Quote:
Originally Posted by Grunt
I was bullied a lot when I was in Jr. High. I went to Elementary School in a very small country school where I was quite popular (albeit, pretty geeky), and did very well in school. In grade 7 we moved to another small town and I was very quickly the favorite target of the bullies. While I would stand up for myself verbally, I was never the type of kid that would get physical unless the other party initiated the physical stuff.
This went on for most of my grade 7 year. I even remember convincing my Mom for 2 whole weeks that I was too sick to go to school because I didn't want to deal with it. She finally figured out what was going on though and spoke with this principal. I will admit that the torment was never quite as bad after that as most of the "follower" bullies stopped. The teasing from the "leader" bullies went on until the very end of Jr. High, when I moved to Calgary and went to HS here.
Looking back, I think the best thing I could have done was to just stand up for myself to the leaders, as others have said. I remember one other kid who was teased from the moment he moved to our town, but then one day it just stopped. I remember he came into school with a black eye, and from that point forward he didn't get teased again. While I do wish I'd had the balls back then to do this (as I think it would have helped), I don't think it was the only solution for me.
Bullies live off of the reaction they get from their torment. If you take away the payoff (you getting upset, or trying to reason with them, or whatever) then the bullying gets a lot less fun and they'll just find someone else to tease that gives them that payoff. I think if I had maybe done a better job of that I probably wouldn't have got teased quite as much.
Ultimately, it comes down to confidence. If you are confident, then you're no longer the low hanging fruit that the bullies are going to go for. I think maybe the best solution to this problem is two-fold: The bullies need to be punished / talk to their parents, and have them talk to a counselor to find out what their deal is. Victims need counseling as well to give them better tools for dealing with this kind of stuff.
Kids do need to stick up for themselves at some point though... and if they are too timid to do it now, then parents / school need to work with them to give them the confidence.
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To a certain extent, but I think they mainly live off the attention they get from their followers and the feeling of importance and power they get from those same followers.
People are questioning the self-esteem of the victim, and wondering why they don't stick up for themselves. I think most victims are smart enough to know that getting creamed and beat up is probably not on their bucket list in life.
Personally, I think it is the bullies and their gang of followers that lack self-esteem and have no spine. Oh yeah, they lack lots of other stuff too, but in the end, if they could get that same satisfaction outside of bullying, some of them probably would. Unfortunately, a lot of the bullies are just bad apples.
As I mentioned before, my daughter was a victim of bullying in the early grades. She attended a wedding of a friend from that school recently and not to anyone's surprise, the bully who kicked little girls is now.....
in jail!!!!!