Being bullied

[NotBillMurray]

It sickens me to hear how some people were treated in school.
I can't even imagine how hard it must be to be a kid "today". Was bad enough in my childhood years, and I feel like I got fairly lucky.
I can remember getting the school janitor to get my good friend out of his locker. He'd been locked in and was claustrophobic and it completely scarred him for life. Made me incredibly mad for the rest of my time there. I had thought that kind of thing only happened in eighties movies.
I agree with the "aggression as a sign of insecurity / low self-esteem" theories.
I don't know if there is any advice to make anything better.
I guess it would be: Try to see how you are awesome and hold out for someone who recognizes that. Because that person will come along, if only eventually.

 

[Badjedidude]

I don't know if there is any advice to make anything better.

Do it the old-fashioned way.

Get tougher than the guys picking on you.

 

[Bluey]

I don't know if there is any advice to make anything better.

Do it the old-fashioned way.

Get tougher than the guys picking on you.

Thats all well and good but some guys are not brave enough to do that or even big enough.

I know a guy that is 6 foot 7. He's hands are like shovels.
He dose have some body strength as well.
He was bullied. Her did not fight back only because he's just not made that way.

Am like 5 foot 4. A short ass. Now even tho I have no body strength compared to most guys I would fight back. Or pay someone to hurt them if I had to. Ether way they would get hurt back now or I would die trying.
But if your not made like that or you just don't have the confidence for what ever reason then its not that persons fault.

The only advice I have is still the same advice I give in my first post here.
And that is share your problems. Don't hide it no matter how silly you feel.
Bullies wont you to stay quiet. If only I know back then how easily I could get it all to stop. But I guss that's just the way I had to learn.

 

[mripod64]

im in the 11th grade and i get bullied every passing hour, my stuff is yanked from my hands and thrown down the hall, im smashed face first into my locker when its open or closed, tripped down the stairs and up the stairs too, teased and etc. i fought back once and now they know that im not one to mess with anymore. and i try to help others being picked on even if it causes me personal injury. im used to it so im not bothered.
bullying is wrong, and i will fight against the sort when ever i see it.

 

[Badjedidude]

^^^GOOD. That's how ya do it.

Bullies don't pick on hard targets. They choose those who won't put up resistance.

I still say that fighting is the way to get rid of a bully. You don't even have to win the fight. Just hurt the bully enough to make him realize that he has to pay a bit for whatever he gets from tormenting you. And bullies don't like paying for their fun.

 

[Nostalgia]

I was bullied throughout my high school years, and I had to put up with numerous other problems in my life at the time and eventually it got to point where I couldn't take it anymore. The combination of all of these problems consumed me and it led to me dropping out of school during my last year and ever since I haven't been the same.

Bullies ruin lives but it's just something that will always happen to some people. I can't offer any advice or help because I don't what to do, I never got any help when I was bullied and nothing ever changed for me.

 

[Silvernight]

im in the 11th grade and i get bullied every passing hour, my stuff is yanked from my hands and thrown down the hall, im smashed face first into my locker when its open or closed, tripped down the stairs and up the stairs too, teased and etc. i fought back once and now they know that im not one to mess with anymore. and i try to help others being picked on even if it causes me personal injury. im used to it so im not bothered.
bullying is wrong, and i will fight against the sort when ever i see it.

This is bad. I was bullied, mostly psychologically, throughout the lower grades in high school. I would've been bullied physically too on a much more frequent basis if I gave any indication I was afraid of the bullies in question. I can only suggest taking up martial arts classes. I regret I have not done so when I was at school. Usually I had enough juice to fight off a random bully but certainly not always. It would have been much more... fun if I were more 'qualified' in the arts of self-defense as it were.

 

[Sterling]

I think if I posted what I thought should be done to bullies, it would be put under the category of "offensive"

 

[NOAH_FX]

Bad Jedi dude: That's easy to say as an adult, but when your a child your not an adult. All you want is to fit in. I remember in highschool, my cousin was popular (same age too) and at a family function she told me i should (follow) the cool people around school.. This would make me cool.. Sure i wanted to be cool, but i wasn't following a bunch of ****** bags around.. this is when highschool changed for me. I stopped caring about anyone but myself, sure that could be a bad thing, but i no longer cared what a single one of them thought about me. Anytime after that i got bullied, i just escalated the situation to a point that terified everyone around me. Someone hit me, i smashed their face off a brick wall a couple times.. Someone made fun of me, i went at them with everything. Right away, first incident.. People thought i was bi polar lol, but they left me the hell alone real quick..

 

[Badjedidude]

^^^I was bullied when I was a child, and I got tougher than the bullies in order to make them leave me alone. I was speaking from personal experience.

I didn't want to fit in during high school. I was one of those poor saps who actually wanted to gain an education and have a fun time doing it. Weird, huh?

 

[Wrathofcanis]

I was bullied, from kindergarden to the 9th grades... people picked on my physical appeareace a lot, they made fun of me and humiliated me a lot .. and it wasnt just one or two kids, I was picked on by the "cool kids" so the whole class though it was cool and started doing so too...

as an adult I am VERY insecure about my looks, even if people tell me that im pretty, I always think they don't really mean it and they just say it because the feel sorry or because they are trying to be nice,...

I am EXTREMELY withdrawn, being humiliated by my peers for so long, I not only got used to it but now I expect it... I expect people not to like me even if they dont know me, I assume that they are not going to like me if they did so I avoid them.. I avoid putting myself in social situations like parties and such, even though I would love to meet new people... I sometimes go to parties on those rare cases when im invited to one,but all I do is sit in a corner quietly.

but it has not been all bad, growing up I was rejected by everyone else. I realized that i had to stand up for myself because If i didnt do it, no one was going to do it. So even if I though is was ugly and weird I accepted myself, with all my faults... I do like myself, it's just that I think I'm the only person that does

 

[Stepchild]

I'm with Badjedidude in that even though I'm in no way an aggressive personality, I now kind of wish I would have just beaten up some of my bullies. It probably would have caused me more harm than good, because their bullying was the mental, not physical kind (so nothing to be taken seriously, right?). Also, my bullies were (mostly) boys, but on the other hand from about 13 to 14 years old I was taller than most of them. Teachers did absolutely nothing, even though my mom complained about it to the school, and I was bullied even during classes.

I don't know what they tell kids these days, but back when I was in high school, the most common advice was, "Don't pay any attention to them, because all bullies want is a reaction from you." So I spent four years trying not to pay any attention to the bullying. Wow, great advice.

 

[Joseph]

I was bullied as a young kid, at school and at home...

I was quiet. That was my sin.

 

[PaperDuck87]

I was bullied all my life. Even in High School. I was [and still is] your typical geek who loves films, anime, and drawing alone during lunchtime. This made me a huge target towards bullies. They would throw paper, spitballs, pencils..you name it...they threw it at me. It got so bad in middle school I had to switch schools because the teachers feared for my life. Plus, I couldn't focus on my studies and was doing terrible. High school came around and I started failing classes...thats when I decided to change my life. Take a risk for once. I went to military school. Of course I was still being bullied but I've learned to fight back and also rely on people for once. As a child I was lonely but with me being bullied I couldn't trust no one...and I'm sorta still like that. At work when people joke with me sometimes its hard to tell if they're joking or making fun of me. Thats how bad it was for me. After I graduated from Military school and getting my diploma those worries went away a bit. The only thing I pretty much worry about now is the loneliness.

 

[Sci-Fi]

I don't know what they tell kids these days, but back when I was in high school, the most common advice was, "Don't pay any attention to them, because all bullies want is a reaction from you." So I spent four years trying not to pay any attention to the bullying. Wow, great advice.

Yeah, great advice I was told the same thing and that never worked. My mom used to say, "just think of where it's coming from." Yeah from people who have no reason to bully except that they are jerks, or have underlying problems so they take it out on someone else.

These bullies really need to learn and understand what it does to people. How emotionally scaring it is, and how it can affect a persons growth especially during the teen years.

Making fun of someone is not acceptable, especially if they have never done anything to you, or if you don't even know them. I experienced that, in high school I had a kid who stuck gum in my hair, a childish preschool thing to do. I didn't even know him, and when the Vice Principle asked him why he did it he said he didn't know. When asked if he even knew me he said no. So why the hell did he stick gum in my hair? He just didn't like me. He didn't even know me, never talked to me, weren't even in the same grade or classes, never even met. He just decided he didn't like me, so he felt compelled to stick his gum in my hair.

Some people just suck.

 

[Stepchild]

Yeah, great advice I was told the same thing and that never worked. My mom used to say, "just think of where it's coming from." Yeah from people who have no reason to bully except that they are jerks, or have underlying problems so they take it out on someone else.

Oh, and have you heard this gem: "They're just jealous of you"? What a heap of absolute bullcrap. Okay, so maybe sometimes this might be the case, kids are weird that way. But let me tell you, when I was 14, there was absolutely nothing about me for anyone to be jealous of. I was the ugliest teenager you've ever seen, not to mention I had zero social skills. Maybe it's just something parents say to try to make their bullied kids feel better. (It doesn't help.)

Bullying is an attempt to gain acceptance from other members of the group. Ostracizing someone and ganging up on them is a way to attain group cohesion. They'll prey on the weakest, the quiet ones, the ones who are unable to stand up for themselves (i.e. who are told to "just ignore them").

I remember reading somewhere that the most popular kids usually don't have a need to bully, it's only the second popular ones and lower who do. There was this one guy who was very handsome and well-liked and did well in school, who was always very nice to my friend and I - although we resided at pretty much the lowermost rung of the class hierarchy. He didn't have to be nasty to us, because he already had all the acceptance that he needed.

Kids are goddamn selfish. Most of them don't care even though their bullying hurts someone, as long as they stand to gain something from it.

 

[jimmymckooel]

Learn a martial art and see how many bullies come at you then. Bullies like to feel powerful and the only way they can do this is by humiliating their prey. That's why they go for easy targets, people who are lacking in confidence or not physically strong enough. My advice is get tough because life is no Disney cartoon.

 

[Sci-Fi]

LOL yep Stepchild I've heard that one, and like you I had nothing for people to be jealous of. I was skinny, short, sucked at sports, I was a geek (not a nerd, just a geek there's a difference).

I once nearly had my ass handed to me. In grade 9 my brother and a friend and I were goofing around on this dirt hill behind the arena next to our high school. I slipped and fell down and had a streak of mud up the side of my leg. We didn't live far from the school and it was lunch so I decided to book it home to change. As I was heading to the bike racks a couple of grade 12's asked if the baby honeysuckle himself. So I did the stupidest thing ever and flipped them off. They chased me to my bike, I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there.
By the grace of god another student came up and asked them what was going on. They said I flipped them off, this savior of mine told them they probably did something to deserve it (yeah they made fun of me ). He told me to get on my bike and go, and waited there so the other kids didn't beat the snot out of me. I have no idea who that other student was but he really saved my ass that day. He was the same size as the other idiots so they didn't try anything. It just goes to show that size does matter, if I was bigger they wouldn't have messed with me, but since I was smaller they thought they could.

 

[Kataphractos]

When my kids get to be old enough to know about bullying, I'm going to tell them the truth about how bullying works straight up. I'll advise them to ignore the taunts/insults, but if the bully(s) do anything that can be seen as intent to cause physical harm (such as starting a fight or outright physically attacking them), then they are free to do what they need to do to defend themselves. Whether it's as simple as pushing the bully down and running away or breaking his nose in an unavoidable fistfight, I'll tell my kids that they have the right to self-preservation as they see fit. And so long as my kid didn't instigate it, I will go papa wolf in his defense (yeah, I just got off of TVTropes). If my kid started it, however, well...that'll be a whole different ballgame...

It's advice that I wish my parents had told me as a kid, rather than 'Go find a teacher and tell them about it.' Yeah...school is fun when the entire class calls you a tattletale because you were trying to prevent a guy twice your size from sitting on your chest everyday with his friends holding you down.

 

[Stepchild]

I guess it's more common that boys have to deal with the threat of physical bullying. Mental bullying can leave deep scars as well, but I can't imagine how bad it can get if it's physical.

I think you're planning to do a good thing, Kataphractros, by telling your kids they have the right to stand up for themselves. Of course, they can't always, if their bullies are bigger/more numerous than them. I think that if I ever have kids of my own, I'll tell them that they should also stand up for others, like the older student did in Sci-Fi's story. That shows true bravery.