Physical Bullying

There seems to be a widely held perception that physical bullying is more severe than other forms of bullying. In my experience, I find this to be far from the truth. I have asked a great many of my clients the same question: “If you had the choice of ongoing psychological bullying, name calling, sneering etc., or just taking a physical beating which would you prefer?” Almost everyone says they would prefer the physical beating. The reason for... Read More

Case Study Part 2

I found Charlie and his Dad, Ian, very easy to work with. They were very keen to learn new skills and were very open minded with the concepts I was putting across. This made the training session relatively short. We did about 5 hours actual training time. (A maximum time would typically be around 7 hours). First of all, we did a couple of exercises on how to feel good under any circumstances. We used body language, imagination, rapport, facial expressions,... Read More

Being Bullied

An incredibly common question for victims of bullying to ask themselves is “Why is it happening to me?” Often this leads to a second, and an entirely unhelpful, question: “What’s wrong with me?” Unsurprisingly, the answers you come up with can lead to low self-esteem, a lack of confidence and reclusiveness. None of this will make the bullying stop. In fact, it’s far more likely to make you an even tastier target for the bullies. The question... Read More

“Bully made me suicidal”

Let’s begin this blog by comparing physical and verbal bullying. Last week the BBC reported the story of a 14 year old girl who decided to commit suicide. A boy taunted her with racist insults over a period of 7 months AFTER the school stepped in to deal with the problem. She felt she couldn’t confide in any of her teachers and the school had advised her against getting her Mother involved again. Fortunately, her suicide attempt failed.... Read More

Why I like martial arts

Firstly, I’m not a martial artist. Also, I don’t think that children need martial arts training to stop the bullies. So why do I like it? Martial arts training almost always develops good emotional skills. With a good instructor you learn discipline, respect, confidence and self esteem. The physical skills don’t matter much as far as bullying is concerned. I actually disapprove of Dads who send their kids to martial arts classes... Read More

Bullying Help

If you are being bullied then you need to get help. You can go to a specialist, such as myself, you can go to a friend, a work colleague, a family member or, in some cases, the police. Make sure the person you go to is someone you can trust and who will listen to you. Also, have in mind an idea of what kind of help you might want. Do you want someone just to share the problem with? Do you want them to intervene directly with the bullies? Do you want... Read More

Case Study Part 1

On Saturday I worked with a client in London. Both he and his Dad have already written about their experience on an online forum and are keen for me to use them as a case study. I have sent this to them for approval before posting. Here is an outline of Charlie’s situation: He has been bullied physically, regularly, over a 2 year period. Specifically, he was being beaten up by large groups of boys. The bullies would pre-arrange what they were going... Read More

Bullying Advice for Parents

It can be incredibly frustrating being a parent of a child who is being bullied. Most parents would do anything to protect their children from being deliberately harmed by others but often they can feel powerless to help. It can be especially frustrating when you know your child is being bullied but they won’t tell you about it. Or if they do, they will give a vague description of what is going on, likely missing out the very details you want... Read More

Why is the bully picking on me?

This is the question that seems to crops up the most often from people being bullied. In many of the email enquiries I receive, I am asked this question in various different ways: “What have I done to deserve this?”, “what’s wrong with me?” etc. If you have ever asked yourself this question, I would like you to immediately change your focus. I want you to understand what is wrong with the question. Whose fault is the bullying? When a... Read More

Bullying clip

This is an excellent clip of a bullying situation in progress. I recommend viewing the clip before you read on……. Let’s do some analysis: The bully is being highly intimidating. He is aware that he has an audience – that may, or may not, affect how he is behaving. I would guess that he is putting on a show and wants to show everyone how tough he is. He may still have had the confrontation without spectators, in which case it... Read More