The following is an excerpt from, The Bully and the Booger Baby: A Cautionary Tale, my children's anti-bullying book. The book is a school story about bullying, but it also offers researched effective strategies for children, parents, and schools to employ in order to address the bullying problem. This excerpt explains clearly what bullying looks like.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet, expressed it
most eloquently in saying, “When a
resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly
by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that
it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” There is some
truth to Emerson’s words. Bullies do make a show of false bravado or toughness.
Bullies tease and harass, but some bullies are all bark and no bite, as the old
saying goes. If children who are the targets of bullies were to “pull off their
beard” and call their bluff, they may discover beneath a real cream puff.
Unfortunately, most bullies, however, have some
kind of advantage, size, strength, or power over their victims. Most children
who are bullies intend to inflict emotional, verbal or physical harm on the
children they are targeting. These are the types of bullies who represent
a threat and ever-increasing problem
for children and teenagers.
Such bullying can take the form of direct attacks,
such as hitting, taunting, name-calling, malicious sexual remarks, and stealing
or damaging belongings. Such bullying can also take the form of more subtle
attacks (especially by girls), such as spreading rumors or enlisting cohorts to
reject and exclude the victim. Spreading rumors or enlisting others to reject
and exclude a victim is also commonly done through the Internet. Some children,
hiding behind the front of a screen name on the Internet, will resort to
name-calling and spreading false rumors and lies about other children. Parents
should always monitor children’s Internet use to determine that cyber-bullying
has not become an issue.
There are some strategies that can help victims
deal with deliberately aggressive and potentially harmful bullies. However,
parents must also help their children by watching for signs that bullying is
taking place and soliciting help from the schools to make them no bullying
zones
Please note that children, parents, and teachers can access effective strategies for addressing such bullying as was explained in the above excerpt from the book by purchasing the book, either in paperback, Kindle, or Nook, through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-a-Million websites.
