Comments on: The Bully

By: Loving the Bully – Wine Country Mom - Santa Rosa Mom - Santa Rosa, CA - Archive

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:34:53 +0000

[...] It’s not like my family is immune to bullies. Just this summer, the Taz was involved in a skirmish with a kid that was three times bigger than him. It was a scary situation for him, and for me that had to then think quickly about how to deal with it. In the beginning I saw red over a giant of a kid picking on a kid so much smaller than him. And I was ready to string him up in a mob mentality. But as I talked with him and his parents, I saw a young boy inside of a big body that was so insecure that he took offense at my little son laughing at him. [...]

By: Jo

Jo — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:24:54 +0000

Being the eldest of 10, and having worked with kids a lot (not having any–by choice) I would like to suggest something. It may not feel like the right thing to do but I’ll bet it just might work.

Taking a batch of cupcakes out to the basketball court some afternoon with your little ones may put a period at the end of the sentence….Part of the issue is the not knowing when it will happen again—and in Trevor’s case–looking good to his buddies. So many kids these days don’t have enough supervision, attention, love –whatever. When a group of kids come together over “goodies” and sit around enjoying them they can begin to shift the focus…if nothing else all of the other kids will see your attempt and appreciate it…your two will have a community of support and I’ll bet Trevor will be among them. I think you might have his respect and your children will see that by taking the high road it just feels better.
I don’t suggest this will work in every case–but I have a feeling….
Good Luck.

By: Str4y

Str4y — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:53:15 +0000

The only real ‘fight’ I was ever in was in 8th grade.
I was going to school in a small town in Oregon, it was my first year there and I was even less of a popular kid than I had been back at my old school where I had friends I’d grown up with.
One day, for apparently no reason, a girl that I had considered a friend — not a close friend, but still a friend — started picking on me. That day it seemed that I couldn’t turn around without finding her there, waiting to antagonize me. Some of it was verbal, and some was more physical and she got other friends of hers to join in ridiculing me, for no apparent reason.
I did fight back a little — when she hit me in the back of the head with a book I stabbed her in the arm with a pencil…I don’t want to portray myself as an innocent little angel that did nothing wrong in the situation, but heck– I was 13! 14? Whatever.
Anyway, the day culminated in her finding me by the lockers after school, a little shoving and her punching me in the face. I ran off towards the busses crying and got a black eye, still not knowing why she was picking on me.
I found out at the inevitable parent/principle meeting.
I had hurt her feelings in a class we shared but implying that I didn’t want her in my (already full) group for the project we were working on. She picked on ME because she felt like I had slighted her — and I hadn’t even known it was a big deal–it hadn’t been to me.

Now, of course, not every bully situation is like this — some kids are just jerks. It happens. Others have a lot of anger that they don’t know how to deal with due to situations in their lives. I don’t really know where I’m going with this…I guess I just wanted to say something about the fact that, especially during adolescence and teen years when they are getting all filled up with weird chemicals and weird feelings and weird hair, a some young adults will lash out at others (often because they were’t taught not to at home) but it’s because they are upset by stuff in their own lives and don’t know how to deal.

I do think that suggesting your son stay away from ‘Trevor’ is a good choice, as Trevor seems not to have a good hold on his anger issues…but from what you described, I don’t think that Trevor is necessarily a BAD kid either, and maybe he’ll get lucky and grow up into someone really awesome.

By: Matt the Bat

Matt the Bat — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:50:30 +0000

During the second half of my eighth-grade year, my mother decided to go back to college at Humboldt State. She enrolled me in Sunny Brea Middle School, on the fly, because she thought it was a good school and it was in our district. Long story short, I was picked on, relentlessly. I was from Laytonville, a small town with a small school district. Suddenly I was in a bigger school, with bigger kids, and the “tests” they administered…well, I failed them. I didn’t understand what was required of me. As a hippie kid who was raised by a pacifist, I was taught NOT to fight. So I didn’t.

One of the kids who picked on me was a boy named *Tony*. His favorite thing to do was show up for gym and locate me. When he did, he would -because he was a judo student- drop me on the mat, just to hear the wind come out of me. Whenever he had the chance, he took a shot. I was an easy target. He was bigger, outweighed me by about fifteen pounds, and also maintained a flawless rep with all the teachers. He was like a cross between Bluto and Eddie from “Leave it to Beaver” all smiles when the teach was looking, venom and kidney punches when they weren’t.

One day, he and I met up out of school, by chance, and it was like that world suddenly didn’t exist. We sat together on the bleachers by the football field and got high and I asked him “why do you pick on me?” He said, because you won’t fight back. You wouldn’t fight in middle school, you won’t fight now. Until you fight, everyone will pick on you. And the next day, it was as if our exchange never took place. Tony was back to treating me like dirt. It was up to me to change it. I never did. I switched schools a year later, so I didn’t have to. Other kids aren’t so lucky. My son is a purple belt in Karate. He’s taught not to fight unless he’s given no other choice. While I applaud the way you handled this bully, it seems unlikely to me that the exchange will protect your son. Quite frankly, *Trevor* may hunt him now.

Confronting bullies in this day and age is far trickier than when we were young. The attitudes are sharper, the available weapons far too lethal for such trivial matters. But in the end bullies must be faced down. I doubt the parents of this boy will be able to change him, since I suspect that home life is likely a source of his anger and need to lash out. I don’t know what’s best for your son, only what happened to me, and I know that I wish today I HAD fought, if only to show the bullies that they don’t always win, that no one should have to live in fear. Good luck to you.