When you were a child, did you ever get a bully to stop? How?

I just bullied them back and when I started getting better at it then them they moved on to someone else.. I was never one to let others push me around.. they knew better and if they didn’t.. they learned.

I either shamed them, fought them, or confused them.

In elementary school, there was a boy who picked on everyone, and we got into an argument during school one day. He told me he was going to kick my ass after school, as I was walking home. Sure enough, on my way home, there he was. I faced him, alone (I was a teeny little girl), while he was surrounded by friends (all boys). I said something about how comical it was that he brought a freakin’ army to fight one little girl. Then I told him that if he really felt the need to beat me up to be a ‘big man’, to go ahead, but I was going home. I turned around and walked away (scared to death, inside). He didn’t follow, and he never bothered me again.

When I was a little older, I got into a number of (physical) fights with boys. I mostly won, right up until puberty. People knew I would fight if necessary, so I wasn’t a target.

Older still, I nearly got into a fight at a skating rink, with a group of ‘tough’ girls. I talked my way out of it very rationally, using all the big words I could. They kind of shook their heads and wrote me off as weird. I’m ok with that. ;)

I had a smart mouth and a quick right cross. Most left humiliated, but a couple of violent types left bloody. Almost broke one kid’s nose once. I could never understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to try and force me to fight when I was bigger than all of them. Luckily, you only have to deck one or two guys for the rest to leave you alone.

I fought back when she punched me as I was walking out of my German class. She had been in trouble so many times, this was the final straw. I was suspended for three days, she was kicked out of school.

I also used @augustlan confusion tactic.

There was this notorious bully in our school, tall, big, but not very smart.
One day he shoved me out of the way at the line for the drinks machine. I was uber polite to him, “Did you want to go first? Please. No really, please. I’m not in a rush.”
He was really confused.

I was the best shot on the high school rifle team. And I just told the bully that I was willing to take a beating from him, was he willing to risk taking a bullet from me?

Where have you been @Hobbes? Anyway, regarding your question, here is what I wrote in response to @Joker94’s question, Do bullies ever deserve to be bullied back?

I don’t know what the answer is for every situation, but I can relate a true tale from my own youth that might help.

Not bullied back, but beating the tar out of one may straighten him out. I had a neighborhood bully move in and start terrorizing me when I as a kid. I took his punishment and cruelty for far too long. I kept turning the other cheek and ending up with matching bruises.

One day I was playing in an overgrown acre near home when he showed up with an air rifle and he suddenly got the bright idea to make me run from him, and try to shoot me in the back with his BB gun. When the first pellet hit, it hurt so bad I just lost it. I turned around and ran full tilt at him. He shot me twice more while I was closing in, but when I got to him I beat the living Hell out of him and broke his Daisy BB rifle over his head.

From that day on, his attitude totally changed. We ended up best friends, but I think it was because Butch had learned I wouldn’t take any more crap from him.

It seems to be mostly true that bullies are only bullies when they think they can get away with it. Showing them otherwise, without involving authorities is often the best way to stop them. It might have something to do with their sense of right and wrong. They seem to be deluded into believing that aggression is right so if you can out-aggression them, they respect you for it rather than think ill of you. It’s odd.

In fifth grade, I was bullied by two kids in class. Mostly, I just let it roll off my back. One day in class, I’d had enough. One hard open hand slap was loud enough to let everyone in class know what just happened. The embarrassment he suffered was enough to let the other bully know to back off as well. Never happened again.

My fists.

Kicking his ass. I don’t condone violence but I realize it’s part of humanity and I don’t shy away from it. When I was real young, I got beat and bullied a few times before my dad told me that it was ok to fight back just so long as I wasn’t being a bully myself. It took some courage but after I got tired of getting my ass beat, I learned that I could fight back. I’m honestly thankful for those early black eyes and ass beatings because that taught and prepared me to take a hit. Most fighting isn’t about beating the other person as much as it is being able to take a beating…. Especially when you’re a small fellow like I am. I’ve been able to fight (and win) against guys three times my size.

Back to the question though… I’ve learned that most bullies bully to make themselves look good. You can ignore it and take the high road, OR you can get pushed to the point of fighting back and show them that you won’t be pushed around. Once they realize you won’t take it, they usually back off.

Yeah. I became friends with the biggest girl in the classroom who had a mutual dislike for the bully.
Only the bully didn’t pic on her because she knew she would lose the fight. Needless to say the bully was picking on me one day and my friend stepped in to help me. The bully pushed me and my friend punched her hard.
It wasn’t a planned thing. But I realized it never hurts to have some really big friends. :D

No, I was miserable through my entire school career.

I didn’t, but my mom told me her older sister beat up her persecutors.

People have been messing with me for a long time. I don’t fit into groups very well, so I didn’t like lunch so much. I usually hid in a classroom or outside for lunch. My best friends were usually in books. I was a bright, athletic, good-looking kid, hell for the most part I was super-fucking-charming… but I was always this outsider. I never meant to be an individual, I just was myself, which most people found pretty weird. “Wait you aren’t trying to be different? That’s soo weird!”

If other kids got rough, I got rougher no matter how many of them they were. I’ve had older and bigger kids pick on me, you know what stops them? Fight back, be too much trouble for them.
Once my college football team was “after me” for a about a semester. They wussed out, true story.

I think a wee bit of fisticuffs is good for one’s soul. Of course I think dueling is ok too, honorable sort that I am.

Oh & Johnny Depp’s mom is cool.

But I’ll always be, a lover > a fighter.

After rereading my answer over and over again, I feel that I should mention that sometimes, no matter how hard you want to, you can’t beat a bully. I’ve fought people (and groups) to try to prove my point and stand my ground and gotten some of the worst beatings of my life. ...So is the way of fighting.
Sometimes you can’t win but holding your ground and standing up for yourself isn’t anything to ever be ashamed of. Even if you get beat so bad that you can’t see out of either swollen eye.

One time I just started BS’ing with him like I liked him and that nullified his aggression. Two other occasions and with two other bullies I just got pissed off and wrestled them to the ground and make them give up.

I used to live next door to this really big boy who was the street bully. I was not a particularly big child. One day his mum came to my house to say that he had come home crying and said Elizabeth had hit him and she was a bit stunned because I was a year younger too. So they asked me about it and I said “I hit him back first”. Seems fair to me. Got in before he could get me. Not that I would advocate violence of course, but my philosophy has always been you have to stand up to bullies. We were best friends after that and he never bullied me again.

For the most part, I avoided or ignored bullies in school. They were always mostly over grown and much bigger than me. I knew they would pound me into the grown, so I always walked away from them..sometimes…run.
All ‘Bullies’ need their ass stomped..while reading the responses on this thread, I love the ones that fought back.

The only problem I had with a bully as a child was my older brother. He used to pick on me all the time until I was big enough to beat the stuffing out of him when I was about 9. He never picked on me after that.

When I was 8 years old, there used to be this 23 year old guy who used to come downstairs to the field and used to try and cheat us 6–10 year olds out of our marbles by cheating. He often used to be seen torturing cats and other small animals. His name was Eugenio, as well as torturing cats and cheating kids out of marbles, he also used to like to hand out the occasional random beating.

This guy used to bully more or less all the kids in the building, until we all reached the age of about 12–13. One day we had enough of his giving us problems, so we all met up one day in the field and planned to give him a taste of his own medicine. When he “came out to play” that day, about a dozen or so of us used a load of sticks and stones to give him a good beating. He never bothered us after that.

Now days he is in a wheelchair. No, not because of the beating we gave him, we did not hurt him that bad, but a few years later at a night club he had a funny turn after taking some pills of some kind, and now all he can do is pull faces, make noises and drool.

There was this really fat kid that used to follow me home from school everyday and say nasty stuff and push me over (I was the weird foreign British kid at school in the USA). One day I just snapped and spun around and smashed him in the face with my lunch box (I remember it was a metal Transformers one, it was the 80’s). Turns out I broke his nose and I got in so much trouble at school for it, the kids dad even involved the police. My dad just gave me a big hug and told me he was proud of me for sticking up for myself.

I forgot the most important bit. After that the fat little fucker never said another word to me, in fact I don’t think he ever even looked at me again.

I found an ally.

I beat her ass. ;)

Guy in my grade was bullying my little sister on the bus. So, next day when he came to the bus stop, I punched him in the gut in front of everyone and told him to knock it off.

—

Thing is, that was a first for me. I was nervous and shaky all the night before planning how I’d do it. Couldn’t hardly sleep. I’m not even sure what I said exactly after hitting him as the blood was rushing in my ears. Was still amped up on adrenaline for a while after.

In the midst of it all, it seemed like there were so many things that could go wrong, or turn out differently, or were more attractive alternatives.

In retrospect, it was exactly the right thing to do. I don’t know if that jerk really learned his lesson, but I learned that sometimes decisive action of some kind is the correct way to resolve a problem. Even if you’re unsure how it will turn out, move ahead. Because doing nothing would certainly have been worse.

I was a smaller sized kid at thirteen. I had long hair and skateboarded. I was kind of an outcast at my school in a small southern town where being preppy, redneck, or cowboy was more common and these guys picked on skaters and weird art and rocker weirds. I was at the county fair purchasing a corn dog when a guy a couple years older, a head taller and 40 pounds heavier than me who I had known my whole life and was friendly with when we played little league together wanted to impress his camo wrangler roper boot wearing buddies. He called me a hippie faggot. Puncheded me in the gut then took my corndog and threw it on the ground and stomped on it. He started to walk off and I pulled a can of pepper spray out of my pocket I had stolen from wal mart. I said “Brian turn around!” He did and i sprayed him real good and long in the face. He fell to the ground and i kicked jim and stomped him until undercover cops whisked he up and took me to a police trailer at the fair. Witnesses told them he hit me and I was legally entitled to kick his ass. They gave me my pepper spray and sent me on my way. That guy said he was going to kill me for a few months but finally got over it started smoking pot and ultimately was nice to me again probably just because I scored him weed even though i taxed the shit out of him.

Maybe. I had a boy threaten to “beat me up” after school in sixth grade. After school he approached me and did something; I don’t remember what he did, I was terrified and blocked it out and cried all the way home.
In seventh grade I had shot up much taller than he had over summer. Early in the year we passed in the aisle of a classroom and I kicked him in the leg as hard as I could (I had hard soled brown leather shoes) and he yelled. His mother called mine about it but mom didn’t say anything. She knew he had tormented me. He was wearing a metal brace on his leg; I don’t know which leg I slammed.

“but finally got over it started smoking pot and ultimately was nice to me again”

If anyone doubts that weed is a good thing, here’s your evidence :)