Becoming A Bully Magnet

Bullying doesn't always happen to kids. My life went downhill after a police officer/customer made damaging comments about my character. I quit my job of 30 years & had to seek counseling.

"Independent One" is right on the mark! You simply cannot negotiate with terrorists, which is what bullies are! You must strike back! Like Independent One, I was also bullied in very similar ways until I gave him a beating he never forgot. Needless to say, he never picked on me again! You do not negotiate with terrorists: you destroy them; you give them such a bad beating, they'll think very hard before acting against you again. Weakness invites aggression, but strength will virtually always be respected. "Diplomacy" with bullies' parents doesn't work 99% of the time, and neither does "diplomacy" with school administrators. The reason the bullied end up gunning down bullies is because they're NOT being protected and supported by those charged with protecting them; these entities, instead of protecting the victim, will instead BLAME the victim. Try diplomacy first, but if that doesn't work, force is the only remaining resort, not lethal force, of course, but force that checks unacceptable behavior.

I am so disgusted at the the stupidity of bloggers on this thread. There is virtually NO coment about the real-world ways to handle these situations. And also NO discussion about the differences between the physical attacks that generally constitute male bullying and the emotional/social attacks that accompany typpical female bullying. There is a difference people. The idea of "Oh, just be nice to them.......just ignore them.....tell them how you feel...blah blah...." THIS DOESN'T WORK!!! Now, I can only give a male pespective on this, maybe this works better with girls, I dont know.
I sent much of my childhood being physically abused by many other kids. I grew up in a rough neighborhood. I was your typical shy, over-sensitive, intelligent happy-go-lucky type that quickly became a target for the other kids...starting from kindergarten. We tried the ignoring, my parents wrote letters to the school, they tried talking to the parents of the other kids (waste of time), etc. The ONLY that worked was finally enrolling in tae kwon do classes. It built up my self-esteem, gave me confidence, and also gave me something to dwell on besides my unhappiness.
You want to stop the bullies? STOP BEING A TARGET!!! They hit you, you hit them back ten times. Fight back, and they'l stop. Fight hard enough, they'll tell their friends about it, who will stop as well. If they can't get the best of you, they won't target you!! I seriously don't condone violence, but the rules of the playground are far different than the stupid philosophical ideas of soccer moms who have no idea how to truly prevent bullies from harming your child.
One time some of the neighborhood kids came after me on the street as I was walking home from school. I was surrounded by 4-5 kids...and had no friends around to help. They started shoving me......so I threw a punch that landed square in this kids face. He bled immediately. I hit another, and possibly a third. The other kids backed off so I continued striking the first kid. I hit him so hard his face started to swell within seconds. I kept punching him until a neighbor's dad came and peeled me off him. Believe me, I was just as upset as the bully, but after that day he never came back at me again. Neither did the others boys in that group.
My own son is now 2, and as soon as allowed I'm enrolling him into martial arts classes. I'll be damned if I let my son suffer that experience that has scarred me. The bottom line is...I won't ever let my son start a fight......but at least he'll know how to finish one!!

nozyuccamtn: think they should ask you to write a front page article. it would be a lot more helpful for the thousands of kids who are in pain because of bullying...sandie

Children who act out aggressively in public are also possibly the victims of bullying by siblings with the cooperation of parents. If parents are angry & abusive to each other and/or to their children or they are absent or inattentive, then older children may use any means they can to control the younger siblings, including force and bullying. Poor parenting skills can be passed along early on. Until women begin to appreciate that having children is a great LUXURY that not everyone can afford or manage, the problems associated with bullying aren't going to diminish. Teaching parenting skills, including family planning, in the schools might be a good way to start modifying behavior on a large enough scale to produce positive results for society as a whole.

Comment: response to sparkly's comment: "The single point to take away here is that aggression disturbs the social process, and that opens ways for more aggression to be done on exposed targets"...to say that too many do not understand the article is to put the responsibility on the reader and not the writer. for so many to supposedly misinterpret the main point of the article would say to me that the writer needs to clarify his main

























































































point.. i agree that he is not justifying bullying but his basic premise is not true. there are many reasons for




















bullying: some victims who are bullied are taught not to fight back. group bullying frequently occurs because of a power struggle and jealousy within peer groups.

response to this comment: The single point to take away here is that aggression disturbs the social process, and that opens ways for more aggression to be done on exposed targets. 1.to say that too many do not understand the article is to put the responsibility on the reader and not the writer...for so many to supposedly
misinterpret the main point of the article would say to me that the writer needs to clarify his main point..

After reading some of the other comments to this article, and relising they are almost all based on personal exspiriances, I have started to wonder about the root cause of the reserch. Were the creators of this theory bullied, or bullies....ie guilty or angry or no longer wishing to feel dominated; something like "well i got them first last or better. Sorry about th e spelling, I have dexleksia please don't pick on me for it though .

This may be true some of the time, however I've noticed that alot of bulliing stems from jelosy, also some bullies want to gather more attention on themselves, so they make noise.The noise that can frequintly get the desired attention,is" look at so and so they combed their hair different than mine." As well it is not uncommen that when the bullied child fights back, especially if ebaressing the bully, thay then become idolised for how ever short of time,(usally until the news of the event dies down) than if they want to keep their new admirers, it's what ever new to impress.Given the premise of this article no new kid would ever get picked on. I do belive that children who are intimidated at home are likely to be bullied at school, but i dobt blamming them will help anyone.

i believe in freedom of speech but the ramification of "research" stating such findings sets back the cause
of those who are being victimized by bullying. research has it's place but we are talking about putting legitimate findings out there in the public that will help the victims not hurt them. i have worked in the field of bully prevention for many years and the findings are just not accurate!...s

This article is interesting and thought provoking but naturally it is very generalized. You can't say that every kid who is vicitmized or bullied had aggressive behaviors as a 5 yr old. There may be some correlation, but to make the blanket statement that these are the only type kids who are bullied is a mistake. Bullying comes in many shapes and forms. My child has anxiety. When he is feeling very stressed in a social situation, he sometimes has tics.. those compulsive behaviors immediately make him a target-- and we're talking 5th grade when bullying is at its worst with all of the prepubescent angst rolling around the classroom. I think that research is well and fine, but I would be more interested in having funding put towards programs that help children cope and learn social skills- in all age groups. Those groups are very rare and very expensive and RARELY covered by insurance. School guidance counseling groups by lack of sufficient staff (1 per school usually)..are usually ineffective as there is no concentrated help. Once biweekly just doesn't help much.

I think that it is important to address this to make parents (and educators) understand that reactive parenting/teaching and shouting can do enormous amounts of damage to a child. If caught early..great, you saved a child. BUT I also think it is important to address kids who are already there.. who could've gotten there many ways other that just reactive parenting, shouting and spanking. In our case, it was a series of moves over 2 yr period and the birth of a 2nd child with some special needs that seemed to turn him from a fairly well adjusted and semi spoiled joy of a child to a nail biting nervous wreck. And then the bullying he received at school has pushed him into being a very isolated child now at age 11. I would be interested in an article with advice on dealing with THAT.

This is the stupidiest article I have ever read, it makes no sense, newsflash the bullies are ALWAYS the most aggressive kids, the ones that get picked on are the shy quiet ones and the nerdy types, never the aggressive ones....go live in the real world and look for a new occupation, obviously research is not one of your talents.....

11235813--

This is a free country, and anyone can start a blog. Anyone can post a comment on a comments thread. Anyone can write a letter to the editor of a newspaper. If you so wish you can even stand on the street corner or under the statue in the city park and shout your ideas at the top of your lungs. But this does not mean every opinion is as relevant as any other.

Do you believe that when a difficult military mission needs to be undertaken that just any group of volunteers should be sent, or do you think that the elite troops, who have trained under difficult conditions for years should be sent? When the Olympics roll around, do you think that we should randomly pick people regardless of their atheletic skills and send them to compete, or do you want the best? If you require surgery, are you going to pick someone off the street, go to a veterinarian, or seek out the most skilled doctor you can find?

I think your ideas are a product of too many years the U.S. educational technique-- practiced far too frequently-- where all the desks get pushed together in a big circle, everyone shares their thoughts, and no one is right or wrong. Such tactics are useful some of the time, but not all of the time. There are such things as scientific facts. There are such things as names and dates which signify when important things occurred and who
participated in them. It may be fair to allow everyone to have his/her say, but not everyone's say is equally valid. There are intellectual elites, just as there are atheletic elites, medical elites, and military elites. This is a fact of life. All things in this world are not equal-- just ask the slow antelope and the hungry lion. Winning and losing are not relative things, except in those circles of desks that some teachers use in their classrooms.

As far as anyone getting more air time than anyone else. I think that the citizens of America, being the republic that it is, should post their opinions young and old. From a blog to a college there should not be limitation as to who's ideas are more or less acceptable. Everyone from age 0 - dead, Philosophers, gangsters, and profesionals should be able to show their opinion because the day we let one thinking method overrule the rest is the day we lose independent varification on our thinking. What prooves logic? emotion? common sense? No one prooved or disprooved any thinking method, so let us not be too snobby in our acceptance of who gets the soap box. Personally, I would LOVE to hear a kindergarden teacher's opinion in this blog. I would LOVE to hear an economist's opinion on bullying. Please post whoever you are.

We don't need simply researchers or kindergarden teachers to have prime time. We need both. We also need more commenters to express their opinion as well as "professionals opinions" America is a republic where we are supposed to be educated and trained to ALL HAVE A LOGICAL OPINION.

I myself was a little bit bullied. At least socially/emotionally neglegted in high school. But I say no ones oppinion should be suppressed. Teachers, Psychologists, and ordinary people from age 0 - dead should express their oppinion because if we reject the oppinion of "those not logical enough" or "those without common sense" or "those without the right emotional thinking" then the country we live in is dominated by one group who subjects the rest to think and express a certain way. Today we are under the fetters of logic and political correctness. Yet, we cannot be truely logical or scientific unless we have independent varification from inside and outside logic.

Dreaming_Of_Normal ,

I have a very good friend who has high-functioning Asperger's. When I met him, I thought he was very rude, because he had poor social skills. When he would show up, others would just leave. I felt sorry for him, and became his friend. I did not even know what Asperger's was then, and neither did he. But I just worked with him, and was even sometimes probably mean to him, and sometimes he got mad at me and went home,

He began to try to work on controlling his "interupting", and to try to pay attention to other peoples' eyes and mouths and body postures-- places that show emotions and feelings very clearly. Even today, after more than twenty years, sometimes he forgets, starts talking about different things, changing the subject, and upsets people. But he is much better now, and no one ever says anything bad about him like they did back then. When he meets new people, they are much more able to accept him as a person.

You may be dreaming of normal, but I think you are more normal than you think. You are obviously very intelligent. Your comment was very well-written, and really made me sad. It is terrible how some people treat each other-- especially young people. Try to find some books on facial expression and body language at the library. Study and learn about facial expressions and body language. It is just like driving a car-- when you see a red light, it is time to stop. There are facial expressions which people use to tell another person to stop. There is body language that tells people to stop too. And there are facial expressions and body language that tells you to "keep acting like you are acting-- it's OK" as well-- like a green light. Others might not be as easy to figure out-- kind of like a yellow light-- and those are going to be the hard ones.

Good luck. Don't give up. Don't be unhappy. High school does not last forever. Before you know it this will all be a distant memory. You will go to college and be very successful, because you are very intelligent. Believe me, I know. Take care.

wonder if this guy has ever worked in the schools with kids who are bullied? very sad that he gets front page coverage rather than professionals who work with kids and are in the know...it is an indictment on our media as well as the researcher....sandie

wonder if this guy has ever worked int he schools with bullies and victims of bullying???? sad to sad that a researcher gets more prime time than professionals who have real life experience with kids....sandie