BULLIES (dictionary meaning – plural, noun) is a deprecating term for “blustering, mean, or predatory persons who, from a perceived position of relative power, intimidate, abuse, harass, or coerce people, especially those considered unlikely to defend themselves”.

As highlighted in the title, Bullies are a combination of a lot of bull and a lot of lies. Bull references the proverbial Bull (from bull fights), which is a symbol of power and might. Lies are falsehoods used to control, harass, and scare their victims. So when someone pushes around, generally, a milder/smaller person to exert their power and control over them, the result is bullying. The victim, in most cases, will be silent as it reflects on their inability to protect themselves or stand up against a tyrannical person. Oftentimes personal safety and inadequacy override any desire to share such incidents with someone, or even confront the bully.

By nature, bullies are low self-esteem individuals, very insecure. They are self-aware of their inabilities (specifically intellectual), and they often demonstrate heightened signs of physical size and power. This is a personality defect and unrelated to the sex of the individual. Although males do demonstrate this behavior more than females do. Bullies thrive generally with a supporting group of ‘wanna-be’ bullies, who provide validation to the dominant bully’s power and strength. Bullies will not survive alone, as they need the validation from their supporters to even exist. The victims of bullying also may/can/will be scarred for life, with an impact on their developing personalities in their formative years.

The JED Foundation published the following statistics on school-age students:

It is extremely important to ensure that your children, as they start attending school, are aware of such behavior, and the dos and don’ts when put in such a situation. Going back to my Dec-2016 posting Transactional Analysis, ensure that your dominant Parent ego state is “Nurturing Parent” when you relate to your children, vs “Controlling Parent”. They should be comfortable talking to you about any bullying incidents, that they were subjected to, or they observed at school. In their formative years they need to be supported and re-assured that they are OK; while it is the Bully who is NOT OK.

We are living in a world where the mushroom-like cloud of social media engulfs us all and there is no escape from it. In our “screen-always-in-our-hand” era, bullying is 24×7 and cyber-bullying is worse than school-time playground physical bullying. It borders on emotional attacks, which are invisible and impact your inner persona. If you have permitted your middle school children to carry phones, make sure you have oversight with special phone Apps that allow you to protect your children pro-actively and nip any cyber-bullying in the bud.

Although being bullied starts at an early stage, it does not end through the teen and adult years. It does diminish as, even Bullies mature. Once a bully, always a bully; a leopard does not shed its spots, nor a zebra its stripes. If a bully-by-birth happens to become someone who is in a ‘power position’ – there is a good chance that they will continue to take advantage of their power and control, and bully their direct reports rather than provide a servant-leader style management approach. We see this in the world around us, with power in the hands of bullies who then become border-line dictators.

The impact of bullying is not instant. It is like rust permeating into strong unprotected metal; slowly but steadily eating away at the core of a person and changing their lives forever. Do not dismiss it as “kids-will-be kids”. Remember it may be your kids who may be involved as the overpowering bully or the suffering victim. In either case, this needs to be confronted and stopped in its tracks.