Kids Should Be Taught to Confront Their Bullies
Why pretending they don’t exist is never a good option
I remember back in middle school when I used to love listening to my biology teacher. She was always so creative and eclectic when she spoke. But no matter how creative and eclectic she was, she never had a total awareness of everything that was going on in the classroom. The back of the room provided space for behaviors that evaded her attention — like the bullying I began experiencing.
One of the stereotypical meathead jocks (not saying all of them are meatheads) decided to make me the next target of his cruelty. Amongst other aggressions, he enjoyed throwing garbage at me while I sat at the table in front of him. My determination to ignore him made his fury escalate until one day he decided to throw his textbook at the back of my head.
As I’m sure you can imagine, a textbook doesn’t politely bounce off the back of your head like a crumpled-up piece of paper does. It hurt and jerked my neck in the process. Our biology textbooks were heavy, clunky objects.
I remember my thoughts in that moment as well — how my heart dropped at the shattering of my false conviction. Ignoring this kid wasn’t getting me anywhere but into a more vulnerable position. I had to do something…..
But I didn’t. I couldn’t seem to muster the courage to do anything. As my heart raced and the voices behind me laughed, I felt the paralysis that passive fear causes. When the bell rang, I grabbed my already-packed-up belongings and darted swiftly out the door.
It’s been many years since that incident. Even in writing this, it amazes me to look back on little me and see how naïve he was. How little he knew about standing up for yourself in a world where maltreatment is a guaranteed obstacle for all of us!
Had I known what I know now, I would’ve handled that encounter very differently.
The truth about bullying is that it’s probably always going to happen. It’s one of those things like war and intolerance that seem to be as much a part of this world as air and water. Even if you don’t like the thought of it, I’m sure you would agree that one should always be realistic about such ugliness if not merely for the sake of their safety.
It’s nice to think that while kids are learning math and English, they shouldn’t also have to learn how to defend themselves from young predators. However, the world is full of so many varieties of predators and people who oppose you that being taught how to stand up to those guaranteed forces is important. How to Stand Up for Yourself 101 wasn’t a class I could take when I was younger, so I got my education through later experiences.
When it comes to social interaction, you can be passive, assertive, or aggressive. The most efficient way to handle nearly every situation in life is assertively. If you handle anything passively or aggressively, you’re likely bringing about negative consequences for yourself or someone else.
The passive person, which most kids who are bullied are, is afraid of head-on conflict. Passive tendencies encourage running away from uncomfortable situations and unrealistically making monsters out of your fears. He or she is far more understanding and forgiving of peoples’ negative actions than they should be.
The bully is the prime example of someone who displays only aggressive behavior. He is one who oppresses. He feeds off intimidating and domineering.
Because he has these twisted desires, he also needs subjects onto which he unleashes those desires. Naturally, those subjects are going to be passive people. This is why all people should strive to be purely assertive in their ways.
Because the dynamics of abuse are what occurs between the passive traits in people and the aggressive traits in other people.
A passive person is sensitive to all those around him or her that are aggressive. This is why aggressive people seem to be able to smell fear in the passive person.
Passivity and aggressiveness are two opposite ends of the same magnet of dysfunctional behavior. Getting people closer to the middle ground is always a goal in counseling.
I know from experience that learning how to stop identifying as a victim is very difficult. But in order to stop being treated like a victim you have to stop seeing yourself as one. Your fear of being the next victim betrays you by making you more likely to be it.
Even though there’s no excuse for bullying, there are certain behaviors exhibited by victims that only encourage bullying.
Running from confrontation is one of them, since this is exactly what makes the bully pursue you. A fear of speaking up for yourself is another behavior that shouts your prime candidacy as prey. Ignoring abuse also tells the bully there’s no reason he should have to look elsewhere for a target.
Bullies identify their targets through conscious and subconscious processes that assess how victimizable a person is. This is one of the most important things to acknowledge in order to prevent yourself from being a victim. You must start acting like someone that doesn’t fulfill his need to domineer.
Since the thinking patterns of a victimizer are so foreign to the potential victim, the victim is already at a disadvantage. It’s unlikely that the victim can understand the thoughts of a bully well enough to find a way out. The way out is by acknowledging the behaviors they can embody that make them less suitable to be victims.
Standing up for yourself when you don’t know how to begins with the little things. Life presents you with all sorts of opportunities to be assertive without the threat of cruelty in the air. You should take advantage of these opportunities to grow your assertive muscles.
Expressing your true feelings in every situation without toning it down for the appeal of others is something you should do. You can afford to mind the opinions of your parents, your friends, and your boyfriend or girlfriend so long as they don’t impede upon your happiness. You have to believe that you are entitled to happiness and the freedom to be yourself regardless of how anyone else feels.
A bully should feel awful feelings. He should feel bad, because that’s what he is tying to make others feel. When the opportunities to unleash his hate on others get cut off, it’s like cutting off his supply of drugs.
He will be forced to sober up in the manner that controlling people are forced to face their own negative emotions and learn how to deal with them on their own. They tend to continue dealing with them the wrong way until they are forced to do it the right way.
All your life people will be pushing and pulling at you to get you to do things that serve their best interest. People expect you to have a backbone, but hope that it’s flimsy enough to bend when they want it to.
Car salesmen will pressure you into buying a car — preferably at the highest cost possible with no concern towards how it affects you financially in the long run. Romantic partners will try to mold you into the dream partner they are seeking. The list goes on and on. And these aren’t really even bullying situations in the familiar sense.
If you don’t have a backbone, few will have sympathy for you. Even other people who seem to have decent morals may turn away from your inability to stand up for yourself. People that don’t care to take advantage of that can still see it as a repulsive weakness.
You have to know where you stand and be unwilling to move from that position. Part of what perpetuates victimhood is not knowing your boundaries well enough to be able to articulate them in situations that aren’t working for you. Discover who you are in those moments when you feel like hiding and let it be known to the world.
Whatever fear you have of the outcome must be disregarded. The only thing to fear is not the bully, but the decisions that will prevent you from learning how to assert yourself. You will be glad when you are so adept at expressing where you stand that you no longer question it.
The best form of defense against acts of bullying is your outward expression of assertiveness. When you are able to express to the world that you do indeed have a backbone, the mechanisms at work in a bully’s mind will nudge him to look elsewhere. He will recognize that you are not one to be messed with.
That’s how you revolutionize yourself into becoming someone whose path people will learn to respect.
