by Patrick Tay

Created on: November 28, 2008

To learn how to deal with a bully, we need to know the psyche of the bullies first.

Personally, I find that most bullies have two areas in common:

-Low self-esteem

- A strong tendency to have control over someone, something or a situation

These two factors are intrinsically linked together. If observe the two factors, we will realise that the low self-esteem is actually a mindset and a strong tendency to exert control over a person or situation is a behaviour. For school bullies or even any individuals who suffer from low self-esteem, they will try their best to remain in control. If they lose this control, they will often try their best to get it back at all cost. Why is this so? It puts them at ease and enables them to function normally in society and in this case, educational institutions.

All of us have a tendency to retain a certain degree of control over our lives as doing so gives us a sense of security. What then differentiate school bullies from typical individuals such as ourselves is the differences in their self-esteem and ours. As most of us have a high degree of self-esteem, we do not face as much fright as someone with a much lower self esteem (such as a school bully) and we thus are able to cope with a higher degree of stress in the face of change. A person of a much lower self-esteem will not cope as well, and thus they need a certain form of defensive mechanism to cope with change (which can be considered to be one of the most feared conditions of mankind, considering that we humans are creatures of habit).

So, what are these defence mechanism?

One defence mechanism will be intimidation. School bullies usually operate by intimidating another student, usually a weaker student. Why intimidate, you might ask? Well, when school bullies intimidate another student, the bullies are forcing another student to submit, to be subservient. This places them on a pedestal and the intimidated student(s) their subjects. Seen from an imperialistic perspective, the bullies see themselves as kings and rulers, and the intimidated as subjects and servants. This situation gives them a sense of power and control which they so strongly desire, and explains why most bullies go about living their lives with outright arrogance and big ego. But why weaker students? It is simple: bullies do not love challenges and weaker individuals do not pose as much as of a threat to bullies than their stronger counterparts. Have you ever wondered why it's often the new students who are often

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