Turning the Other Cheek & High School Bullying

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Prodigal_Son said:
“Blessed are you when they insult you and hate you and utter all kind of slander about you because of me! Rejoice and be glad! Your reward will be great in heaven!” - The Beatitudes

If you have a kid being bullied, they really ought to hear that verse. 🙂
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I can think of no better way to convince a child that Christianity is hypocrisy than to quote a verse like that to a bullied child instead of protecting him.
 
Tiny_Montgomery said:
I know a boy in high school who is the object of bullying. He thinks Christianity’s “turn the other cheek” ethic is impractical and unrealistic; if he behaved that way it would just make the bullying worse.

I don’t really know how to answer this objection. Any suggestions?
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I think the boy could be right for his particular bully. In high school, fighting back can make the bully give up and finally leave you alone. It can go all sorts of ways, and probably depends on the bully and the one being bullied. Ignoring can work as well.

Is there something odd about the boy that can be changed, say clothing?
 
Running into someone playing the role of a bully can happen at any time of your life but mostly when young (when young you are more vulnerable). So, from the earliest encounter a child must learn to turn to his parents, siblings, cousins, friends for help.
The bully has to be dealt with after his intended victim has been rescued/protected. These are hard lessons of life - the bully has to suffer his attempts in failure before solving the problems motivating him in these acts. The first line of defense and justice is within the family and neighborhood. Not all matters have to be taken to school boards, committees, courts, ending in lawsuits.
 
Letting some random punk get away with that bullying stuff is bad. They shouldn’t be doing that. No one’s got a right to pick on other kids. I know a kid who gets made fun of all the time and when I told the people doing to it shut the he** up, they did and I think they thought about it before they did it more.
 
I agree with the sentiments of many others in this thread - that our children need to be protected, that the bullies need to be punished, and that telling a bullied child that beatitude is indeed bad advice.

Anyway, something I wanted to add here -
Turn the other cheek is a recommendation, not a rule that we must follow. Even in our adult lives we are still allowed to take an eye for an eye - note, the meaning of an eye for an eye is that you can take justice / retribution up to but not greater than the wrong done you by another person. In the case of a child at school, this means not hitting the bully harder than the bully hits him, or only using words if the bully only uses words. Etc. But often it is good for a child to stand up to a bully himself. For one, it shows the bully that he can’t just get away with intimidating other children. There are other benefits too…

Also about the discussion on shyness. Shyness is an attribute, not a sin. Sure it may prevent us from doing some good works. But then again it might make us better at doing other good works (eg, we’re less inclined to want the spotlight, so we are more likely to do useful behind the scenes work without acknowledgement). Even if shyness prevents you from speaking in a situation where you think you should speak, that doesn’t make it a sin. Even if it was true that “all that’s needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”, that doesn’t make is the fault of the good men that evil prevailed, it is still the fault of the evil for doing evil in the first place.
 
Tiny_Montgomery said:
I know a boy in high school who is the object of bullying. He thinks Christianity’s “turn the other cheek” ethic is impractical and unrealistic; if he behaved that way it would just make the bullying worse.

I don’t really know how to answer this objection. Any suggestions?
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Tiny, I don’t remember the verse, so can only paraphrase but I remember somewhere in the bible it says that if you have a problem with your brother discuss it with him (i.e. don’t extract revenge), but if he doesn’t listen take it up with the magisterium. This can easily be applied to the bullied’s life, so maybe you should tell him about this, and if that doesn’t work, intervene and tell someone for him. Or better yet defend him (maybe not physically by fighting, but by sticking up for him), because I’m sure that there is an example of this in the bible, or at least a close analogy. But there is no flaw is being passive, because if you are destine to be persecuted or bullied (unable to defend yourself, no one will help, not even the teachers) what can you do, but “offer it up” as is said?

Catholig
 
Flopfoot said:
Also about the discussion on shyness. Shyness is an attribute, not a sin. Sure it may prevent us from doing some good works. But then again it might make us better at doing other good works (eg, we’re less inclined to want the spotlight, so we are more likely to do useful behind the scenes work without acknowledgement). Even if shyness prevents you from speaking in a situation where you think you should speak, that doesn’t make it a sin. Even if it was true that “all that’s needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”, that doesn’t make is the fault of the good men that evil prevailed, it is still the fault of the evil for doing evil in the first place.
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Nothing wrong with shy people, it’s undervalued in our brash culture.
 
When Jesus was before the tribunal, did they not strike him, and what did he do, it was not turn the other cheek, he defended himself “…why do you strike me…”

Just a little food for thought

Bullies need to go.
 
zero tolerance requires zero thought. that’s why it’s so popular in today’s society.
everyone, including adminstration and teachers has a CYA (cover your butt) attitude and a zero tolerance policy, while stupid and lazy, is understandable in an age where people sue over everything.
a bully is a coward. thats what i teach every kid in our family - if you have a bully bothering you, and you stand up to them, they’ll fall everytime, most of the time, you don’t even need to throw a punch.

*but it’s always good to teach the kid to throw a punch just in case. *

if your kid was at the bus stop and some stranger in a car tried to grab them, would you tell them to turn the other cheek, or deliver a kick straight to the groin while puncturing their eyeballs with a thumbnail (when my neices were still 8 or 9 - i took them every weekend for a few months a local karate studio a friend of mine owns and taught them how to fight… fight dirty…street fight, if you will - God help the attacker or boyfriend who tried to harm them, they’ve been trained well - everytime i see them i still randomly throw them in choke holds (lightly) to refresh their fighting instincts)… honestly. how is a bully any different, the intention is to harm your child. getting the threat removed IS the Christian thing to do.
 
Bullies can sense someone with insecurity and they pick on that person.

There are a variety of countermeasures, ranging from getting some martial arts training (to give someone a replacement attitude from the hangdog or insecure look) to changing the parents’ attitude… If the parents pick on and bully the kid, then the other kids will also pick on and bully the kid.

I’ve seen parents who were so overprotective that they practically painted a bullseye on the kid’s back.
 
I dont’ have time to do a long post so just some info:
1-800-FYI-CALL or www.ncvc.org for info on bullying at the National Center of Victims of Crime. Some here have ackowledged how targets of bullies can act out like at Columbine but more often than not they turn in on themselves, some committing suicide.

Bullying requires the intervention of adults, preferrably neutral adults who understand the dynamics of bullying. With bullying there is a power imbalance with the power coming from physical size, strength, verbal skill, popularity, etc.

Also, I’m not a proponant of mediation (I don’t think anyone mentioned it, but I will). Sometimes it suggested as a means of working things out between the bully and his/her target. Unfortunatly, it gives the impression that there is a problem with the target; like he/she is doing something wrong. We wouldn’t suggest mediation for a victim of battering and her abuser as it gives the abuser more opportunities to abuse (sometimes mediation can “teach” new ways for an abuser to abuse) same thing with bullies and their targets.

One last thought: bullying is a choice, the bullying makes a decision to abuse and that is why it’s important to stop them so they get the message at some point that that behavior is not okay.
 
Turning the other cheek is not a prohibition against self-defense. It is a prohibition against revenge. Someone actively bullies my son so that he must defend himself, I fully expect and approve of my son chopping the bully in the throat with the knife-edge of his hand.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
Reepicheep said:
I can think of no better way to convince a child that Christianity is hypocrisy than to quote a verse like that to a bullied child instead of protecting him.
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That is a very clever reply, Reepicheep; however, it is not very generous.

Accusing me of being wrong is fine.

Accusing me of advocating hypocrisy is out of line.
 
Well I recall my sophomore year in high-school, I was the victim of a bully. He was much larger and stronger than me. I remember, the loss of self-esteme, my grades dropped, I hated going to school and even considered dropping out. When I talked to my parents, they had no answer other than to either fight back, or ignore. School policy was that they wouldn’t get involved with student school-yard issues.

I decided, I would fight back. However, before the chance came, I got to see another boy my size fight back against this same bully. The bully not only beat the **** out of the boy who chose to fight back, but the boy couldn’t even put up a good fight against the bully. As a result, the boy lost respect from the entire school.
Now he had to contend with the bully, and everyone else.

Eventually, the school year came to an end, and I never ran into the bully again, so it turned out that not fighting back was the best choice for me.

As far as the “turn the other cheek” thing goes. I heard a diffferent teaching on this. The teaching didn’t have anything to do with self-defense against physical harm. Jesus was speaking about the custom of his time. Back then, if a person did something wrong to you, you could challenge that person to a dual, via a slap on the cheek. This done, there were formalities on how and where the dual would take place. The Jewish laws of retaliation were enforced here. Jesus answer was to this custom was, if some one challenged you with the slap on the cheek, you rather than accept, the dual, turn the other cheek.

Don’t know how true this is, but it makes sense to me.

Jim
 
…adding another log to the fire.

I cant see where ‘turning the other cheek’ is ALWAYS a sign of virtuous behavoir…
What about the GIFT of fortitude (bravery/courage) that comes from the Holy Spirit?

Lets not forget that after high school, we all are released to a mean cruel world. And many of the lessons on life’s survival were taught to us as young adults/children - in the forms of having** fortitude** (bravery/courage) to stand up to the neighborhood/school bully… and later having this SAME fortitude to stand up to the boss for shorting your paycheck.

And ‘turning the other cheek’ is GRAND if one is persecuting you FOR your faith… but what if they are just jerks that want your lunch money??
Faith has nothing to do with that.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
That is a very clever reply, Reepicheep; however, it is not very generous.

Accusing me of being wrong is fine.

Accusing me of advocating hypocrisy is out of line.
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Prodigal Son:
Since this is now an old thread, maybe it’s too late for you to notice this reply.
It’s important enough to say anyway.

You never advocated hyprocrisy.
I never intended to accuse you of advocating or condoning hypocrisy.
I regret very much that you thought I had, and apologize for giving that impression.

My point was that, in my opinion, quoting the verse in question to a bullied child might have the effect of giving the child a false image of Christianity, not that you desire such a result.

I am sorry for the misunderstanding, and I hope you see this post.
May the peace of Christ which passes all understanding, fill your heart.:gopray:
 
If you are going to fight back, make sure you hit them in either the throat or between the legs first. If not, you are probably going to get your behind kicked.
 
Tiny_Montgomery said:
I know a boy in high school who is the object of bullying. He thinks Christianity’s “turn the other cheek” ethic is impractical and unrealistic; if he behaved that way it would just make the bullying worse.

I don’t really know how to answer this objection. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
“Turn the other cheek” doesn’t mean that we can’t defend ourselves when we’re physically attacked.

Teach him how to defend himself.

Let him jam the heel of his hand up the bully’s nose one time. I guarantee you that will take care of his bully problems for good.
 
Reepicheep said:
Prodigal Son:
Since this is now an old thread, maybe it’s too late for you to notice this reply.
It’s important enough to say anyway.

You never advocated hyprocrisy.
I never intended to accuse you of advocating or condoning hypocrisy.
I regret very much that you thought I had, and apologize for giving that impression.

My point was that, in my opinion, quoting the verse in question to a bullied child might have the effect of giving the child a false image of Christianity, not that you desire such a result.

I am sorry for the misunderstanding, and I hope you see this post.
May the peace of Christ which passes all understanding, fill your heart.:gopray:
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I forgive, brother. 🙂

Although perhaps it is I that need forgiveness. 😉

(One of those “presumptuous sins” that David talks about, perhaps. In the heat of a discussion, human beings seem alarmingly prone to misunderstanding. It’s because, I imagine, we always want to sound so clever. Maybe we should care more to love our brother, and let cleverness reap its own reward).

God bless you, little mouse! 😛
 
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