OldCurlyWolf wrote:jmra wrote:We had a much more effective way of dealing with bullies back in the day.
It was called "Beat the snot out of them".
It worked on gangs too, but you have to catch them alone.
I also had this philosophy:
"You may beat me up, but you better watch around every corner the rest of your life. Somewhere, Somewhen I will be there. You won't know where. You won't know when. But I will be there.
"
I articulated this philosophy while doing my best "Crazy" act. It is amazing how effective it is when properly delivered.
Here's my bully resolution story. I apologize for the length, but it took a few words to tell the tale.
I tried to play by the rules with my kids - I really did.
I told them not to fight in school, and if someone tried to bully them, I told them to tell a teacher.
They did.
Teach did nothing.
Kid told me.
I called school - told them to fix it. They promised they would.
They didn't.
Kid now tells me he's getting hit every day, now it's multiple assailants, the teacher or schoolyard monitor sees it, and does nothing.
Time to consider other options.
Fortunately, since I was pretty sure human nature hadn't changed in the last 500,000 years, I had started my kids with karate lessons at age 6 because I knew they would need the physical skills, confidence, and judgment that comes with that training at various points in their lives.
Both were black belts by age 11. I had strictly instructed them not to use it in school.
Time for a rule change.
I told my son to take down and humiliate the leader of the group next time it happened. The only restrictions were not to do any damage that would require medical treatment and not to leave any marks. I told him I knew he knew how to do that and he was free to use his creativity to select an appropriate combination of techniques.
He did. When he got home I asked how it worked out. He said the bully kids now want to be his friends.
But he said the teacher was really mad and I was going to get a call from the principal. I said "I'll take care of it."
I stayed in my office at police headquarters the next morning so I wouldn't miss the call.
I didn't have to wait long. The very irate principal called and said my son had been fighting in the schoolyard and was going to be suspended.
I told him that wasn't going to happen. I read him the section of the state penal code on self defense and told him that my son had no option but to exercise his rights under that law because he and the employees he managed were negligent, incompetent or both and had made no attempt to stop the attacks on my son when I brought them to his attention earlier.
He got more irate and insisted he was going through with the suspension. I asked if my attorney should be contacting him or the school's legal counsel. I also asked him for the contact information for the school's media spokesperson so the reporters I dealt with regularly would know who to interview for his side of the story.
He stopped shouting. He went to spluttering. I asked him if my son was still going to be suspended. He said maybe not.
I told him I was confident he would ultimately reach a reasonable decision and that this would be the last I heard about it.
I also told him to make sure my son wasn't put in the same situation again unless he wanted to have a rerun of our friendly conversation that morning, and to have a nice day. I hung up and never heard another word.
My son had no more trouble in school - until he got to high school.
On the first day in the cafeteria as a freshman he was surrounded by several seniors and told to lick the shoes of one of them. This time he knew the rules without having to talk to Dad. He approached the grinning bully, smiled, swept his legs out from under him, caught him by the shirt just before he hit the floor, smiled again and told him if he ever spoke to him again like that it was going to hurt - a lot.
I didn't get a call from the school, he had lots of kids who wanted to be his friends, and he never had another issue during the 4 years of high school.
Takeaways:
Bullies respect only direct action. That goes for both the kids and the teachers and principal.
Proportionate direct action backed up by legally aware parents is not something the bullies in school administration are willing to push to the point of getting burned. Like other bullies, they only pick on the weak.
Action gets results quickly and the problem stays solved over time because fear is an effective inhibitor for those without principles.
