AIBU to think this is bad advice? (Re. Bullies)

[Angora831]

I've read a lot of threads here and on other Internet hangouts about bullies. Invariably, someone will advise teaching your children 'witty' comebacks to show up the bully. Speaking as a teacher with a few years at the coalface behind me, I'd just like to say THIS NEVER WORKS. This is because:

A) the comeback is clearly practiced at home with Mum. Children aren't stupid and they pick up on this.

B) Bullies are generally clever and charismatic children, and every time I've witnessed a child retorting with an obviously rehearsed comeback, the bully is able to verbally outwit them and make them look small and stupid. Horrid to watch, must be more horrid for the victim (and because I know what Mumsnet is like and where this thread will go, please rest assured that I do punish bullying behaviour when I witness it).

I'm not saying i have all the answers to bullying, but based on my own experience (and my highly scientific poll of the staff room before we broke up last week), the 'hilarious comeback' approach just doesn't work.

Vito, when we expel a child, it is permanent exclusion, the kid may think its a holiday but the point is, they never return to our school so can't any bullying on school premises then, can they? Can't account for individual feelings but 'you will not be allowed to continue your education here' is as severe as it gets.

Schools should deal with it, and they should deal with it effectively.

bullying doesn't just happen in the school grounds though does it?

hitting back and hitting harder works anywhere.

Bullying policies only work IMO if the teachers want them to. My Ds was verbally bullied for 2 years and teachers were not interested because it was girls doing it to a boy. It all stopped when he called the ring leader a rude but witty name every time she tried it on with him. Her parents rang the school the next day to complain. We supported our son 100% and she never did it again. it changed his life.

'when we expel a child, it is permanent exclusion, the kid may think its a holiday but the point is, they never return to our school so can't any bullying on school premises then, can they?'

No, they'll just move it onto their next unsuspecting victim.

That's not dealing with it at all, it's just passing the buck.

My parents told me not to hit back, I was bullied by the whole school (no exaggeration) at primary and even by teachers. I brought the playground to a standstill as everyone tried their best one day to get a kick in whilst I was on the ground. A teacher saw the whole thing from the window, but punished me the moment I hit back. Eventually they gave me permission to hit back and it took me until Y9 to do it. I wasn't bullied again although it was an uneasy truce and I had never learnt to be friends with people which affects me even now.

I agree that the only thing a child can do is hit back. I've taught my children they never hit anyone, if someone hits them they warn they only have one freebie and if they want to hit them again they'd better start running. I will not have my children go through what I have.

"Bullies are generally clever and charismatic children" bollocks
I would agree that the "witty comeback" is a waste of time - what a bullied child needs is an older sibling or cousin to get hold of the bully, alone, somewhere secluded, and, well, basically, twat them. Put the Fear of God into them and leave them in no doubt what will happen if they so much as look sideways at the victim again.
Or do what I did - I waited until the school trip to the leisure centre, got my bully by the throat, and held her head under the water until the bubbles stopped coming up. It took 3 lifeguards and 2 fullly clothed teachers to get me off, and I still can't remember much about it - I just finally snapped, after five years of torture. She lived sadly, and yes I do mean that but she never, ever said one wrong word to me again.
My pfb knocked his bully out, and was expelled from school for it in spite of the fact he has several little black dots "tattooed" on his body from where the bully used to repeatedly jab him with a pencil every day as they lined up, but by then we didn't care, and when pfb knocked the bully arse over teakettle I rejoiced quite frankly. We were already in the process of moving house to get away from that school and it's utterly ineffectual head and staff so I could have just about cared lss if I tried. I may have even mentioned to my pfb that if he happened to catch the bully unaware and hit him, there would be no come-backs from us, it was the end of a VERY long rope so to speak.

The girl who has bullied my DD is charmless and ugly, not at all clever either.

Not something I normally say when discussing her, as to say those things about an 8 year old girl does not please me.

I just wanted to point out you are wrong.

My DD could probably verbally outwit her any day of the week, but she is twice her size and physically hurts her.

The school are 'working with them' to 'ensure they can exist nicely together within the school' as if they are both the problem. But it is always my DD who gets hurt.

Clearly the witty comeback is not going to work, but what do you suggest?

POM, I agree the victim twatting them back is a pretty good option, but getting an older child to punch them out or attempting to drown them them would be completely OTT and as bad as them.

Teach your DD to perform a nice uppercut to the solar plexus with her weight behind it MammaTJ and then to look innocent and deny everything
I used to say, "if nobody is looking twat the bugger, and if the teachers are looking, fall to the floor screamin In Agony for at least 10 minutes because it Hurts So Much" and remind them that you will not be cross with them for defending themself. The absolute worst the school can do is phone home/send for parents, and whose side are you on??? exactly!

I don't care Agent - I spent five years afraid to go to school, unable to sleep, unable to acheive my potential with my studies, scared of my own shadow, just because that bitch decided I was "a swot" in the first year, and if I HAD drowned her, I would have absolutely no regrets about it at all. She was an evil cow and deserved everything it took my five year to have the bottle to do to her.

DSIS found kicking tbe bully down a short flight of steps worked very well.

This was 35 years ago and it was the HT who said "Oh stop complaining, you're bigger than him, just kick him back"

DSIS maintains it was his own stupid fault he kicked her at the top of the steps.

My own DD1 is world champion at ignoring idiots, sadly she has had a lot of practice. She's now in Y10 and she says they are finaly realising that she isn't a flusterable Y7 anymore and bullying her will get them in trouble for very little sport.

She said it was very hard not to giggle when a couple of boys got detention for locking her in the art store. She put the light on and read a photography book off the shelf.

Not that it's a competition, but I was bullied from 5-16, fucking constantly.

It's not OK to think you'd have no regrets over killing another child, and it's not a valid excuse to think she drove you to that point.

Sticking up for yourself is fine, over-killing the situation with torture isn't.

I have to say that while it isn't popular on MN to hit back, that is the advice we have given our DS1 (DS2 is too young for this to be an issue).

The couple of times I experienced anything like bullying as a kid resulted in a punch in the face for the offender (note, I grew up rough as hell ) and it wasn't a problem again. Remember that clip of the big kid throwing the smaller bullying kid and breaking his knee? That was my old high school, it was survival of the fittest then and nothing has changed.

Where I live now is much 'nicer' but kids are kids.

Happily DS1 is very confidant and popular so it hasn't come up with him. DS2 does have a speech delay and can be a bit anxious sometimes but the advice to him will be the same.

Don't start it, but while you may have to take the lumps for finishing it they will have our support.

well, what do you suggest then, OP ?

I was terribly, terribly bullied when I was in primary and high school. I've been burned with lighters, spat on, knocked out, molested in plain sight, beat up more times than I can remember, had chewed up food smeared on my face... the list is endless. And there comes a point where too much is too much. Ignoring them hasn't worked. Retorting makes it worse. Police involvement is laughed at. The school doesn't care. Sometimes, rarely, a broken nose is what's called for. I'm not saying I condone violence, not at all, but when a child had suffered to the point of attempted suicide like I did then sometimes violence is the only answer left.

StarBall, your DD sounds fantastic :)

Proactive teachers are so important.

When I was at uni a friend there had a younger sister who was continually being bullied at school this had gone on for 2 years by the time I heard about it. 3 against 1.

The school seemed really ineffective so in the end I got sick of hearing about it and seeing injuries on my friends sister I had enough.

I met the group of bullies at the school gate with my friend and her sister.

Importantly the sister agreed with this approach as it appeared everything else had been tried.

I basically said hey I have heard about your bullying - I know your parents, I know the teachers - it stops now. You don't know me but you don't want to know me so stop it. We had a couple of cool good looking uni guys in the car.

Apparently it worked! They were suitably freaked out.

Also I think it is important to teach you kids to stand up for kids that are bullied. I know that is something my father did and taught me to do.

If you are a child that is not bullied but see if happening i think you should try do something about it if you are in the position to.

I'm rather pleased to see many advocates of violence here. Treating bullies as if I wanted to play their game - which is what you're doing with the smartarse comebacks - has got me more bullied throughout life. Treating them with contempt is also game-playing; so is lavishing them with pity. We ought to be able to trust higher authorities to come down hard on bullies, but they rarely do. If they won't, we have to demonstrate force majeure ourselves.

At school one year, I gathered an 'army' - just a crew of supportive girls, really, but a large one - and we surrounded Bully and her pals on their way into school one morning. We acted dead tough. We issued threats of mass violence. The bullying stopped.

I used my car to break up a gang that was kicking the shit out of another young bloke one night, putting my lights of full beam, beeping the horn and gunning the engine. I made sure I looked willing to run the fuckers over

My dad stopped hitting me after I knocked him out with a right uppercut

A colleague, who'd been a previous victim of the Insane Narc Boss making my life unbearable, told me he'd completely stopped it by grabbing INB by the throat, hoiking him up against a wall and promising to castrate him the next time he had a go. Wish he'd told me that before I had my breakdown!

As they say, "bullies only understand one language". I think it's as well to teach your DC this language when they get bullied.

I've never taught my kids not to hit back. The opposite in fact, I taught them all to never throw the first punch, but make sure when you hit back you make it count.
I hit my first bully, he never saw it coming, punched him right in the face, and made him cry (probably cause I caught his nose) Second one moved thank god, she was teachers pet, petite little blue eyed blond who could do no wrong. I set her step father straight about the little angel years later as an adult.
I could talk rings around any of the others who tried it, they were not smart or charismatic, they were uneducated idiots who really were jealous that I was smarter than them, we'd been to school together since age 4 and all had the same opportunities, they even had fathers at home unlike me, yet they wasted their time and wanted me to do the same.
My kids will be backed up by me if they ever punch a bully, and I will really lay down the law if I ever get wind that one of them is a bully.

I have enrolled my DS in an anti-bullying class.

Similar to what I practice, following from ex's bullying.

I have noticed that boys engage in pretend fights. Sometimes a little more physical than they shoul be, but they seem to assess how physical they can get.

Whilst it's never good to hit first, I do think it's useful to know how to respond.

Schools' approaches to bullying systematically disempowers victims, and I'm encouraged to see lots of people taking a more realistic approach to the matter.

Show me a school that genuinely has no pupil-on-pupil bullying and I'll show you a school with a roll of 1. On the other hand, there are plenty of schools who think they've got their playgrounds totally under control. Unfortunately, and contrary to what some teachers think, they don't have eyes in the backs of their heads.

The policy of reserving the right of sorting out bullying to teachers would be wrong even if it worked: it discourages children to take their own initiative. As it doesn't work, it's even worse.

The irony is that on this very same board, there is a thread about a teacher bullied by schoolchildren who now faces losing his job because he put one foot wrong. Who are the people responsible for protecting him from harrassment, and what precisely were they doing? Precious little I expect except protecting their legal prerogatives and perhaps filing reports.

There is a nasty, authoritarian streak in modern society that punishes people who stand up for what ought to be their own rights, instead of leaving the task to self-appointed guardians.