This advice is likely to remedy a bullying-situation somewhat, but it's often the most difficult and harrowing response for a victim to fathom. It often doesn't stack the odds in your favour an awful lot in terms of when an authority begins to intervene.
I was the subject of, what I consider, mild bullying at points during my schooling, and I really could never bring myself to physically fight back:
a. because the bullies are almost always multiple in number and rather daunting
b. I didn't want to hurt anyone, per se
Eventually, as with most bullying, it became more and more infrequent simply because I refused to retaliate or show any kind of response. It's the hardest pill to swallow, as a victim, but often the easiest and more fruitful of the alternatives.
Giving bullies attention of any kind for their behaviour is a rewarding mechanism that only serves to attract more atrocious individuals and increase its frequency and intensity. I respect your advice to 'fight back', but I honestly think a policy of ignorance (where the victim is not seriously endangered and has a support network) is the much more practical way to go about things.
But I want to point out that you were incredibly lucky this worked. You only need one enemy with a sadistic impulse and it will never stop. By not retaliating, you also show others, less courageous members of their group, that it is safe for them to mess with you.
Making a fuss about it, from teachers to parents to police to violence, is the one thing I know that helped me.
My case was never that severe. But there was a group of people in my school who enjoyed bullying me. And I went through all those phases, sans police, and I regret every month I tried to do nothing about it. I suffered, and I now think unnecessarily.
Later, when that had basically stopped (most of them had to leave the school) there was a group of younger kids who thought they could do the same to me. One I gave a kick in the stomach after he attacked me, and he stopped. Sure, he tried to attack me a few month later in the city, but that didnt work out for him.
One group of younger pupils tried to insult me while going to class, so after the third time, I rushed into them and grabbed one and hit him again and again. He cried the whole following school hour I was told, and they never bothered me again.
I know that his is not politically correct, and not totally applicable onto the authors situation. Maybe one can do it better with help from above - if you have the chance, do that first. But hard responses, that is my point.
There is a well-meaning but equally short-sighted view that every bully is themselves hurt in some way and the bullying is a projection of that hurt on others, a coping mechanism. While I think it's important to understand that that can be the case, it's equally important to understand that it's not always the case.
Yes, some bullying is acting out to get attention, deflecting the bully's own insecurity on others. That is the kind of bullying that "ignore it" works on. But when bullying extends to larger groups of antagonists than just one person and their immediate clique of friends, is likely to be a sadistic game of oneupmanship. And I think cyber-bullying can only happen effectively under such a scenario.
Sadistic games continue to go on because the players get more pleasure than pain out of the act. Suspending them will fuel their cause, make them martyrs in the eyes of their cohorts. They have identified that nothing serious will happen to them and they can continue on.
Sadistic bullying is as much the fault of the school administration for not maintaining discipline as it is for the children who engage in it. It doesn't come out of nowhere. It doesn't just happen once. The ring-leaders are probably well known for their behavior problems. Weak leadership at the school is what allows things to get so out of hand.
The only way to stop it is to demonstrate clear, harmful consequences to anyone involved, even tangentially. But given the scenario in which it is allowed to get so bad, it probably won't be corrected because of weak leadership on behalf of the local authorities. So perhaps you can see how some people will conclude that taking matters into their own hands is the only answer.
Sorry I don't have the sources, but I've read a study once that this actually isn't true - bullies do it mainly for the boost in social status, not because they are insecure deep down inside.
I'm afraid thats something people tell themselves to feel better about it.
I was the subject of, what I consider, mild bullying at points during my schooling, and I really could never bring myself to physically fight back: a. because the bullies are almost always multiple in number and rather daunting b. I didn't want to hurt anyone, per se
Eventually, as with most bullying, it became more and more infrequent simply because I refused to retaliate or show any kind of response. It's the hardest pill to swallow, as a victim, but often the easiest and more fruitful of the alternatives.
Giving bullies attention of any kind for their behaviour is a rewarding mechanism that only serves to attract more atrocious individuals and increase its frequency and intensity. I respect your advice to 'fight back', but I honestly think a policy of ignorance (where the victim is not seriously endangered and has a support network) is the much more practical way to go about things.