Screenshot: The Simpsons Movie/Disney+
Last week I asked Lifehacker’s readers for advice on dealing with a childhood bully. Reading your responses made me wish I had a time machine so I could travel back to the time of your youths to give you all hugs (and kill Bea Arthur).
I’m really sorry that happened to you—but at least you all made it into adulthood eventually, and maybe your hard-won bully-wisdom can help someone dealing with the same problem now. Here’s a sampling of your best advice.
Don’t entertain your bully
Many of your responses touched on the motivations of bullies. The overall takeaway: Bullies are often looking for an entertaining response from their marks. This is why I think telling kids to come up with verbal insults in response to a bully’s insults wouldn’t work. For a bully, listening to a scared kid spitting out awkward insults their mom taught them is probably freakin’ hilarious.
LizzieMae summed it up nicely:
“When I was a kid there was one girl that got picked on relentlessly. She wasn’t ugly, she dressed like everyone else, no obvious reason to bully her. But her reactions were so rewarding, it just made you want to poke at her. She wouldn’t get upset (outwardly), she’d just get real sassy and try to come back at you but in a weird, trying way too hard way.”
Instead of trying to outwit your bully, our readers suggest different varieties of neutral responses to jibes and insults, like this helpful tip from Bassbeast:
“Laugh at them. Whenever they would try anything, no matter how much it annoyed or hurt, I would just laugh at them. I would tell them things like, ‘Nice try! You’re getting more creative. But seriously, you’re not getting what you want here. Try someone else.’ Then WALK AWAY. Don’t engage, it meant you had the last word, which bullies HATE.”
And this one from Parliamentarian of Crows:
“Our son started getting verbally bullied in fifth grade and we trained him to just roll his eyes and say ‘cool story’ whenever someone started with him. They gave up in less than a week.”
I love Alex-W’s suggestion, because it’s basically “make the bully work harder.”
“Play dumb. Act like you don’t understand what they said and be dismissive. ‘Huh? I wasn’t listening. Could you say that again?’ ‘So, what’s your point?’ Get them to repeat it over and over with explanations. They get frustrated and look like an idiot for explaining the joke. Or they look like a a-hole they are for picking on someone.”
Avoid bullying through conformity
Lifehacker reader Gmoney offered some clear-eyed bully commentary that almost hurt to read, but once I got over my initial defensiveness and thought honestly about my own Lord of the Flies school years, it’s hard to argue with their point: “You cannot stop bullying in school. All you can do is make sure you’re not a target,” Gmoney wrote. “They go after the weak, or poor, or strange looking. It’s effed up. But the game’s the game.”
Gmoney’s advice? Dress neater. Shower. Join a sports team. Conform.
This paragraph, though, that was the real gut-punch:
“Lastly, and most cruelly, don’t hang out with other losers who are bullied. You get lumped in by association.”
Other readers pointed out that kids often can’t help being poor, weird-looking, or otherwise non-standard, which I agree with, but the overall point—the nail that sticks its head out gets pounded down, so a kid’s best bet is to appear as normal as they possibly can—is a solid (if depressing) commentary on human nature.
Avoid bullying through invisibility
Platypus Man is probably the only reader of Lifehacker who wasn’t bullied in school, but it wasn’t because he was so awesome and popular. It was because he was invisible.
“I was so antisocial that I probably avoided the notice of most by just not ‘putting myself out there’,” he wrote. “I wasn’t in any clubs or organizations, I never tried out for any sports or plays, and I rarely tried to make friends with anyone on my own (see above friend), after school I went home and played games until my dad got home and made me do my homework. I was happy and I didn’t do this to avoid bullies or rejection or anything else, but it likely worked for that as well.”
Stop bullying through violence
Many of the John Wick-style MFers in our comment section report having ended bullying with their fists, but almost all of them stressed that this should be a last resort.
“Train just a little, then challenge them to a fight. Even if you lose, if they know you’ll stand up to them, they’ll probably stop regardless.” Rev. Andrew R. Schoppe said on Twitter.
“Fighting back seemed to help,” Claire Reyes is in the greys posted about her daughter. “I told her if someone started a fight, I wanted her to finish it. Her grandpa showed her USMC close combat skills that he taught in boot camp. I wish an adorable little girl didn’t have to fight, but it seems that she had to.”
The bullied kid doesn’t have to “win” the fight. That’s not the point. Here’s how Karaam A. King put it on our Facebook page:
“Former bullied kid here. Here’s what worked for me: FIGHT BACK! Even if you get mangled. I learned that a bully always will take an easy target. If you push me and I punch you in the face, you’ll probably hit me back. But you’ll look for someone easier next time who won’t fight back. In many cases, they even respect you. If not, they’ll move on. Also doesn’t hurt to learn how to fight.”
Another common theme in responses from the “end it through violence” contingent: If you’re going to fight, go all the way.
“Kick ‘em in the nuts, go for the eyes and throat, twist their arm until they scream, kick them if get them on the ground,” suggests Alex W. “The fact that you fought dirty will let the admin know how bad this has gotten and let the rest of the school know that you are not to be messed with.”
The most important rule for the parents of bullied kids
Lifehacker commenter Byron pointed out that, as bad as it is to be bullied, it’s worse if your parents don’t take you seriously when you tell them about it. So for parents, “believe your kid” might be the most important suggestion of all.
“My parents did not understand until I was an adult just how traumatic and awful the kids at my grade school were to me,” he wrote. “I just got yelled at about sticks and stones and getting into fights. It lead to some pretty harsh confrontations with my parents about their lack of action and belief as an adult. Saying I believe you, I know this sucks and sharing with them what you are trying to do about it in real time will head off a lifetime of angst and anger about your role in it.”
