We're you bullied in school? What was the worst advice you got about bullying?
My own experience was that parents, teachers and other kids gave the absolute WORST advice about how to handle a bully.
Example: "Just stay away from him (or her).". Now this is just plain silly. Where do bullies thrive? In places such as schools or prisons, in other words, places where their victims are trapped with them and can't get away. Running away doesn't work in situations like that. Hiding doesn't work either; most bullies learn all the potential hiding places on their turf and take great joy in looking thoroughly and very quickly for their victims. Running and hiding also convey fear, a bully's favorite psychological food, and they become even more determined to engage with their obviously frightened fleeing and hiding victim. Then, when the bully finds the hiding or fleeing child and physically punishes him/her, and the child goes home and faces the parent who encouraged him/her to flee, the parent glares at the bruised child and says, "I TOLD YOU to stay away from him/her!" As if encountering the bully once again were the child's fault for disobeying the parent's impossible instructions.
What other examples of useless, or even destructive, advice were you given about dealing with a bully?
Anybody get any good advice about this? Anything that worked?
Example: "Just stay away from him (or her).". Now this is just plain silly. Where do bullies thrive? In places such as schools or prisons, in other words, places where their victims are trapped with them and can't get away. Running away doesn't work in situations like that. Hiding doesn't work either; most bullies learn all the potential hiding places on their turf and take great joy in looking thoroughly and very quickly for their victims. Running and hiding also convey fear, a bully's favorite psychological food, and they become even more determined to engage with their obviously frightened fleeing and hiding victim. Then, when the bully finds the hiding or fleeing child and physically punishes him/her, and the child goes home and faces the parent who encouraged him/her to flee, the parent glares at the bruised child and says, "I TOLD YOU to stay away from him/her!" As if encountering the bully once again were the child's fault for disobeying the parent's impossible instructions.
What other examples of useless, or even destructive, advice were you given about dealing with a bully?
Anybody get any good advice about this? Anything that worked?
70-79, F
