School can be the hardest time of your life. You are taught to be competitive from a very early age. It starts with the game of tag in the playground, progresses to competitive sports and then gets more competitive when you reach puberty and start competing for the affections of your peers. Society makes it clear to you that alpha (the strongest and most popular) males and alpha females get to eat at the table of life first.
Other kids may have thousands of hours of exposure to computerised war games or games that suggest the strongest and most aggressive characters will win. So many children grow up with the idea that bullying is really not a big deal and in fact it could help them get ahead in life. But this can cause problems both for you if you are being bullied, as well as for the person doing the bullying. Your life is made a misery by their bullying behaviour, and they may end up becoming consistently more violent as they get older and could end up in prison.
So if you are a young person being bullied at school, you might like to consider that the bullying might not be about you at all. You might just be an unfortunate choice that the bullying person or people see as an easy target. People who bully always look for easy targets. They would never challenge or try and dominate someone they consider as powerful or strong as themselves.
But this doesn’t matter when you are experiencing bullying. You just want it to stop. You feel isolated and afraid. You just want to feel safe to carry on with your day, unimpeded by the violence or aggression. You may even consider hurting yourself but you can change things.
The following steps can help if you are being bullied at school:
1. Tell a trusted third party adult such as a teacher, head teacher, or parent. You do not have to go through this alone. There is strength in numbers and those people may be able to help you.
2. Ask for an intervention from a teacher, or head teacher so you can stay safe. You are entitled to be kept safe and it is the duty of an adult to ensure you are safe if you report that you are in trouble and being bullied.
3. Tell your parent/s or carer that you need their help. Many children are afraid to go home and tell the truth about what they might be experiencing at school. You may be embarrassed by not being able to defend yourself but with help, the situation could be changed.
4. There are probably laws or rules that protect you, so ask your school to help you find out what they are and how you can use them to protect yourself.
5. Find out if anyone else is experiencing the same or similar bullying at your school. If there are, have meetings with them and work out a plan to get help.
6. Find out if there is Pupils’ Charter at your school that is supposed to guide students not to bully. If there is none, make one up and circulate it to the whole school, including the head teacher, to ask for suggestions. Once it is collated and finalised, send it to the head teacher.
You deserve to be able to lead a peaceful life so you can carry on with your schooling and enjoy your lessons and friends.
You are not alone.
You deserve protection.
It is important not to suffer in silence. Change can only happen by taking action. Remember, you will get past the bullying, and there will come a day when you will not even think about it.
For more help with overcoming bullying, see my Bullying Recovery Hypnosis downloadable program.
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