I dunno, I developed that trait fairly early, sometime before middle school. Maybe I was lucky. On the other hand, I often came across as an arrogant bastard. Still do, sometimes, although I don’t (usually) mean to.
I had that attitude from the beginning; it didn’t make being bullied much fun.
While they never stopped bullying me, I noticed they stopped most of the close up physical attacks because I escalated faster than they did. They hit me with a spitball, I kicked them in the ankle and drew blood. They shoved me, I picked up a plastic chair and hit them with it. I also used improvised weapons like a padlock on a string, to keep them from getting in arms reach; they weren’t crazy enogh to get closer when I swung it at their head. That didn’t keep the bullies from throwing rocks or kicking me in the crotch and running, but it helped.
Going to the teachers or principle assumes they care; I can’t recall one who did, and quite a few who took the bullies side or even encouraged them. For the obvious legal reason you should at least try, but sometimes force is all you have.
I will say that this sort of garbage is a major reason I don’t want children; I don’t want to inflict on them what happened to me.
And what do you do when you teach your kid to fight back and the other kid has a gun? I know of such a case in recent times – only it was the bus driver who was killed. This was in a small town in the South. He was tired of being humiliated.
How much are you willing to risk?
I’m with Carlyjay. Keep making noise until somebody listens.
Teachers do care. They just don’t have any authority anymore. Teachers can’t usually suspend anyone. (Hell, we had a student who rigged explosives over a teacher’s head and the principal wanted to suspend the student for only three days!)
Take a camera or a cell phone with a camera or video camera. Get an unknown older brother or sister to ride the bus and make a secret video. It would be worth it just for that one day.
I strongly disagree. Personal safety and well being is no-one’s responsibility except your own. The philosophy of “if I shout, somebody must listen and take action on my behalf” is dangerous at best, and disempowering at worst.
It is dangerous in that we begin to expect a ubiquitous authority ready to step in and solve all our problems for us, from bullies to flat tyres. We become dependent on The System. The problem is, however, The System might work in your town, but in the middle of the Kalahari the only authority is a hungry hyena. And he doesn’t speak English.
It is disempowering in that we continue to be the victim, we continue to cower, we continue to hide, we continue to abdicate our responsibility to take care of ourselves. We walk around being scared.
We need to stand up for ourselves. It is not about winning the fight with the bully, it is about standing up to him. The mere standing up is good enough. You might go down the first time, or the second time, but along the way you start to learn to duck the punches, and land some of your own. And eventually the bully either goes down, or backs down.
And if he fetches a gun? I think that is more the exception than the rule. There will always be the extreme, but by and large the schoolyard bully problem does not involve guns.
Then either the cops should be brought in, or you get your kid out of that school.
They’ll probably just punish the kid who makes the noise, and ignore the bully. That was my experience.
Some do, no doubt. I never ran into one. I had teachers call me a tattletale for telling them a kid hit me, stand by and ignore a kid who kicked me in the crotch, deny that fights ever happened at school, and in one case make a speech in front of the assembled PE class that the big kids should keep the little kids in our place.