I was bullied as a child, and when I earned my teaching credential, I researched a paper on bullying. Unfortunately, that paper is back in California while I’m here in Texas, so I can give you general answers, but I don’t have the specific citations I used in the paper.
The question is legitimate, but those who ask it need to remember just how painful a subject it is for those being asked. Just as it’s important to understand the dynamics that lead up to date rape, it’s important to understand the dynamics that lead to bullying. Just as it’s crucial to respect a date rape survivor’s pain and humiliation, the same is crucial when working with the survivors of bullying.
Why do bullies pick on a particular child? Simple. They don’t start that way. Bullies start with random selection. They will pick on anyone once - even the most popular, secure kids. Their target’s reaction is what determines whether or not they return to bully again. I had the reaction they were looking for. I shrank away. I didn’t fight for myself. I tried to appease them. I shut down. They had the freedom to torment me without consequence. It wasn’t until eighth grade that I learned to stand up for myself or, in one specific instance, a teacher discovered what was happening and put it right.
There are three types of bullying identified in the literature: physical, social, and reactive. I suffered physical and social. I didn’t see reactive bullying and recognize it for what it was until I was a teacher. Reactive bullying happens when target brings the bullying on themself - not on purpose, and certainly not in a manner that they should be blamed for. It’s usually when the target shows such aberrant behavior in relation to their peers, that their entire peer group goes out of their way to reject, punish, and ostracize the target.
The example I can give you is from when I was substituting. I had a fifth grade class for two days. The majority of the kids were great, as they usually are. A couple of them were stinkers, and I made it clear to them what the consequences were for bad behavior. They calmed down.
There was one boy, though, who just made my heart ache. He had no friends. He would take things - a rock sample from the science lab, for instance - and show it to me and claim that it was worth tens of thousands of dollars and that his dad had given it to him. He had a hair trigger temper and a completely out-of-proportion response to any perceived slight. So, if another kid made a harmless, joking comment to him - one that was clearly intended to give the boy a chance to join in social discourse - the boy would explode verbally, threaten to tell his father, and work himself into a tizzy. Then, he would start insulting the others, getting back at them for their perceived bullying.
This was only a couple of months into the school year, and this boy was already treated like a plague carrier. I was only there a couple of days. I never did find the right approach to reach the boy, though when he accused me of not helping, I told him that he needed to wait more than two seconds before deciding I had abandoned him. I did manage to get across to the other kids that the best thing they could do was leave him alone, and if that wasn’t possible, to treat him with kindness. He already had problems, I told them. Don’t add more grief to his life.
Bullying is no simple topic. Targets can turn around and become bullies. Bullies suffer from their behavior almost as badly as targets do. Forcing schools and parents to recognize the harm done and to enforce safe school policies is extremely different. Changing how bullying is perceived is even more difficult. But, we’ve come a very long way from when I was a kid, and that’s nothing but good.