Grasshopper New Media Presents...

In my previous column, I suggested that easing up the rescuing that you do for your kids was a good idea. Folks seemed to agree, but it created complex questions. One of which I’ll attempt to address today: Ok, I’ll let my kid fight his own battles, except what if the battle is with a bully?

First off, great question, and one not easily answered. In fact, my opinion is that once a bully is on the scene, it’s lose-lose for everyone.

So, my advice is, go with the smallest loss.

You can’t make it a win. You can’t buy the bully flowers or give him a hug or become his best friend by seeing the sweet side he has hidden beneath the tough exterior. In the end, the bully always wins.

So if you know you’re going to lose, be in charge of how you lose. That is something that the bully can’t take away from you, unless you let him.

For example, if you go to school and rat out the bully, your kid will, eventually, be ratted out to the rest of the school population as a rat. Might save your kid from an butt-whoopin, and you might not (the bully is familiar with the concept that revenge is a dish best served cold). But you’ll also paint a big target on your kid’s back, a target of victim, and of rat. And that target will stay there for quite a while. Especially in high school.

Another angle is to talk to your kid. Get your kid to confess to the truth about the bully, and then ask what they want done. Do they want you to protect them? If so, guess what, you can’t. You can teach them some techniques, how to attract attention, because bullies hate a crowd, or how to distract, like through humor or weirdness. Bullies take a little longer to make a fist if they’re laughing.

My point is two-fold. One, there’s no right answer, at least none that I’ve heard. It’s a sucky situation. To paraphrase a popular film, it’s a big poop sandwich and we all have to take a bite. However, my other point is this: Involve your kid. Talk to your kid. Let your kid have a great deal of say in this moment in their lives. If they flail, acting helpless, now is your chance to look them in the eye and tell them you have faith in them. If they tell you to take a hike, tell them that you understand, that you trust them, and that you’ll be there when they need you. If they ask for advice on what to do, be honest, talk from the heart.

And finally, I leave you with a story, one that I have related to both my kids. It shows that I am not perfect, so take what I say with a grain of salt:

I was once the victim of a bully. He was an older kid, taller than me by a good six inches. He was in my PE class, left back at least a year, if not two. And he wasn’t very bright. Oh, and I was easy to pick on, as I had a real mouth on me.

Invariably, he would challenge me to a fight. And, being the non-violent lad that I was, I would refuse. He’d wait for me after gym class, push me around, and tell me to put my hands up. I said “no,” every time. It drove him up a wall. And, while he never punched me, he did push and shove and hurl epithets at me. He put me in a garbage can a few times. He locked me in a locker once. Good times.

Then, one day, the gym teacher told us we were playing indoor hockey. For those who don’t know, this was hockey with plastic sticks, played on the gym’s basketball court, in our socks. I was a big fan of hockey, and had watched my share of games. So I knew what was legal, was was illegal, and what you could get away with if you did it right.

Sure enough, here comes “The Bully,” racing towards me, flicking the puck with his stick. As he got close enough, he looked me in the eye, laughed, and suggested that I should avoid a trip to the hospital by allowing him to pass. I said, “sure,” nodded my head, and stepped to the left. But just long enough for him to drop his head and his shoulders. That’s all I needed. With every bit of strength I could gather, I leaned back to my right, smacked the puck away from him, and at the same time, planted my shoulder square into the center of his chest, propelling my favorite bully to the gym floor.

It was as cool as it sounds.

Now, he made me pay for it later, but just with more shoving and name-calling. I never went to my folks, or the principal. I never raised my hands to him. And I lived through high-school without taking a beating.

So I really don’t have an answer on this whole bully thing. They suck, especially for the parents. And there’s very little to be done. To be fair, I find that our school system is doing an excellent job of teaching the kids how to deal with bullies. But the school can’t be expected to catch them all. And you can’t fight your kid’s battles. In the end, your kid has to lead the way. The best you can do is be there for them when the smoke clears.

[tags]parenting, kids, bullies, tormentors, school, stress, advice[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by . patricio, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved