Child victims of bullying told to fight back

Is this not beautiful?

One intellectual after another offers up the most amazing rubbish all too often yet this time, we have a child psychologist who helps children who are victims of bullying. Yes, he has come out and called for self defence to be taught in schools so that they can fight back. No just with the fist but also with the tongue.

Problem with bullies is that they're cowards who can only get their way by picking on those who won't fight back. I know from personal experience from my days in high school that I was a victim as an easy target who was on and off crutches. Yet when I got off the crutches and started to fight them, they all decided to leave me alone because they feared being hurt. How tough.

So yes, a brilliant idea!

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"THE pop psychologist charged with tackling bullying in Queensland schools will tell children to be ready to fight back.

"Michael Carr-Gregg, who will be handsomely paid by the State Government to come on board as Queensland's anti-bullying expert, yesterday outlined his combat plan to empower children.

"He called on parents to "find their digital spine" and children to be ready to defend themselves.

"Bullies, essentially, are buoyed by the support they get around them," Dr Carr-Gregg said yesterday.

"He said self-defence should be taught at school, with training for parents as well.

"Mr Carr-Gregg said he has, in his anti-bullying arsenal, a "15-second verbal intervention" strategy for other children witnessing bullying.

"We can teach young people themselves to not be scared, but to be prepared," Dr Carr-Gregg said."

It is best way imo,my father taught me from a young age that if someone hits you,you hit them back harder.

As for self-defence being taught at school I think they should teach boxing also.

I was bullied through grade 1. Sometime during grade 2 my uncle gave me 2 pair of his old boxing gloves and I was given a few lessons. In grade 3 I broke my first nose (on someone else). It felt good. After that I was left alone.

Its. About. f***ing. Time! Im so sick of this bulls*** where a kid gets bullied and runs and tells his parents, then they call the cops. Glad to see a turn towards making our youth less sissified.

Many of us grew up in large cities way back. Lots of bullies. You either gave for what you got or you stayed at home. Most of our parents (WW2 veterans) did not want to hear anything about being picked on. Best advice ever, smack 'em back, hard,,,,,,,,,,,

While I agree for the most part, and share the experiences of the people who posted here before me, there are some kids who are simply not capable of "fighting back", either because of temperament or physical size or ability..

Those are the kids who need protection. The ones who can and do fight back are not bullied for long.

From what I've been through and seen. Bullying has always been and the victims of bullying reacted in different ways according to their personalities.

But one thing is quite true. The Bullies always get back what they give, maybe not today, tomorrow or the next month, but they do have to answer to it by perhaps meeting someone they can't bully and they become the 'victims' rather than the 'bullies'. Full circle!

Telling kids to fight back is inane as what does it solve really? It just eventually turns the 'bullied' into a bully themselves. Good Advice there.

There's a difference between defending yourself and starting the fight. Kids who are bullied should defend themselves vigorously if they're able, because it generally stops the bullying cold.

Sadly, there are a lot of kids who get bullied because other kids know that they are not able to defend themselves.

I got bullied in school and when I fought back, I was hated even more by the cliques. There was a female bully in my class who tackled me in the snow. I punched her in the eye and she went whining to the older kids. If you told your parents and they talked to the bullies' parents, the bullying got worse. I told my son not to start fights but never let anyone punch him and get away with it. It worked and he didn't become a bully.

The bullies are never going to like the people who fight back, but they'll stop beating on them. And it's important for kids to learn early that life is not a popularity contest.. In fact, I live by the motto that if someone somewhere doesn't actively hate me, then I'm not doing my job here on earth.

Fighting back does not produce more bullies. Not fighting back does. I had to make it known that I could and would fight back. I started out kind of puny but I grew into a big kid. Tall, husky and stronger that I realized. I could pick up and slam many of the kids in my grade and beyond. Thankfully, I was left alone after I showed off my temper a few times. I hated to fight.

Same thing happened to my husband as a kid and young teen 'cause he was thin and lanky. He would fight back and be left alone. Whenever he moved to a different school(his dad is in the military so they moved a lot)there would be someone new to begin the bullying process on him all over again.

In High School, while in gym class, one of the bigger 'tough guys' wouldn't let up and kept bullying Ken. Once Ken put the guy into a sleeper hold, the bully left him alone and no one else in the HS bothered him after that.

I'm just speaking from when my kids were in school.

They were bullied relentlessly by not one but 'gangs' of kids and when they fought back it got worse for them.

My son got bullied so much that when he reached his teen years he found he knew how to fight pretty good. He was and still is 6'2" and weighed over 210 solid and started fighting the bullies, but the sad part is that he became the bully. I know this was his choice. What finally turned him over to bully was having a gun put to his throat for his 'jacket'.

He was a loving, sensitive kid and didn't like to hurt anything but pushed over the edge he chose to push back and became what he detested so much.

Fighting back is all well in certain situations, but I can't say I approve this approach in every bully situation as there are many variables and different levels of bullying.

And I do agree with you that many kids don't know how to defend themselves and when they do it can escalate or curb it. It's a chance they take if they decide to stand up for themselves. Very dangerous decision to make these days as they're not the type of bullying we used to have in the latter days.

Gangs are often the bullies now and that's very detrimental to the choices the victim has to take into consideration when or if they decide to stand up. Results could be deadly as we all know.

That's exactly my point. The same thing happened to my son, he hated hurting others but it became an everyday thing. But, I must add that 'gangs' were involved here and he wasn't in one so fighting had to be done almost all the time he was out of the house and had to take into consideration the retaliation of the 'gangs' as in drive bys.

Those are very harsh decisions for a kid to have to take on at any age.

There was this kid who was in the year above me who spent a couple of break times in primary school intimidating me. Walking up to me and pushing me about a bit. I mentioned it to my dad, he said that if he pushes me I should punch him back.

The next day the kid comes up to me and pushes me. He had his tongue sticking out of his mouth and I swung with an upper cut to the jaw. There was a fair amount of blood.

Anyway, to his credit he never went crying to the teachers or anything and we became friends.