Don't Be a Bully!

Butterflies Alive!  Ginter Botanical Garden.  Copyright 2012: singeronthesand

Don't walk around with a chip on your shoulder

always spoiling for a fight.

Don't be like those who shoulder their way through life.

Why be a bully?

Proverbs 3:31-32a [The Message]

in-tim'i-da'-tion n.  to make afraid; to make timid; to daunt,

to force or deter with threats or violence; to cow

There are lots of ways to be a bully.  You can physically push people around, verbally abuse them, threaten them, or employ violence to get control of what you want.  After all, bullying is all about control - taking away another person's power of choice, intimidating them into submission to the will of the bully.

My children's father was a bully - using intimidation and threats to keep his children (and wife, for that matter) in line and under his control.  If he was "rough housing" with them and they asked him to stop, he just pushed harder.  No one in the family (other than him) had the right to say, "No."  In fact, trying to say "no" or "stop" just fanned the flames of his determination to exert total control.

The school bus stop for this neighborhood is right at the corner of my property.  Around 7am, the high school kids gather; an hour later, the middle school kids are out there, and about an hour after that, the elementary age children are waiting for their ride.  For the last two years, I have watched a middle school boy transform from an irritating mouthy pest to a full-fledged bully.  He hits, he slaps, he pushes, he hammerlocks - he does whatever he can get away with to intimidate those who are smaller than he is, all within the guise of "playing around."  For a while, I stood out in my yard within his sight-line and stared him down.  Then other parents began showing up with their children, and his chances for intimidation became far less frequent.  

My father used to say, "Everything begins with respect" - respect for myself and respect for the people around me. God gave each of us the power to choose our own way.  I have a hard enough time making sense of my own life without trying to take control of someone else's.