I'll never forget the day I taught my daughter to stand up for herself. Kristan was 8 and she came in the apartment crying one day. After some coaxing I found out there were 5 girls her age that picked on all the girls her age and a few of the younger boys too. I explained to her that there was only one bully in the bunch and the others followed along because they were scared of this one bully too. Kridstan agreed and said the other girls were really nice when that "one bully" wasn't around. "Want her to stop?" I asked, and Kristan smiled. This is what I told her to do, "I want to to go back outside and find this girl, as soon as you see her you scream bloody murder and run as fast as you can right at her, and start throwing punches without saying a word." Well her war-cry started before the front door closed behind her. About 10 minutes later returned a new child, walking on air, badly scratched knee, but no worse for the wear. "It worked! it worked! it worked! the other girls ran away!!! the bully cried!!!! I let her get it out and then told her fighting is wrong, and that the only reason I told her what I did, was becasue they both seemed to need to learn a lesson.
~O~