To ask for advice on how to minimise your chances of becoming a victim of bullying ?

Well, bullying was just seen as completely acceptable when I was at school, but being a victim of it was not. No one seemed to ask ‘why do some people feel the need to bully others?’ Lots of people said ‘what’s wrong with you that you deserve the bullying?’ Always seemed cock-eyed reasoning to me.

I read about a study that found that in school your biggest protection from bullying was to have a circle of good friends. Apparently, even just having one close friend brought down your odds of getting bullied tremendously.

I agree with the poster above that it can't just be a random group or else you run the risk of the group bullying you if they perceive you to be weak and if they are bully minded. It has to be good friends that make other people think that they have got your back.

But yes, self matters hugely. For starters, it's much easier to make friends if you are confident and have good self esteem but also bullies are more likely to pick on people when they think they won't defend themselves.

Having said that I think from a society and school point of view we need to do everything to prevent bullying. It shouldn't be up to people ( and definitely not kids) to have to make themselves bully proof.

True as well. My DD1 (16) has also been bullied over the last year. I don’t believe my DH or I have ever bullied her, but she has other vulnerabilities; she’s adopted and has various SEN. (Although her bully also has SEN.)

It’s maybe fair to say that there’s usually some kind of vulnerability which leaves a child more likely to be bullied.

But again, bullying can happen to any child. Sometimes it’s because the bully is jealous, as has been pointed out by various PPs.

I really do agree with this. My DSis and I were sexually abused by our F, and both he and my DM smacked us regularly and hard. (My DM didn’t know about the SA and she regrets the smacking.)

We were both badly bullied at school. For years I thought I was over the bullying, but I wasn’t. It was just that everything from my childhood was buried deep, so I could function as an adult.

I’ve had a lot of therapy, since the memories of the SA came back when I had small children, but the bullying always took a back seat. Now I’m being triggered with my (adopted) DD2 (13) started verbally abusing me (I talked about that in another thread), and it’s made me realise that I’m not really over it at all.

I don’t hold it against my main bully, because I found out later that her mum had been dying of cancer. But it doesn’t mean that it didn’t leave a mark.

yes I know, I thought I came from a loving home, but then I saw how my dad interacts with my older son, over-correcting him, talking over him, making fun of him and getting quite harsh too quickly and I realised that this treatment from a parent in the formative years can severely damage a child's worldbuilding and sense of self. And blueprint the treatment they put up with from others. Ive had to do a lot of therapy to get past the bullying and always wondered “why me?” In a way seeing my dads behaviour was cathartic, but Ill be damned if I let him have any influence on my children like he did on little weefreetiffany. He would consider himself a loving parent btw, not abusive because he's not physically violent like his own father was. Its very hard to break cycles of abuse and bad parenting, especially when nobody even realises its abusive!

I agree but it's not always the case plenty of bullying victims come from loving homes (like me).

A child's first bully is their parent. If you were bullied its because one caregiver or another set up an abusive dynamic that you internalised.

When I was growing up this was called “tall poppy syndrome ” and it was your family and friends doing the bullying!!!

I think it's lack of confidence being a but different and being an easy target.
I was bullied, not terribly. It was mild bullying and mocking. I think it's because I was quiet and shy, lacked confidence but also a bit dopey. People would take the piss but know that I was too timid to fight back.

I dont think anyone is normalising oppressive behaviour or saying that its acceptable to be bullied for a characteristic. but discussing the strategies they employed to avoid it. The onus is on the victim in how they handle it and avoid it.

I dont think we can ever stop bullying. But we do have to build self confidence and resilience in ourselves and teach our children it. There are many people on this thread who have said how they have carried that bullying around with them their whole lives. And mostly because they didnt know how to handle it / what to do.

Most of the advice is tell teacher/ignore/ be kind. Not helpful at all and just ruins self esteem even further.

And what is the right question?

Could we just see things for what they really are? Normalising oppressive behaviour whilst placing the onus on individuals to avoid oppression is asking the wrong question. Bullying might be a regrettable innate tendency in some humans, but it is also antisocial behaviour. Being victimised for any characteristic is not acceptable.

I agree. It's well documented.

I agree that bullies often mistake quietness in a person for a lack of self esteem, and therefore an easy target for bullying.

I've always been a quiet person, I was bullied at school but as soon as I left I blossomed and became a lot more confident. But I’m still by nature a quiet person. A few people have attempted to bully me as an adult, thinking I would be an easy victim, and got the shock of their lives when I pushed back and made it clear in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t tolerate their bullshit.

They always left me alone after that, yet clearly HATED me forever more, and more often than not would try to make out that they were the victim. It’s like these people were angry that they had me picked out as an easy victim and when they were proven wrong, their little brains couldn’t comprehend it and had the equivalent of a toddler tantrum but in a grown adult. It’s very bizarre.

As extremely abhorrent as it is I think having poor body posture might contribute, not having confident body language ie head up, shoulders back, chin up. Shy closed body language won’t help. Being unable to defend one’s self verbally in a banter exchange won’t help. Important to have quick, snappy come backs. Being too tolerate of people being cheeky won’t help. Looking unhappy and timid won’t help. And as you say, going to senior management and basically just not standing for it is important. It’s a jungle. It’s so wrong. Bully’s should be stopped immediately and anyone who laughs along with a bully is totally complicit.

Because the bully and their parents twisted this around and made out your son to be the bully and he the victim. A lot of bullying is insidious, and other people think the true bully is great and won't accept what they are really like .

I've always been a bit of a loner, I was bullied at school because I was the kid with holes in her shoes and head lice.
As I moved into teens I started to accept that there was no point in trying to make friends with my peers. I'd take my self of to the library at lunch times and they got bored and left me alone.
As an older teen and in my twenties.. I met my tribe! Met friends that I will have for life, was still a vulnerable young woman though and seemed to attract men who liked to exploit that. Therapy helped to fix this.
At work.. Still don't really fit in and I wouldn't go to a work Christmas party for example, I automatically go back to the school girl who sits on her own. The thing is I do actually try now to mix in to these groups but it doesn't work, I have no clue why (I don’t have head lice or hole in my shoes anymore)
It's not something that bothers me to much anymore though.

My child stood up for himself by giving one of his bullies a kicking.
The school issued my child with a exclusion
The bullies who make my child's life a misery in class & out of class get a talking to
How is that fair?
Why is the constant psychological abuse not treated the same as the physical?

Anyone can become a victim of bullying. I don't think there is a particular 'type of victim'.

It's hard to shake, isn't it? I doubt any of them ever think about me, but I'm stuck still giving it head space after all these years. In some ways that's the worst part.

^this should be the main focus absolutely- accountability for actions and behaviours is essential. However I do also think many people bully because they're not in a good place themselves - hurt people can hurt people- so they also may not be in a place to care about consequences or what others think of them.

I think the key thing is encouraging all children to stand up for what is right from the get go and giving them the skills to be able to do that safely. But also self esteem and resilience are so key. I remember a few people in school trying to bully me but I didn't actually care what they thought of me - so their insults and put downs held no weight because I genuinely didn't care, my mindset really was that if you were willing to treat me in that way then you weren't worth my time. I had really clear goals for what I wanted to get out of school and noone was going to hold me back from that. I think reading lots of books about real people who had overcome awful situations also helped me to think well if they can do x I can deal with y. Lots of young people now don't have any role models.