Bullying

Nobody likes a bully and bullies are really frightened and insecure people under their skin. That said, anyone who has had to bear the insult of being bullied for even a short time will carry the scars forever.

I only remember a few times in my childhood when someone tried to bully me. There was never any danger of me allowing this to happen, though, because I'm too hard headed. One time I remember was when a girl (a very large girl) walked up to me and pushed me because she thought I was after her boyfriend...we were all 13 years old. I responded automatically by punching her in the chest pretty darned hard and she backed away from me quickly. She never accosted me again. Bullies only pick on people who don't fight back and who they can intimidate.

A few years later there was a sort of scrawny little red headed girl in high school that bullies loved to pick on. I'd only heard about it from other kids but this girl wasn't one of my friends so I'd never seen it happen until one day at a dance. I noticed a commotion going on along a wall where there were kids sitting and saw the red headed girl sitting there and being slapped in the face over and over by a girl standing in front of her. The red headed girl just sat there and cringed, not defending herself. I walked over (brave but mad as hell me) and grabbed the assailant's arm and told her to knock it off. She did. Remember, my reputation was that I didn't back down from a bully.

By the way, the little red headed girl grew up to be a beauty, was a Tiger Cat cheer leader, and I heard she went into modeling. No matter, I'll bet she was always haunted by the bullying she'd suffered while in school.

My daughter was being bullied for a while when she was in maybe grade 3. She wasn't an aggressive child but I told her she had to defend herself or the bullying would never, ever stop. She came home a few days later and told me that when the bully came after her that day she'd retalliated by grabbing her by the coat and shaking her so hard her coat buttons ripped off. She never hit that child but the bully left her alone from then on.

A bully only picks on an easy mark!

I don't believe in violence and am very non-confrontational but I firmly believe that if you are being bullied physically you have to fight back hard with everything you have. A verbal bully is more easily ignored and soon they'll leave you and go after someone who gives them a reaction.

Bullying is cruel. A bully is not someone to fear but to pity. Just don't give in to them or they'll zero in on you like a pit bull, though.

There are people who just don't have it in them to fight back, though, and these are people who should have some sort of legal recourse. For children, it should be their parents and school authorities who put a stop to it. For adults, it has to be the legal system. Hard to believe that young bullies grow up to be old bullies but it happens.

There is so much violence in our world...wars, computer games, movies, T.V. shows, the so-called sport of boxing. It's no wonder that kids accept violence as normal because they see so much of it. Maybe it's time to tone down those computer games and T.V. and show more of the gentler side of life.

I guess my message with this blog is to not allow anyone to bully you if you can at all help it. And also to step in and stop a bully from preying on someone else. We really need to be pro-active when it comes to bullying and make it very apparent that it's cowardly and unacceptable by all of us.