How did your parents respond to bullying?

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For dealing with bullying during your formative years, which I'm quite sure 99.999% of us had to deal with to one degree or another...how did your parents (or step-parents) deal with it? Were they generally supportive and pissed off at what you had to endure, more stoic and impartial, or more "betrayal-like" where they said you must have done something to trigger it (i.e. the repugnant "blame the victim" mentality).

It was mixed for me...my stepdad and mother were all the way in my corner, and my stepdad even told me what he'd like to do to "those little s**ts" and encouraged me to do the same, and that I'd be blameless if I had to go berserk on them to defend myself and got suspended. With my stepmom, totally different story. She was a total Type-A personality, short fused, and a large woman too like we're talking 5'10", 165 lbs, close to my dad's size so when I was in my early teens complaining about bullying, she flippantly told me that "it's because of the way you act. you're different." If I told her I don't know how to act any other way, she'd just scream "WELL YOU'D BETTER LEARN HOW, AND FAST!!" In other words...yep you got it..."blame the victim".
She was really intimidating. And my dad would just take her side, albeit hesitantly.
It came to a head when one day at 14 I got into a scuffle with some a-hole kid who kept mocking me, we both got suspended for 2 days, and I really got hell from her - like video games confiscated for two months, allowance cut off, grounded, thrown against the wall and screamed at, despite my insisting that the kid pissed me off to the point where I snapped. She was of the firm opinion that it was my fault for inciting it. It seems that NTs have this divine right to not be subjected to any annoyance that deviates from their social framework /script, and so they retaliate by harassing the offender for their (unintentional) annoyance. So she was just upholding that. She more or less told me that there was little I could do about it if people decided to target me, basically that it was my lot in life to be harassed and persecuted. (Wished that I'd lived with my mom and stepdad then instead, but circumstances didn't quite allow for it.)

She died relatively early, in her 60s from heart disease (my dad's still alive), and I've got a good job, house and family, in my early 40s so I resolved not to end up like her. Since I have two small daughters, I realize that bullying among girls is more emotional abuse than physical assault or "you're a fag" taunts, but I will be in their corner if they're on the suffering end and otherwise won't condone them tormenting other girls.

My mom would get sad when I would tell her about things people said to me, and tell the school administrators. That only made the bullying a million times worse because bullies hate getting into trouble and usually will deny the things they say and do that are mean to people if asked about it. Eventually, I stopped telling my mom. After I graduated, I told her some more about the bullying I experienced and she didn't believe me and said I "imagined it

It was just my mom and I when I was dealing with bullying. When I was being bullied and severely harassed by the boys that lived next door, my mother seemed very stoic and uncaring or unaware. I begged her to help me as I literally feared for my life (they said they were going to kill me). Begged us to move away, begged her to talk to their parents. She did nothing until one of them pulled out a knife and threatened me with it. After that, she went out and talked to him, but it still continued. I was only seven at that time and it lasted for a few years before we finally moved, for different reasons.
When a neighborhood bully chased me and threatened to beat me up when I was a teenager, my mom said "If you can't play nice, don't play at all."

She was mainly clueless or couldn't be bothered. I don't really understand most of her behavior as a mother.

As for bullying at school, she did try and call the school but nothing could be done.

Now that I'm older and can express myself better, I've talked to her about it a bit and she seems like she was unaware of most of it. I think she just ignored it, though. There were times, like when my father attacked me or when I was molested, that she was definitely aware of what happened but she was completely stoic about it and acted like it didn't happen or that she didn't believe me or that I deserved it.

My mom always thought I was exaggerating how badly I was bullied. I went to a sports camp one summer, and it was the worst hell I ever endured. I begged every day to be taken out of there because kids would make fun of me, spread rumors about me, call me names, steal things from me, distract me just for the hell of it when I was trying to read, and physically attack me. The counselors didn't do anything about it; in fact, they joined in on bullying me. I actually paid kids to be my bodyguards. I'm not making this up. My mom never talked to teachers or counselors about my bullying, and when I did, nobody did anything about it.

My mother was a grisly bear, ready to kill anyone who threatened her cubs. I quickly learned that the cost of setting her on anyone is that I knew the punishment would always be worse than the crime. As such, I dealt with a lot of things on my own. It wasn't revenge I wanted anyway, it was respect. This a person can't get from their mother protecting them all the time. Still, I always knew she was in my corner if I needed her.

My dad had a lot of insightful thoughts on interpersonal conflict that helped me to understand why people behave the way they do sometimes. He never told me what to do so much as talked me through situations where I couldn't figure out what the other person was thinking or what I was feeling. I think still today that is good advice. If someone gets competitive with me at work or puts me down, I try to look at things from their perspective and try to figure out their motivations. It's really tempting to write people as irrational when they are unkind. More often than not feelings come from someplace though. I think that was important for me to learn as a young person... to just think about that before I react however I choose to. I'm not the most delicate, so I think the more I can do that, the better.

oh- right, also, I learned martial arts. It has only happened rarely in my life since I started training, but when physical bullying is instigated... I end it , np

My mother was never involved when I was obviously struggling. My stepfather told me, I can be a victim or a protector of myself and those in need. Probably good advice, but I don’t think he cared (maybe borderline abusive). While most of my classmates didn’t bother me, some was settle and I mostly ignored them. It was hard to ignore abusive teachers… One of them I am glad she went to jail and is on a list.

My mother would tell me they were just jealous or tell me how she bets they can't do pottery like I can or telling me they don't even know me. She would also tell me they were just second graders and I took that as they could make fun of how I talked because they were in second grade but when they get to third grade, it wouldn't be okay anymore because that rule would have changed. In 4th grade I was told it was all normal what I was going through and when I said all the Beths in the world got picked on, my mom said "All the Marys in the world get picked on too" implying she was teased too as a child but I had doubts she had that all the time instead of once in a while.

I don't think my parents took me seriously until I told them it happens to me all the time and my little brother told them how mean kids are to me. I am sure they were shocked.

In 6th grade I would get into fights with other kids because I had been provoked enough and had enough of it from over the years and my school tried to say I had a behavior problem and wanted me in a behavior program. My parents had to get an attorney. My school principal expected me to toughen up and when she didn't like how I did it, she wanted me in a behavior program. it was mostly the special ed teacher that wanted it because she was inflexible with her teaching and if any kid couldn't do it her way, she would want them somewhere else.

My mother really couldn't give two s**ts. She expected me to handle it on my own.

Fortunately, it never got so bad where a knife was pulled on me, or I had to pay someone to protect me.

It got somewhat bad at times, though, and I knew my mother wasn't in my corner.

You know, I can't recall how/if my parents responded. Maybe I'm forgetting or maybe I didn't tell them much about it because I'm more of a "suffer in silence" type person. I do however clearly remember how the school administrators/teachers handled it. In middle school they were absolutely horrible! Teachers would literally watch and do nothing as I was bullied. If I approached the teachers about it, the bullies would get (at most) a slap on the wrist.

One day, when it was particularly bad, I pressed the issue with a teacher and, next thing I know, the bullies and I are being chewed out by an administrator (vice-principle maybe). To my complete and utter surprise (and disgust) he not only yelled at me but threatened to suspend me for not reporting the issue sooner. At that point I felt completely confused and betrayed. I pretty much decided to keep quite and take the abuse because I didn't want to get myself in trouble again. I still can't understand his logic in threatening me. It's not like I fought back or anything. I think that administrator had it out for me. On other occasions he would harass me for the most illogical reasons. There was also a bus driver who liked to harass me and encouraged the other kids to an extent.

To my pleasant surprise, things were totally different in high school. I was still bullied but the teachers/administrators would almost never sit idly by. Of course they weren't around/able to see it all the time. If I brought anything to their attention, it would be dealt with swiftly.

I don't think my parents knew anything about the bullying. I found it embarrassing, so i never talked to them about it.

They probably would've been supportive if I had told them.

I got into fights on, at least, a weekly basis and never told my parents. Of course, they worked out what was happening (coming home covered in blood will do that) and they asked my teacher if I was being beaten up. He replied that there was nothing to worry about as I always gave as good as I got. Not really very helpful. I did learn to look after myself and won pretty much all fights (I remember losing one to a knock-out and one when I badly sprained my wrist) but this did nothing to stop the bullying as they would try to fight me just so they could say they beat me. I'd have rather they just left me alone. I was once chased by at least twenty kids all over the school until they cornered me at the top of a tower-block. Another time I was in a fight that lasted twenty minutes and both our white shirts were completely red with blood - all the teacher did was congratulate us on lasting so long. Oh, and once when I was nine a teacher punched me in the kidney - all she got was a verbal reprimand by the head. I stopped fighting when I sent a friend to the hospital. After that, I just ignored them, kept myself to myself and put up with it until I left school.

So yes, my parents cared but left it alone as long as I didn't start any of the fights.

My parents had me switch second grade teachers because the first one I had was a bully because I "fidgeted" too much as she expected kids to sit perfectly still in class. Once I switched classes, things were fine, and no other teacher complained about "fidgeting." As far as bullying by other kids goes, my mom tried saying something to another teacher who said she was making it up, so my parents didn't really get too involved with trying to stop it. They believed that if I just "ignored" it, they would stop, which of course now is total BS, since ignoring doesn't do anything. The bullying was basically verbal, so I never got in trouble for fighting, but I think if I didn't start fights, my parents wouldn't have punished me for fighting back. Eventually, the only thing that got the bullying to stop was that we moved, and I got to go to a different junior high and high school. By high school, I found my niche among the other band geeks and debate team nerds so there wasn't really any bullying at all.

My parents tried to help me the best they could, but did not understand the extent of the bullying that I was facing at school. Unfortunately, my father was traveling a lot due to work, so he was not there as much as he would have liked to have been. My mother was distracted dealing with my sister's drug habit after she dropped out of college. I do not blame them for what happened to me. I kept some things from them as I was ashamed at what was done to me by my classmates.

However, it was my parents that saved me though. They moved me to another school away from the bullying and I finished high school there. If they had not done that, I would likely be resting in pieces as certain classmates had plans to finishing me off during prom night that year. (I had very good Intel on their intentions to finally kill me off. They had made three previous failed attempts on my life. In that small town, certain people could literally get away with murder.) I will also admit that I had similar plans for them in defending myself. It would have been a bloodbath on both sides that no school official would have had the ability to stop. At the time, I was ready to die at their hands to be finally done with the harassment from them. I just wanted the innocent parties to not get involved and to watch the show from the sidelines. I do not condone my behavior now, but at the time I had a much different perspective on life.

My brother had to go to martial arts training. My mom said I was too mean to get such training. Bullies quickly learned what that meant.