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Good comment, thanks for the reply. To clarify, you only "fuck them up" when they make violence on you. After they put their hands on you or someone innocent, they're in the wrong and they've forfeited their moral right.

Also, something to think about -

> Bullies are not "wild animals" bullying for "no reason", they're people with unique intellects and desires and motivations that you, or they, may not understand.

I don't know what part of society you run in, but some people are wild animals. Probably not on Hacker News. Probably not in the suburbs. But some people are born without a conscience, literally - I've looked into it, I've studied criminology and crime and things like that a little bit. I'm not expert, but when you look into it, something like 3% of people don't have consciences, and some percent of those get off on hurting people... it's not a big number, but those people are really wild animals to a large extent. I know this isn't polite to say, but consider it. You may never have come across one of those people, and God willing you never will. But they do exist. Hitler type people, y'know? They only respect strength. They can't be talked or loved or negotiated with.

Not many people. By all means, try a peaceful way if it works in the situation. But once they put their hands on you or someone innocent, all bets are off, and defend yourself fully.

Psychopaths.

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-unburdened-mind

Kids, in particular, don't always develop a conscience until later in life.

I don't think this is something that is even certain.

I had a teen in a Sunday School class I taught who didn't have a conscience. He didn't have any sense of right and wrong, or of consequences for actions. He was a major bully; two other kids in my class of seven actually changed schools to get away from him (which made Sunday mornings interesting, to say the least!) He only respected strength -- but he also needed to be loved.

Like I said, don't limit your arsenal. Not even for the "wild" ones (even if they're animals to a large extent, they're still people to some extent.) Defend yourself and the innocent fully, but don't think that means you can't also love your enemy.

>Defend yourself and the innocent fully, but don't think that means you can't also love your enemy

Let me add the rationale: if you don't try to love your enemy, or try see something good in him, then you will hate him.

His hold over you will last as long as you hate him. Bullies feed off hate and fear.

Out of interest, what would you do if they never became violent and were just bullied verbally? Would you just continually tease back? How would you do this if they were on a better social footing than you?

Or perhaps every time they demonstrated their strength to you, it was just in a 'playfight' that you felt forced to 'not take seriously'.

It's fine and dandy to talk about the psychology of bullying and how there are different tools to deal with it and all that, but when you're a kid and don't know any better, I think it's a lot easier to just do what he suggested and get physical.

I've always been a small, calm and rational person, but when it came down to it, I would just bite whoever was trying to bully me. As it turns out, the jaw is one of the strongest muscles in the body and it certainly does not look cool to have your eyes tearing up while having your finger being chewed by a shrimp.

Sure, getting physical may sometimes be necessary. It's worth adding that it's important not to enjoy it. (Maybe this is how new bullies are formed?)

I don't think enjoyment is at the top of your mind when the task at hand is to get three big guys off of your back...

Having got the three guys off your back, how do you feel then?

Pretty good and not particularly bullish. What's your point?

I don't think "enjoyment" of the fact that you just asserted/defended yourself does any harm. Holding a grudge is far worse, imho. I recall some guy from the ScienceBlogs commenting on his high school reunion, and you could tell he had some deep running hatred going on even after several years - to the point of enrolling his kids in martial arts classes with a "so-maybe-they-can-get-some-sweet-revenge-for-me" type of attitude.

The martial arts are not bad per se, but a parent teaching a kid that it's ok to turn to violence when they can't get along with their peers is not very responsible.

OK, good point -- by all means enjoy having defended yourself. Just don't enjoy inflicting suffering on others (lest you become a bully yourself).

well duh :)

FWIW, the other day I read about a research (and this matches my personal anedoctes) that younger brothers (i.e. the ones who usually get bullied by the older brothers) tend to show more empathy towards other people than older ones.

In contrast, psychopaths almost always have a history of being a victim of child abuse by family members. So, in my mind, values coming from the authority figures in a family are really on a whole different level than simply having maturity.

>> enjoy having defended yourself

Uh. I think the term we should be using here is "relief".

Making him feel respected and improving his self-esteem? I remember how adults used to bullshit me and tell me that low-esteem was why so-and-so was probably bullying me and that I should pity him or at least try to understand.

Fuck that. I believe that there is a tiny tiny percentage of a chance that that is actually ever the cause of bullying.

Maybe I'm biased though. I was a "target" from grades 4-8 and didn't make a single friend until high school. It's a miracle that I'm as well-adjusted as I am. I knew others who weren't as lucky as I.

Sorry for the language in this comment. This is something I have very strong feelings about.

There appears to be some evidence that bullies are more likely to have too much self-esteem rather than too little:

"The highest and lowest rates of cheating and bullying are found in different sub-categories of high self-esteem."

From: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pdf/pspi41...

I'll have to agree with you. Bullies are not an monolithic organization with a single creed and method. And this changes a lot with age group as well. I suspect that most younger bullies are very much different from older bullies.

I don't want to repeat your post, but it really should all be repeated. You need to take away both their long term need to bully, as well as their immediate urge to bully. You can do so through a variety of methods. For example, that long term need to bully often (well, I think/hope it's often), just goes away as kids grow up. And that immediate urge to bully. Well, there's no deterrent quite like getting your ass handed to you by the guy who you just shoved.

And related to that, there are degrees of bullying. I dislike these school campaigns that stick all these different activities together as being equally wrong under the umbrella of bullying. I've seen material that tells children that all pushing/shoving and 'teasing' and being 'rude' is wrong and 'can be' bullying. I can't see this being effective in any way. All this can do is make kids think that adults and their rules are dumb. What do you mean I can't call Kevin, my best friend from before I can remember a fat dumby butt? What do you mean I can't shove him when I know he'll just shove back?

All that can do is make one subset of children dismissing the 'rules' and 'bullying' as a 'dumb adult' thing, and another subset (and I remember playing with this subset when I was knee high), that'll yell and scream abuse at anything 'against the rules'. Now granted, I was kinda in the 'these rules are dumb' group, so my view of things is a bit biased.

Good comment. In the same vein, not everyone handles being bullied the same way. A related article (http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/07/very_off_topic_why_...) where the author remains angry even after a long time has passed and how he plans to help his kids deal with such bullying (similar to lionhearted's comment)