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.

Having a heated disagreement with someone is not in itself bullying. Bullying is a sustained campaign to hurt and degrade another person or persons.

As for everyone acting agressively in some way everyday. Not a chance, in my case almost no days.

Thanks for the suggestions of councelling but I'll still be unlikable

Well I like you.

I do like Lunar's school's anti-bullying policy. There is way too much pussyfooting around the bullies in most schools.

So what the hell do you suggest then?

I'd advise kids to you to wait until they hit you and leather them as hard as you can in front of as many people as possible, if the shock of the weedy kid fighting back isn't enough to show them to leave well alone, the humiliation of it happening in front of their peers will.

Worked for me, after years of doing it by the book. I also had the sense to do it in class he'd been kicking my chair all through the lesson so I just got up and smacked him right between the eyes - so the likelihood of getting a kicking off him was substantially reduced.

The child was usually half the size of the ones doing the taunting so physically it wouldn't work.

That's the problem. From reading this thread, apparently half the posters on this forum had immense strength as a child and were able to beat the shit out of the child bullying them.

Unfortunately, bullying often takes the form of a bigger, older child picking on a smaller, much younger one. I wonder how many children are going to act on some misguided advice that "bullies are all weak, so hit back, and he/she will just run away" by taking a swing at the bully, only to find out that, relative to the victim, the bully isn't actually all that weak, and is capable of pounding the living snot out of the victim.

I'm not a hitter and as a kid I'd always thought I'd never hit anyone hard enough to hurt, which I guess in a way stopped me hitting back sooner. I'd also not willingly do something to hurt someone. My mum told me about an incident when she was at school and hit back which is what I used the one time I hit back, it's so easy it doesn't matter how weak you think you are. Grab the hair, bring the head down to meet the knee that's coming up. It worked so well that the school had to call the cleaners back in. I would never encourage my children to hit but they're told (OK, my eldest, the other two wouldn't need to be!) one hit is a freebie, second is one smack enough to never need to do it again.

I'm not suggesting counselling- I'm suggesting urgent intervention for your mental health. I don't think counselling is really going to cut the mustard with things as bad as they are, and it's not about making you likeable anyway: it's about getting you back to a state of mind in which you don't feel constantly persecuted. It could be a symptom of all sorts of mental health conditions, and it's important you get it checked out.

"apparently half the posters on this forum had immense strength as a child and were able to beat the shit out of the child bullying them."

Wrong, both my kids are small for their age, my daughter is as thin as a rake and I wasn't much bigger at her age. What help us kick the shit of these oversized turds was pure anger, fustration, fear and determination.

I lost it with mine. DD lost it with hers as did DS. We can put up with something for years and years but it will only take some small off hand comment for us to blow after years of trying to be the bigger person and hold the higher ground. It doesnt happen often but it's not pretty when it does.

You don't need to be strong or bigger than them. Teach them where the pressure points are, where a small jab can make the most pain and where a slap around the neck can knock them out. Failing that, a kick in the bollocks, a punch in the breasts and a knee to the face as you drag them down by their hair ALWAYS works.

I'm not a violent person, but years of bullying, watching my kids being bullied and trying to sort it out with the school and parents and getting no where have led me to resort to teaching my kids this. So far it's worked. DD is no longer bullied. A couple of other people tried but word soon got round. DS is no longer bullied and I will NEVER be bullied again, I don't care who they are or who they think they are.

If schools actually DID somthing to stop this earlier and put the fear of god into these shits and their parents, stop fannying around and basically grow a pair then bullying wouldn't be the problem is still is.

The child was usually half the size of the ones doing the taunting so physically it wouldn't work

No I didn't hit him hard enough to hurt him seriously, although to this day I wished I'd broken the bastard's nose. That isn't the point.

What worked was the shock of having someone who he'd thought of as a victim, who'd passively take what he'd dish out, standing up to him and the loss of face he suffered by being smacked in the face by a 'pussy' in front of a class of his peers, worked.

That's the problem. From reading this thread, apparently half the posters on this forum had immense strength as a child and were able to beat the shit out of the child bullying them.

True, I have never had immense strength, but I learnt to fake intimidation, I was never the bully, as I got older I was the person some of the weaker classmates gravitated to as I was always a protector... But it caused me to have to be someone I wasn't, this person who people were wary of upsetting or picking on her friends (in secondary school) it left me very confused as I entered the reality of adult life, where you cannot react with a show of strength, and rather than the bullying disappearing, it becomes more insidious and vindictive.

People look at bullying and they picture the smaller child being towered over by the big bad bully, or bitchy popular girls picking on less developed or attractive classmates, but they don't see the way it can burrow down to the bone, the lasting affects of self doubt, worthlessness, lack of connection, fear of rejection, and most of all, having to be someone you aren't in order to live through it.

I have no doubt it has a huge impression. I remember the littlest boy, he was really small compared with the older, more mature ones. He didn't stand a chance, poor thing.

The worst off girl left after a couple of years of bad bullying. I can't imagine what either of them could have done to stop it. Although it was a boarding school so even worse than a day school for the ones at the bottom of the pecking order.

I wonder if the parents knew, I think about back then and feel really sorry for them. Also it must have shaped every social interaction in those years. Boarding school must have been hell.