The (Potential) Benefits of Getting Bullied

Angelo Baaco · Follow

5 min read · Oct 30, 2019

Listen Share

For a brief time when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I got bullied. On a daily basis, a
much larger kid, along with a couple of his buddies, threatened to beat me up if I
didn’t give him money. Being a kid from a recently immigrated, not-very-well-off
family, I didn’t actually have any money to give him. The experience induced a lot of
anxiety whenever I had to go to school and I eventually told my parents.
Even before I got bullied, my parents somewhat prepared me and told me to expect
to meet a-holes in the world who will eventually bully me. It wasn’t to scare me. It
was to prepare me so that I’m not surprised when it happens. They told me that
when it happens, to stand my ground and not let any bullies push me around. I
should try to talk the bully out of doing what he’s doing, and if absolutely necessary,
not be afraid to throw hands and fight back.

My parents never intervened. They never called my school or the bully’s parents.
Eventually, after weeks of not acquiescing toy bully’s threats and just standing up to
him by saying no, the bullying stopped. We thankfully never came to blows. I think I
eventually gained his respect because he saw I wasn’t backing down from him. We
never really became good friends, but everything was smooth sailing and he and his
friends eventually left me alone.

…………………………………………………..

Today, with the best of intentions, schools have anti-bullying programs. Kids are
encouraged to immediately report bullying behaviour (be it physical, verbal or
online) to a teacher or an adult. Some schools have zero tolerance policies on
bullying and fighting. While the spirit behind these rules are commendable, there
are some weird arguments that can be made to say that in certain situations,
bullying can have some positive effects on kids.

Bullying experiences acts as fuel for success

How many stories of accomplished people in all walks of life have started by being
subjected to bullying?

At some point, a lot of great art has been produced in reaction to people being
oppressed, being bullied and being put in adverse situations. Many comedians will
tell you that one of the reasons they learned to make people laugh was because they
didn’t want to get picked on. Many authors have taken the pain they felt from
bullying and put that into creating great works of literature. The field of acting is
filled with people who are constantly seeking validation from other people,
especially from “the cool kids” who excluded them when they were younger.

Look into the biographies of some of the wealthiest and most successful
professional athletes (especially professional fighters). You’ll see that part of the
reason they started their sport was because they were bullied.
Former two-division UFC champion Georges St-Pierre has openly shared that being bullied at school is what
started him in martial arts.

Bullying can teach kids conflict resolution skills

With zero-tolerance bullying policies, kids are told to immediately report any
bullying to teachers and their parents. On the surface, this sounds good. Eventually,
if things get bad, you will want an adult to intervene and stop the bullying
behaviour.

Here’s my problem with it. If kids who are getting bullied decide to immediately go
to an adult as directed, they won’t necessarily learn how to resolve the conflict with
bullies on their own. Instead, they will learn that the first thing they need to do
when there’s a conflict is to look for an authority figure to defend them.

So what happens when these kids grow up to be adults? What if they have an
“intimidating” neighbour who’s playing music too loudly at night? Will they be more
likely to call the landlord or the cops immediately to complain? Or will they talk to
the neighbour first and nicely ask to turn the music down?

What if it’s just a co-worker being a bit rude or inappropriate in the office? An adult
who as a kid learned to go to an authority figure will immediately go to their boss or
to HR instead of figuring out a way to confront the office bully in a way that will
help make the bullying stop while trying to keep the working relationship healthy.

Bullying can help kids learn social skills

One factor (though not the only one) that causes kids to get bullied seems to be the
fact that they’re not as socially adept as their peers. I’d hate to sound like a “victim-
blamer”, but most of the time, the kids that get bullied are the ones who haven’t yet
developed the social skills needed to make friends, making them easy targets for
bullies.

This is where parental preparation can be helpful. Teaching kids to be friendly,

interested, curious and unafraid of rejection will help them talk to other kids. That
will help them start conversations, find common ground and make friends more
easily. Building social skills early will prevent a kid from getting bullied.

On a large scale, a lot of the school programs have learned this is the case and have
been slowly implementing social skill building workshops for kids. The great thing
about this is that it won’t just prevent bullying but will also develop adults with
better social skills in the future.

Final Thoughts
Now, I’m not an advocate of bullying. It’s a terrible experience that I wouldn’t like
any kid to feel. In fact, the online bullying of today makes it so much more of a
difficult experience because it’s no longer confined to a specific time and place. It
can now happen to anyone 24x7 with technology and social media. In many cases,
extreme bullying has sadly led to suicides. In that sense bullying is toxic.

However, like with any poison, it’s all in the dosage. Bullying can provide the
benefits mentioned above, but it has to be the right amount and the right intensity.
My thought is that it should be like weight training. If you start with bullying that’s
too much for the kid to handle, they will simply be crushed by the psychological and
physical trauma. This is where online bullying can be a problem because the
bullying doesn’t end when the kid leaves the school.

With just the right amount, paired with proper parental preparation and
management of expectations, bullying can help a kid strengthen their minds, learn
to deal with conflicts, with people in general, and maybe even motivate them to
succeed in the future. The difficult part is finding the right balance that will build
someone up instead of destroying them.

Bullying Victim Blaming Learning Conflict Resolution Social Skills

 Follow

Written by Angelo Baaco

49 Followers

Cranky, elder millennial. Professional listener, talker and email sender. Office occupant by day. Dojo dweller
by night. Happily married husband 24/7.

More from Angelo Baaco

Angelo Baaco

Why Do Humans Like Combat Sports?

4 min read · Mar 19, 2016

-- 1
 Angelo Baaco

Kata: What is it Good For?

At least three things, actually…

5 min read · May 25, 2016

--

Angelo Baaco

Why Young Practitioners Quit Martial Arts

If you teach or run a traditional martial arts school, you’ll notice that kids will make up the
majority of your students. What you’ll also…

4 min read · May 8, 2016

--

Angelo Baaco

Your Lunch is Cultural Appropriation

How your dietary choices can help stop world-wide oppression

6 min read · May 15, 2019

--

See all from Angelo Baaco

Recommended from Medium

 Search

Nick Wignall

4 Habits of Emotionally Strong People

#1: Control your attention, not your emotions

7 min read · May 13

-- 273

Oyinade

Stop Telling People Everything

My experience

3 min read · Oct 9

-- 576

Lists

Self-Improvement 101
20 stories · 987 saves

How to Find a Mentor

11 stories · 304 saves

Good Product Thinking

11 stories · 365 saves

Work 101
26 stories · 69 saves

Unbecoming

10 Seconds That Ended My 20 Year Marriage

It’s August in Northern Virginia, hot and humid. I still haven’t showered from my morning trail
run. I’m wearing my stay-at-home mom…

· 4 min read · Feb 16, 2022

 -- 1016

AL Anany

The ChatGPT Hype Is Over — Now Watch How Google Will Kill ChatGPT.
It never happens instantly. The business game is longer than you know.

· 6 min read · Sep 1

-- 616
 Yuval Idan

To my Western leftist friends, from your leftist Israeli friend

The last two weeks (or almost three) have been the worst of many of our lives. I started writing
this on October 7th, and I’ve been writing…

14 min read · Oct 25

-- 329

Isaac Saul

A personal, non-partisan perspective on the Israel-Hamas war

To understand this war, we must understand the thousand-year history that led us here

11 min read · Oct 12

-- 535

See more recommendations