The Bully Pulpit

[samldanach]

So, this topic has been in the news a lot lately. Bullying. Here's a few links for you to peruse:

A boy dresses as Daphne for Halloween, and is ostracized by the other parents.
Pixar employees send the message "It Gets Better."
One family tries to battle cyber-bullying.

And, finally, we'll cap off your reading with this excellent blog post, in

Comments

[plum_pixie_girl]

Your advice is quite sound. On the body language front, I teach self defense for women and teen girls, and one of the factors in the prevention aspect of things is carrying yourself with confidence. I agree that bullies, like other creeps, are looking for what we call the "target of opportunity". They read body language like I read poetry. In the law enforcement/self defense end of things we teach prevention just because fights don't happen like the movies, though yours vaguely reminded me of Ralphy in A Christmas Story. I can't believe I didn't know about that. Aside from body language- -even fake confidence is better than none, not traveling alone is also smart. Bullies are not really that sure of themselves, so many secretly fear having the tables turned on them. If you can manage the confidence in the first two stages- personal space/avoidance, and mastering verbal confrontation, or turning the tables, most won't ever escalate to a physical confrontation. Still- I disagree, being somewhat less liberal, regarding the whole fight