Bullying happen in schools, in relationships, in college, in the corporate world, amongst countries and many more. I don’t expect the world to change overnight. Therefore, being prepared to handle non-physical attacks is just as important as the physical attacks.
Telling a child or teen “to be strong” or “ignore the bullies” do not work. How can you ignore someone’s words when it hit you as hard as a punch in the stomach and linger on for days or weeks in your head? Furthermore, “To be strong” does not address HOW to become stronger and so for most, hearing such words makes them feel worse because it becomes another evidence of their “weakness” or “failure to live up to the father or mother’s expectations”.
I try to prepare my students from a few different angles:
Mental:
- Report whether the target is you or someone else – with all the bully awareness campaigns, teachers and parents are more sensitive to the issues and therefore more ready to deal with it. Speak up if you witness something that is not right.
- Change the interpretation of the attacks – understand that bullies are insecure and therefore they feel the need to ‘validate’ themselves through bullying others. They may be victims of bullying themselves. They are the ones with issues. Don’t give them power and gratification of their action.
- Visualize and breath- try to visualize yourself protected by a super mirror, imagine the bully talking crap to himself via your protective mirror. Desensitization against mental attacks is just as important as against punches and kicks. When you are emotional, your breathing gets shallow. Deep breathing will calms you down as well as give oxygen to your muscles in preparation for the worse case scenario.
- Say NO as if you really mean it – sound simple but this takes practice for most people. Most are too polite to yell out a strong NO that is in-sync with the body language.
- Everyone is different – What one view as weakness can be strength in the right situations. For crying out loud, you can be teased because you are too smart, too skinny, too fat, too hard working, too pretty, too gentle, too pale, etc. Accept who you are and explore, discover and develop your strengths – you will be pleasantly surprised.
- Know you HAVE OPTIONS – just like the streets, a little extra planning can help, go to washrooms together with others, stay in well lit areas, don’t take short cuts, double team, etc. Always know that you have options (even as extreme as changing schools, divorce, change project teams), not all of them are convenient but may prove necessary.
- Extend the social circle – build up friendships from within and outside school (e.g. through sport and activities within and outside school). Having more diverse friendships and interests provide better protection from social bullying.
Physical:
- Train hard and be as ready as you can physically – you don’t want to escalate but you know you have the choice. Being physically strong give you that backbone to your confidence. Being physically agile allows you to run away when needed. Furthermore, bullies are mostly cowards that only pick the ones with the least resistance. Never fight out of frustration or anger, only when you are subject to imminent danger.
Have an outlet or a safe haven:
- Even the strongest person will eventually wear down, develop a support system over time so that you have a fallback.
- Develop a hobby or participate in an activity where you can just put all the troubles aside.
- Remove yourself from the scene or from such environment is not a sign of weakness, it can be a healthy option.
Exercise:
Bullying and/or abuse of power happens in all sort of different settings but can be very similar:
- Have you seen or experienced bullying inside or outside school? How did you handle it? Are there any points from above that you find especially useful? Do you have anything else you want to add to the list?
- Read more about bully prevention here. Quite comprehensive and deal with the topic from more than one angle.