How do you stop bullying? In this article I focus on bullies in schools. Bullying is the most terrible thing that can happen to a child during his or her school years. Children who have been bullied often suffer lifelong sadness and psychological complaints. If you are a bully, what is wrong with you? Stop bullying, how?
Bully, read along
Bullying, how do you stop it? This article was not written by a psychologist or a teacher, but by the mother of a girl who was bullied a lot for a few years. My daughter seems to have everything going for her. She is beautiful, has long hair, straight white teeth, big eyes, she can learn well, can draw beautifully, she beats everyone at gaming. Yet she was bullied a lot at school. Why? Because she was an easy target for some frustrated little boys. She was shy and quiet. For a few years she was humiliated, almost every day she was hit or kicked, often spit in her face and several children burped her in the face. She soon found herself on her own because her other classmates preferred to remain aloof from her problem, for fear of becoming a target themselves. Every day, year after year, she spent her breaks in solitude while others played with each other and ignored her. Sometimes children would come up to her to kick or punch her and laugh about it together. They took her things away, they tried to make her do assignments like a slave, they broke her down with words until she felt so inferior and broken that she hardly dared to move at school. At school she completely froze. It was so bad that some parents asked me what kind of disease my daughter had in her muscles, because she walked so strangely stiff across the schoolyard when she had to walk into school in the morning or when she left the building in the afternoon.
,She’s frozen in fear thanks to the class bullying,, I would reply. Those parents thought that was very bad, and they often asked me: ‘I hope my child doesn’t participate in it, right?’
Ignoring is also bullying
I then tried to explain to those parents that ‘ignoring’ is also a form of bullying, so that I felt that anyone who ignored my daughter or did not come to help while the bullies went about their business day in and day out was also their own responsibility. wore. After all, everyone has a choice whether or not to stand up for a classmate who is being bullied.
Bruises, abuse and taunting
She was always covered in bruises, and yet under Dutch law she had a duty to go to school every day. By law, parents are not allowed to abuse their children, but due to compulsory education it is possible that a child can be mentally and physically abused by other children every day. Our daughter lived in fear every school day and every night she slept very poorly. For years, while the bullies themselves were just having a good time at school. Ultimately, she became very depressed and said she no longer knew how to continue living. And before I forget to tell you, she was also stabbed with a metal object one day when the teacher wasn’t looking.
Bullying for fun
All these things happened for the fun of some little boys. A few bullies who wouldn’t stop and enjoyed the power they had over a girl in their class. The school actually did very little about it, they occasionally told the boys that bullying was not allowed, but that was the end of it. They had no clear anti-bullying policy. Those boys didn’t have an easy time at home either, and that may have been the reason why they were looking for someone to exercise power over at school. Those boys actually needed help too, but very little attention was paid to bullying at school. Of course, bullying often happens on the sly, when the teacher isn’t looking, kicks and punches ensue and the victim is humiliated. As parents we also lived in constant fear. Fear because our child was destroyed before our eyes. We often talked at school, then things got better for a while, but soon things changed again and the bullying started again. We let her change schools, but she had become so afraid of children that she stood out and was immediately bullied terribly again. Then we kept her at home. Our last resort. We no longer accepted that compulsory education and educational failure were the causes of our child being abused, assaulted, and mentally destroyed every day. We told her that they never had to go back to her tormentors, and after a few days we heard her laugh about something for the first time in years.
No education
Ultimately, our daughter did not receive education at school for a few years, but at home. We kept her at home to protect her from the bullying at schools. We were lucky that the school attendance officer also thought it would be better for her not to go back to that terrible situation. We were allowed to educate her at home and she obtained her MAVO diploma after a year. After that she went to HAVO, and she had friends at school and was no longer bullied.
Consequences of bullying
Ten years have passed, but the bullying has permanently damaged my daughter. She is now studying and is no longer bullied and she is happy with her life now, but the pain and humiliation she suffered when she was younger has damaged her self-confidence. She has changed as a person. She is no longer the lively girl she was before she went to school. She never quite became the same again. She sometimes still dreams about it and then wakes up screaming. She still talks about it often, about a few times a week. Only when she was an adult did she dare to say that she had also received death threats. And when she starts meeting new people, the fear strikes again that she will be left out and bullied again.
Bully , thank you. I hope you had a lot of fun.
Bully, why did you start bullying?
It makes sense to ask yourself that question and see if you can find the answer to that question. Many bullies shrug their shoulders when you ask them why they bully, or they blame their victim for the bullying. Like: ‘I bully because she acts so stupid’ or: ‘I hit him because he wears such stupid clothes’. These are of course excuses. But do you actually know why you bully?
Do you bully out of fear or for power?
They are really just excuses because it is not easy to admit that you are actually bullying out of fear and power. Fear of being bullied yourself, or fear of not being found funny, not strong, not popular, not cool, not powerful You bully to have power over someone else. When you exercise power over someone else, you feel stronger and more important. Other children may also be wary of your bullying and aggression towards your victim. And because they are afraid that you will terrorize them too, they just laugh along with you, or sometimes participate in bullying to avoid being bullied themselves. Followers join you and laugh with you, but actually no one thinks bullying is cool, not even you.
Bully, who are you actually bullying?
Take a closer look at the victim you have chosen to bully. Is he the strongest boy in the class? Not so. Why not? Because you can’t handle it, of course. Could your victim be someone who seems vulnerable and whom you can easily handle? Or is it perhaps someone who has already been bullied by others? Or do you have help from other bullies so that you stand strong together? Is the victim an easy target for bullying because he or she stands out from the group due to appearance or clothing or shyness or because he or she is a very sweet person? Research has shown that bullies like to pick weak, vulnerable people to bully, and not the stronger ones. Therefore, bullies are generally not considered brave but cowardly.
How do you stop bullying?
I dare not say whether bullies are really cowards. Maybe you have been bullied yourself and you want to prevent being bullied again by bullying yourself. Then you are not cowardly but terrified. Maybe there is a lot of arguing at home and you are looking for a way to boss someone around at school. Then you actually need support yourself.
Who do you want to be?
But I do know that you also have a choice in your life about who you want to be, how you want to be, how you want to interact with others and whether you want classmates to remember you later, as a bully or a nice person? Be honest. Try to come across as fun and strong in a different way. Decide to stop bullying. Ask yourself again and again what it must be like for your victim if you want to harass again. Empathize with the other person’s feelings and do not close yourself off to your responsibility towards others. Give someone else a fun time at school. Bullying makes the school life of many children an absolute hell. Don’t participate in that. Choose not to participate. You have a choice. Because you have a choice, you are also responsible for the choices you make.
Make a list of points, what are the benefits of bullying?
Be honest, if you make a list of the benefits of bullying, how many points can you list?
And what do you think are the disadvantages of bullying? Which list is longer?
Examples of bullying
- Giving someone hurtful nicknames, calling them names, calling them ugly, etc.
- Taking or hiding things.
- Excluding someone.
- Ignore someone.
- Humiliate someone by spitting at him/her, burping, etc…
- Hitting, kicking, or otherwise abusing someone.
- Turning others against someone by telling lies.
- Putting someone down because of their appearance.
- Saying someone stinks.
- Saying that someone has lice or fleas.
- Intimidate.
- To threaten.
- Making the same hurtful comments over and over again.
- Making someone feel like he or she doesn’t belong.
- Making sexually explicit comments with the intention of humiliating someone even further.
- Harassing, humiliating, deceiving and/or threatening via MSN.
- And more…
As you can see, bullying always involves humiliation and abuse of power. Bullying is not difficult. Standing up for someone who is being bullied takes courage.
Bully, ask yourself…
Laughing at someone else’s misery shows a poorly developed conscience. What about your conscience?
Bully, ask yourself if you would like to be treated by others the way you treat your victims? Have you ever been humiliated, verbally abused and/or beaten every day? Maybe so, and maybe that’s why you do that to others now. But really think about it and ask yourself if you want to interact with other people that way. Let the answer to that question be no. Focus on things other than pointless, cowardly bullying. Bullying is easy, stopping it requires a stronger character.
Bully, when you stop bullying…
Then realize that you have made a mature decision that you can be very proud of. The greatest thing you have achieved is that you decided not to ruin someone else’s school life. If you stop bullying, you influence someone else’s entire life in a positive way. But you also did yourself a favor. You have made a voluntary choice not to humiliate or abuse other people. You have proven to yourself that you can make mature decisions and help other people.
Are you unable to stop bullying?
If you are unable to stop bullying, it may be because of fear of the group you used to bully with, or because you are afraid that your changed behavior will be noticed. You are then afraid that they will find it strange that you no longer bully (along with them). How do you solve that? If you have leadership skills, you can take charge of the group and distract the group if they start bullying someone. You can no longer show interest in bullying and try to focus the attention of other bullies on something else by distracting them. You can also prove to have so much courage that you show your leadership qualities by simply saying that you think bullying is more of a thing for toddlers and that you think it goes way too far and that you are actually a bit fed up with stupid bullying. That you don’t think people should treat each other that way. Open your mouth against bullying and show a little courage. You will see that you will receive more support than you would expect, because every bully knows that bullying is actually disgusting.
If you are (too) afraid to stop bullying, what then?
If you want to stop bullying but don’t know how to go about it because you’re afraid of reactions from other bullies, talk confidentially to your teacher, mentor, or other adults you trust. Stop bullying. You can do it.