You know it’s wrong for bullies to harass others, but you don’t have enough influence to make them stop. Maybe you’re afraid that standing up for others in an obvious way will cause you to become the target... but you still want to stop bad things from happening and protect others. Here are three steps to remember:
Detract from or downplay the situation; make it seem like the problem is not a big deal. You’re not acting like there’s nothing going on, but making the victim’s supposed offense seem smaller. Roll your eyes and act like the situation is boring or uncool. Make the bully or bullies feel like bullying someone is embarrassingly immature, if possible. It’s important to not obviously disagree with the bully, because s/he will take that as a threat to his/her status. There are exceptions to this, when it's good to openly disagree, but those will be covered later.
Here are some examples of what you can say:
“You’re right, her outfit is ugly, but maybe her parents are poor or make her wear stupid clothes.”
“Yeah, he’s weird, so what?”
“I get it, (name) isn’t the coolest person in the world, but I’m bored. Didn’t we do this last week?”
“Okay, she talks funny, and this is news?”
“Maybe he thinks he’s better than all of us, but why be angry? If anything, that’s hilarious....”
If you’re dealing with a friend, or member of your crowd, sarcasm might be appropriate:
This is how Distract looks on its own:
The final step is Extract, which means to remove. Extract the bully from the situation, if you can. Using Detract and Distract should do the trick, but if not, Extract the victim from the situation. This is especially important if they’re being bullied by a group or teasing might turn into physical violence. Extract yourself if it doesn’t make sense to stick around, or if the bully starts to turn on you.
Examples of how to Extract the victim:
Detract from or downplay the situation; make it seem like the problem is not a big deal. You’re not acting like there’s nothing going on, but making the victim’s supposed offense seem smaller. Roll your eyes and act like the situation is boring or uncool. Make the bully or bullies feel like bullying someone is embarrassingly immature, if possible. It’s important to not obviously disagree with the bully, because s/he will take that as a threat to his/her status. There are exceptions to this, when it's good to openly disagree, but those will be covered later.
Here are some examples of what you can say:
“You’re right, her outfit is ugly, but maybe her parents are poor or make her wear stupid clothes.”
“Yeah, he’s weird, so what?”
“I get it, (name) isn’t the coolest person in the world, but I’m bored. Didn’t we do this last week?”
“Okay, she talks funny, and this is news?”
“Maybe he thinks he’s better than all of us, but why be angry? If anything, that’s hilarious....”
If you’re dealing with a friend, or member of your crowd, sarcasm might be appropriate:
- “Way to go, Sherlock, you figured out he’s less popular than you.”
- “You could get a Nobel Prize for discovering she’s different. Really, I don’t think anyone noticed before you.”
This is how Distract looks on its own:
- “Did they change what time (TV show) is on tonight?”
- “OMG, did you hear the new song by (cool band with a new song)?”
- “We’re going to be late for class!”
- “I need to go to (place)… walk with me.”
- “Bullying? Really? Yeah, that's so two years ago.”
- “Come on... I want to do something fun instead.”
- “Whatever... (name) is such an easy target, only nerds still pick on her/him.”
- “S/he is kind of weird, Captain Obvious, now let's go play video games.”
- “Seriously? We're not going to get to the(field/court/whatever place) on time if you keep messing with (name).”
- “Why? This is boring....”
- “I agree, but heard (name) is some kind of black belt fighter, and don’t want to see anything bad happen.”
- “There’s no sport in picking on him... speaking of sports, did you see the big game the other night?”
The final step is Extract, which means to remove. Extract the bully from the situation, if you can. Using Detract and Distract should do the trick, but if not, Extract the victim from the situation. This is especially important if they’re being bullied by a group or teasing might turn into physical violence. Extract yourself if it doesn’t make sense to stick around, or if the bully starts to turn on you.
Examples of how to Extract the victim:
- Act like you see a teacher somewhere, then say, “I think I just saw (teacher’s name), we’d all better go.”
- “I don’t know what you did wrong, but (teacher’s name) wants to see you now.”
- “Yeah, you’d better run, or (bully’s name) is gonna get you!”
- “Why are you still standing around?”
- “Don’t you have somewhere to go?”