Steve and Never_A_Reflection,
Thanks very much for your insights and suggestions. You really have brought out some things about bullies I had not considered before. It makes me feel like a real dummy. I don't know what others here think, but believe your insights and suggestions are good and worthy of consideration. I think it may help with my grandkids as well, although I naturally hope I never have to find out. I understand no one solution is going to fit all circumstances, that is almost never true. But I feel like I have some new tools should I need them.
Steve, I do want to put you on the spot. I have always felt Never_A_Reflection's final and best solution of beating the bully to be closest to the a one-fits-all solution. But I have also heard of times when the bully felt so threatened, that he became worse, or enlisted hangers-on to ensure he could strike back more forcefully. Do you think that would have inclined you to stop being a bully, at least towards those who might have fought back? Sorry to ask you to bear your soul, but as I said, you, and now Never_A_Reflection, can show us a side we may never otherwise have access to. Never_A_Reflection, if you want to chime in on that please do.
Okay. So, a little more background. I am a ginger (well, was when I had hair.

) I have an IQ somewhere in the high 140s and we moved a lot. So, I'm in the 3rd grade and we move to Universal City, just outside of Texas. So, I'm new and ginger, which is bad enough. But then, about 2 months into the year, they put me in "gifted classes." So, an hour or so into the day I'd have to get up and go to the nerd classes. By the time I got back, I'd have a note on my desk telling me who was going to kick my *** after school. The community was new, so the elementary school was a walking school and about once a week, I'd get jumped by a group of kids in front of a large audience. Sometimes, I did okay, and sometimes I didn't. Sometimes it was one kid, and sometimes it was a group of up to 4 or 5 kids. But I'd get to stew on it all day, from about 10 in the morning until school ended. And kids would come by and remind me, "Hey. So and so is going to be waiting for you after school, carrot top. I can't wait." Yeah.
A year or so later, in Baton Rouge, LA, I was getting into fights at the bus stop where a group of kids would pick on me and my brother. One day, I'll never forget, this one kid who was the ringleader of that little group, and didn't even go to our school... he was a couple years older, jumped me and he's got me mounted and is pounding on me when the bus shows up. All the other kids get on the bus and the bus driver, from still on the bus, yells at us to knock it off, and when we don't, he just left me there. Took off.
After that was Houston, where, in the 5th grade, I tried a different tack. I started using tobacco for the first time and hanging around with the sharks in the school, to learn some survival skills. Then, in the 6th grade, we moved to Austin and I went to a private school where this poor kid just never had a chance.
So, all of that is background to just demonstrate that by the time I got to the private school, I had no fear of pain, and this kid represented absolutely no threat to me, even when he did try to fight back. I never punched him, but I would provoke him to the point that he would charge me, and I'd move out the way and let him run into a wall. He could grab me, but I'd been in so many fights by then that he had no chance. And had he actually landed a punch, I sincerely doubt it would have even registered. It's not like I hadn't been punched in the nose by people before.
One thing that interests me is how many others could speak up and acknowledge having been a bully, for whatever reason, but having moved on from it, just don't want to admit it as it so much is not how they want to be seen. In my case, I don't think I have bullied. But it would depend on definition.
I'm interested in that, as well, because I just can't believe that my experiences are unique. I'd like to think not, at least.
I can recall some times when someone was being teased that I may have gone a little too far in my joining in. On after-thought, if I thought I may have crossed the line, I would always get with the 'victim' and make amends, or when I thought it had gone too far, say so to the crowd in some way to give them the out of stopping without looking weak. And there have definitely been times when I took up for someone who was being bullied. I always thought bullying was somewhat cowardly as well as mean behavior. Bullies seem to pick on people they consider defenseless, and I really dislike that.
I would say that typical bullying isn't about bravery or cowardice as much as it's about low esteem, perceived control over a situation and a lack of social skills.
Part of that is my upbringing, watching out for the underdog, and part because when you do things like that, you become rather unpopular yourself. And that can cause you to become a victim of bullying. It happened to me, especially in high school. There was never anything physical, but always the implied threat of violence, which I was careful to try and not provoke. My solution was to talk to those who did, but in as non-confrontational a method as possible. That pretty much worked for me and seemed to frustrate those trying to bully me no end.
I went to Garfield High in Seattle as well as Marshall for night school and Summer school for two years. By the time I got into high school, I was smoking a pack a day along with other things AND on the chess team. I skirted around the periphery of both social groups and was as happy smoking weed as I was drinking coffee and talking about politics or philosophy. Point is, by underachieving and blending in, bullying just wasn't an issue for me anymore. Of course, I graduated from high school with a 1.7 GPA... but it turned out okay. While I still didn't have the social skills to become overly friendly with the mainstream groups, I found a solid home with the misfits of the school of all stripes, from the stoners to the nerds. I was as comfortable in the print shop as I was in the journalism room or out on the smoking ramp.
Maybe the bully dance was a little different than now. But I would question their motives, suggest that I felt their attempts to provoke me to violence would not work, or whatever other non-agressive action seemed best. Since they would usually have picked a rather public setting to make themselves feel better, if I could get others to seem to agree with me and disagree with them, it put them at a disadvantage. Sometimes I would be told in private by others that they thought I did the right thing, but honestly, I tended not to feel very manly about it. I often wished I could just with great confidence, jump up in their face and scare them off or actually beat them up. Thankfully, I never tried that.
Yeah, I don't know. I think that kids in high school can be helped quite a bit, but the real key is to start early. As I said before, being realistic and honest as an adult about who is doing what and why, and remembering that every child is a work in progress will help that kid more than telling them to find an adult.
I'll also say that I was still learning hard social lessons into my late twenties, through my time in the military and also early in my marriage, and it's only because I've been brutally honest with myself, along with having some friends who have been courageous enough to tell me the truth that I am where I am. I genuinely wish that I'd had that as a child, and that more than anything is what I'm talking about. Would have saved me a lot of pain.