Okay so that IS a bold statement … but hear me out!!
From personal experience as well as professional observation it can be done by establishing these two words within your child:
Inner Confidence.
After 30+ years of teaching in inner city schools in both England and the USA I have seen time and time again that it is a child who has a high degree of inner confidence will be far less likely to be subjected to the awful oppression of being bullied than those who – for whatever reason – have developed low self esteem.
We could speculate for a long time as to why, for a multitude of reasons, any child takes on a lower assessment of their self worth. We could cover such topics as ‘peer pressure’, the ‘absence of parental involvement’, a ‘natural tendency’ to be ‘sensitive’ etc. etc. Then in accord with such speculation pontificate about a multitude of solutions…and this will achieve little to nothing for your situation
So I am going to state that in exactly the same way that the majority of phobias are rooted in one fear – The Fear of Death.
So most of the reasons for a child’s low self esteem is rooted in this.
The Fear of Man
Where phobias may be rooted in a physical death, the Fear of Man his may be considered a fear of a form of Social Death. This may have been established over time by any number of negative social interactions with family and friends -and even from internal ones when looking at social media and contrasting what is perceived as the status / experience of others with their own.
It is only by seeing the world of the bullied through their own eyes that we can ever get close to understanding the hell on earth it can create for them.
The sad truth is that no amount of telling them that the ‘should do this … or that’ – however well meant ever works adequately, and such bullied children grow up into being bullied adults living out their lives under a cloud of fear and shame.
So what can be done?
There has to be an inner transformation, an opening up to the possibility that the life that they have been experiencing doesn’t have to continue.
This is beautifully illustrated in a recently released book called ‘Getting Home Safely,’ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ667XDJ
This details the inner perspective of a victim of bullying to first the awareness then the realization of a bully-free life and takes the reader through his journey in a very personal way.
It also underscores the timeless truth that:
If you look like a victim you are far more likely to be one!
It is in development of the ‘inner persona’ that the aura of being a possible ‘victim’ is dismissed and that, in my view, can only be achieved by directly through training in a meaningful self defense system.
Let’s be very clear here, while there are a lot of martial arts systems teaching how to kick and punch, the most credible ones emphasize on developing awareness of your circumstances not acts of aggression against a possible perpetrator!
Such awareness skills can be practiced almost immediately and in essence can and should be adopted by everyone. Yet at best they teach only avoidance while the ‘secret’ of the inner glow of confidence is training in what to actually do in the (unlikely) event of having to respond physically.
The stark reality is that most bullies look for an ‘easy target’ and whenever they perceive that they will face resistance ‘disengage.’
Learning how to defend oneself can increase self-confidence because it changes a person’s sense of agency — the feeling that “I am not helpless.”
When someone trains in self-defense or martial arts they usually gain:
- Body awareness
- Posture and presence
- Situational awareness
- Ability to respond under pressure
Those changes often make someone appear less vulnerable, which can actually reduce the likelihood of being targeted by bullies.
Bullies typically look for low-risk targets.
Research and practical experience in schools and law enforcement show that people with self-defense training tend to:
- stand straighter
- maintain eye contact
- speak more firmly
- set boundaries sooner
Those signals communicate “not an easy target.”
Regular training also affects the brain:
- exercise increases dopamine and serotonin
- mastery experiences increase self-efficacy
- stress training reduces panic response
So the benefit is neurological as well as psychological.
The best self-defense programs emphasize:
- Awareness and avoidance
- Verbal boundary setting
- Escape strategies
- Physical defense as a last resort
This prevents the training from becoming aggression training.
Good programs often reduce violence rather than increase it. This is very well described in Getting Home Safely and as the reviews show this truly resonates with those highly trained teachers of martial arts