What to do about bullying

Bullying has been around forever. There have always been people who see themselves as powerful and they use that power to prey on the weak. We've seen nation/states do it, empires and countries do it and individual people do it. But there is a particular character flaw that makes a bully even more pathetic than he already is. He never picks on anybody his own size. He always picks on someone he's sure he can defeat and that's what I want to address in this column.

When I was growing up, my dad, in no uncertain terms told me to never start a fight, but if someone else started one with me, to give back more than I was getting. And he assured me, because of my small stature, that someone WOULD start a fight with me some day.

I didn't have a lot of confidence when I was young so what he was saying that day scared me. He obviously saw that in my eyes and took the time to explain to me what he meant. He said there was a certain kind of person who enjoyed picking on people smaller than them because they believed they would always win and they usually did because the smaller person was afraid to fight back. But if the smaller person DID fight back, whether he actually won the fight or not didn't matter. What mattered was the message it sent to the bully that he might not win every fight he started and because he never knew who would fight back and who wouldn't, he might stop picking fights altogether.

That made sense to me but what sealed the deal was when my dad told me that when you're actually fighting, the blows you're receiving don't hurt. They hurt later, depending on the severity of them but when you're actually throwing and receiving punches, your adrenaline is flowing and that temporarily negates any pain you might be feeling. I didn't know until that day that you could fight without feeling pain and his words made me almost wish that someone WOULD pick on me because like most other kids in the world, I believed everything my dad told me.

That day eventually came in junior high school and it came because of a girl this bigger and meaner boy and I both liked. He challenged me to a fight one day after school and I knew the day to put my dad's words into action had arrived. There was no way I could back down from the invitation because I knew I would lose the girl if I did. So I met him at the appointed place and time after school along with some of his friends and some of mine, including the girl and he threw the first punch. I thought that's what would happen because I figured he ALWAYS threw the first punch, expecting to win the fight without ever being hit. He was aiming for my face but I ducked and his fist hit my shoulder instead. As soon as it did, I knew I had to launch a full-fledged attack on him because if I stood there and traded blows with him, he could have killed me. So I started flailing at him, throwing so many punches at his face and his body that he didn't have the time to punch back. I finally knocked him down through the sheer number of times I hit him rather than the force of my blows and when he hit the ground, I knew I had won.

Not only did the girl become my high school sweetheart for the next three years, no one has ever picked on me again.

Now I know this is old school advice from an old school experience but I've seen similar things happen throughout my life. Those who take up for themselves generally get left alone, those who don't become victims and often stay victims, not only for a particular bully but for ALL bullies. I think the best advice we can give children today, especially in the world of social media where everybody gets to read the threats and the put-downs, is the same advice my dad gave me.

Never start a fight but never back down from one either because, even if you don't win the fight, you will have won respect and that's always more important than brute strength.