Don't Let Your Child Be

Bullied

I am Mr. Dee and here is my story

Kids that bullies do not mess with!

How do you feel when you hear about children getting bullied by other children at school or in your neighborhoods? Most likely your reaction to this question will be based upon your own personal experience with bullying. For instance, if you are a parent of a child who has never been bullied by another child, or if you have never had a child tell you how it makes them feel when they get bullied by other children, you will probably only be able to imagine what that experience is like for a child.

When I was in the third grade I personally experienced what it felt like to be bullied by another child. I also discovered what it felt like as a parent when my own son, who was 9 years old at the time, came home one day and told me that he was being bullied at school by a couple of boys. Fortunately for me, when I was his age I had four older brothers who I was able to turn to when I built up enough courage to tell them about the two boys who were bullying me at school. I didn’t tell my brothers about it for a long time because the bullies said that I if told anybody about it they would beat me up the next time they caught me alone. I was too young, scared, and inexperienced at the time to realize that they were bluffing. But when one of my brothers found out about those boys, I never got bullied by them or anyone else again. I found out later that one of my brothers told them that if anything happened to me again, they were the only ones he was going to hold accountable.

As I got older I began to realize that one of the reasons my brothers never got bullied at school or in our neighborhood was because of something they used to do that didn’t appeal to me at the time – when they were not doing homework or doing chores around the house for my parents, they were outside somewhere playing baseball, basketball, or football. If they weren’t doing that, they were somewhere learning how to box and wrestle. Their attitude was that losing was not acceptable, and mediocre was not good enough for them. They had a reputation for playing hard all of the time in order to be the best, and the other kids in the neighborhood and at school knew it. They had the same attitude about their school grades. Anything less than a “B” in their minds meant they were losing.

When I went into the fourth grade my parents said it was time for me to start being more like my brothers. They said the time was going to come when my brothers were not going to be around to protect me anymore, and I had to start learning how to stand up for myself. At that point not only did they begin to encourage me to become more involved in sports and other kinds of physical activities, but they also began pushing me into them. At first, I hated how they were pushing me to do something I didn’t want to do. I wasn’t bringing home A’s from school as often as my brothers were, but I never brought home F‘s or D’s and I rarely even brought home C’s, so why were they being so persistent?

I discovered some amazing things when I started going out and participating in different kinds of sports with my brothers and their friends. First of all, it became a lot clearer to me why my parents wanted me to get involved in sports. One of the things that I discovered was why my brothers and their friends never had problems with bullies. Even though they were only between the ages of 9 and 13 years old, their involvement in sports all year round had already helped them to become a lot stronger and more agile than most kids their age. It had also allowed them to develop a type of persona that made bullies realize that these were not the type of guys they wanted to mess with.

Getting involved in sports definitely helped me to develop a great sense of security. I could feel the strength and agility developing in my arms and legs from all of the training, practicing, and the physical exertion required to play the games. I also had friends that I could count on if I needed them for protection from school and neighborhood bullies. They were also the type of friends who were into getting good school grades, but I still had a problem.

It seemed like everyone on my baseball, football, and basketball team were already so much more experienced than I was. Most of them were also taller, which meant I rarely got a chance to play in any of the key positions on any of the teams, and I often didn’t get much playing time. Needless to say, it became harder and harder for me to stay passionate enough to stay involved in these sports. I had only been involved in sports for about a year and half, and even though things were not going well for me, I didn’t want to quit because I knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to keep hanging out with my teammates. I was also still pretty young and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to deal with bullies all by myself if I had to.

The year that I went into the sixth grade I got a chance to witness something that was about as amazing as anything I had ever seen. I was on my way home from school one day when I saw three boys threatening a classmate of mine who had moved into our neighborhood about 4 months earlier with his parents. He was the same size as I was, and the boys who were threatening him were seventh and eighth graders and they were also bigger. My new classmate was riding his bike home from school when three bullies stepped in front of him and told him to get off. My classmate stopped and got off and started walking his bike. I noticed that he didn’t seem intimidated at all. I was about fifty yards behind on the opposite side of the street when I noticed that my classmate was being threatened. I was pretty nervous, but I decided to go and help. But I will never forget what I saw just seconds before I got there. Within 5 or 10 seconds after the first bully swung at my classmate, two of them were on the ground squirming in pain, and the third one was running as fast as he could to get away. By the time I got there the other two bullies were getting up and running away. One was holding his arm, and the other was leaning over and holding is stomach as they ran away. My classmate picked up his bike, shook my hand, told me his name was Nick and thanked me for coming to help him, got on his bike and rode away.

I thought he was being sarcastic when he thanked me for coming to help him. But when we got a chance to talk to each other at school the next day, I discovered how wrong I was. This kid was no ordinary twelve year old. He wasn’t tall and muscular, didn’t participate in any sports, had no sisters or brothers, and didn’t even have any friends at school or in our neighborhood yet. All we knew is that he was the smartest kid in our class and he was always very polite. When I asked Nick why he thanked me for helping him, he explained that he was not thanking for helping him, he was thanking me for having the courage to come and offer to help even though I barely knew him.

After thinking about what Nick said, I asked him if he would have done the same thing for me if he had come along and saw that I was in trouble. He said he defiantly would have. Again, sounding a little sarcastic, he wanted to know what I would have done if those boys were threatening to take my bike and no one was around to help me? I told him I guess I would have given it to them to keep from getting beat up, and when I got home I would tell my parents so that they could report it to the police. Then he wanted to know if I ever considered learning how to do what he did in case I ever needed to protect myself in the future. I told him I could tell that it was some kind of martial arts that he was using against those guys, but I had never seen anyone do it in real life before, especially someone as young as he was. In fact, I didn’t even think anyone as young as he was could learn how to defend themselves as well as he did. He said he had been studying and practicing karate, jujitsu, and kobudo since he was four years old, but it was the jujitsu techniques that allowed him to do what he did.

What Nick told me about martial arts over the next few days made me realize that I had just found something that I could become very passionate about, and something that my parents approved of whole heartedly. What he said also made me realize why he was no ordinary 12 year old kid. He said that kids take up martial arts for lots of different reasons. Some do it because it looks like a fun thing to do, some do it to be able to go and compete in martial arts tournaments and win trophies. And some even get into it because they just want to be able to go out and beat up other people.

There is nothing wrong with young children getting into the martial arts for the first two reasons Nick said. But during the first couple of years there may be limits to how much they will learn in order to be able to defend themselves in certain types of situations. But it is a great way for them to start discovering all the of great benefits of being involved in the martial arts. For instance, it gives them a chance to meet and become friends with other kids in their martial arts classes who live in other parts of the community. If they enjoy going and participating in martial arts tournaments they will also have a chance to meet and become good friends with lots of kids from other cities, states, and even other countries.

As for bullies who just want to learn some martial arts so that they can go out and beat up someone, Nick said that they never make it past the first couple of months of training. He said they drop out of class as soon as they start participating in karate and jujitsu sparring matches in class and realize that no matter how hard they try, they are no match against kids their size or even smaller who have already been training for several months. But even after the bullies drop out, they tend to maintain a healthy respect for kids who are involved in the martial arts. If they live in the same neighborhood and go to the same school as kids who they know are involved in martial arts, they let other kids know that they don’t want to mess with any of them because they are tough and they can hurt you.

Once the word got out about what Nick did to the three bullies who tried to take his bike, no one at school or in our neighborhood ever bothered him again. It was also that particular incident that inspired my parents and parents of several other kids in our neighborhood to start looking for a martial arts school to enroll their children.

For me and thousands of other young children throughout American who just wanted to be able to go to school and focus on getting good grades, have fun with our friends, stay out of trouble, and not have to worry about being pushed around by other children, martial arts lessons was the solution. Studies show that children involved in the martial arts have always been far less likely to be bullied by other children. The studies also show that they are not the type who are bullying other children around.

To this day I believe that becoming involved in the martial arts while I was still in elementary school was one of the best things that I ever did. I was fortunate enough to have found an instructor who told me that he was not only going to teach me how to defend myself the way Nick did when those three boys tried to take his bike, but he was also going to teach me how to do something else that Nick had learned how to do that was just as important – how to deal with verbal bulling. You see, my instructor was Nick’s father. He was a former United States Marine who served off and on for eight years in Okinawa and Japan. He was 17 years old when he went into the Marines, and he had already been studying and practicing martial arts for several years. His first tour of duty overseas was Okinawa were he continued studying and practicing karate. Two years later he went to Japan and found a martial arts school where he was able to study and practice karate, Jujitsu, and kobudo for two more years.

When Nick’s father began teaching me martial arts, he told me that he knew how cruel some children at school and in the neighborhood can be to other children and how angry, confused, and depressed it can make the other children feel. He said that these feelings often causes children to begin doing poorly in school, become withdrawn, think about hurting themselves or someone else, start doing drugs, join gangs, become rebellious toward their parents and schoolteachers, and do a whole host of other harmful and inappropriate things. He said this could also happen to children who are involved in martial arts. One of the first things he said he wanted me to know is that he was not only going to be my instructor, but he was also going to be my friend and confidant. His first instruction to me was, “do not go around telling other kids that you are a martial arts student.” Studying and practicing martial arts he said, is like having insurance for your home and everything inside. You could have the most expensive homeowner’s insurance policy in the world, but it does not mean a thief won’t try to break in and rob you, especially if you go around telling everybody in your neighborhood that you keep thousands of dollars in cash and lots of expensive jewelry in your house. Just go to class 2 or 3 times a week, he said, and study and practice your martial arts techniques like you are preparing for a world title fight that you may be called upon to defend in a moment’s notice.

The martial arts lessons and instructions I received from Nick’s father is one of the main reasons I was able to go through junior high and high school without experiencing the kind of negative peer pressure that a number of other kids experienced. I was challenged a number of times in elementary and junior high school. By then I knew I was capable of defending myself even against a couple of bullies if I had to. But each time except once, I chose to ignore the bullies and walk away and I actually felt very proud of myself. In junior high school I was challenged by a boy who was known for bullying other kids around. He said he knew that I was studying martial arts, but said he was going to prove to me that it was nothing but waste of time and money. However, when he landed on his back and got put into an armbar as soon as he grabbed me, he realized that he was no matched. A few weeks after the incident, he and I actually became good friends.

As owner and chief instructor of Mr. Dee’s Karate Academy, I am proud to say that one of the most popular things about the martial arts lessons that we offer for children is that they are designed to help them learn how to deal with Bullying. The lessons includes making sure that children understand that not only am I their instructor, but I am also their friend and confidant. I let them let them know that if they feel like they are being bullied at school or in their neighborhood by other children, they do not have to be afraid or ashamed to come and talk to me about it. I let them know that being involved in martial arts doesn’t necessarily mean that other children won’t tease them or pick on them and try to make them feel bad. They know that if you use martial arts on them you could get in trouble, especially if you are at school. Therefore, as part of their lessons, I constantly remind children, that most kids who tease and say things to try to make you feel bad, are kids who are just immature and undisciplined. When you ignore them and walk away, you are also demonstrating one of the best martial arts techniques in the world. It shows that you are not afraid. It also shows that you are more mature and a lot more disciplined. Our lessons include instructing children to report any type of bullying to their schoolteachers when they are at school and to their parents when they get home.

We also have a great working relationship with School Teachers and Principals throughout Lorain County to help make sure that K – 12 graders enrolled in our classes receive the kind of assistant that we provide to help keep children safe, happy, and on task at school.

2 Week FREE Trial Lessons Special Offer

If you are the parent of a child who is complaining about being bullied at school and your child has told his/her teacher and principle and the situation has not improved, I urge you to take this seriously and contact us today. We would like the opportunity to prove that the martial arts lessons that we offer for children will help teach your child how to deal with bullies. Just let us know that you saw this article when you come in and your child will automatically be eligible to receive 2 Weeks of FREE Lessons. This is a limited offer.

Don't let your child be bullied!