Have you ever been a bully? Why?

I've sometimes wondered about a school friendship I had. The term "frenemy" didn't exist or we didn't know it. We were supposedly best friends and inseparable but in reality we were in a perpetual pissing contest with each other. I don't know if it counts as bullying because to be honest we were both horrid to each other, but generally I came off better for various reasons. I think we made each other insecure; we were both bright but she was athletic organised and a science/maths person while I was not good at sports but good at dancing, scatty and a total art fart. You'd think we'd just enjoy being good at different things but we were just always in competition even though we had totally different interests and talents.

I think with hindsight she may have been autistic. We both had bad home lives but mine was much worse, full on abusive, and it took me a while to learn that I had been desensitised to a lot of awful things that upset most people. There was nothing wrong with how she looked but she was awkward and as we went through puberty I got more attention from boys and learned to socialise better, which is why I came off better even though we both gloated when we outdid the other. One time we had an argument and weren't speaking but I had an alternative circle and she hadn't so she was isolated for a day or two until we worked it out. It was never physical.

I think that's the closest I've ever come. We did both grow out of it and had a couple of years of being genuinely friends as young adults but we grew apart.

I dont really understand why the idea that not all bullies are irredeemable seems to downplay the impact of bullying on the victim to people on this thread? Cant both things be true?

Along similar lines, I recently had some contact with an organization which treats sex offenders who have accessed indecent images of children. Its not work I could do. But if it stops some of them from re-offending, I am glad someone is doing it. That does not mean I feel less for the victims or think their suffering should be dismissed - indeed, I have spend a career treating people for the damage it caused. At the heart of it, I want all such offending to stop.

Same with bullies - I would like it to never happen again. And if that means trying to understand and work with bullies, as well as with their victims, of course that needs to be done.

A lot of bullies work in mental health services. It gets covered up and they are protected by those in senior positions. It’s not always about what you know, it’s about who you know and whether your face fits in. Unfortunately bullying doesn’t stop in the playground. It can happen in the workplace too with devastating consequences.

It baffles me why anyone working in mental health services would actively bully others or choose to be a bystander. They must realise the effects that bullying has on others so why do it? And why do they work in mental health?

It may be that the only time they realise the effects bullying has on others is when their own kids get bullied. And I bet they would be the first to complain if that happens.

Bullies need to remember that what you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts. Some call in karma. You reap what you sow.

Unless posters are searching for the people who admit to bullying on every thread and being horrible to them I don’t feel like what is said in here needs policing with some wondrous insight that ‘hurt people hurt people’.

People come on here and get ripped to pieces because they don’t wash their bedding 3 times a week so I think this is quite mild considering.

@TheGetAlongGang

I’m so sorry, but not surprised, that this happened to you. I hope life has turned out better for you and well done for not letting your bullying teacher get away with her hypocrisy.

Enwarrall, I’m sorry if you’ve already explained upthread but - were you bullied as a child?

I feel very strongly that unless you’ve experienced it yourself or had a bullied child (like me) you just cannot understand the real effects. I honestly don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t respect ideas which have no basis in real experience here. As a former teacher I saw a lot of bullying (students AND teachers!) as well as what happened to my daughter over almost a decade.

I also had training about bullying which bore no relation to reality, with the emphasis almost exclusively on excusing and understanding the bully and frankly minimising their behaviour. There were mantras such as “We all could be bullies in some circumstances “ or “Bullying comes from sadness inside “ (someone has already trotted that one out on here).

I totally acknowledge that it’s probably the most intractable problem for schools to deal with. They want to issue a few useless platitudes which make them seem inclusive and forgiving and hope that a) the victim shuts up and puts up and b) they can all breathe a sigh of relief and move on, having ticked those crucial boxes for Ofsted. This was my experience both as a teacher and a parent.

What I’d like to see is acknowledgment of how serious and difficult the problem is and a policy which absolutely and unequivocally puts the victim’s interests first, with no excuses made.

When I was at primary school,most of the teachers where bullies

I can remember being sent to the staff room and over heard every single teacher pulling me apart and saying that I deserved any bullying I got because I was a 'ugly girl' and I need to be 'toughened up'

They where ripping apart my hair (my mother kept it very short-the girls who's faced fitted had long hair)my clothes (whatever my mother could blag off other parents or the local jumble sale) the fact I was miserable (my home life was hell) my personality,the fact I bit my fingernails until they bled due to the bullying,the fact I was dirty and smelly, and that I was 'thick' (I'm dyslexic not stupid)

These where women that aged from about 40-70 about a 6/7 year old girl

The worst one made a point of befriending my mother so I couldn't get away from her at home either

She went back to work and I heard her slagging off my bedroom which 'is worse than her face'

These women made sure I never got a part in any school play or concert-not once,they couldn't even pull up a part as a sheep or a star for me

I was made,every year,to sit by the edge of the stage by myself (just far enough to not be part of the plays and just enough for others to bully me for not being good enough)

I was always the last to be picked for whatever,never chosen to do something good,never once got star of the week/a gold star for my work-that was for the favourites

They couldn't even think of anything nice to say about me at parents evenings-i was really good at art and English and tried my hardest to learn (even with the teacher openly hating me and the sly bullies getting away with bullying me in front of the teacher)but all they could say was 'she's very behind,shes just stupid'

It's a long story,but I ended up doing my school work experience at that school (thanks to my mother pulling a few strings) and this same woman was up my arse,telling me id grown up into 'a sophisticated woman'

I remember glaring at her and walking off,only to be shouted at by my mother for being rude to the old crone

Rude?I wish id let rip at the evil bitch-most will be dead now and I hope they burn in hell (not you Mrs York,you where lovely and did your best to stick up for me)

Some people are not fit to be teachers,I'm convinced they do it for the power they get over children as they can't do it to their own age group

Oh I quite agree and do not condone bullying in any and all forms. There must be consequences.

But unlike some on this thread, I don’t think bullies are a fundamentally different type of person, nor do I think they are irredeemable.

I am finding it interesting to see how some posters are expressing their own hurt and seeking catharsis by laying into the self-confessed ex-bullies on this thread. That anger and hurt engender aggression (even the passive kind) really shouldn’t be surprising to them. And the posters here are adults, not children.

Over my teaching career I encountered some worrying attitudes towards bullying. Granted, this is going back into the 20th century, but I suspect some teachers - like some people- may still feel like this.

When told of a boy who was being bullied on a regular basis “Yeah - but have you seen him? He asks for it really, doesn’t he?” (A senior male teacher.)

Or from a woman teacher, about a girl being bullied: “ Well, are you surprised? She’s a totally different kind of person to them (the bullies) - hopeless at sport and wet as a floor rag. They’re never going to get along “.

I so hope things have changed.

I suppose I was thinking of less extreme bullying than your examples (sorry didn’t read the whole thread). But children are treated differently in courts aren’t they - the things you mention are crimes and should be reported to the police obviously. But we realise that children have diminished responsibility compared to adults even for violent crimes etc. I’m not excusing or minimising anything just acknowledging that as a society we have deemed that children are less responsible for their actions (presumably because they do not understand the consequences).

Well done to him. I’m not surprised he lost respect for those teachers. - I’ve done that myself and I WAS a teacher!

Also - I don’t think we do (hold children to different ethical standards). If an adult tried on some of the stuff detailed on this thread they’d be in prison for GBH, or if it was mental torture, the HR department would get on their case.

In fact, I’d throw the question back at you and say: why do we let children get away with beating each other to a pulp, racist or other verbal abuse or longterm psychological torture of another child?

Being a child is no excuse for doing such wicked things over such a sustained period. One-off episodes, or ‘losing it’ for some specific reason aren’t necessarily bullying. Bullying goes on and on and on and causes lifelong harm. It involves sadism and cruelty, not just a bit of temper.

My 18 year old son did the same thing in college. His friends autistic older brother was being bullied mercilessly. DS cornered the bully and told him he’d kick shit out of him if he didn’t pack it in. DS got caught and reprimanded by 4 teachers!! He was threatened with exclusion for it. He left college quite soon after, sadly he had no respect for the teaching staff after that.

Just to add - I'm afraid there would be no sympathy, understanding or allowance made for the bully in my system! That would be reserved for their victim and the victim's needs would come first.

It would be a very tough message I'd want to send to potential bullies: whatever you think your excuse is, don't be a bully. If you've got issues, find another way to express with and deal with them and seek help before you victimise another child.

I'd like them to be separated physically from any opportunity to get close to their victim (I explain this upthread). Permanent exclusion would be difficult because establishing a threshold for it would be nigh-on impossible - it would be like a court case!

But separation within the school: move classes and spend breaks and lunchtimes in a separate building with other bullies. They should be on report and the victim should do a report too each day to ensure that it's not continuing.

Basically - take the bully away, not the victim. Remove them from their audience/flying monkeys/enablers as well as the victim. Isolate them from these people, cut off their supply of sadistic fun and entertainment.

Yes - I know that in practice this would be incredibly difficult to implement. Where do you stop? The Queen/King bully, or all the little enablers who stand around laughing at the victim?

But something on those lines.

That's what I am trying to do, I am trying to be completely honest and give a full picture.

I knew full well I'd get hate for it when I wrote it so I do understand.

@saltandvineger

I very much appreciate your honesty about this. It's only through people being completely honest (and not trying to excuse themselves or minimising what they did) that we'll ever understand what makes bullies tick.

Should children be allowed to behave like this with no consequences, and the impact on their victim be disregarded?

In the case of SEN though, what do you propose is done?

Yeah I think there is truth to this too. A lot of people don’t realise the impact of their words and actions. Not truly and definitely not as children. To them, it could have been “banter” or “messing around” but to the person on the receiving end, it could have felt brutal and confidence-crushing.

But I think some are very quick to say that we must never forgive any bully and that no bully truly feels remorse. That is too drastic. It can be the case that the bullying destroyed the victims life AND that the bully feels genuine remorse and guilt about it now. It can also be the case that people who are unkind children grow up to be kind adults (and vice versa). You cannot always judge someone based on what they did when they were 14 because in most other contexts we know that 14 year olds don’t have the same cognitive capacities as an adult. That is not intended to minimise the impact on the victim, which often is very significant.

I am also in contact with people from school who would swear blind that they were never bullies (like many on this thread) but I think others who knew them would beg to differ. At least @saltandvineger owns up to what she did and what motivated her at the time. One of the nastiest girls in my year posts stuff on facebook about being anti-bullying and about being kind. In her mind, she is and always was kind. I have more respect for those who own their actions. There’s actually not that many people who have never ever been mean, nasty or teased or excluded someone.

Yep, I completely get that. But how should schools tackle that do you think?

Several times my daughters have been hit, and when I raised concern with school the response is generally either 'they have SEN' or 'they are a reflection of their environment at home' and 'your girls have lots of support and home so they should be able to manage their emotions around this'

Should children be allowed to behave like this with no consequences, and the impact on their victim be disregarded?
My oldest at 7 became a school refuser due to being sat next to a girl who hit her every day, she told the teacher but nothing hapenned. Now at 10 she has an intense distrust of teachers, and went from 'teachers favourite' before this, to the child who chats back to her teachers, as she has lost respect for them after they didn't protect her from harm, being a 'smart mouth' has become her defense mechanism. This is definitely not ok, and we are working on this, but one child's trauma has now become 2 children's trauma as the aggression towards my daughter was allowed to continue unchecked, until I withdrew her until they moved her.

I do deserve what happened to me.

I am almost grateful to them.

I did have empathy before the attack. I loved my mum deeply, I felt sorry for her after she came home from long, 12 or 14 hour days, I used to run her baths and sometimes massage her feet. I was kind to her.
I had empathy with my friends too, I would sit with them and talk about their problems with them for hours while we painted each other nails and id normal teenage girl things.

But the people I bullied, I just didn't have empathy for. They were just below me in the hierarchy and in my mind, just fair game. It was absolutely inhumane, but I don't know why I felt like that, something just hadn't worked, just hadn't clicked.

It took being made to feel small myself to flip that switch. That's just how it was, I can't really explain it any better.

Noone had ever made me feel small. It was just me and my mum at home, and she'd always treated me like a princess. I rarely got told off, I always got what I wanted, I was pretty so strangers used to pay me compliments. I just thought I was the absolute Queen of everything and it made me horrible and dangerous, until one day I was put in my place.

I can't say if that switch would have been flipped without those boys (and the aftermath - obviously the rumour got round the school and I wasn't looked up to any more) but I know that it was definitely a turning point for me, one that I am glad I got (and I'm sure others rightly are too)

You are absolutely entitled to not believe me when I say this, and I don't really expect you to, but there's absolutely no pride in what I did. None whatsoever.

I wanted to answer the OP's question - why do people bully - and I wanted to do it in a way that really delved into the mind of why people bully, and gave a full answer. That's why it's detailed, honest and factual.

I was trying to make sure I didn't give off any "poor me, feel sorry for me, absolve me of my guilt" vibes. I don't deserve that, nor does anyone have the responsibility to give it to me. This may have made me come across coldly.

I did throw what I thought was a small bit of humour and flippancy in there, this is because I also wanted to avoid coming across as a completely cold, hard psychopath.

If this comes across as pride, then I apologise. It wasn't intention.

Someone at primary was a bully, she didn't have a very happy home life though, maybe that was it .

There was a really interesting piece by Hadley Freeman a few years ago about being contacted by a old lecturer who had sexually harassed her, and her realisation that the way she remembered it was fundamentally different to his recollection- very similar to what you are saying. It’s a big mistake to assume the the people who bully us or collude all understand what they are doing in the same way that we do, and understand the impact of what they are doing in the same way their victim does.

as I said earlier, some bullies are motivated primarily by causing pain and fear. If that’s the case then I don’t think there’s much hope. But if the underlying reason for acting I this way is something else, and how they make the other person feel is secondary, I do think there’s hope that they can change. I wouldn’t want to write any child off where there’s hope they can be guided to change.

I wasn’t really excusing it, I was just answering the question. But we do hold children to different ethical/moral standards than adults in general don’t we? What do you want to happen to children who are bullies?