Bullying

[ncurd]

That tended to be my theory when I was younger, and I followed it helped I was fairly built so knew if anything became physical I could handle myself with ease, but I can see where others can be more affected by it, everyone is different everyone buttons can be pushed differently.

I wouldn't say all bullies were after reactions I have seen a fair amount of bullies go after someone for what I saw as no reason.

Being one of the younger members by the looks of it (in early 20's) with a younger brother I find cyber bullying a interesting viewpoint for me I would say why do you go on said page or why not just block the person but it is a different generation, and who am I to judge them for not being able to do it?

Okay made a seperate thread as I don't think we've diverged quite a bit from the Wales/England match. Feel free to discuss this context of Marler/Sampson Lee incident if you wish.

So I had chronic asthma as a young child (my last serious attack was before the age of 11) this meant I was never physically strong or energetic as being so caused me to be very ill. I'm also a relatively small person in build and was in height (although now I'm average height but slender build).

So unlike Tigs Man I was unable to stand up for myself relatively.

I do think every child is different and I think some can brush it off with a thick skin. Was I overly sensative? Probably at first but that's my personality make up no amount of "try to forget it" is going to replace the fact I was being effected by it.

A conversation I had with my mother a few years back she use to have a problem with school where they said I was pretty intollerant of other peoples intollerant behaviour and I needed to be more tollerant. She said it just didn't work in my logic how do you explain to a kid that other people are allowed to behave badly and you have to put up with it no matter how it makes you feel. It just doesn't work.

I should note today I'm considered to be incredibly thick skinned but the reality is I can tell when someone's having a bit of friendly banter and take it quite well and someone being a dick. When someones being a dick I still generally react badly to it.


I think most kids are asking for reaction but the reality of why they are is more complex. A lot of the kids who were particulary vindictive were no where near as smart as I was and fairly certain there's some kind of vicious cycle going on there.


Cyber bullying I had possibly one instance of (mainly because we're talking early internet days) which was pretty upsetting mainly because it was out the blue, completely anonmynous (they created an e-maila ddress to specifically target me), to my personal e-mail and had to of come from someone I considered a friend due to the content (I narrowed it down to two people). The real sad thing was it came whilst I was in college and thought I'd escaped it all having gone to different college to all but 1 person I went to schoool with, it was the only inicedent at college so it's pretty much why it's so vivid in my memory.
I should state by the time I was in college and the way I treated other people there in my own self-absorbtion of being a teenager I pretty much had been asking for something. Took me fair bit of my early 20's to deal with it when I was extremely ******* off some of my friends who confronted me about it. Most of it can be boiled down to "growing up" however.
People don't live and grow in vaccum either I can trace my bad behaviour to stuff that happened to me as a child. As noted earlier I've assessed and confronted this a lot in recent years mainly through talking about it a lot with my wife.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

It really is a very difficult thing to nail down as there is so many variables.

 

[nickdnz]

The only advice I think I could give to anyone being bullied, is to "like yourself". It's one of those pointless soundbites, but my younger years could be divided into two parts; when I didn't like myself and external forces reinforced that - and when I did like myself and external forces reacted to that.

As a chubby kid who always was getting into fights because I would react, I probably spent a fair bit of time with a chip on my shoulder. People looked for me as a target to fight, rather than it being something that was a fortunate quality to protect myself.

At around 15 years old some things happened which made me revise how I felt about myself. I liked myself more and treated everyone as I wanted to be treated. People no longer looked to fight me, because they could not provoke the same reactions, and I was reasonably liked and well supported (plus people grow up...).

Since then if I see anyone like me getting bullied; sure step in to stop the bullies. But from experience some people are more vulnerable to being bullied because of how they value themsleves. So it's just as important to try and make people feel valued and that they had something to offer the world. I think bullied people can lose that, and it's what makes it such a hard cycle, particularly for young people.

 

[Sweats]

It's easier said than done but it's good to remember that there's very few people in the world who genuinely matter, family and a few friends. Anyone else's opinion should mean close to nothing to you.

It's always good to remember, stay calm. Have a sharp witty comeback sure, but do it with a smile on your face rather than a scowl. Someone calls you fat? Well, their mum liked it last night. Someone calls you dumb? Well, their mum liked it last night.

Other jokes can be used.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

The only advice I think I could give to anyone being bullied, is to "like yourself".

I agree with this.

I was lucky with this issue as a kid, i guess.
Quick question thou: could someone define bullying to me please, because the idea of bullying without physical force of the thread of physical force sounds alien to me.

Arguably the most sad things about kids being bullied when i was a kid was, precisely, that they could not walk away. The bully was going to be at school next day, and so was he, the bully would walk over and punch/push him, and the bullied one either did not want or could not respond in kind. But the key thing, for me, was that he could not walk away. That was what looked so desperate about the situation (we had older kid at my HS who woke up 30 minutes earlier to take the bus just to avoid some people. He'd seem them later anyway, but in his mind, sacrificing 30 minutes every day was worth it if that meant he didn't have to share a bus with them. That's how bad this guy had had it). I had, and till have, a very low tolerance to bullies precisely because i saw what it did to this guy.

For the record, i am not claiming cyber/online bullying is not bullying, i just do not understand the process. What people describe as bullying nowadays seems to me as having to listen to kids mocking or being nasty to one another, when the bullied one has all the tools to answer back without getting into a fight, or, in many cases, walk away. Same at work. I was called in once to give testimony about a guy because someone complained about him being a bully. He was just upfront, no bull**** and had a deep and somewhat loud. Someone people saw him as a bully. I disagreed with him in 99% of work related matters but the idea of him being a bully, at work, had never, ever, crossed my mind. I can understand bullying at the workplace if instead of physical force you use the power/authority of your position. But we were talking about peers (same job grade), so to me the entire thing sounded ridiculous.

In my experience, the bullied ones knew what they wanted to say, they just couldn't walk away and couldn't answer back either. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

I know kids and "weak" people should be protected and how important that is, but sometimes i can't help wondering if we are not pampering kids too much. Sometimes i walk past a playground and see all sitting down playing with their iphones, sitting down impeccably dressed, and i cant help to remember getting back from school breaks, dirt to the nails, sweating like there is no tomorrow and rushing to the toilet just to wash my face before going back to class. Sometimes i wonder how soft the new generation is going to be.
Guess things change.

 

[ncurd]

So there's a common misunderstanding when we talk about verbal abuse which this subject stemmed from what we are actually talking about is psychological abuse which is what leads to.

So I was always the odd one out, I didn't make friends easially and my first real friend at school was in a seperate class from me and ended up moving away. The other was a girl. I was also very happy in my own company playing by myself yeah it's a bit odd but just the way I was. I also had zero interest in Football (barely any in sport at a very young age) my father said he tried but I simply wasn't interested. I don't remember this but were talking about a very young age.

Over time there were efforts by other kids to ruin my free time for their own amusement (even if I was playing with other kids), why this started I have no idea. This where the first bad arguement comes in "just walk away" or "go play somewhere else", yeah umm guess what "they follow you" and as it's a playground and no adult wants to deal with the problem there is no actual place to escape from (seriously the amount of times I was told to just walk away by a supervising adult gauls me to this day). Eventually after a while I'd react because if you're constantly subjected to it everyone has a breaking point. My fuse is probably shorter than most but again trying to tell a kid not to react doesn't exactly stop them from doing so.

Anyway most of that was primary school, secondary school was when it became hellish. At this point I was generally considered 'undeisrable' not a romance sense but as a human being. I was deliberately treated as my self worth was nothing and pretty shunned and ostricised by everyone but my close friends (and even they took part in what essentially a pack mentality towards it at the time on a occasion). Rumour were circulated which weren't true and most of my interactions with other kids were more about them making clear they didn't want much to do with me.

So it's far less to with what was said verbally the odd bit of teasing was fine of course at times it wasn't pleasent but there was systematic pack mentality (which was deemed okay but the school didn't have any reprocussions)



One day I did walk away, I walked out the school and refused to go back for a few days. Teachers said they'd do something, reality was little changed.

It was better towards the end a few incidents that occured humanised me in the eyes of others and with children growing up it did relax. But when I look back that's not what I remember.



Office bullying is different I've only really seen it a couple of times. Only once led to a complaint (that I didn't make but the incident led to me walking out the office) and a few were made against that guy by other people in quick succession....so we promoted him :wall: The other time was my boss at the time making fun of my hobbies in a team meeting...but it was only the once and only was issue to me because of my history. But yeah a lot of the time I think it's more to do with people not dealing with authority figues and railing against "the man" than actual bullying. Alot of that may just be when I hear cases of it I've not witnessed it myself so don't really know what went on. Plus there are very genuine safeguards for employee generally with serious reprocusions if it's found to be happening.



But yeah the problem doesn't occur as a one off event if it's the contant attacks and how they evolve that is the problem.

 

[Rich Taff]

I hate bullying. (as, hopefully, people have noticed)
I was bullied in school. Mainly because I was a grade A student, but also played in every 1st team the school had, until I trapped a nerve under my kneecap, which resulted in my knee rotting beneath it and me looking like someone who 'forgot leg day' for about 4 years.
When I hit 6th form/year 12/17yrs old the damage repaired itself enough that I could work out, and I also grew 6" (20cm) in 2 yrs, so it has always been amusing meeting people who were ****s to me, then didn't go on to 6th form and only met me afterwards (twice their size, several inches taller now).
I think that's why I sometimes/often step in (especially on here), where I can see bullying starting, without the antagonists actually seeing what they're doing.
I admit I sometimes get it wrong, but I like to think that 9 times out of 10, my stepping in stops things escalating.
One thing I used to say (in private) when I was teaching, to the 'nerds'(who I readily admit to being one of), is 'they're bullying you now, but they'll be serving you burgers in 3 years time'.