Bullying Is the Norm. So Is an Inadequate Response.
Bullying plagues a majority of neurodivergent students at school, on social media, and/or on the bus. When asked about the school’s response to incidents of bullying, 72% of ADDitude readers surveyed said they were dissatisfied and only 12% said the bullies faced any punishment.
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The last section, For Families, does not go far enough and needs to be expanded. This section not only fails to give practical advice on how a victim needs to react when serious physical abuse occurs, it fails to even mention that male bullies can be vicious, violent and cruel. Stopping bullying by “interrupting in mid-sentence” or changing the subject”? What naivete! How about stopping a flying fist or a shove from behind? Even though bully victims try to stay away from fights, A FIGHT IS GOING TO FIND THEM. A boy victim cannot negotiate a peace treaty with a bully.
There are female bullies but their style in most instances their style is limited to verbal abuse. Clueless women simply do not understand that male bullies take their aggression to a whole quantum level more severe: physical altercations. I’m am a guy in his pre-geezer years and I still have anger, lots of anger, from being bullied from 5th to 10th Grades. I was punched, slapped, kicked, spat on and shoved. The worst incident was when I was in 6th Grade and an 8th Grade bully grabbed me from behind in a choke hold and tried to dunk my head into an unflushed toilet bowl in the boys’ restroom. I squirmed hard and bit his arm and that broke his grip.
Here’s my addendum to this incomplete essay. It’s intended for male victims:
1. Avoid at all costs 7 ft, 300 lb gorillas. They will maim and mangle you.
2. Enroll in a self defense class at the YMCA or elsewhere.
3. Make a mental list of the physically smaller bullies. When one of these guys commits an act of physical aggression, punch him hard in the nose and make it hurt. Another article that appeared in ADDitude said that “fighting will get you both in trouble”. No it won’t. No fair-minded principal is going to punish a boy victim for defending himself.