Effective Responses to a Bully

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Are there any strategies that have been used to help a child (young teen) with Asperger's effectively respond to a bully without increasing their own anxiety/anger?

It's going to sound like I'm not taking the question seriously, but I had issues with bullying in school (although it was relatively minor) and I felt so much better and more confident after I attacked them. And they tend to cease bothering you after that, I wouldn't recomend this with the really serious bullies though, the sort who would be likely to carry knives into school and such.

I used to buddy up with older kids, so they'd protect me.

You should get your kid into martial arts training. They don't teach kids how to become fighting bullies. They teach kids how to defend themselves from attack, and when possible, how to deal in a non-violent way with bullies. It's not always possible to deal non-violently with violent people. Sometimes the best method is limited violence of your own. Bullies don't like being beat up themselves. They prefer to do the hitting and hurting of others. Martial arts teachers instruct their students in how to fight, but also, in how to limit the response to what is necessary for the situation.

If your kid doesn't stand up to the bullies, they won't stop, and might even seriously hurt or kill your kid, so the best way to help your kid is to get them properly trained to defend themselves.

Remember, we on the spectrum are all:

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

Saying things like "Isn't that a bit immature?" can work when it comes to milder bullying. To worse bullying, physical self-defence will work if you come out as the "victor". However, it also can work, even if you "lose"... it depends on the kind of bully. Of course, "losing" can be dangerous, at times, but physical fights can be the only way out, at times, seeing as adults at school (if it's in school) often don't care, or simply could do nothing good about it except maybe reporting it to the police (which likely instead would not care).

If you get your child (unless you're actually talking about yourself) to start with martial arts, be concerned with what place your child trains, however... many sick, molestation-desiring people are attracted to starting as trainers for children. It's a good idea to always be present, and that the child never uses any public showers (same in school environments, of course - public showers should be illegal, due to the risks they present).

There is nothing you can really do to prevent it. I had teachers laugh at what bullies did to me. I have had teachers yell at me because everytime I was in their room a bully would attack me. Teachers have told me to ignore them and they will stop hitting me. No teacher will risk a lawsuit to break up a fight.

The only thing that got them to leave me alone for my junior and senior years was to attack them infront of the class and teacher. They were afraid of being beaten up infront of the class. If the teen is too small or too afraid to attack the bullies then tell them to get use to getting knocked around. No one is going to help the teen getting bullied they will only watch and laugh. Someone might half feebly yell for the bully to leave the teen alone but they wont do anything to stop the bully.

Tell the teen to take Judo, Mixed Martial arts, or Boxing training. Violence is the only way to get a bully to leave you alone its all they understand.

I think a good ole fashioned a**-kicking will do the job! Seriously!

I got even with two bullies growing up. The first was walking through the woods and across a small foot-bridge about 6 feet above the creek that was under said bridge. Earlier in the day I skipped school and rigged the bridge to collapse on one side ( with help from my scoutmaster, ) and when the idiot came and crossed the bridge with his idiot friends down they went and then I came out of the tree line with a baseball bat. The rest of the story is rated-R, sorry!

As for bully occasion number two, a jerk blew snot on me repeatedly in Bio class and was standing behind me while doing a poor job of blowing his nose securely. He was doing it intentionally as he did all things he did to people. I became angry and drove my elbow into his gut and he fell to his knees and I stood and face him quickly driving my right knee into his face. Issue solved!

I understand my experience is not the same as everyone else's, so I'm not pretending that the solutions I came up with are going to work for everyone. But here it is anyway, and I apologize in advance if I go a little long...

Dealing with bullying just depends on how you want to handle it. I'm not big on returning violence for violence, and never have been. I did go through a phase where I was pretty suicidal and didn't care if the bullies killed/hurt me or not. I was actually kinda hoping they would. So I'd get in fights with that attitude and actually do some damage. I figured out some things along the way.

One thing to consider is exactly how much getting in trouble with authorities means to you. I went to a private school, so the bullies often had parents on the board of trustees. One of those kids pissed me off enough that I actually threw the first punch and just kept hitting him. Now, MOST kids will wait to catch someone off guard out of adult view. Not me. I punched this guy right in front of the teacher! And you know what? We both got punished for it. And it didn't bother me one bit. But this kid was used to getting away with murder. So the real embarrassment was that he got owned by a wimpy kid, got in trouble over it, and had no way to weasel out of it. And everyone knew about it. His gang threatened me a few times after that, I gave them the finger a few times, and that was pretty much the end of it.

I knew I couldn't keep that act up, though, since I could get expelled for that and they wouldn't punish the other kids that severely. So I just learned to keep my head down and my mouth shut. Except for one or two instances, they all pretty much left me alone for being the "crazy" kid. When I was younger, I'd do the whole Gandhi passive resistance thing which ended up making the bullies look a lot more like the jerks they were. I never cried about it, and I was a lot tougher than I looked. No bruises or anything. So you'd actually have a dozen or so of the bully's gang giving HIM a hard time over it. Bullies have no control without people pulling for them.

All that to say this: If you take the fight to the bully, than you need to assess what the cost is going to be to you and whether that cost is worth it. Can you afford to get in trouble, and if you get in trouble, will you take the bully down with you? It's all very altruistic, but the way things are handled in schools both parties to a fight are punished regardless of who starts the fight. If someone is giving you a hard time, go ahead and throw the first punch if you can't induce the bully into hitting you first. It usually doesn't matter. If you're both just going to get in trouble anyway, it's not going to matter. You have nothing to lose here.

If you find that unacceptable, and I believe most people will, then "love your enemies" is about all the ammo you have. If enough people see that you are being horribly and wrongly abused without cause, they will come to your rescue. The only thing I'd say in either case is to make yourself highly visible so that someone who CAN stop the fight will quickly get involved. I'm a former classroom teacher, and I will say this: Teachers are responsible for the safety of students. If a teacher refuses to become involved in a fight, that is tantamount to allowing the fight to happen and the teacher can be fired over it and the school district can be sued over it. I've had plenty of practice busting up fights or defusing situations--I once had a young mother AND her baby-daddy in the same class, and they hated each other. On more than one occasion they'd bring their domestic disputes in the classroom and I was fortunate enough to keep things from getting physical. It was a classic case of "everything will be fine if you just keep your mouths SHUT." And bullies typically find it hard to justify going after people who don't give them ammo. Go the passive resistance route and you take the air out of their tires and make them look like idiots in front of their friends.

As an adult, I've learned the art of rapid-fire diplomacy. A neighbor's kid was messing with me once as I was trying to leave for work. The step-dad thought I was threatening the kid, when all I was doing was just playing along. So the guy rolls up in my driveway a few days later ready to take my head off. I simply apologized for making the mistake, thinking the kid was playing with me (turns out the kid was deliberately being a jerk and I didn't pick up on it), that I'd be pissed too if it were my son, and suggested we get together sometime over barbecue and beer. I mean, the guy got back in his truck, and I swear the guy was upset because he couldn't beat me up after that. I mean, he was a completely changed guy. So an alternative to just taking your licks would be turn your enemies into your friends. That's the "grownup" response, and it's difficult to communicate these subtleties to young people who may not be able to pick up on social cues so quickly. Keep in mind I'm only in my early 30s and just now figuring a lot of these things out!

You make a lot of great points there, and it seems we've obviously had different experiences in this area. I'm sorry those things happened to you.

As a former teacher, I can say this: The "ignore it" method only works if the bully's target always and consistently ignores the unwanted behavior. Usually this method is practiced by teachers. But the problem with this method is it all depends on what is motivating the unwanted behavior. If the bully is an attention-whore, then all the bully wants is a reaction. Ignore the behavior, and the bully either has to find a different tactic or give up. It's either the first time a bully gets a reaction or when the bully has a different motivation that ignoring it won't work. I have two small children of my own. Whether they know it or not, they are actually learning how to effectively use the "extinction" tactic when dealing with misbehavior. I do this by incessantly picking on my oldest son once I find out something he's sensitive about. When he's past the point of screaming about it, he just won't even look at me and eventually I'll stop. And he in turn does the same thing to his sister, and I coach her on dealing with him about it by telling her to say "whatever," which she does in a beautifully sarcastic tone. Keep in mind they are now 4 and 2. And while I may be heavy-handed in my tactics, the result is they get along remarkably well, handle disputes on their own, and are extremely well-liked by children their own age. Most of that, I think, is their daycare, but I like to think their parents have something to do with it... Anyway--the extinction method only works at suppressing attention-getters. The main thing is assessing a bully's goals and figuring out the best way to either give the bully what he wants (assuming it's appropriate or will stop the behavior) or make getting what the bully wants not worth the effort. My little boy tries to intimidate me knowing full well I'm bigger and badder than he is, so most of the time his "bullying" is just an effort to get me to play with him. Sometimes it's ok to give in as long as that doesn't become an unwanted pattern. I understand that it's not always that easy.

As for lawsuits: Look, there is such a thing as "reasonable force." You only have to worry about the risk to the child if the child's behavior is really so violent that breaking up a fight actually would result in injury to the aggressor. The thing is, there's a greater risk of injury if the teacher does NOT get involved, and the possible consequences are usually greater than if the teacher just leaves it alone. What you have to remember is that fighting kids want to hurt each other, not the teacher, and they'll generally avoid teachers if they can. Once a teacher is involved, the fight is as good as over and the teacher doesn't really have to worry about getting hurt. Teachers who are just content to stand by and be helpless are weak and cowardly and shouldn't even be teaching. Every teacher, especially teachers who know they'll be working with at-risk groups, should have liability insurance of at least $2 million so they won't have to worry about lawsuits should they happen. These policies are available through teachers' unions and are highly affordable. "Reasonable force" is the bare minimum necessary to stop violent behavior and only rarely should result in a student's injury. Fear of lawsuits is a poor excuse. If a teacher is afraid of personal injury to himself, he or she needs to find a different line of work. Just like with police and firemen, risk of injury just comes with the job.

Charge the bully with assault and take him to court.

...what? That's what you'd do if it were an adult attacking you.

One kid I knew of in high school did indeed get charged (and spent some time in Juvie, I believe) for fighting.

If a bully who is a child's former friend tells them that they don't like them so they are going to make their lives miserable so they are going to bully them and taunt them. The child should say back to them 'i am so glad you don't like me because that means you won't call me, talk to me, look at me, I am so glad you don't like me, thank you."

If the child is fat and the bully is picking on them for it, they can say to the bully "At least i can stay warmer in the winter because I have all this meat on me to keep me warm and you have to freeze and wearing extra layers of clothes and I won't even need a coat or a sweater."

If the kid is being egged to do something and the bully calls them a chicken, the child can start flapping his elbows and go "bawk bawk bawk I'm a chicken, bawk bawk bawk."


I remember in high school, I got s strange IM from someone claiming to be from my school and that he knew my secret and he was going to tell everyone about it. he told me he saw me getting them at Wal mart and I took it all cool and told him okay and the next day he didn't tell anyone so when he IM me again I told him he didn't tell anyone. He kept telling me he will tell them eventually and I kept telling him he forgot to tell the whole school. That never happened. I honestly didn't take the person seriously and I had suspicion it was my stalker anyway posing as my school mate. So to be sure, I started writing his screen name on the boards at school and told everyone it was someone's screen name from our school. I was hoping kids would see it and IM the person and the person would be getting a bunch of strange IMs and have him think I was stupid to fall for him being my school mate. Then he stopped coming online eventually and I blocked the screen name afterward just in case. Sometimes I wonder if he was getting a bunch of IMs and he decided to switch screen names. I will never know but it's a nice fantasy to have.


I have also played dumb with kids when I realize they were trying to bully me. I would pretend I didn't know their agenda so I kept acting the same as I was before I knew. Then they would leave me alone. Sometimes naivety saves you from the bullying.


Sometimes you have to throw it back at them to piss them off like I did with Beth germs. kids used to say "Beth germs" and do the blackouts so they couldn't get my germs. I eventually started to touch them just so they get my germs and they get mad at me and sat how stupid I am. That used to confuse me and then I found out in my teens it was because I was throwing it back at them and they liked to have power so me doing it to them was taking it away and bullies like power. When their victims fight back by throwing it back at them, they get pissed.

I also remember making a sign on my bedroom door saying "Beth germs on this, Beth germs on that, Beth germs on this, Beth germs on that, Beth germs everywhere" for one of my brother's friends because he also did the Beth germs thing. But Mom said that was mean and ripped it off but I put it back on because Mom didn't make any sense.


I had fun with some of my bullies. Mom taught me some comebacks which is ironic because she was the one who didn't like me picking on my bullies. Then all of a sudden it was okay. My guess was she had things black and white because I was a child and things are black and white for kids because they see things in black and white but when they reach their preteens, they start to see gray so I guess my mother all of a sudden made it okay for me to pick on my bullies.

I have used that one , only a few times though, I used to call it the "kurt cobain technique". He would smile all the way through a beating. I tried and there's some good and bad about this: it makes you look insane, and it might be a better defense mode for boys than for girls. When they saw they couldn't get to me (there were no punches, since i'm a girl, they'd just slap me a bit, lightly, but repeatedly. ) My smiling irritated them so much that they decided to move on to more...sexual stuff. I had to start running, I could stand a light bullying but I was not going to smile through getting raped lol.....
So that was my point: I think it's a good technique for boys. Girls: not so much....

I never figured out how to effectively respond to bullies except by skipping school which would have worked if they had just told my mother to home school me instead of family court sending me away.

I was always told to ignore them and they'll go away which didn't really work.

Whenever kids are caught bullying another student the bully should be brought to the front off the school and stripped naked at an assembly. The bully would have to remain naked for 20 days. If the parents do not want their kid wandering the halls naked they can take their place. If they raised their child right they would not be a bully.

You can't be a tough guy with your naughty bits sticking out. I am sure if you would have stripped Hittler or Stalin infront of their people when they before they got into power they never would have made it as dictators. I am sure it would work on both male and female bullies. The feel it is alright to harm or humiliate someone then we should see anything harmful or humiliating done to them as a good thing. It allows them to see the errors of their ways.

AngelRho brings up some good points, especially if this is at a school. Depending on what the school rules are, the cost of fighting back may be prohibitive. (I'm wincing as I type this.) In the case of one school I'm unfortunately quite familiar with, defending yourself by raising your hand against your attackers constitutes physical attack, and results in immediate suspension. A second "offense" is immediate expulsion. No kidding. The irony is so long as no one sees the act, it tends to go unpunished. So bullies at that school develop excellent sense of timing. By the time you raise your hand in your own defense, you are the only one being seen. The bullies win.

I'd love to say the best strategy is to get the teachers and administrators on board. Unfortunately this can be difficult, and at times can be downright impossible. It's even worse when the adults are the bullies. (I didn't go to an English boarding school, but listening to certain tracks of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" just brings back all manner of childhood memories.) The thing is, when teachers and administrators ARE on board, the results can be simply wonderful. So if this route is at all possible, take this route. This is what eventually happened at the school I mentioned in the previous paragraph. The results were nothing short of fantastic.

Another possibility is to go down. Take the fall. Report to the school's nurse station or health room. When asked what happened, be completely candid: "I was assaulted by another student." When they ask who it was, give names. In most places in the world this then becomes part of the permanent health record for that student. After each incident, have the parents inform the school authorities that this continued violence against a child cannot continue, and that they really must do something about it. Put that in writing with a date on it. The child should continue to go to the health room every single time there is an incident. This establishes a paper trail and a time line. If the school does not take action, that's grounds for a law suit. I hate the idea of suing a school, but I doubt it would ever go that far. Once the school authorities see the paper trail forming, something will happen. No school wants that kind of publicity. They also don't want the publicity of a family going public with local news, or having a local reporter do a special interest piece on the lack of response to bullying in local schools.

The worst thing to do is not to take it seriously. Even if no physical blow is ever landed, the psychological damage from repeated verbal abuse is debilitating and can take decades to heal, if it ever does.