I told my son the same thing when he was faced with bullying. First with the typical ignore it, but when the school wouldn’t protect him, I told him to defend himself and put him in Karate classes. I was amazed at how the teachers suddenly saw the violence when my son fought back. And I will never forget the vice principal having the nerve to say he didn’t know that there was a problem, even though I had been to his office several times to tell him all about it. When they tried to suspend my son for finally standing up for himself, I even went so far as to contact the superintendent’s office and at least got the punishment reduced to one day of in school suspension. But according to my son, he was never physically bullied again. That was in 7th grade. And the 2 boys that bullied him the most became his friends in high school.

I was bullied and abused through most of elementary school, junior high, and my freshman year of high school. Much like Ms. Blanco’s experiences, the bullies I dealt with seemed to just be trying to impress the popular kids. And much like the book, the teachers and administrators were prone to blame the victim and side with the bullies. Probably didn’t help that the leader of the bullies in elementary school was the daughter of a minister. I was always asked by the principal “why would she lie?”.

And there is the Columbine shooting. My little sister had known some of the kids that went to that school when it happened. I remember talking with her on the phone after it, and her being so confused about why the kids would do such a thing. But it didn’t seem that strange to me. I knew kids that were said to bring guns and knives to school, misfits much like those boys. They even tried to make explosives. Thank goodness they failed, but one of them ended up in a mental hospital for that. The rage that the victims obviously feel not just being bullied by their peers, but also having the behavior reinforced by teachers that are either indifferent or blind, doesn’t seem odd at all.

You would think that after the Columbine shooting that schools would do things differently. But my son was dealing with the bullying just a few years after that shooting and nothing was different that I had seen in school. My daughter had a bully harassing her in school a few years ago, and the teacher did nothing. I watched on a school field trip, the bully jumping on my daughter’s feet right in front of the teacher and her doing nothing. I stepped in and reprimanded the child, when the teacher wouldn’t. All I had to say to the girl was that her behavior wasn’t appropriate. Granted, I am not sure if the child was embarrassed by her own behavior or just confused by the word “appropriate”, but she stopped.

I really do think that the best cure for bullying is putting the victims into self defense classes at an early age. A good program teaches the kids to respect people and to not use their skills inappropriately. And maybe there is just something about the confidence they gain in such programs that has them hold themselves differently, so their body language no longer tells the other kids that they are victims.

Even if your child isn’t being bullied, learn more about bullying. An interview I heard on NPR recently suggested that the bullies as well as the victims suffer emotionally from bullying. So if your child is a bully or a victim, you are doing them a service by being involved and talking to them about bullying. Don’t ignore it or tell them to ignore it, it isn’t going away that easily.