Bully-Proofing Your Life
My friend told me that she said that I was a pooh pooh butt.
Who told you?
My friend said that he was talking about my mama.
Your mama is wonderful.
Is it possible they were saying something good?
I saw him looking at me so I know he was talking about me.
Yes, that is certainly proof.
My go to phrase is, “If you did not hear it with your own eyes, it did not happen.”
Here’s another little gem I use.
“When someone comes up to you and says, ‘guess what so-and-so said about you?”
There are a few good responses,
But the two that seem to work amazingly well are,
“Please don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it,”
And
“She is my friend, so I will go ask her if she said it.”
As a school counselor I have developed two strategies to use when you are being teased.
As the goal of the bullying offending party is to make you sad or mad,
You must not let them know it does.
I demonstrate this by bringing a child I trust up front to call me names in front of the class.
I show them the “thank you” and the skip away.
The skip away is only to be used if you are starting to get sad or mad and you
Think your face might get red or you might cry or say something mean back.
Here is how the “thank you works.’
“You are an old lady.”
Big smile. “Thank you!”
“You don’t have good teeth.”
Bigger smile. “I know; thank you for noticing, and caring enough to tell me.”
“You are ugly.”
Smiling still. “That’s RIGHT!” with gusto.
By now the class is lying on the floor, clutching their sides, but they get it.
I remind them if something happens and they are starting to tear up or look mad they
Need to use the “skip away.”
Reminding them if they use the run away, they will be encouraging the bully.
“What if they follow you?” someone always shouts out.
I use them, and demonstrate that too.
The class falls out now.
But they remember the lesson.
And I always always always remind them that a little bully is being hurt by a bigger bully.
I encourage them to befriend them and ask them “why are you so sad? Reminding them that they
Need to let an adult know, because we need to help the bully get rid of their sadness.
“You cannot be mad without sad,” I reiterate.
This lesson is a big hit with the sweet ones.
The bullies usually go home crying to their mothers telling them
“Mrs. K. called me a bully.”
That’s not true.
I always use the term “chicken-bully.”
One chicken-bully was so thunderstruck by the lesson that he went home bawling and told his mother “Mrs. K. walked into my classroom today , pointed to me and said, “Mike you are a bully!”
When bully-mom called to scream at me I broke into Guffaw laughter and could not stop.
Then I told the teachers and we held onto each other in a little huddle sobbing with laughter at the thought of it.
It was a bit embarrassing a few minutes later when Chicken-bully Mama caught us laughing about her.
I asked her why she was so sad, though, and we had an hour cry, with me finally pulling her onto my lap and stroking her back as she sob-heaved.
Little bullies are made by big bullies, and big bullies are sad too.
You might want to remind your children of this.
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