Stop Calling Children "Bullies"

Stop calling children “bullies”
Today, we are using the term “bully” as though it is a diagnosis, a scientific term that describes a specific type of person with psychological problems.

The truth, "bully" is not a diagnosis. There is no diagnostic test for a bully. “Bully” is actually an insult, in the same vein as jerk, slut, idiot, wimp, and loser. We wouldn’t dare call children by these other terms, and we shouldn’t be calling them
bullies, either.

Today we are not allowed to insult people, for insults are a form of bullying. Bully, ironically, has become the only acceptable insult today. If you follow the news, you may notice how routinely public figures are referred to as bullies.

Bully is an insulting, judgmental term that we use for someone who is overpowering or upsetting us and we don’t know how to make them stop. Almost anyone can be experienced as a bully, including us. If there is someone in your life who is constantly getting upset with you, to them you are a bully.

When we label someone a bully, we automatically judge them to be the guilty or bad party. When a child gets a report in their file that they are a bully, it can hurt their careers forever.

At #RaiseThemStrong, we try to avoid referring to any individuals as bullies. We use the term because the entire world is using it. However, you will notice that we always refer to “your bully” or “their bully.” It is not a definition of the person, and people don’t experience themselves as such; we only use it here as a reference to the way the suffering person experiences them.

We can be experienced as a buddy by one person and a bully by another. We encourage you, too, to stop thinking of people as bullies. It is unfair, and it makes it harder to understand them and to solve problems.

We also recommend that we stop referring to behaviors as “bullying.” Two different ways of thinking about bullying

At this point, we want to introduce two different pairs of concepts to help you understand and deal with bullying more objectively and effectively.

1. Friends and Enemies

Instead of thinking in terms of “bullies and victims” it is more helpful to think in terms of “friends and enemies.”We don’t want people to be our enemies because enemies want to hurt us. We want people to be our friends. Friends want to help us. By friend, we aren’t necessarily implying someone we will want to bring home for dinner. By enemy, we are not necessarily implying someone who wants to injure or kill us. We simply mean, “for us” or “against us.” A friend is “for us” and an enemy is “against us.”

In this framework, our goal is stop your children’s bullies from being their enemies, and possibly even to turn them into friends. Of course, if your children change schools frequently, it will be harder to make friends. But it won’t be impossible, and at least they won’t have enemies.

2. Winners and Losers

Instead of thinking in terms of bullies and victims it is more helpful to think in terms of winners and losers. It’s a basic law of nature: Winning feels good and losing feels bad.

In the bully/victim relationship, the bully is winning, which is why the bully feels good. The victim is losing, which is why the victim is miserable.

Victims are desperate to win against their bullies. Fortunately, winning is easy once you understand the rules of the social game that’s being played.

The bullies don’t really understand the rules. They just play by instinct.
Once your child is equipped with knowledge of the rules, it becomes easy to defeat their bullies, because their bullies don’t know the rules; they just follow their instincts. The best outcome is to create a win/win, so that both your
child and their tormentors come out ahead.