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Unpopular opinion with healthy dose of anecdata incoming. I was bullied mercilessly from 3rd grade through 7th grade. Wedgies, keepaway, taunts, set-ups, beati

by daxorid 10y ago

Unpopular opinion with healthy dose of anecdata incoming. I was bullied mercilessly from 3rd grade through 7th grade. Wedgies, keepaway, taunts, set-ups, beatings anywhere from hit and runs to ground and pounds. At some point in the 7th grade during an ordinary, routine beating, something snapped within me and I turned around and landed on the order of 40 blows to the kid's face. I was never bullied again. I would advocate immediate, publicly visible, and decisive violence as a solution to bullies.

iamabraham 10y ago
"Anyone that says violence doesn't solve anything has never had their ass kicked" - My HS best friend's Dad teaching us about dealing with bullies circa 1991
- artursapek 10y ago
  That's one hell of a dad quote
- spacemanmatt 10y ago
  Lotsa dads make the point for me, that kids who do not tend to turn to violence have not experienced it. But it's lost on them -- they usually think not experiencing violence is a weakness.
  - kstenerud 10y ago
    Not a weakness per se, but rather a lost opportunity for learning how to assert yourself. Violence is the purest form of assertion, and can be extrapolated into nonviolent aspects of life later on. Being bullied (and fighting back) made me consider the philosophy of violence as a kid, and made me strong. It also taught me to stand my ground and take no shit from anyone, which was true in school, in the workplace, dealing with customer support, you name it.
    - spacemanmatt 10y ago
      I do not agree that violence is the purest form of assertion. On what basis did you judge purity, anyway? That seems like the sort of thing a violent person tells themselves in justification of their world view.
- pavlov 10y ago
  "Anyone that says waterboarding doesn't work has never been interrogated by torturers." Makes as much sense. This kind of dad wisdom is the brand of false "common sense" currently peddled by the Trumps and Putins of this world.
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    That's a lovely strawman you built there.
    - pavlov 10y ago
      I'm trying to point out the slippery slope of adults offering this kind of arguments to children. I wouldn't tell it to my kid because I feel it would be the wrong thing to say: "Here's a piece of advice that might work in the schoolyard, but it's wrong in life overall."
      - nocman 10y ago
        Except that it is definitely NOT wrong in life overall. There is a big difference between saying "violence doesn't solve anything" and saying that "violence solves everything". There are many situations in which a person needs to defend themselves, and reacting to physical violence with a physical response is the right thing to do. Just because this gets out of hand because some people take it too far doesn't mean that all physical responses are wrong.
        pavlov 10y ago
        I feel violence is wrong overall, and would die to defend that conviction if a situation came to that.
        theorique 10y ago
        So if one of your closest loved ones were threatened by a violent criminal (in a home invasion, for example), you would actually allow yourself and/or your loved one to die rather than commit an act of violence that eliminated the threat? I'm not sure if I believe that.
tomjen3 10y ago
Agreed. They should make an app for teaching self-defence for kids instead.
thedaemon 10y ago
When I attacked a bully back in a locker room, around 7th grade as well. I was never bullied again. I remember a new bully coming to school, and he started to pick on me. This other bully said to leave him (me) alone. Felt good as a child. I had earned respect.
beart 10y ago
This doesn't work anymore. Even if the bully leaves you alone, you are now faced with expulsion due to zero-tolerance policies.
- shostack 10y ago
  How have law suits against schools faired when a victim is punished for defending themselves in these situations?
  - amyjess 10y ago
    You're assuming that the only thing that will happen is expulsion. Fighting back -- especially if you do what GGP did and land "on the order of 40 blows to the kid's face" -- is very likely to result in the police being called and you being hit with criminal charges, and past the age of 14 or so will get you tried as an adult. On top of that, well, 40 blows to someone's face is going to do some real damage resulting in medical bills, and that kid's parents are going to sue your parents for the damages. So imagine you're a parent. Your son fights back and beats an alleged bully into the hospital in front of witnesses, including teachers. Your son is expelled, the police took him into custody and charged him with felony assault, and the alleged bully's parents have filed a lawsuit against you and your spouse personally for thousands of dollars in medical expenses plus punitive damages for pain and suffering. So now you're going to have to shell out money to bail your son out, you're going to have to hire a criminal defense attorney to try and keep your son out of state penitentiary, and you're going to have to hire a civil defense attorney to defend against the alleged bully's lawsuit. Oh, and the economy isn't going so great either. Remember that you can only get a court-appointed criminal attorney if you're absolutely indigent, and there's no such thing as a court-appointed civil attorney because the constitutional right to an attorney only applies to criminal cases. Unless you are filthy rich, you are not going to be able to afford to sue the school. Even if you were rich enough to sue the school while defending yourself on multiple fronts, you don't have much of a case. There will be multiple witnesses, including teachers, to the fact that your son beat the shit out of another student, but no witnesses to the other kid bullying your son. Bullies are smarter than you think: most of them know to only bully people when nobody's watching. That's how they get away with it. The best-case scenario is that your son accepts a plea bargain for misdemeanor assault, serving probation and community service, and you settle with the other kid's lawyers for somewhat less than they're asking but still enough to cover the other kid's hospital bills. You sell the house to pay for the lawyers and the settlement, you move into a tiny apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, and maybe if your son is really lucky, you'll have just enough money left over that he can get his GED. College won't happen, and he'll be lucky to get even a low-level retail job until he finishes his probation and the conviction is expunged. Yeah, it sucks, but that's how the world works.
webkike 10y ago
I'd agree with this solution, but unfortunately in many (_AMERICAN_) schools, retaliation against bullying shifts punishment from the bully to the victim.
- kstenerud 10y ago
  It's always been this way (at least since the 80s). Hit him hard where it hurts, then man up and deal with the fallout. What I learned in kindergarten is this: Don't back down. Not to bullies, not to teachers, not even to the principal. It's served me well throughout my life. Hell, even Tom Petty gets it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA
  - jjnoakes 10y ago
    Part of this is luck too. If you never back down from anything, and you are unlucky enough to find yourself in a bad enough situation, your unwillingness to back down may get you killed.
Retric 10y ago
Your 3rd grade self is vastly smaller than your 7th grade self. Even if you are still significantly smaller than the bullies roughly speaking getting hit by a 5' tall person hurts a lot more than by a 4' tall person.
- kstenerud 10y ago
  So you get hurt. Man up. It's on you to get out of a bad situation. Better to learn that early in life.
wybiral 10y ago
You'd have to be careful not to encourage excessive retaliation. If someone isn't physically capable of overthrowing a bully (or thinks that they aren't) you don't want them resorting to weapons when they "snap".
- kstenerud 10y ago
  You don't need to physically overthrow him. All you have to do is retaliate. Violence brings respect, and since he's only looking for an easy victim anyway, he'll go find someone else to torment.
  - wybiral 10y ago
    What I'm saying is that you should be careful when teaching retaliation. A bullied and frightened child might resort to using a weapon. The lines between which types of violence "bring you respect" and which don't might not be clearly established at a young age.
    - kstenerud 10y ago
      And you can worry about someone falling down the stairs and breaking their neck, or catching some disease from open wounds, or the bully is unstable and decides to go on a killing spree. There comes a point where you have to stop picking out unlikely scenarios and using them as a wet blanket.
      - wybiral 10y ago
        Hmm. All I'm saying is that when encouraging violent reactions to things you should do so carefully and explain the difference. But I'd also explain why you shouldn't play on tall staircases or leave serious wounds untreated. Maybe I'd make a terrible parent?
        kstenerud 10y ago
        African villages have deep pits for various purposes. Kids wander about the village all day long and don't fall in. They don't even need to be told not to fall in. A sheltered child never learns how to take care of himself in the real, hostile world.
lghh 10y ago
A counter-anecdote: where I grew up, when you start to fight back you end up in the hospital when the kid's friends show up after dark one day. Violence in retribution is not always a great solution.
- Nadya 10y ago
  It takes a certain amount of street smarts... Throwing some more anecdata on the pile. Where I (primarily) grew up, gangs weren't really a thing and most kids were middle-class and a bit of goody-two shoes. The bullies mostly bullied because of social cliques and it's what media tells kids that "popular kids" do. Find me a Disney high-school show targeted at tweens and teens where the popular/rich kids aren't bullying the nerdy/poor/"the new kid". With kids like that - reacting with violence gets the bullying to stop. It wasn't "witty comebacks" or being ignored like the victim would do on TV. There was actual retaliation to their actions and the cause->effect was dead obvious. They don't want to be hit again, they aren't fighters, so they stopped bullying. As a kid I moved around a lot - so I also grew up in areas where there were actual gangs. They bullied for completely different reasons. If you messed with the wrong clique, you'd have 8-12 people jump you on the way home. If you got bullied, you put up with it. Adults weren't going to help - because even the adults were scared of the gangs. You ignored it and hoped they would find someone else to bully after getting bored of you. If you retaliated with violence it would be almost certain you'd wake up in a hospital, like you said.
  - jdmichal 10y ago
    I have zero experience with the latter part of this, but I wonder about mitigation methods based on your relayed experience. If the goal is to get them bored, would "playing along" help? What if you laughed with them at their insults? What if you immediately curled up into a ball at imminent violence -- assuming that that's roughly the position you would end up in anyway? I'm assuming that the control and perceived strife is where the fun is here.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      Again, only speaking from my personal experiences and what I have witnessed. There is no winning move. You have to have enough social sense to accurately "judge" your bully. You could judge wrong. You may make things worse for yourself. When a bully has no problem getting physical (and has more friends than you do to back them up) is is harder to deal with than the "Disney-like bullies" that I mentioned. Best case scenario is a caring adult with enough authority gets involved. Even then, sometimes getting an adult involved makes things worse. Got the other kid(s) in trouble? They might beat your ass to get back at you. >If the goal is to get them bored, would "playing along" help? What if you laughed with them at their insults? Could be seen as taunting them, resulting in a beating. >What if you immediately curled up into a ball at imminent violence Beat you anyways? Might take some of the fun out of beating you until you curl up in a ball, but beating you to a pulp could be its own fun for them. >Just do nothing then? (the advice I gave, and it is also common advice) They may continue to escalate until they get a rise out of you. If it was jeering and teasing before - it might escalate to something physical. My solution was to drop out of school (remove myself from the equation) and go on Independent Study. It is very similar to being home schooled and I didn't have to deal with anyone. If I'm not around to bully/beat I can't be bullied/beaten. This option isn't always open to people, especially parents who refuse to let their kids be "home schooled" (because the stereotype only "dumb children" get home schooled and their child isn't dumb!)
nicolas_t 10y ago
I had the same experience in 10th grade (in France we switch school in the 10th grade). I had been bullied the two previous years and when 10th grade started I punched the first kid who bullied me. No one bullied me after that. Of course, this only works in an environment without weapons and without excessive escalation. I'm not sure it applies to girls though, being violent for a guy is considered by other kids as manly and earns respect. If a girl snaps and punches another girl, she'll be seen as crazy and most likely bullied even more than before.
venomsnake 10y ago
Same happened with me. Sometimes you have to enter berserk mode to advance in life. I was taken to the principal after breaking one of the bullies' head - her comment - "Surprised you didn't do that earlier" and that was all.
jeffwass 10y ago
Almost exact same thing happened to my friend in 7th grade as well. Although he clearly lost the fight, he definitely won in the long term. This was in the late '80s. One of the bigger bullies came up to him in the locker room out of the blue, said "hey geek" and punched him in the chest. Amazingly calmly he replied "Don't hit me" and punched him back, pretty weakly in comparison. I remember thinking at the time "what are you, fucking insane, hitting him back?" It immediately escalated into a full-on fight with the bully getting a good eight or so hard punches in which my friend futilely tried to avoid or hit back where he could. It was stopped pretty quickly when the gym teacher arrived and put the bully in a headlock. So even though he basically got his ass kicked, nobody ever picked on him again. At least not physically. Bullies are like thieves, and go for the easy targets. Putting up a fight, no matter how futile at the time, will likely remove you from the list of easy targets.
- munificent 10y ago
  I think about this every time I see those goofy youtube videos where something like a house cat chases a bear away from their yard. The cat doesn't have to be able to defeat the bear, it just has to make it not worth the bear's effort to fight.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Unfortunately if a teacher put a student in a headlock today they would probably be fire, charged, banned from teaching, publicly shamed, called a child abuser, and finally executed.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    "Death is too good for them!" -"Caring" Parents
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    A bit of hyperbole. See the police officer who body slammed the black girl and ultimately faced no sanction at all.
oh_sigh 10y ago
Did you become popular, or were people just scared of you at that point?
twoquestions 10y ago
It might work, or it might get you thrown in jail depending on your social status.
quirkafleeg 10y ago
I know we're not supposed to suggest someone didn't read the article and apparently just read the subject, but this isn't about violent bullying, it's about a specific kind of psychological bullying. Your solution of landing 40 violent blows on a kid's face is probably not a better alternative to this app.
- kstenerud 10y ago
  The title of the article didn't even match the content. It wasn't about bullied kids; it was about ostracized kids. But since the title clearly had "bullied" in it, we have this discussion.
  - quirkafleeg 10y ago
    Ostracism is used as a method of bullying, so the title does match the content.
ljk 10y ago
agree with you, sometimes you have to stand up to yourself, good on you!
jaxomlotus 10y ago
Violent bullying generally requires a violent response. It's unfortunately true. My then 8-year-old son was getting punched by another boy in his class on a regular basis and the teachers couldn't do anything about it because they "didn't see it." I told him that if anyone ever hits him, pushes him or punches him again he has my permission to hit back commensurately just as hard and he would suffer no consequences - even if the school wanted to suspend him. So the next day he got punched and he punched the other kid back in the stomach. It's been 2 years now and that kid never hit him again.
- jacobr 10y ago
  This feels reasonable if it's systematic bullying, and maybe I'd give the same advice in that situation, but in general I don't think it's a great strategy for a kid to always push back "just as hard" because it will escalate each argument they get in.
  - zentiggr 10y ago
    Not a general strategy - "I told him that if anyone ever hits him, pushes him or punches him again he has my permission to hit back commensurately" I wish I'd had someome tell me this when I was in grade school. I was ready to go when I was eight, nine years old, but had already learned "That's not acceptable behavior" and didn't fight back. Years and a lot of counseling later, I had some self esteem again.
- notlisted 10y ago
  Yup. Good advice. My dad told me to ignore the two bullies, that is, until they ruined my schoolbooks. He called their parents and asked for replacement. No surprise, they refused. Then gave me permission to react off school grounds... Alas, for the bullies, he didn't mention the commensurate part... I'll spare you the gory details, but it's been close to 35 years since that fateful day and I still relish it as one of the most glorious ever. They never bothered me again, nor did anyone else. The special ice cream with my dad that evening was the cherry on the cake...
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lhnz 10y ago
Would you recommend that a kid that is being completely ignored also walk up to somebody and hit them in the face? There's a big difference between responding to physical bullying with force, and responding to people ignoring you and not allowing you to sit with them with violence. At the end of the day, as unfair as it is, you're going to be the one that looks like the bully. Edit: I'm being down-voted... but the app is meant to be a reaction to social/psychological bullying and not violence. Violence isn't appropriate here.
EGreg 10y ago
This is a good response for someone who can fight back. What if you are being bullied by someone who you can't really hurt all that much or prevent them from hurting you, except through higher channels?
st3v3r 10y ago
It's nice that you were able to do that, but I'd say the majority of bullied people either aren't strong enough to do that (physically), or the bullying isn't of a physical nature anyway.
mikeash 10y ago
What I don't understand is why there's such a double standard between children and adults when it comes to this sort of behavior. If someone attacks me as an adult, I have every right to defend myself. The police will be called, and if it's possible to identify the perpetrator and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they attacked me, they will go to jail. If the police aren't able to find the attacker or prove that they did it, then I'm allowed to take countermeasures such as avoiding the area, carrying some sort of defensive measures (pepper spray, or even just a gun), or having someone escort me. Do the same thing to a child, and there's often minimal punishment, the victim and perpetrator are not separated from each other in the long term, and the victim is strongly encouraged not to fight back. Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens? We create these Lord of the Flies type situations for children, then basically tell them that problems shouldn't be happening, if they are then we won't help, but the children shouldn't do anything about them either. And then we are shocked, shocked, when children suddenly go all psycho on their tormentors. If a business had a constant known problem with physical violence among its employees and patrons, they'd be forced to reform or shut down, and people would go to prison. Schools should be the same. It's the responsibility of the people in charge to keep the students safe, both from outside threats and from each other. If they can't do that, then they need to be replaced by people who can. Until and unless that ever happens, then students' best option will be to retaliate.
- jacobr 10y ago
  > Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens? Isn't this standard advice, to just give them your money and avoid escalating the situation?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Yes, but they'll also make efforts to find and imprison the mugger, suggest being prepared for physical violence in case it ends up being necessary next time, and other such things beyond that.
  - noxToken 10y ago
geon 10y ago
Are you Ender?
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pkaeding 10y ago
When I was growing up, my mom gave me the advice her dad had given her: you aren't allowed to start a fight, but you sure as hell can finish one.
gvurrdon 10y ago
In general I would agree; a violent punishment (assuming you can manage one) generally does the trick for putting off physical bullies. However, they have workarounds, such as entirely replacing physical assaults with taunting, vandalism or theft (e.g. stealing books or puncturing bicycle tyres). Teachers never notice vandalism or theft of pupils' property and since there's never any evidence they're not interested. If the victim responds to abuse with their fists then it can be reported to the teacher, who will believe the instigator of the verbal abuse. The abuser will have friends who will report that they heard nothing and the unprovoked attack caught them by surprise. I wonder whether school children use smartphone apps to gather evidence these days (I left school before even mobile phones were common) and how teachers respond.
- conductr 10y ago
  Body cams for all school kids... gonna change the world... just need some VC monies to launch it
sfrailsdev 10y ago
First of all, bravo for standing up for yourself. I think when you grew up and given you being a guy and physically able to fight, that was probably very effective. Unfortunately schools have changed policies to so called zero tolerance policies, so that any violence can result in suspension, expulsion or event arrest and juvie. This is applied unfairly, it's worse for people who are racial minorities (studies show they are significantly more likely to be suspended, expelled or arrested, and suspensions last longer, this is why brown kids get arrested when they build clocks, and white kids get scholarships), and poor kids, who's parents are more limited in defending them because they have to work, can't afford legal representation, etc. And remember bullying doesn't have to be physical. Responding with violence may get you expelled and nothing happen to the bully. Also for people with disabilities or just physically weaker then the bully, violence may not be feasible as a response. And if girls are doing the bullying, or being bullied, violence may violate gender norms and not be the right choice.
aninhumer 10y ago
In almost every discussion of bullying on the internet we get these two contrasting comments: "I was bullied until I hit back" and "I was bullied until I ignored them". Maybe, just maybe, the best response depends on the situation and the bullies? It's great that you found a solution that works, and obviously you want to help other children achieve the same, but I don't think this implied "if everyone just did what I did, bullying would be solved" attitude is very helpful.
- brador 10y ago
  I have never seen any evidence, not even a single anecdote, that said "I was bullied until I ignored them".
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    Then you haven't been paying attention. It's a fairly common story: "I used to get wound up and react to bullies, but as soon as I stopped reacting, they got bored and stopped." It matches most of my experiences with bullying, although mostly this was in the form of bullies trying to start teasing me, and giving up in disgust when they couldn't get a rise out of me. But I'm also aware that my own experiences were fairly tame, and not at all representative of other people's, which is my point.
    - kayla210 10y ago
      I've dealt with bullies in this way too. It does depend on the bully, as well if the victim is capable of completely ignoring someone like that. As a child, I wouldn't have been able to show no emotion on my face and ignore someone teasing me as I wore my heart on my sleeve.
celticninja 10y ago
I had a similar experience resulting in the exact same outcome when I was in school. I just wish I knew it earlier but I make sure my kids know it.
taternuts 10y ago
This works because in general, most bullies are giant pussies. When they find out their target won't just accept their mis-guided aggressions but fight back, they just find a new target that won't.
ajryan 10y ago
"The brutal may have been moulded by a brutality you cannot exceed. Let guile be your ally." - David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
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beamatronic 10y ago
This worked for me also
kayla210 10y ago
In every instance that I was bullied and the bully stopped messing with me, it was because I stood up for myself, either by telling the kid off or slapping/punching the kid in front of all their friends and embarrassing them. Anecdotal, as every case of bullying is different, but it seems to be the more efficient solution than telling the teachers/administration, who do little to nothing about it.
omginternets 10y ago
I have a strong intuition that countering bullying with violence only works with disproportionate violence and/or public humiliation. It's almost like there needs to be a situation in which either the victim turns the tables in a spectacular way in public, or responds with violence that is shocking and disturbing. In other words, I feel like the "snapping" is just as important -- if not more -- than the violence, per se. I'm reminded of an anecdote which I think is attributed to Robert McNamara. Basically, he claims that a nuclear power shouldn't appear too rational. Adversaries should be left with a sense of "they're just crazy enough to use it". I think the same goes with bullying: "he's just crazy enough to actually kill me over this".
appleiigs 10y ago
I was not bullied, but my dad suggested publicly visible violence in this manner if I ever was bullied: First, if the kid is bigger and you'd lose the fight, wait until in class then sucker punch the kid and beat on him in presence of a teacher. The teacher can prevent you from getting really hurt when the bully responds. Second, after the fight, explain the bullying. You and the bully will end up in the principal's office. In the principal's office, sucker punch/surprise attack the guy again. This second step is to establish a pattern with the bully that he's in for a long battle if he keeps it up. Third, after the principals office, it will be escalated to parents. Then dad would give me a high five.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Wow. This is intense. Did this play out in real life or was this just prep.
  - appleiigs 10y ago
    No, it never happened. I was always taller and fatter than my classmates. Fortunately no one bullied me. I just remember my dad telling me this is what I have to do. My mom confirmed that my dad fought a lot when he was in school and military (mandatory service in his home country). The parent poster had good results fighting back, but what if it's a bigger or older kid. Tough to fight back. So my dads instructions was to fight inside the school, not at the bike racks.
M_Grey 10y ago
Similar experience, but without the lengthy bullying. I was big, but quiet and polite, and one day a kid cut in front of me in line, and I asked him to move. This kid, it's worth pointing out, had some real issues and had been bounced around at least half a dozen foster homes (so not a bad kid, but troubled). Anyway he turned around and clobbered me in the face with his trombone case. To that point I've never so much as smacked anyone (3rd grade), but that "snap" occurred and I punched his glasses off, crushed them underfoot, then beat him to the ground with my backpack. We actually become pretty good friends for a few years after that, and I was one of the only guys he wouldn't try to hassle even when he was having real problems. Like you, heavily anecdotal, but a lot of cultures outside of the (last 50 or so years) in the US recognize the value of non-injurious physical confrontations, especially among young guys.
ep103 10y ago
Was bullied exactly once as a kid, at a playground. Mother brought me back there the next day, told me to walk up and punch him in the face. Did it, we became best friends. This is how humans work. There are a lot of comments here about how schools break down that sorta behaviour, and they might be right. But its also up to schools to teach kids how society works, so all that means is you have to tell your kid to punch the other kid, after school lets out. That's as much a societal lesson as standing up for yourself.
dsacco 10y ago
Is this hyperbole, or did you actually hit the kid 40 times? Even 20 or 30 sounds excessive. I'm imagining you as a 7th grader patiently sitting there and counting out 40 punches. That sounds like it would result in a concussion and a bloody mess. I think proper response to bullies is pretty context-specific, but I'm glad this worked out for you.
majani 10y ago
Unfortunately it's become a blind mantra for many people that "violence is never the answer." We like to think ourselves as elevated beings, but there are many situations where primal shows of dominance through strength and aggression are viable solutions to a problem.
mschuster91 10y ago
> I would advocate immediate, publicly visible, and decisive violence as a solution to bullies. Speaking from experience: yes. Nothing prevents violence and bullying more than to show the bullies "okay, you don't stop, so I'm gonna fight back". It's like with preventing a computer system from getting hacked by everone and their dog: raise the difficulty bar enough to chase away the masses. Downside: bullies are going to choose an easier target, most probably the only friends you have (which makes that decision definitely harder). Solidarity in a group of bullied kids tends to vary, too. Sometimes, they'll stick together and actually beat one bully so hard he's going to the hospital and staying there, and sometimes it's "okay, choose the guy next to me, kthxbai" (aka everyone fights for himself only).
bane 10y ago
I also hate to say it, but this is one of the only effective solutions to bullying (especially among males). People become bullies for complex reasons, and people are bullied for similarly complex reasons. But almost no school aged bully is willing to put themselves at the risk of physical harm. I wasn't bullied, but I definitely had attempts made. Those attempts were usually resolved very quickly and permanently with a bit of school yard fisticuffs. My friends who didn't fight back physically stayed tormented for as long as they cared not to defend themselves. Arguing, going to teachers, parents, school administrators, counselors, none of it made a lick of difference. Physically fighting back did. There were two things I think that made it possible for this to work however (my parents were informed by a healthy disdain for the public school system): 1. My father established a standing set of rules in my family about bullies. a) Don't be a bully or you'll get severely punished b) if you are getting bullied, you may reasonably defend yourself without worrying about getting in trouble at home c) you may reasonably defend another person who is getting bullied without worrying about getting in trouble at home. d) if you throw the first punch you'll get in trouble, but you don't have to "win", just defend yourself 2. My father taught me and my siblings how to box a little - basic punches, blocks, parries, enough to be more trouble than it was worth for a school yard tussle. It worked, I was the perfect bully target in school, smart, bookish, glasses, I never was the victim of bullying after the first return punch. But I saw other children be bullied mercilessly, beat up, made fun of, even getting urinated on in one occasion, and another pushed head first down a flight of stairs. The problem with defending them of course, is that once I'm not there the bullies will pounce. I've even lost friends who had to move away to go to another school district the bullying was so bad. There are occasions though where this doesn't work, when the bully returns with a group, or if the parents don't teach and support their child's ability to enter, engage and resolve this kind of conflict on their own terms. Many very well meaning parents cannot imagine their child getting into a school yard fight to defend themselves and try to work through other adults at their level. But it very rarely resolves that way.
cmurf 10y ago
Same experience. Those fucking little pricks only understood one thing, giving and receiving violence. But that was also before we understood how to properly communicate to all parties involved. A big part of why I flipped my shit was because the principle made us all come into his office and shake hands. I said no, I'd done nothing wrong. And the fact no one got that, not even the adult, is the reason why I flipped my shit in the first place.
dfsegoat 10y ago
I tend to agree and teach this to my son with a very specific set of "rules of engagement", as I had a very similar experience - but without the positive ending. Basically I found trying that when your bullies are hardcore norteño gangbangers and you are 130lbs soaking wet with zero self confidence - and well it doesn't work out and it only infuriated them even more. The key though is: If you are going to take a beating, then fight back and if you get your ass beat, you get your ass beat - at least 30 years later you will not look back on yourself in those moments with disgust, because only later did you decide to stand up for yourself.

by daxorid 10y ago

iamabraham 10y ago

"Anyone that says violence doesn't solve anything has never had their ass kicked" - My HS best friend's Dad teaching us about dealing with bullies circa 1991

artursapek 10y ago
That's one hell of a dad quote
spacemanmatt 10y ago
Lotsa dads make the point for me, that kids who do not tend to turn to violence have not experienced it. But it's lost on them -- they usually think not experiencing violence is a weakness.
- kstenerud 10y ago
  Not a weakness per se, but rather a lost opportunity for learning how to assert yourself. Violence is the purest form of assertion, and can be extrapolated into nonviolent aspects of life later on. Being bullied (and fighting back) made me consider the philosophy of violence as a kid, and made me strong. It also taught me to stand my ground and take no shit from anyone, which was true in school, in the workplace, dealing with customer support, you name it.
  - spacemanmatt 10y ago
    I do not agree that violence is the purest form of assertion. On what basis did you judge purity, anyway? That seems like the sort of thing a violent person tells themselves in justification of their world view.
pavlov 10y ago
"Anyone that says waterboarding doesn't work has never been interrogated by torturers." Makes as much sense. This kind of dad wisdom is the brand of false "common sense" currently peddled by the Trumps and Putins of this world.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  That's a lovely strawman you built there.
  - pavlov 10y ago
    I'm trying to point out the slippery slope of adults offering this kind of arguments to children. I wouldn't tell it to my kid because I feel it would be the wrong thing to say: "Here's a piece of advice that might work in the schoolyard, but it's wrong in life overall."
    - nocman 10y ago
      Except that it is definitely NOT wrong in life overall. There is a big difference between saying "violence doesn't solve anything" and saying that "violence solves everything". There are many situations in which a person needs to defend themselves, and reacting to physical violence with a physical response is the right thing to do. Just because this gets out of hand because some people take it too far doesn't mean that all physical responses are wrong.
      - pavlov 10y ago
        I feel violence is wrong overall, and would die to defend that conviction if a situation came to that.
        theorique 10y ago
        So if one of your closest loved ones were threatened by a violent criminal (in a home invasion, for example), you would actually allow yourself and/or your loved one to die rather than commit an act of violence that eliminated the threat? I'm not sure if I believe that.

tomjen3 10y ago

Agreed. They should make an app for teaching self-defence for kids instead.

thedaemon 10y ago

When I attacked a bully back in a locker room, around 7th grade as well. I was never bullied again. I remember a new bully coming to school, and he started to pick on me. This other bully said to leave him (me) alone. Felt good as a child. I had earned respect.

beart 10y ago

This doesn't work anymore. Even if the bully leaves you alone, you are now faced with expulsion due to zero-tolerance policies.

shostack 10y ago
How have law suits against schools faired when a victim is punished for defending themselves in these situations?
- amyjess 10y ago
  You're assuming that the only thing that will happen is expulsion. Fighting back -- especially if you do what GGP did and land "on the order of 40 blows to the kid's face" -- is very likely to result in the police being called and you being hit with criminal charges, and past the age of 14 or so will get you tried as an adult. On top of that, well, 40 blows to someone's face is going to do some real damage resulting in medical bills, and that kid's parents are going to sue your parents for the damages. So imagine you're a parent. Your son fights back and beats an alleged bully into the hospital in front of witnesses, including teachers. Your son is expelled, the police took him into custody and charged him with felony assault, and the alleged bully's parents have filed a lawsuit against you and your spouse personally for thousands of dollars in medical expenses plus punitive damages for pain and suffering. So now you're going to have to shell out money to bail your son out, you're going to have to hire a criminal defense attorney to try and keep your son out of state penitentiary, and you're going to have to hire a civil defense attorney to defend against the alleged bully's lawsuit. Oh, and the economy isn't going so great either. Remember that you can only get a court-appointed criminal attorney if you're absolutely indigent, and there's no such thing as a court-appointed civil attorney because the constitutional right to an attorney only applies to criminal cases. Unless you are filthy rich, you are not going to be able to afford to sue the school. Even if you were rich enough to sue the school while defending yourself on multiple fronts, you don't have much of a case. There will be multiple witnesses, including teachers, to the fact that your son beat the shit out of another student, but no witnesses to the other kid bullying your son. Bullies are smarter than you think: most of them know to only bully people when nobody's watching. That's how they get away with it. The best-case scenario is that your son accepts a plea bargain for misdemeanor assault, serving probation and community service, and you settle with the other kid's lawyers for somewhat less than they're asking but still enough to cover the other kid's hospital bills. You sell the house to pay for the lawyers and the settlement, you move into a tiny apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, and maybe if your son is really lucky, you'll have just enough money left over that he can get his GED. College won't happen, and he'll be lucky to get even a low-level retail job until he finishes his probation and the conviction is expunged. Yeah, it sucks, but that's how the world works.

webkike 10y ago

I'd agree with this solution, but unfortunately in many (_AMERICAN_) schools, retaliation against bullying shifts punishment from the bully to the victim.

kstenerud 10y ago
It's always been this way (at least since the 80s). Hit him hard where it hurts, then man up and deal with the fallout. What I learned in kindergarten is this: Don't back down. Not to bullies, not to teachers, not even to the principal. It's served me well throughout my life. Hell, even Tom Petty gets it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA
- jjnoakes 10y ago
  Part of this is luck too. If you never back down from anything, and you are unlucky enough to find yourself in a bad enough situation, your unwillingness to back down may get you killed.

Retric 10y ago

Your 3rd grade self is vastly smaller than your 7th grade self. Even if you are still significantly smaller than the bullies roughly speaking getting hit by a 5' tall person hurts a lot more than by a 4' tall person.

kstenerud 10y ago
So you get hurt. Man up. It's on you to get out of a bad situation. Better to learn that early in life.

wybiral 10y ago

You'd have to be careful not to encourage excessive retaliation. If someone isn't physically capable of overthrowing a bully (or thinks that they aren't) you don't want them resorting to weapons when they "snap".

kstenerud 10y ago
You don't need to physically overthrow him. All you have to do is retaliate. Violence brings respect, and since he's only looking for an easy victim anyway, he'll go find someone else to torment.
- wybiral 10y ago
  What I'm saying is that you should be careful when teaching retaliation. A bullied and frightened child might resort to using a weapon. The lines between which types of violence "bring you respect" and which don't might not be clearly established at a young age.
  - kstenerud 10y ago
    And you can worry about someone falling down the stairs and breaking their neck, or catching some disease from open wounds, or the bully is unstable and decides to go on a killing spree. There comes a point where you have to stop picking out unlikely scenarios and using them as a wet blanket.
    - wybiral 10y ago
      Hmm. All I'm saying is that when encouraging violent reactions to things you should do so carefully and explain the difference. But I'd also explain why you shouldn't play on tall staircases or leave serious wounds untreated. Maybe I'd make a terrible parent?
      - kstenerud 10y ago
        African villages have deep pits for various purposes. Kids wander about the village all day long and don't fall in. They don't even need to be told not to fall in. A sheltered child never learns how to take care of himself in the real, hostile world.

lghh 10y ago

A counter-anecdote: where I grew up, when you start to fight back you end up in the hospital when the kid's friends show up after dark one day. Violence in retribution is not always a great solution.

Nadya 10y ago
It takes a certain amount of street smarts... Throwing some more anecdata on the pile. Where I (primarily) grew up, gangs weren't really a thing and most kids were middle-class and a bit of goody-two shoes. The bullies mostly bullied because of social cliques and it's what media tells kids that "popular kids" do. Find me a Disney high-school show targeted at tweens and teens where the popular/rich kids aren't bullying the nerdy/poor/"the new kid". With kids like that - reacting with violence gets the bullying to stop. It wasn't "witty comebacks" or being ignored like the victim would do on TV. There was actual retaliation to their actions and the cause->effect was dead obvious. They don't want to be hit again, they aren't fighters, so they stopped bullying. As a kid I moved around a lot - so I also grew up in areas where there were actual gangs. They bullied for completely different reasons. If you messed with the wrong clique, you'd have 8-12 people jump you on the way home. If you got bullied, you put up with it. Adults weren't going to help - because even the adults were scared of the gangs. You ignored it and hoped they would find someone else to bully after getting bored of you. If you retaliated with violence it would be almost certain you'd wake up in a hospital, like you said.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  I have zero experience with the latter part of this, but I wonder about mitigation methods based on your relayed experience. If the goal is to get them bored, would "playing along" help? What if you laughed with them at their insults? What if you immediately curled up into a ball at imminent violence -- assuming that that's roughly the position you would end up in anyway? I'm assuming that the control and perceived strife is where the fun is here.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    Again, only speaking from my personal experiences and what I have witnessed. There is no winning move. You have to have enough social sense to accurately "judge" your bully. You could judge wrong. You may make things worse for yourself. When a bully has no problem getting physical (and has more friends than you do to back them up) is is harder to deal with than the "Disney-like bullies" that I mentioned. Best case scenario is a caring adult with enough authority gets involved. Even then, sometimes getting an adult involved makes things worse. Got the other kid(s) in trouble? They might beat your ass to get back at you. >If the goal is to get them bored, would "playing along" help? What if you laughed with them at their insults? Could be seen as taunting them, resulting in a beating. >What if you immediately curled up into a ball at imminent violence Beat you anyways? Might take some of the fun out of beating you until you curl up in a ball, but beating you to a pulp could be its own fun for them. >Just do nothing then? (the advice I gave, and it is also common advice) They may continue to escalate until they get a rise out of you. If it was jeering and teasing before - it might escalate to something physical. My solution was to drop out of school (remove myself from the equation) and go on Independent Study. It is very similar to being home schooled and I didn't have to deal with anyone. If I'm not around to bully/beat I can't be bullied/beaten. This option isn't always open to people, especially parents who refuse to let their kids be "home schooled" (because the stereotype only "dumb children" get home schooled and their child isn't dumb!)

nicolas_t 10y ago

I had the same experience in 10th grade (in France we switch school in the 10th grade). I had been bullied the two previous years and when 10th grade started I punched the first kid who bullied me. No one bullied me after that. Of course, this only works in an environment without weapons and without excessive escalation. I'm not sure it applies to girls though, being violent for a guy is considered by other kids as manly and earns respect. If a girl snaps and punches another girl, she'll be seen as crazy and most likely bullied even more than before.

venomsnake 10y ago

Same happened with me. Sometimes you have to enter berserk mode to advance in life. I was taken to the principal after breaking one of the bullies' head - her comment - "Surprised you didn't do that earlier" and that was all.

jeffwass 10y ago

Almost exact same thing happened to my friend in 7th grade as well. Although he clearly lost the fight, he definitely won in the long term. This was in the late '80s. One of the bigger bullies came up to him in the locker room out of the blue, said "hey geek" and punched him in the chest. Amazingly calmly he replied "Don't hit me" and punched him back, pretty weakly in comparison. I remember thinking at the time "what are you, fucking insane, hitting him back?" It immediately escalated into a full-on fight with the bully getting a good eight or so hard punches in which my friend futilely tried to avoid or hit back where he could. It was stopped pretty quickly when the gym teacher arrived and put the bully in a headlock. So even though he basically got his ass kicked, nobody ever picked on him again. At least not physically. Bullies are like thieves, and go for the easy targets. Putting up a fight, no matter how futile at the time, will likely remove you from the list of easy targets.

munificent 10y ago
I think about this every time I see those goofy youtube videos where something like a house cat chases a bear away from their yard. The cat doesn't have to be able to defeat the bear, it just has to make it not worth the bear's effort to fight.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Unfortunately if a teacher put a student in a headlock today they would probably be fire, charged, banned from teaching, publicly shamed, called a child abuser, and finally executed.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  "Death is too good for them!" -"Caring" Parents
- wavefunction 10y ago
  A bit of hyperbole. See the police officer who body slammed the black girl and ultimately faced no sanction at all.

oh_sigh 10y ago

Did you become popular, or were people just scared of you at that point?

twoquestions 10y ago

It might work, or it might get you thrown in jail depending on your social status.

quirkafleeg 10y ago

I know we're not supposed to suggest someone didn't read the article and apparently just read the subject, but this isn't about violent bullying, it's about a specific kind of psychological bullying. Your solution of landing 40 violent blows on a kid's face is probably not a better alternative to this app.

kstenerud 10y ago
The title of the article didn't even match the content. It wasn't about bullied kids; it was about ostracized kids. But since the title clearly had "bullied" in it, we have this discussion.
- quirkafleeg 10y ago
  Ostracism is used as a method of bullying, so the title does match the content.

ljk 10y ago

agree with you, sometimes you have to stand up to yourself, good on you!

jaxomlotus 10y ago

Violent bullying generally requires a violent response. It's unfortunately true. My then 8-year-old son was getting punched by another boy in his class on a regular basis and the teachers couldn't do anything about it because they "didn't see it." I told him that if anyone ever hits him, pushes him or punches him again he has my permission to hit back commensurately just as hard and he would suffer no consequences - even if the school wanted to suspend him. So the next day he got punched and he punched the other kid back in the stomach. It's been 2 years now and that kid never hit him again.

jacobr 10y ago
This feels reasonable if it's systematic bullying, and maybe I'd give the same advice in that situation, but in general I don't think it's a great strategy for a kid to always push back "just as hard" because it will escalate each argument they get in.
- zentiggr 10y ago
  Not a general strategy - "I told him that if anyone ever hits him, pushes him or punches him again he has my permission to hit back commensurately" I wish I'd had someome tell me this when I was in grade school. I was ready to go when I was eight, nine years old, but had already learned "That's not acceptable behavior" and didn't fight back. Years and a lot of counseling later, I had some self esteem again.
notlisted 10y ago
Yup. Good advice. My dad told me to ignore the two bullies, that is, until they ruined my schoolbooks. He called their parents and asked for replacement. No surprise, they refused. Then gave me permission to react off school grounds... Alas, for the bullies, he didn't mention the commensurate part... I'll spare you the gory details, but it's been close to 35 years since that fateful day and I still relish it as one of the most glorious ever. They never bothered me again, nor did anyone else. The special ice cream with my dad that evening was the cherry on the cake...

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lhnz 10y ago

Would you recommend that a kid that is being completely ignored also walk up to somebody and hit them in the face? There's a big difference between responding to physical bullying with force, and responding to people ignoring you and not allowing you to sit with them with violence. At the end of the day, as unfair as it is, you're going to be the one that looks like the bully. Edit: I'm being down-voted... but the app is meant to be a reaction to social/psychological bullying and not violence. Violence isn't appropriate here.

EGreg 10y ago

This is a good response for someone who can fight back. What if you are being bullied by someone who you can't really hurt all that much or prevent them from hurting you, except through higher channels?

st3v3r 10y ago

It's nice that you were able to do that, but I'd say the majority of bullied people either aren't strong enough to do that (physically), or the bullying isn't of a physical nature anyway.

mikeash 10y ago

What I don't understand is why there's such a double standard between children and adults when it comes to this sort of behavior. If someone attacks me as an adult, I have every right to defend myself. The police will be called, and if it's possible to identify the perpetrator and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they attacked me, they will go to jail. If the police aren't able to find the attacker or prove that they did it, then I'm allowed to take countermeasures such as avoiding the area, carrying some sort of defensive measures (pepper spray, or even just a gun), or having someone escort me. Do the same thing to a child, and there's often minimal punishment, the victim and perpetrator are not separated from each other in the long term, and the victim is strongly encouraged not to fight back. Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens? We create these Lord of the Flies type situations for children, then basically tell them that problems shouldn't be happening, if they are then we won't help, but the children shouldn't do anything about them either. And then we are shocked, shocked, when children suddenly go all psycho on their tormentors. If a business had a constant known problem with physical violence among its employees and patrons, they'd be forced to reform or shut down, and people would go to prison. Schools should be the same. It's the responsibility of the people in charge to keep the students safe, both from outside threats and from each other. If they can't do that, then they need to be replaced by people who can. Until and unless that ever happens, then students' best option will be to retaliate.

jacobr 10y ago
> Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens? Isn't this standard advice, to just give them your money and avoid escalating the situation?
- mikeash 10y ago
  Yes, but they'll also make efforts to find and imprison the mugger, suggest being prepared for physical violence in case it ends up being necessary next time, and other such things beyond that.
- noxToken 10y ago

geon 10y ago

Are you Ender?

deleted 10y ago

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pkaeding 10y ago

When I was growing up, my mom gave me the advice her dad had given her: you aren't allowed to start a fight, but you sure as hell can finish one.

gvurrdon 10y ago

In general I would agree; a violent punishment (assuming you can manage one) generally does the trick for putting off physical bullies. However, they have workarounds, such as entirely replacing physical assaults with taunting, vandalism or theft (e.g. stealing books or puncturing bicycle tyres). Teachers never notice vandalism or theft of pupils' property and since there's never any evidence they're not interested. If the victim responds to abuse with their fists then it can be reported to the teacher, who will believe the instigator of the verbal abuse. The abuser will have friends who will report that they heard nothing and the unprovoked attack caught them by surprise. I wonder whether school children use smartphone apps to gather evidence these days (I left school before even mobile phones were common) and how teachers respond.

conductr 10y ago
Body cams for all school kids... gonna change the world... just need some VC monies to launch it

sfrailsdev 10y ago

First of all, bravo for standing up for yourself. I think when you grew up and given you being a guy and physically able to fight, that was probably very effective. Unfortunately schools have changed policies to so called zero tolerance policies, so that any violence can result in suspension, expulsion or event arrest and juvie. This is applied unfairly, it's worse for people who are racial minorities (studies show they are significantly more likely to be suspended, expelled or arrested, and suspensions last longer, this is why brown kids get arrested when they build clocks, and white kids get scholarships), and poor kids, who's parents are more limited in defending them because they have to work, can't afford legal representation, etc. And remember bullying doesn't have to be physical. Responding with violence may get you expelled and nothing happen to the bully. Also for people with disabilities or just physically weaker then the bully, violence may not be feasible as a response. And if girls are doing the bullying, or being bullied, violence may violate gender norms and not be the right choice.

aninhumer 10y ago

In almost every discussion of bullying on the internet we get these two contrasting comments: "I was bullied until I hit back" and "I was bullied until I ignored them". Maybe, just maybe, the best response depends on the situation and the bullies? It's great that you found a solution that works, and obviously you want to help other children achieve the same, but I don't think this implied "if everyone just did what I did, bullying would be solved" attitude is very helpful.

brador 10y ago
I have never seen any evidence, not even a single anecdote, that said "I was bullied until I ignored them".
- aninhumer 10y ago
  Then you haven't been paying attention. It's a fairly common story: "I used to get wound up and react to bullies, but as soon as I stopped reacting, they got bored and stopped." It matches most of my experiences with bullying, although mostly this was in the form of bullies trying to start teasing me, and giving up in disgust when they couldn't get a rise out of me. But I'm also aware that my own experiences were fairly tame, and not at all representative of other people's, which is my point.
  - kayla210 10y ago
    I've dealt with bullies in this way too. It does depend on the bully, as well if the victim is capable of completely ignoring someone like that. As a child, I wouldn't have been able to show no emotion on my face and ignore someone teasing me as I wore my heart on my sleeve.

celticninja 10y ago

I had a similar experience resulting in the exact same outcome when I was in school. I just wish I knew it earlier but I make sure my kids know it.

taternuts 10y ago

This works because in general, most bullies are giant pussies. When they find out their target won't just accept their mis-guided aggressions but fight back, they just find a new target that won't.

ajryan 10y ago

"The brutal may have been moulded by a brutality you cannot exceed. Let guile be your ally." - David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

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beamatronic 10y ago

This worked for me also

kayla210 10y ago

In every instance that I was bullied and the bully stopped messing with me, it was because I stood up for myself, either by telling the kid off or slapping/punching the kid in front of all their friends and embarrassing them. Anecdotal, as every case of bullying is different, but it seems to be the more efficient solution than telling the teachers/administration, who do little to nothing about it.

omginternets 10y ago

I have a strong intuition that countering bullying with violence only works with disproportionate violence and/or public humiliation. It's almost like there needs to be a situation in which either the victim turns the tables in a spectacular way in public, or responds with violence that is shocking and disturbing. In other words, I feel like the "snapping" is just as important -- if not more -- than the violence, per se. I'm reminded of an anecdote which I think is attributed to Robert McNamara. Basically, he claims that a nuclear power shouldn't appear too rational. Adversaries should be left with a sense of "they're just crazy enough to use it". I think the same goes with bullying: "he's just crazy enough to actually kill me over this".

appleiigs 10y ago

I was not bullied, but my dad suggested publicly visible violence in this manner if I ever was bullied: First, if the kid is bigger and you'd lose the fight, wait until in class then sucker punch the kid and beat on him in presence of a teacher. The teacher can prevent you from getting really hurt when the bully responds. Second, after the fight, explain the bullying. You and the bully will end up in the principal's office. In the principal's office, sucker punch/surprise attack the guy again. This second step is to establish a pattern with the bully that he's in for a long battle if he keeps it up. Third, after the principals office, it will be escalated to parents. Then dad would give me a high five.

r00fus 10y ago
Wow. This is intense. Did this play out in real life or was this just prep.
- appleiigs 10y ago
  No, it never happened. I was always taller and fatter than my classmates. Fortunately no one bullied me. I just remember my dad telling me this is what I have to do. My mom confirmed that my dad fought a lot when he was in school and military (mandatory service in his home country). The parent poster had good results fighting back, but what if it's a bigger or older kid. Tough to fight back. So my dads instructions was to fight inside the school, not at the bike racks.

M_Grey 10y ago

Similar experience, but without the lengthy bullying. I was big, but quiet and polite, and one day a kid cut in front of me in line, and I asked him to move. This kid, it's worth pointing out, had some real issues and had been bounced around at least half a dozen foster homes (so not a bad kid, but troubled). Anyway he turned around and clobbered me in the face with his trombone case. To that point I've never so much as smacked anyone (3rd grade), but that "snap" occurred and I punched his glasses off, crushed them underfoot, then beat him to the ground with my backpack. We actually become pretty good friends for a few years after that, and I was one of the only guys he wouldn't try to hassle even when he was having real problems. Like you, heavily anecdotal, but a lot of cultures outside of the (last 50 or so years) in the US recognize the value of non-injurious physical confrontations, especially among young guys.

ep103 10y ago

Was bullied exactly once as a kid, at a playground. Mother brought me back there the next day, told me to walk up and punch him in the face. Did it, we became best friends. This is how humans work. There are a lot of comments here about how schools break down that sorta behaviour, and they might be right. But its also up to schools to teach kids how society works, so all that means is you have to tell your kid to punch the other kid, after school lets out. That's as much a societal lesson as standing up for yourself.

dsacco 10y ago

Is this hyperbole, or did you actually hit the kid 40 times? Even 20 or 30 sounds excessive. I'm imagining you as a 7th grader patiently sitting there and counting out 40 punches. That sounds like it would result in a concussion and a bloody mess. I think proper response to bullies is pretty context-specific, but I'm glad this worked out for you.

majani 10y ago

Unfortunately it's become a blind mantra for many people that "violence is never the answer." We like to think ourselves as elevated beings, but there are many situations where primal shows of dominance through strength and aggression are viable solutions to a problem.

mschuster91 10y ago

> I would advocate immediate, publicly visible, and decisive violence as a solution to bullies. Speaking from experience: yes. Nothing prevents violence and bullying more than to show the bullies "okay, you don't stop, so I'm gonna fight back". It's like with preventing a computer system from getting hacked by everone and their dog: raise the difficulty bar enough to chase away the masses. Downside: bullies are going to choose an easier target, most probably the only friends you have (which makes that decision definitely harder). Solidarity in a group of bullied kids tends to vary, too. Sometimes, they'll stick together and actually beat one bully so hard he's going to the hospital and staying there, and sometimes it's "okay, choose the guy next to me, kthxbai" (aka everyone fights for himself only).

bane 10y ago

I also hate to say it, but this is one of the only effective solutions to bullying (especially among males). People become bullies for complex reasons, and people are bullied for similarly complex reasons. But almost no school aged bully is willing to put themselves at the risk of physical harm. I wasn't bullied, but I definitely had attempts made. Those attempts were usually resolved very quickly and permanently with a bit of school yard fisticuffs. My friends who didn't fight back physically stayed tormented for as long as they cared not to defend themselves. Arguing, going to teachers, parents, school administrators, counselors, none of it made a lick of difference. Physically fighting back did. There were two things I think that made it possible for this to work however (my parents were informed by a healthy disdain for the public school system): 1. My father established a standing set of rules in my family about bullies. a) Don't be a bully or you'll get severely punished b) if you are getting bullied, you may reasonably defend yourself without worrying about getting in trouble at home c) you may reasonably defend another person who is getting bullied without worrying about getting in trouble at home. d) if you throw the first punch you'll get in trouble, but you don't have to "win", just defend yourself 2. My father taught me and my siblings how to box a little - basic punches, blocks, parries, enough to be more trouble than it was worth for a school yard tussle. It worked, I was the perfect bully target in school, smart, bookish, glasses, I never was the victim of bullying after the first return punch. But I saw other children be bullied mercilessly, beat up, made fun of, even getting urinated on in one occasion, and another pushed head first down a flight of stairs. The problem with defending them of course, is that once I'm not there the bullies will pounce. I've even lost friends who had to move away to go to another school district the bullying was so bad. There are occasions though where this doesn't work, when the bully returns with a group, or if the parents don't teach and support their child's ability to enter, engage and resolve this kind of conflict on their own terms. Many very well meaning parents cannot imagine their child getting into a school yard fight to defend themselves and try to work through other adults at their level. But it very rarely resolves that way.

cmurf 10y ago

Same experience. Those fucking little pricks only understood one thing, giving and receiving violence. But that was also before we understood how to properly communicate to all parties involved. A big part of why I flipped my shit was because the principle made us all come into his office and shake hands. I said no, I'd done nothing wrong. And the fact no one got that, not even the adult, is the reason why I flipped my shit in the first place.

dfsegoat 10y ago

I tend to agree and teach this to my son with a very specific set of "rules of engagement", as I had a very similar experience - but without the positive ending. Basically I found trying that when your bullies are hardcore norteño gangbangers and you are 130lbs soaking wet with zero self confidence - and well it doesn't work out and it only infuriated them even more. The key though is: If you are going to take a beating, then fight back and if you get your ass beat, you get your ass beat - at least 30 years later you will not look back on yourself in those moments with disgust, because only later did you decide to stand up for yourself.