Confronted bullies of kid brother. Advice please.

zerg · Newbie User Joined: Mar 04, 2008 Posts: 2

Got a kid step-brother 11 yrs old (I'm 28 ). He is the smallest child in his class and he is getting constantly bullied by 2 bigger and stronger kids. I'm not quite sure about the extent of this abuse since he doesn't tell me much, but he does call me often and sometimes sounds like he's been crying when he tells me about it. As I later found out it's been going on since his first day of school (4 years). He asked me if I could help him with this guy who's been picking on him the most. For the first couple of times I joked about it and told him the typical stuff adults tell kids: kick his ass, tease him back, ignore him etc... Recently however the calls for help got a little all too frequent and the look on his face told me that he was not happy. At all. So I decided to do something about it. I told him that next time a bully messes with him, he dials me on my cell phone and lets me speak to the bully. I didn't have much faith in this but nonetheless thought to give it a try before personally going there. Of course the foreseeable thing happened and the bully just hung up on me and said something along the lines "If you call your brother I'll call my dad" and showed the cellphone back to my brother. So I got into my car and drove to this school. Now, having expirience with bullies from my childhood I knew that getting teachers, psychs and parents involved would do little good. After all, my brother's mom went to school many times to complain to the teacher about this and guess what? Nothing happened. NOTHING. I decided to take it out with these little bastards myself. I wanted to avoid all the teachers, the principals and other useless idiots and get to them directly. My brother was very concerned about this because he feared he could get in trouble with his principle (he's a very innocent kid and fears he could get bad marks because of me helping him with bullies, can you believe that?). So I told him I'll get them while they're going home from school. Parked the car outside of the school yard and waited . The deal was for my brother to stand in a visible place and and point to the bullies and I'd aproach them before they realise so they have no chance to escape or get into the school. Anyway, my brother comes to my car, and points to these two kids who were in the school yard talking. Surprise surprise, they're both bigger, a head taller and much heavier build than my bro. So I get out of the car, followed by my brother, starting to walk up to these two , who to my surprise, just stand there looking at us, not even bothering to run. We approach. One glance at them is enough to see these were your typical little pricks - never had anything denied from them, parents never disciplined them, bigger than other kids, full of attitude, cold look in their eyes. I can see they have very little fear of adults. After all, what could an adult do? Complain about it to a teacher? Hah. Now my plan was to just talk to these kids and scare them properly ( I mean they're just kids after all) but seeing them angered me. Took another look at my little brother and my blood started boiling. *INSTANTLY* Those little fucks, so confident, so full of themselves, kings of their own little world... beating on a sweet little innocent kid who did nothing to them. I was raged. So I get up to them and ask my brother: "WHICH ONE HIT YOU?" He says: "Both". Before either of them has a chance to say anything I grab them both by their throats and showe them up to the back window of a car. BAM! In a blink of an eye I can see the look on their faces go from confident to super pidgeon-shit scared. I get real close to their faces, so they can feel my breath: " YOU HURTING MY BROTHER?" "YOU HURTING MY BROTHER!?" the terrified look in their eyes gets wild(omg he's going to kill us?!!?) I look them straight in the eyes. "LOOK AT HIM, LOOK HOW SMALL HE IS AND YOU'RE HURTING HIM?............... IF YOU EVER TOUCH MY BROTHER AGAIN, EVER, I WILL FIND YOU AND I WILL RIP, YOUR HEADS OFF! NOT YOUR DAD, YOUR MOM, NOR JESUS CHRIST WILL HELP YOU. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?" They nod. I shout "SAY: UNDERSTOOD SIR!" They both say it. I release my hands, turn around and walk away with my brother. As we walk away I can see that they are starting to cry. My brother tells me "Look what you did. They're crying now!" - "Let them."

Now comes the difficult part............

as good as that might've felt at the moment, I started feeling shitty about it right away. First of all, my kid brother was shocked by the brutality I displayed towards another kid. Frankly I was shocked myself. I didn't hurt the kids physically, when showing them by their throats I was careful not to squeeze my hand too hard or appy too much preassure. It was a very bad idea to go for their throats in the first place but I was infuriated! I just wanted them to feel a little bit of insecurity, a little bit of powerlessness, to feel how it is to be at mercy of someone much stronger than yourself. Second, I cannot stop thinking "what if they're not really the animals I've percieved them to be? What if my own childhood experiences made me hurt these kids more than I had to? I mean they're just kids damn it! Even my little brother was shocked..." Now I heard from my brother's mom that a mother of one of the kids was over and said that her son is still shaking from fear and is afraid to go to school. Did I overdo with the scare tactics? I feel really REALLY bad about it now. Big hero, torturing little 11yr old boys... Terrible terrible feeling.........What am I to do now tho? Go there and say I didn't mean it? Say I didn't want to be so harsh? I didn't. But to give them no reason to be scared and see my brother in stitches the next day? Makes no sense. Talk to the parents? If talking to them made any sense their kid wouldn't be a bully. Maybe this will help them get their heads out of their asses. They might well want to kill me right now, and the feeling is mutual. Maybe they want to press charges against me? Can they even press charges? If anyone had any similar experiences please do share.

Katex88x · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:49 pm Post subject:

In my opinion I don't think you did anything wrong. Now that you've scared them a bit maybe it will make them think about how it feels to be picked on. I wouldn't worry yourself because there isn't actually any proof that you did anything is there? I'm sure nobody will press charges.

My brother was in the same situation as yours and my dad confronted them similar to you. It's hard to just sit and watch people bully knowing they get a thrill from it, whilst terrifying the life out of somebody. Hey and at least your brother had someone he trusted to talk to.

I hope everything works out fine Smile

Pretender · Newbie User Joined: Mar 04, 2008 Posts: 16

what you did was a bit extreme but i think if you had just talked to them "properly" it wouldn't have made any difference, giving them a good scare will probably make them stop bullying. so imo what you did wasn't that bad. i mean if you hadn't they might've been bullies for the rest of their lives, i hope they stopped now.

IcarusUnderWater · Advanced User Joined: Dec 24, 2007 Posts: 305

oh dear

!!!! Bullying can traumatise people but what you did is just as bad.

If you threatened two boys then they can atleast have the incident investigated and if theres enough proof which there probably is with two victims and multiple witnesses then you could be charged.

You went about it the wrong way even though your intentions were good. You should have told the school and tried speaking to the bullies parents no matter how futile it seems.

You have probably turned your brother in to a bigger target now because the bullies parents will have comforted them and explained that they did nothing wrong and that its 'all ok'.

you should ask if he can change class and if that doesn't work then you should send your brother to a different school.

It sounds like maybe your brother needs to toughen up a bit. He needs to do more sports after school so he can make some friends. Even if he doesn't fit in that well, he can earn some respect form his classmates and then he stands a good chance of being accepted in to a group which will provide protection.

When i was at school, the only people that got their family in, to threaten people like you did, were the bullys and wackos themselves...

You should try and make your brother a bit cooler. Maybe buy him some decent trainers and get him a better haircut etc. That will boost his confidence. He can't keep running to mummy and big sis/bro. He's 11 and if you keep mothering him he will be a loner and keep running away from his problems.

Encourage him to play sports and get him to invite more people over for dinner etc. He should have people stay over everyweek and be meeting up with people nearly everyday after school with his friends.

Does he have a playstation 3 etc? If you didn't have one of those when i was at school then it was a lot harder to make friends. Even if his parents think gadgets etc are a bad influence... you HAVE to let him have them or he will feel like a reject.

Katex88x · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:52 pm Post subject:

IcarusUnderWater · Advanced User Joined: Dec 24, 2007 Posts: 305

stardog · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject:

Hey man you did the right thing. Now they might see their actions have consequences.

Katex88x · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:11 pm Post subject:

LonelyGirl · Newbie User Joined: Sep 27, 2007 Posts: 51 Location: UK

You just gave the bullies what they deserved in my opinion. Now they know what it's like to be on the receiving end. I don't think the school or the parents will see it like that though. They are more likely to want to talk about it with the bullies which, in my experience, doesn't work.

IcarusUnderWater · Advanced User Joined: Dec 24, 2007 Posts: 305