How To Avoid Being A Victim Of Bullying

Look at yourself in the mirror. Check out your body language and make sure that it’s open and positive. While dressing to the nines may not help you feel confident, taking time with your appearance and showing that you care about how you look will make bullies less likely to bother you. Maintaining good hygiene will make you feel better about yourself, which will in turn raise your confidence.

Unfortunately, bullies love to prey on people who don’t have many friends. If this is you, then know that you’re not alone, and try to work on developing friendships with people, or at least getting to know a few acquaintances. Just having someone to sit with in the cafeteria or to walk with in the halls will make you less likely to get picked on.

Of course, you have to get a good read on the situation. If you feel like you’re in a dangerous or threatening situation, then your best bet may really be to back off and get away from the bully as quickly as possible. If the bully keeps annoying you, and saying “Stop!” and standing proud isn’t working out, you can try to outright ignore the bully. If you just walk by like you don’t see him or her, acting like his or her words are having no effect on you, then the bully will be likely to get bored or to disengage pretty quickly. He or she won’t see the point in bullying you if it’s not getting a reaction out of you.

If you visualize positive results after confrontations with bullies, then you are more likely to achieve what you want.

If self-defense classes aren’t up your alley, you can also consider signing up for an after-school sport. Any sport can help you get into shape, and you may even make a few friends along the way.

Bullies don’t like a challenge; they prey on the weak. If they see you and think, “Hey, there’s a guy who is pretty happy with himself,” then they won’t want to make the effort to try to make you feel bad. But if they think, “There’s a guy who is already miserable in his own body,” then they’ll be more likely to make a move.

This is a good short-term strategy, though in the long run, you’ll have to take stronger measures to prevent the bullying.

There’s nothing more frustrating for a bully than a person who doesn’t respond, call him names, or show that he cares at all. If you add fuel to the fire, then you’re just giving the bully exactly what he wants.

Of course, it can be hard to keep your emotions bottled up inside, especially if the bully is really hurting you. Just try to stay calm, breathe, count to ten, or do whatever you can to not let the words hurt you. If you need to cry, try to do it in privacy, and to at least maintain your cool while you’re in the bully’s presence. Though it may sound hard, try not to let the bully’s words get to you or make you think there’s something wrong with you. Remember that the bully is a mean person who takes pleasure out of hurting people – why would you think that anything he/she said was true?

The adult will have an idea of how to handle the situation. If the bullying is really out of hand, then you may even have to contact local law authorities, and the adult can be a big help in navigating the situation.

If you’re down on yourself about being bullied, then this will make the bully even more likely to target you. Instead, you should think and act like you don’t deserve to be treated this way.

You can say something like “Please leave me alone,” but other than that, don’t talk to the person. You can tell the person, “I’m saving evidence of this conversation” to encourage the person to stop bothering you. Beyond this, though, it’s best to avoid talking to the bully at all. Just as in real life, if the bully sees that he or she has the power to make you upset, he or she will be more likely to continue bothering you.

Blocking sends a louder message than engaging with the bully. The bully will see that you’re serious about wanting to be left alone.

Even the act of saving and storing the evidence of the bullying will be empowering for you, even if you decide not to use it.

That said, you should also be careful about whom you accept as a friend on online networks. If you accept absolutely everyone who wants to be your Facebook friend without knowing very much about that person, then it’s more likely that this person will end up making some unpleasant remarks.

It’s never too early to report bullying to adults, and you should never think that you’re being cowardly for stepping forward. In fact, it takes real courage to stand up for yourself and to say something to prevent a situation from happening.