Beat the Bullies with Assertiveness Plus

(Picture  Credit - Isebrook College, England)

The following piece had a good run on "Beyond Jane" (Triond), receiving thousands of Views (over 40,000 to press):

The other day I dreamt I beat up a big school bully. It felt good. But why such a dream? I wasn’t bullied at school. Or was I? Am I still bullied? What can I do about all this? Well...

Recently I woke up from dreaming I’d thumped a gross school bully. It felt great. Then I got to thinking. Have I still got issues? Yet I was seldom bullied at school. Or was I?

A memory hits me. A then new friend Michael Rose once told me he bumped into one of my primary school “friends”. That old acquaintance told Michael that he and others had enjoyed “taking the **** out of me” mercilessly all day.

My Mum says that one of my primary teachers once turned a blind eye when I actually did thump someone who was bothering me. At last I had stood up for myself.

 Bullying can be horrible

Okay, so things were never as bad for me as they were for a relative of mine: surrounded at school by gangs of bullies (probably armed) and having to complete his final years with home tuition. Girls and women brought up in the fifties and sixties like me must have had it tough too: being indoctrinated into being “obedient”, submissive, passive with men. They were nurtured to be victims of bullying.

Luckily for me those big school bullies who beat everyone up were always in the minority. Being a boy myself I didn’t have to be prim and proper or anything like that.

Yet I must have suffered from lots of “banter” over the years. On reflection I was lucky not to be very badly bullied. As a youth I was very quiet, indeed mainly silent. I was, and still am, something of a dreamer: not very street-wise. A prime target for potential bullies.

Social strategies required

You see, the trouble was I had somehow learnt to rely on just the one social tactic: keep your mouth closed and your head down. It works up to a point. But quiet, mousy people are prime targets for bullies.

To have any chance of avoiding being bullied or otherwise abused, you have to employ a full range of social strategies. Simply, you must act confidently, assertively, sometimes aggressively, even rudely if necessary. Imagine you have a bag of skills to draw upon and use wisely.

Play your cards right

The trick here, overall, is to judge what ploy will be effective and appropriate. Some have likened this to playing cards. You need to play a card of the right suit, and also the lowest card possible to win the hand. (Actually they only mentioned the lowest card but I’ve taken the simile and metaphor further).

It’s all about Acting and Behaving in a positive or intelligent way. At times you need to display the full range of emotions: be angry, soothing, aggressive, sympathetic, happy, sad, critical, supportive, thoughtful, crazy, objective, subjective. Yet within yourself you must maintain complete self-control and rationality.

The old male and female stereotypes need to be thrown off when you work at being socially effective. Many books have been written about one certain social strategy: Assertiveness – especially for Women. Yet I submit that you need “Assertiveness Plus”. Sometimes you have to be rude and aggressive. Often I wished I’d done at least one martial arts course in my youth.

For now, just get shuffling that pack and laying down those astutely chosen cards.

Paul Butters

Tags:      beat the bully, social skills, assertiveness, social effectiveness, assertiveness skills for women and men, acting skills, play your cards right