Bullying - a Pastor's Perspective

 With the recent professional football bullying scandal in the news, it provides an opportunity for me to share some valuable principles for protection from bullying.  

"It is good when the adults around the child validate on the outside what the child knows inside.

   This is especially important for fathers. The father stands in for God in the eyes of the children. That is why father needs to stand unmistakably for what is right.

   Here is where many fathers make a big mistake. First of all, if father is violent, he is wrong. If he is a wimp, he is not respectable. If he drinks excessively, smokes marijuana, or makes work/sports/money or anything else more important than what is right, then he is not credible.
   Dad must never fail. I know this is a hard teaching, but it is true.

  He can't tell the child not to smoke if he is puffing on a marijuana cigarette himself. He must make principle more important than popularity. He must love God even more than his wife.  This does not mean that he does not love his wife. It means that he has honor and loyalty above all to his Creator. A woman can respect and even come to love such a man.

   He will never pressure others with religion. Anyone who pressures others with religion is not a true representative of God or good.

  When a man has a bond with his Creator, he becomes a living example of faith in action. It is often unnecessary for him to say things outright. His quiet presence, his dignity, his longsuffering, his aloneness, and his courage touch the hearts of others.

   He validates on the outside what the child knows deep down. Someday, when the child is an adult, that child will then be free to choose God or go the other way. By having loved the good in his or her father, it is but a small step to transfer the love for the good in the earthly father to the Good Father Within.

Unless dad is there for them, and unless dad, with great wisdom, courage and kindness, is stronger than the world—the family will suffer and the kids will fall to the enticements all around them in a loveless world that only know tease and pressure."

Excerpts from Putting the Forever Back in Love

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  The bully has an identity problem. He or she has been corrupted, probably as a child. He or she was bullied, resented the bully, and now turns around and is doing to others what was done to him.

The bully also hates those which she or he dominates. Why? Because no one has enough love to stop him (or her).

We all know about the spoiled child, for example, who always gets her way. What she needs is someone to say "no," with firmness and kindness. In other words, she is actually crying out for correction. She needs someone strong (in character) and with love to say no and mean it. But not with anger.

Mostly what budding tyrants need is for someone to correct them. Mostly what they get are weak people who can't say no. They are the people pleasers and the conformists. Maybe they don't want to be, but because of a lifetime of conforming to peer pressure, the popular culture and their low life friends, they can't say no to the group, even when the group is being cruel to another.  They need the group for support of what they are--what the group and peer pressure has made of them.

Moreover, by reacting with resentment and hostility to the others' demands, they are guilty and easily get upset. In order to avoid the upset, they just go along. In order to placate guilt (for resenting), they go along.

Thus the weak ones are actually the creators of bullies. Their weakness, passivity and sheepishness enable the bully.

The other type of person who enables bullies is the angry person. Remember my analogy about the child who is spoiled and always gets her way. If she is corrected at all, it is done with anger and resentment. Now she can judge the one who is correcting her with anger.

She never really has to look at her own wrong because she can judge the judgment and anger of the one who is correcting her.

Bullies create wimps and wimps create bullies. They both hate each other, but neither has the love to correct the other and set the other free.

Sadly, it usually begins at home. How many homes have are ruled by a self righteous mom who always has to be right and will never admit she is wrong? How many homes are ruled by a mother who hates her good for nothing husband, and takes it out on the kids.

How many homes have a weak people pleasing dad. He goes to work and sits in the living room at night. But he is weak. He wants to win a popularity contest, so everyone walks all over him. Mom is in charge and everyone knows it. 

How many homes have a dad who is angry all the time. When he says anything at all, it is too harsh. Other homes have a dad who is full of anger at his wife. He suppresses his anger and says nothing. He becomes a total wimp because he cannot express himself for fear of the anger that would come out.

Sooner or later the kids resent the angry or wimpy parent. They also resent the dad who is not there for them. By his weakness or absence, things happen at home and they blame him for not being there to protect them.

But it is through the resentment and hatred toward the parent that the identity of the parent enters the child. Unless the child finds forgiveness and lets go of the resentment, he or she will become just like the parent he or she hated.

Some people suppress and compensate for the identity gone wrong inside them, but sooner or later it comes out.

So there are bullies everywhere. Bear in mind that a bully does not need to be in the locker room. A a grandma, an aunt, a teacher, an older brother or sister, or a bureaucrat can be a bully. So you have to learn how to deal with them.

But first, another look at the recent scandal.

Somewhere a cook is making breakfast for a long haul trucker. Somewhere an EMT is checking the pulse on someone in distress. Somewhere a plumber is arriving to help someone with a broken water pipe. Somewhere a tow truck driver is helping a stranded motorist. Somewhere a mom is attending to her sick child. Somewhere a gardener is planting a tree.

These people I respect. They are providing a useful service. If they do so with honor and dignity, they are admirable.

Sports is a game. It is at the bottom of the list of importance. Sports and recreation has its place. Kids need to run, jump, and play to develop physically. For adults, it is for refreshing the mind and body after the work is done and after everything else has been attended to. A man has work to do--useful work--and he has to be there for his family. If after the other important things at home and in the community have been attended to, there is any time left in life, then a bike ride with the family or playing catch with his son is in order.

I will never forget. I was watching the final NCAA Championship that Coach Johnnie Wooden won with his UCLA team. I was a kid at the time. I heard the final buzzer, I saw everyone rushing onto the court. A cameraman and reporter got close to Coach Johnnie Wooden. I saw him clutching a rolled up piece of paper in his hand. I saw his eyes looking up, scanning the crowd for someone. The reporter put the microphone up to him and asked him what he thought about winning the championship. Coach Johnnie Wooden looked distracted. He said something to the effect that he would get back to the reporter. "I've got to go be with my family," he said.

I respected him profoundly. At that moment when many others would have lost their head, he made his family more important than winning.

I will also never forget when Father Lo Schiavo, then President of USF, in response to the scandal that had overtaken the USF basketball program, shut the program down. There was to be no more basketball at USF for awhile. He made principle more important than anything else, and for this I respected him.

I will never forget when I was a little boy and someone was taunting me and being cruel. They were bigger and much older than me. I burst into tears. A teenager intervened and told the other person to knock it off. I ran off and stood sobbing all alone by a creek. Within a few minutes the teenager came up and gently put his hand on my shoulder and said, "It's okay kid." He explained to me that the person who had been teasing me was disturbed and had issues. Though only a teen himself, he was a man. He defended the young and the innocent.  He did not receive the approval of the group, but he received God's approval.

Men, do you realize how you are disappointing and hurting your family at a deep unfathomable level when you are weak and characterless? When you make anything more important than what is right in your heart, you violate your bond with your Creator. When you make the approval of your teammates or buddies more important than what you know in your heart, you have violated your conscience. When you excuse or justify cruelty and tease, you violate your conscience and you confuse and disappoint others, especially the young. If you know something inappropriate is going on and you pretend not to know, you violate your conscience.


A real man has honor, wisdom, long suffering, patience, kindness, courage, and dignity. He never uses a bad word. He never tells an off color joke. He honors and protects innocence. He stands for what is right. He does not go along with the group when the group is doing wrong. He does not permit even the appearance of impropriety. He does not bow to peer pressure.

A real man is patient with the young and gentle with the elderly. He is always the same. He stands for what is right, and he has a twinkle in his eye. He does not change his behavior to conform to a group.

If someone is telling a rude joke, he does not laugh or sheepishly go along. His non response makes the person who is out of order uncomfortable.

He is the same at home as he is on the job. He does not alter his behavior - acting one way in public and another in private. He has integrity.

A man does not tease, taunt, or mock. Each of these has an element of deceit in it, a lack of sincerity, and it is an overt or subtle way of putting another down or getting over on someone.

Others respect him  because he has character. He is solid. His children respect him because they know he has honor. They do not worry that their dad will be saying rude, filthy or obscene things when he is with others or in a locker room.

His wife respects him because she knows he is a man of impeccable honor. For this reason she also feels secure with him.

A real man, if he sees another being cruel or taunting another, will not stand silently by. He will speak up about it. He honors and protects innocence.


In my blog posts and books I often talk about how to deal with intimidation. I will just say here that the way to deal with any form of intimation is to first of all, watch out for resentment and let it go. Secondly you must learn how to speak up for yourself. Most of us are too suppressed. You must learn the simple art of speaking up right away, on the spot, before anger grows and before the other person can see that by your reticence or passivity, you are an easy mark.

Bear in mind that should you tease back, put the other down, or become clever at verbal put downs (which I have observed is the current cultural norm in several aspects of society), your defense will be ineffective. You may succeed in out classing the other with cruelty, but now you are the bully. Plus they can avoid seeing their own wrong because they can secretly judge your wrong. You have stooped to their level and lost the moral high ground.

Your response must be spontaneous, without emotion, and with firmness but without anger. If you learn to meditate properly as we teach at the Center for Common Sense Counseling, you will be coming from the right place. You response will literally come from a place the other person may never have seen before. And because you have taken your ego out of it, your response will be pure, and it will carry the force of love and conviction.

There is no substitute for courage and for love. Both are connected. Metaphysically, they are both the same thing. Paul says "Perfect love casts out fear."

If you have been suppressed all your life, don't suddenly decide to stand up to the neighborhood bully or your mother or wife. It won't work out.  First meditate to calm down and get centered. Then let go of resentments.Don't suddenly decide to tell your boss off  (you'll most likely get fired). Start with little things. If someone cuts in front of you in the grocery store line, say "excuse me, I was here first." Start by speaking up about little improprieties (even if your voice is shaking because of the conditioning), and you will grow in character to one day speak up about bigger things.

 

Here is a popular article I wrote on the topic of bullying. My newest book, soon to be published, will have a chapter devoted to the intimidation-resentment connection. I will provide in depth psycho spiritual principles for protection from and recovery from intimidation and bullying. In fact, I intend to publish it in a blog post for people to read free.

Update: here is a link to an excerpt from my forthcoming book on psycho spiritual principles for optimal living. Unless you are a seasoned meditator or are well along on the spiritual path, it may be too advanced for you. But perhaps you may understand it, especially if you have suffered from bullying or living under tyranny, and are sincerely searching for answers.

Why Parents Should Consider Creating a No Bullying Zone Around Their Child

I have no tolerance for bullying. I'm definitely on the side of parents and educators who would like to see an end to bullying. Recent cases which make the headlines are only the tip of the iceberg. For every story that makes the headlines, there are thousands of kids who are scarred for life by cruelty and teasing from peers, older kids, and I'm sorry to say, even siblings or unenlightened parents.

Bear in mind that the bully is also a victim. Someone did it to them, and now they turn around and do it to someone else (often someone weaker or perceived as weaker). Typically, a child who is intimidated by a tyrannical parent, who he hates, takes on the identity of the parent and one day becomes that parent.  

Bullying has got to stop because it is cruelty and it is unnecessary. Bullying scars the psyche and makes some kids angry and violent, while it makes others repressed and inhibited. Nothing good comes from bullying. I am well aware that there is such a thing as good natured teasing, but it is done in a spirit of friendship, kindness and gentleness.

Teasing that takes place in an unsupervised school yard, on the streets, and any bullying and most so-called hazing are done with callousness and mean spiritedness. They are usually done with intent to harm, harass, and hurt another.

I know from first hand experience and from those I have talked to, that because of teasing and bullying many people develop issues, fears, resentments and self doubts that can plague them for years well into adulthood.

Through talking it out, forgiveness, and learning assertiveness skills, many are able to leave the bad experiences behind. But some never fully recover. Even though some can shrug it off, why have bullying in the first place, when it is so unnecessary?

There's an old expression "charity begins at home." I say: "so does kindness."

The first thing parents need to look at is their own behavior. Are you teasing or pressuring your kid? If so, best to stop it. I'm not blaming, just stating a reality. Many parents were teased when they were kids, and now they tease or bully their own kids, sometimes without even realizing what they are doing.

In the guise of discipline some parents or caregivers intimidate by using corporal punishment or verbal punishment on the child. In my opinion, talking calmly, mentoring, coaching, demonstrating good behavior and patient example are much better teachers.

At school, we describe name-calling or ridicule as teasing or bullying, but what is it when a parent or older sibling ridicules or pressures a child to perform better with threats or derogatory names? It is teasing, perhaps bullying, of the worst kind. It's one thing to be teased or bullied by a stranger or acquaintance, it is another to be teased. bullied, and thus betrayed, by the ones who are supposed to love and protect you.

Parents who commit or permit teasing and bullying at home often make the child angry. The child then goes out and takes out his or her anger on someone else. Otherwise, teasing or bullying at home will make a child timid and repressed--which then draws out the bully in others.

Therefore parents--an atmosphere of kindness, gentleness, calmness and reason is the best preventative. Secondly, keep your comments constructive and find creative ways to manage your child's behavior without resorting to verbal or physical intimidation.

Thirdly, monitor your child's emotional state when he or she comes home from preschool, school, after school, or other activities. Teasing and bullying are common. Remember, there is usually an intimidation factor involved. Be ready to talk to the teacher and, if need be, be prepared to find a better environment for your child. Finding a different preschool, working with the school district to transfer to another school, finding a private school or even home schooling are all viable options in most cases.