What should we do about bullies?

Q: My son gets bullied a lot. Did you have problems with bullies, and if so, how did you handle it?

A: I dealt with bullying in a rather unusual way. I figured out pretty quickly that as a short non-athletic girl, fighting back rarely worked, so I got incredibly good at not fighting back. Not only did the bullies usually leave me alone when they couldn't even get me to change facial expression, but other kids and teachers were much more likely to intervene when they saw one of the parties in a "fight" sitting calmly crosslegged on the ground than when there was a more traditional fight structure. And you'd be amazed how quickly you can stop a game of 5th grade keep-away with the sentance "Is your life really so devoid of amusement that you have to resort to stealing other people's headwear?" Although it's pretty much impossible to stamp bullying out of a group of children, by 7th grade I had changed the general attitude of the kids in my grade to the point that most of them thought picking on me at least was morally wrong because of the way I wouldn't fight back. There was one incident in particular that I remember in which a display of origami that I had made for the student lounge was torn down, and when they found out about it a small group of popular girls marched right into the offender's homeroom, slapped him, and dragged him in to apologize to me.

Obviously this isn't a stratagy that works for everyone, it takes quite a lot of self-control and I had to endure a lot of physical and emotional pain before the tide finally turned in my favor, but I think in the end it let me get through it all while still feeling like I was in control of my life, with my self-esteem intact, and without a lot of resentment towards my classmates.

Wiley