw it happen with a few people I knew at school. They became the target for a couple of days, they reacted by sitting in a corner crying all through lunch break, bullies were happy; they stopped crying and decided to ignore it, bullies got bored and left them alone. It will work in a lot of cases, and it's worth a try.

Still, though... there are times when the bullies either don't find a reaction important, or find the lack of one a challenge, as MzNeko said. I'd agree that kids who react to bullying by throwing a screaming fit every day for three years, then suddenly decide to ignore it, are probably not going to get rid of the bullies immediately because of the sheer length of time they've spent reacting that way. On the other hand, though, I never reacted by throwing a screaming fit (I don't recall saying anything stronger than 'Go to hell, moron', and I didn't shout or cry), and I stopped reacting altogether after a few weeks. The bullying didn't stop for the next six years. If my reaction was the only thing causing the bullying, I'm pretty sure they would have got bored much sooner than that.

They probably would have liked more of a reaction, and they probably were trying to get one. But I don't think my responses to the bullying were what triggered them. If anything, I think they were encouraged by the fact I didn't make any kind of fuss about it, didn't tell teachers, and didn't get all my friends to yell at the bullies for me - they knew they weren't going to get into much trouble if I was the target.

The guy's advice is good, and he makes some interesting points - I liked the article about perceptions of a constant rise in violence among children, while that kind of crime is actually decreasing. (I read a similar BBC Online article about perceptions of the overall crime rate here - most of the population thinks it's rising, when in fact it's been on the decline for a decade. We're a pessimistic bunch, apparently...)

I don't think the 'don't react' advice is worthless, or shouldn't be taught to kids. Mostly, I just take issue with his assumption that it will work in every case, because every incidence of teasing/bullying follows the same basic pattern. Similarly, the 'it's not the worst thing that can happen to you, and realising that will help you see it in a different light' implies the same kind of thing. The bullying I experienced certainly wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to me, and I did realise that at the time - in fact, at the time I didn't see anything seriously wrong with it, since it was just part of my normal school day. If someone had told me at the time that I should learn to accept everyone had to put up with such childish behaviour from time to time, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. It was several degrees of severity removed from ordinary that's-kids-for-you teasing, though.

To take an example, a friend of mine once dyed her hair pink by mistake and got mercilessly teased about it for a few days. She spent most of that time in tears. For her, 'don't react' and 'teasing is only normal' would probably have been much better advice than it would have for me. In cases like that, I think the lack of unstructured time some kids experience can definitely be a problem in kids learning how normal interaction, including some degree of teasing, works - while my parents never felt the need to structure every second of my life, I'm aware some parents do, in increasing numbers. I could certainly see how that could be a problem, when kids who've had every part of their lives planned and supervised for them are thrown into the Lord of the Flies-esque society of a lot of schools.

Anyway. Bringing this rather long ramble to a close, I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there are different types of teasing and bullying, and strategies and attitudes that will work in some types won't work in others. I'm not sure at what point adults should get involved, or what they should actually do, though.

BadBadBad

Fortunately, the school separated my kid from the other kid, and I haven't heard anything more about. Now that we're talking, I'm going to bring it up with him to see how he's doing.

When this was going on, I read a lot on the web about this. Everything was in line with what this guy was opposed to. Run tell mommy and the teacher so they can solve all your problems, you shouldn't get called names. Look back at the beginning of this thread to Farren's story. That was pretty brave, and I think it was a pretty good illustration on how to beat the bully, although I sure never learned how to do it. Somewhere between that story and this web site is some awfully good advice that everyone can learn from.

I hope you're past all that bullying, and as you move forward in your life, I hope you find a healthy way of looking back on it. Those kind of issues sure get easier as you get older.

Good talking to you.