Bullies. Personal story 👦

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True personal story.

It’s about 12 years ago, so I won’t have all the details completely word-for-word accurate - but you’ll get the gist. Stuff like this you don’t forget as a parent.

The oldest was 7 yrs (Grade 2). On the playground they have teacher monitors to keep the kids safe AND a separate area for older kids (12 and up). So from the kindergarten to about grade 5 use the same one. There was a group of 3 grade 4 boys who would incessantly pick on the younger boys (k-2). They would pick out one or two, isolate them, call them names and thought it was funny to make them cry.

Monitors were aware and talked to these boys about their verbal bullying. The gr 4 boys didn’t care, and the teachers didn’t remove them (stay in during lunch) and their parents (I’m sure they were talked to) didn’t have an effect on their school behaviour.

They never bugged my oldest (he was tall). BUT my oldest always kept an eye on them. He’d come home with how the monitors always ignored these kids or if you told them they’d say “work it out among yourselves”.

SO one day, these guys picked on a gr 1 boy. BUT they escalated it. One pushed him down and the other kicked his back (to make him cry? The words were maybe not working???) - ANYHOO …. the oldest runs over and starts pounding on these boys. Pulls/pushing them away from the (now crying) 6 yr old. Blackens the eye of the kid who kicked.

MONITOR now notices :roll_eyes: drags all of them off to principal. My kid got in trouble and the Principal called for me to pick him up - which I did (and we won’t go into my exchange with the Principal and “monitors”).

Needless to say but I took him to McDonald’s. The 6 yr old’s mom tracked me down. Profusely kept thanking my oldest and me for raising such a “good” boy (which he is - some would say in-spite-of-me :wink:).

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My elder brother was a bully. Being the first-born it was obvious he got preferential treatment and a free pass on inappropriate behavior. Basically every time us kids were left alone, he beat us (myself and my younger brother) up. It got so bad my younger brother and myself made a pact to team up to defend ourselves. Of course, the bully just waited until one of us was alone.

Since the bully was two years older than myself, he always had the physical advantage.

That all changed soon after I turned 16 and spent the summer with the navy reserve that summer in Halifax. I spent those two months in the company of men, I learned to swear, drunk, and fight. Not kid fighting, but down and dirty gutter fighting.

Soon after my summer away, he attempted to bully me and beat me up. My response was a surprise to him and since we were inside and I did not want to destroy any furniture or furnishings, I screamed to him to come outside so we could finish it. I stormed outside and waited for him in the back yard. He did not show up.

Both of us knew that if went into that back yard he would get the beating of his life.

Probably because of my older brother, I never became a bully, although I had the physical tools to be so. That is the only good thing that came from those many years of being bullied.

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