What Makes A Bully?

Hey all -- this is a post I was working some months ago, and never finished. This post will eventually be imported to my new blog, which will be devoted exclusively to young men and boys with low self-esteem, but let's make this a preview.



WHAT MAKES A BULLY?



They infect childhood. They corrupt business. They spoil dreams. They uproot lives. They divide families.


Who are these people and what makes them that way?!?!?!?!?!?


Some say that the victims bring it on themselves. This is only half true. We all know that victims need to behave with confidence, and not be easily shaken by these cretins, and the chances of them being victimized will decrease.

However, this does NOT legitimize bullying!


(for a contrary viewpoint, I respectfully refer you to http://www.bullies2buddies.com/)


My response? Wrong. It's not OK to behave this way to anyone. So why has it persisted for this long?


(1) Schools. No teacher, principal, or administrator wants to deal with it, no matter how many anti-bullying laws are passed. They always have too many other problems to deal with, they always disregard it as a right of passage, and they always assume that the perpetrators are "just being kids," and they'll grow out of it, while the victims always obviously "asked for it."


NO CONSEQUENCES.


(2) Parents. When a child is never punished for misdeeds, he or she learns that they are not misdeeds after all. Or better yet, sometimes a child is encouraged by the parents to be this way! I still remember someone from elementary school whose parents kept telling him he was the best athlete, that he was on his way to the Olympics, and that everyone else was simply inferior. For him, bullying was as natural as eating and drinking was to everyone else.


NO CONSEQUENCES.





(3) Spouses. When a bully reaches adulthood (and isn't in jail by then), he or she usually finds a significant other who will be docile, passive, "agreeable," and thereby complicit in the continued behavior. It is not true to say that a bully desperately needs a victim to survive -- a bully needs AN ENABLER even more to VALIDATE what they do and say . . . everything they do and say.


NO CONSEQUENCES.


(4) Children. The cycle continues to another generation. Especially if the child is the same gender as the bully, he or she will emulate EXACTLY what that child sees and hears.



NO CONSEQUENCES




If you check what I posted back in February of 2010, you'll see that my message to the world around me is that men and boys must be on guard against low self-esteem. The bully is often the source of this problem. As the author of the site I linked to opines, victims of bullying have work to do to protect themselves and solve their own problems. Blaming and complaining doesn't solve the problem, and I agree with him on this point wholeheartedly. In fact, he has an amazing method of teaching children ways to fix this problem!





Where my fellow blogger is WRONG, however, is in suggesting that the perpetrators are somehow blissfully innocent. IF you derive pleasure from throwing your weight around, and IF you think it's OK for you to screw with people who are somehow weaker than you, and IF your parents have failed to remove this behavior from your repertoire, you are NOT innocent!





So what's to be done with people like this? The question remains . . . .


In the meantime, for those whose children are just sprouting up from the garden (and I use the term loosely), parents need to change their ways a bit. WATCH what you say and do around the little ones. USE DISCRETION in your methods of discipline, and BE CAREFUL what you sweat and what you let go. The world does not need more bullies. So please don't raise them.





Please feel free to comment below.