"No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it."
- Charles M. Schulz
The only problem you can't walk away from is death. While I can understand why people would want to postpone that particular event, it would not be practical to avoid it completely unless you want to be stuck in your present life forever while the rest of the universe moves on.
To "walk away from" in the sense that Schultz used the phrase means the way you would walk away from a vehicle accident. He means you can survive any problem (except death).
You can survive and rebuild your life or build a new life (even better when you think about it, though a longer term project) after a terrible problem, unless you die.
If you die, then the problem was not worth worrying about. If you don't die and you know (really understand, in your heart) that you can and will walk away from it, survive and build a better life, then no problem can be too very bad for you.
Many problems seem severe at the time, especially if they cause depression (which many do, though people don't realize they are suffering from depression, as they think they are just worrying about their problem). But simply knowing that you will live through any problem and thinking about where you might be in ten years time (unless it's in prison) will help to give you the stability you need to think your way through your problem.
Real problems don't solve themselves and they don't go away overnight. But often a good sleep will give you insight into what you need to do to solve your problem. This has been scientifically proven, as the unconscious mind solves problems better than the conscious mind that thinks.
Remember, almost no one wants to cause you grief. It's too much trouble for them to monitor your progress toward distress. So your worry about a problem may be unnecessary if the cause of your problem is a person. They just don't care that much. In truth, almost no one in the world cares about you enough to cause you grief over a long period of time. (Get over it.)
For the rare problem-maker that does care enough to cause you grief, you can defuse their interest in you by not giving them the attention they so desperately crave. Just pretent they don't exist. If that's not possible, then don't give them the satisfaction of knowing that you care about what they think about anything.
Anyone who causes a problem for you is a bully. Bullies are inevitably insecure people who need someone else to beat on to make themselves feel less than complete crap. Deny them the attention they crave and they will look elsewhere.
Or (heaven forbid!) you can befriend them. What they really need, more than anything else, is someone who cares if they live or die. They believe that no one does. That may be true, but the choice of offering them friendship should be yours. Befriending a bully may be hard, but they could become good friends because they would already know you care about them (by your gesture of friendship) and you already know they care about you (even though they show it in an anti-social way).
When you give a bully or someone who causes a problem for you the attention they want, you feed their need. Most people (except sociopaths) don't want to have a problem with another person.
Figure it out. Invite them to join you for coffee or tea. Or just walk away.
Don't feed their need or you will cause yourself grief. That's called masochism, which is a psychological problem in itself.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to put life's problems in perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
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Comments: 13
The most important thing for the victim of a bully to know is the reason why people become bullies. They consider themselves to be victims. They have many unfulfilled needs. Mostly they need touch, some loving or friendly form of human contact. Lacking that, they victimize others.
The sad thing about this is that no one teaches that bullies have this unfulfilled need (mostly because very few know about it). However, now we can spread the word.
Bill, how well you've stated this and we know what you're talkiing about! Thank you for the other link. I've always loved your comments but not taken the time to read your articles. I'm sorry about that. Have a great day and thanks for this article on behalf of all those who've been bullied! Salud
"Anyone who causes a problem for you is a bully."
I find that particular sentence way too confusing. What does it mean, to "cause a problem"? Seems to me that that's in the eye of the beholder/person with the problem. For instance, I have people at work who "cause problems" for me all the time, but rarely are they being bullies. So if I had a recommendation for this piece, I would recommend reworking your definition of bully more fully.
Other than that small observation, a great piece.
I don't know if this will help anyone dealing with or advising people who've been bullied, but I found writing about it expunged a lot of the pain and I was able to move on.
And yes, it's tough to befriend a bully.
I've had to deal with bullies before, and have never had the advice you offer. It's good for me, and I really try to help my daughter work through all that. I think it's tougher now, because so many kids where I live don't have the sort of parental supervision they need so badly. This is a problem mostly based in survival economics (both mom and dad must work two jobs each just to make ends meet), and it will only get worse.
She's tried befriending these "mean girls" who live nearby, and they've taken advantage of her and have escalated the viciousness of their attacks the nicer she is to them. I remind her to avoid them, but during the Summer, it's not that easy to do. Personally, I think they're jealous since they see her and I having a great relationship, and I make sure she gets books to read and nutritious food to eat.
I know this is a rather long comment--I'm not doing this for the points--but this is a problem that is not going to go away until we can somehow go back to a living wage so that at least one parent can stay home with the kids. These days, it's something out of Lord of the Flies how the next generation of bullies are growing up.
Surprisingly, even telling a bully that you understand why he is acting the way he is, because he is insecure and has needs that are not being fulfilled by those he believes should love him, will disarm the bully. He does not want others to know how powerless he feels, thus we will usually back away and beat a hasty retreat.
I disagree with your second point, about a gang confronting the bully. This may change the victim, but it will not change the bully. Bullies are the lonliest people on the planet. They are maybe one large step away from suicide. This is not the kind of person you want to feel even smaller, lest you cause the bully to do something more drastic to "get attention."
While this may sound petty, refusing to acknowledge the tactics of a bully turns him away. It puts the "victim" in the driver's seat. A bully wants to feel "in charge," not ignored.
Taken out of context, the sentence about causing you a problem looks worse than it really is.
Trying reading the sentence upside down. I promise, it will look different. Then send us a picture.
OK, just kidding.
In an sense, the victim of a bully victimizes himself or herself. I know that sounds harsh. A bullied person only suffers when he or she grants the bully some power over them, something that the bully does not deserve.
A bully feels powerless over almost everyone. He will only "attack" someone he believes he can hurt. Realizing that a bully is a pitiable person who needs help more than the victim does takes away the sting of being bullied.
Childhood bullying is different from adult bullying. My strategies above apply for adults, but not so much for children.
A bullied child is almost always someone who already suffers from a shortage of self esteem. As Gibbs said, standing up to a bully will end the bullying, if not immediately then soon. A child bully sometimes has a small gang with him. However, a victim who refuses to acknowledge that the bully is superior to him discourages the bully. A bully does not want to be humiliated by a "victim" who refuses to play victim. That applies to all bullies, of any age.
To a child, getting beaten up once or twice may be a small price to pay for getting the bully to leave him or her alone.
In my first year of teaching, I had to deal with a boy who two years later was shot as he attempted an armed robbery (unusual in most parts of Canada). He was intimidating, even to me as a teacher (he was in grade 8). I forced myself to learn how to act unmoved by his looks. I made myself think "I could kill this kid if I had to." he never bothered me.
I have yet to reveal some other tactics I took against bullies at that level of school. I have to wait until the Statute of Limitations runs out. Oh, no such statute in Canada, so I guess I had better remain quiet.
These girls (or any bullies) don't need parental supervision as much as they need parental love, touch and undivided attention. You can't provide that. You can't even affect how that is handled in school, though teachers should know about what you have learned.
The news you don't want to hear is that your daughter is very likely underdeveloped socially. Most bullies are that way too. Being nice to them will not likely help as it will convince them that she really is an easy target.
Your daughter needs to develop more friends. She needs to learn how to make new friends, how to treat them and how to keep them. You might be able to help with this by having your daughter invite other girls (sometimes including boys) to your house to play. Socially underdeveloped kids rarely invite other kids to their own homes. You need to bypass that tendency and provide a means for developing new friendships.
Just don't let the other "new friends" come because they want to use the toys you provide for your daughter. That is bribery and it doesn't work--it will victimize your daughter. They need to play kid things, like the kinds of things you do already with your daughter.
Once the "mean girls" know that your daughter knows how to get along well with other girls and boys, they will think of her differently. ONLY then would you consider having your daughter invite the mean girls to your house. And only when other girls and boys are present.
(Inviting a bully child to your home is OK if it's a single child, but not good if there are several in a gang.)
This project of increasing the social development of your daughter is hard work and it will take a long time. But then, that's your job. Your daughter has a long way to go before she leaves home to make her way in the world. She's a long term project, as is the raising of any child.
Please take the social underdevelopment situation seriously. You might find that your daughter has trouble with reading in school (though this is more common with boys). As a teacher and sociologist, I have found this relationship between social underdevelopment and reading problems, though I have not read that anyone else has studied this phenomenon.
Social and emotional underdevelopment are the most life-forming and character-damaging problems that a child faces, and they affect their whole lives.
Get on it ASAP. Your daughter needs to play with others her age more than she does now.
If I am wrong, I apologize. I am diagnosing with a minimum of input.
Their psychological problems are deep rooted. However, they could all have been prevented in the same ways, ways that are little known to parents and teachers today. The whole purpose of the TIA (Turning It Around--my book) program is to put this information into the hands of every parent, every teacher and every child.
This is not rocket science, but ordinary stuff that anyone can understand. Having this knowledge within the community of academics who do not take the initiative to spread the word to everyone is not productive. I want to change that. This imporant information is not secret unless the people who know refuse to share with others. Yet they believe that they can't make a difference.
Oh, yes, we have heard that before.
It's all laid out in a "front porch chat" style that everyone can understand, in the book. Begin with the web site at http://billallin.com