Bully ka the End

Bully

Neha Srivastava

Parent IV C

‘This is my eraser’

‘Now it is mine’

‘Give it to me, you bully’

‘I am not a bully, not a bully; I will give you one tight slap if you call me that, you loser’.

‘Bully, bully, bully.’

Smash. Crash. Bang.

The aaa’s and oows’s to follow. The punishments, diary notes and parent meetings are the usual routine that happen as a repercussion of a fight for the humble ‘eraser’ .

When you watch it as an outsider, it seems trivial, we also smirk on the ‘hyper’ parents and the extra lenient ones, branding them as parents who don’t have time for their kids and hence the kids have become bullies and unruly.

However, branding helps only lifeless products, not humans who form our society.  A deep insight can help us eradicate this practise of bullying. If we can eradicate polio, a deadly disease, then why can’t we, as parents, stop this menace? Of course, Amitabh Bachchan is not going to come and help us with this; we need to campaign against it ourselves. We need to understand the psych and intent of bullies, before they turn into Mukesh Yadavs’ of our society.

The stereotypes target someone who has a mature level of emotional development and a bully who has the level of emotional development of a five-year-old - or less. The target will go to great lengths to avoid resorting to violence, as they have been taught by parents, teachers and society. 

Experts have stated that there is not always a clear reason why kids become bullies. Some kids will bully others simply because they think it is fun. Without an adult intervening, some kids see nothing wrong with bullying others. There are also many cases where parents set a bad example for their children which leads them to believe it is okay to be a bully, I have so often heard mother’s laughing, ‘He is very naughty! He keeps hitting everybody’. I wish they would understand how harmful it is, for their own child, to indulge in this behaviour. If they genuinely love their children they must kill the bully in them, before it kills the human inside them.

On the other hand the gentle children must know that she / he must never ignore bullying. Instead, refuse to engage and refuse to respond to the bullies' provocation. Recognise that they have a right not to be bullied, harassed, assaulted or abused. They cannot tackle bullying by themselves. No-one can, not even adults. They are dealing with a kind of criminal behaviour.

“The common mistake that bullies make is assuming that because someone is nice that he or she is weak. Those traits have nothing to do with each other. In fact, it takes considerable strength and character to be a good person” - Mary Elizabeth Williams

So are you and I making little people with mental strength or are we just creating powerful menaces for our society?