I found an interesting article today that resonates with my experiences as both a teacher and a mother.

http://www.blogher.com/unintended-consequences-cyberbullying-rhetoric?page=0,1

 

It is a sad fact that I am seeing evidence of bullying around the school nearly every single day. Sometimes the events are small and verbal, sometimes they are serious and combine verbal with physical actions.

I tried to think back on how I was advised by my Father to deal with Bullying as he had been a high school teacher  and I respected his opinion and experience. Dad would have been keenly aware that bullying was an issue that I would inevitably confront at some time and I remember numerous conversations that occurred at impromptu times dealing with the topic.

This is the advice from Dad back in the early 80s. When the teasing was verbal or name calling:

” Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”

“I know I am but what are you?”

“Good things come in small packages” (can you tell I was short?)

These are the 3 that immediately come to mind so I must have relied upon them the most. Not very powerful but at least I had SOMETHING to say.

 

I think my Father was also reasonably concerned that I would be physically intimidated and bullied as well as the verbal abuse – I went to a few rough schools for a time. His advice for the physical stuff went like this.

 

When someone comes and does something that you don’t like (he clarified this to mean something physical to me like pushing, pulling, punching, pinching, physically manhandling me in some intimidating way.) you must follow these steps. If I followed these steps to the letters he made it clear he would support me throughout any consequences from my actions.

Step 1. Say to the person: please don’t do that (hit me, kick me etc). I don’t like it.

Step 2. (if the actions were to continue – in the same encounter, NOT the next day or week.)Please don’t do that, I have already asked you to stop, I don’t like it.

Step 3 (If it continues) Please stop, I have asked you twice already and if you do it again I will  hit(kick, punch) you back.

Step 4 (If it continues) Just hit them! Don’t talk about it or explain anything, just do it and REALLY hard. Not some woosie little tap but a big hit that means business.

 

In hindsight I think I found it quite empowering to know that my Father, whom I admired and who’s opinion I respected would support me if I had to employ this strategy to deal with a bully (the worst kind of fear for me being small in size and the new kid on the block 3 times during my schooling life). I even spent some time looking for an opportunity to use it because it sounded so cool (like being John Wayne). Alas I found that in actual fact most bullying was not the physical type (for me as a  girl) but the verbal type, which is harder to see and not as dramatic to respond to unless I were to engage in a form of bullying myself.

A word of warning….I did use it just once in about grade 10 at school, some guy was manhandling me and thought it was funny. I tried the straight down the line approach to the letter just as I had rehearsed with dad and then I got to the last bit and I HIT HIM. 2 problems, I had never rehearsed the hitting bit and so I wasn’t very good at it and ended up shoving my hand and into his Jaw from a low position (he was tall, I was not). It hurt him – and his – pride but not enough to send him sprawling as I had envisaged, and you guessed it, he hit me back. My friends and family just shook their head and told me I should have hit THEN RUN! But I had never been in a fight like this before and didn’t realise that hitting in retaliation won’t actually STOP the encounter until someone is out for the count.

 

While this worked for me and got me through my young years relatively unscathed, I am not sure this is how I want to advise my son. The conversation has come up once or twice and when he reaches high school I am sure we will have this conversation again. I believe that hitting back CAN be in self defence but because there is a fine line between self defence and retribution I do not want to advocate this course of action. My husband has a different point of view not surprisingly and worries that my peaceful approach is too soft and might leave him vulnerable. I am looking for some age old wisdom on this topic if you have it to share.