Self Defense to a lot of people holds the definition of fighting back when attacked. The dictionary agrees as well defining self defense as the act of defending one’s person when physically attacked, as by countering blows or overcoming an assailant. Let’s start with you on getting this definition of self defense to mean something completely different. Think of self defense of not putting yourself in certain situations where you could be in trouble of getting hurt. Alright so your in the first stage in understanding what self defense should be all about. Now, let’s put you into certain situations where you can use this new idea of self defense.
There are bullies in life and you do have the power to make them fade away. You may have faced bullies when you were younger and they may still be around, and I am sorry to inform you that these bullies probably will not go away, even your parents have bullies in their life so do not feel alone in this. The usual interaction with a bully is in our schools hallways, in our playgrounds or any place where the bully may have an audience. I do want to clue you in that the bullies in our lives are that way because of their insecurities in them selves so this is how to rise above their behavior. Walk with confidence and stay calm, this will make you less of a target to the bully. Putting your head down and looking nervous will put a bulls-eye on you. However, there are some bullies out there that will want to pick on you no matter what, so if they approach you stand your ground put your hand out, with an opened hand not a fist, and scream STOP or another word that is affective is FIRE. Adults will pay more attention to the words such as FIRE than they would STOP or HELP because their minds react to words like that faster. Do not worry about not feeling cool yelling these words, these words will bring more attention to yourself increasing the chance for an adult to come into the situation to stop this situation all together. Trust me being hit or in a fight is not cool. Fighting will make you end up in the principles office, police station or in a hospital, and you know that won’t be cool.
Verbal abuse is another form of someone attacking you that will need to use self defense. Girls pay close attention because this is a popular form of abuse that you either been through or will come your way. To avoid this just like being bullied you have to act and look confident. Name calling is done by those people who again are not confident so they try to make themselves feel better about themselves by making you feel bad about yourself. The trick is to stay calm and try not to hear what they are saying, they are looking for a reaction, so just don’t give them the satisfaction. You may have to do this more than once but they will get bored with you and your bulls-eye on you will begin to fade.
If anyone is picking on you or making you feel uncomfortable you need to tell someone about it. This doesn’t have to be your parent, you should be able to tell your parents anything, but any adult that you trust should be the person you tell such as your teacher, principle or the security guard at your school. The idea of telling someone is not being a coward like some people might say but you are actually being very brave. Getting the bully in trouble for what he or she is doing to you is a good thing for yourself as well as the other people they bully because I can promise you that they do not like getting into trouble and it will make them think twice about doing it again.
Avoidance is key, in all of these situations there are ways to avoid them completely. When you see your bully in the playground, lunch room, school dance or any other social event just do not go around him or her. Make sure to be around your friends who care about you, also tell those friends that this person is bothering you. Being in groups is very important all throughout your life, groups will make any bully become a coward and will make yourself confident and happy because your with your friends. Also, for the kids who walk home from school or anywhere try to avoid dark places where there is no one around, you always want to make sure that you are in a public place so there is always someone there to help you if you need it. I hope you will never have to actually get into a fight but the reality is that most of us will get into a situation where punches will be thrown or our hair will be pulled. It is important to get involved in a self defense program or a martial arts program so you can defend yourself physically if you ever need to. When you go to these schools make sure that they do have a full self defense program or else you will not be ready to defend yourself physically if needed.
A new form of bullying is on the internet and it is called “Cyber Bullying”. Cyber Bullying is when you get an e mail or an IM that has bad rumors written about you or that contains name calling. Do not let this bother you even if it was made public, those people who care about you or know you know that it is not true. However, do not ignore it, like the rest of the bullying I explained you have to tell someone. With Cyber Bullying it is different though. This is something you have to bring to an adults attention the first time you see it.
*Note to parents about Cyber Bullying:
Cyber Bullying is happening more than you think, with forums like Facebook.com, Twitter, Instagram…to many other sites on the internet as well as instant messaging programs it makes it easy for your kids to be exposed by this type of bullying. If this is happening to your child here are some steps you can take to put a stop to it.
- Always monitor your childrens activity on line, they do need their privacy so trust them but do keep an eye
- Remind your child that it is not their fault it is happening to them
- Take a screen shot (Print Screen Button on keyboard and paste into Word Processor) to save the messages, you have to collect evidence.
- Report this type of abuse to the website, now of days they have a program set up on their website to report any kind of abuse so put it to use
- Collect all the materials and show it all to the teacher/principle to make them aware that this is happening
- If abuse does not stop and you can not identify the person doing the bullying, submit everything to the cops. Everyday there are new police internet taskforces that are being created because of this type of abuse.
By Scott McCusker