Now that you know what can be done if you are being bullied, the next step is to safely stand up for yourself. There are various ways you can take, and the most effective method often depends on how the bully is victimizing you—whether through direct or indirect bullying.
5 steps promoting upstander behavior to address bullying in school
Step 1: Recognize bullying behavior
To help upstanders reach this point, they need an increased awareness of bullying and an understanding of its core elements. Bullying must include the following three components in order to be defined as bullying: (a) an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim, (b) intentionality, and (c) repetition.
Step 2: Define bullying as an emergency
Once students accurately identify a bullying situation, the next step is to define it as an emergency. Students are more likely to act when they feel a situation is an emergency. However, people do not often recognize verbal and relational bullying incidents as emergencies as easily as physical bullying, making it difficult for an upstander to determine whether to engage. To help upstanders view a bullying situation as an emergency, students can practice projecting feelings of empathy onto the victim and reflecting on the negative impacts all forms of bullying can have
Step 3: Recognize personal responsibility To engage as a change agent
Once students determine a bullying situation is an emergency, they must assume personal responsibility to help. Assuming personal responsibility is the critical element setting upstanders apart from bystanders (Dunn, 2010). Upstanders see a situation and do not pass responsibility onto others; they take it upon themselves to remedy the situation. If students feel it is somebody else’s responsibility to intervene, they will not help the bullying victim. To increase personal responsibility, students must begin to see themselves as responsible citizens who are not afraid to stand out from the crowd.
Step 4: Feel competent enough to engage
Once an upstander has made it their responsibility to help, they must feel competent enough in their ability to help in order to intervene (Dunn, 2010). Feeling competent stems from knowing how to intervene. To help upstanders gain this knowledge, teachers can have discussions about incidents students have witnessed along with other real-world examples available based on the students’ own experiences, educational videos, and even popular media,
Step 5: Decide to engage
When upstanders feel competent in their ability to help, the last step in their decision to intervene is stepping in and doing what they can to stop the bullying incident from progressing
Recognise what enables the bullying
Understanding how the bully thinks is important, and bullying is often triggered by what the bully is experiencing themselves. For example:
- The bully may choose to victimize you because other individuals they bully are not present. They may be in a bad mood due to something personal
- The bully could be trying to impress someone and assert dominance, choosing you as their target
- The bully could be feeling lonely on that particular day and, as a means to feel less vulnerable, may resort to bullying
- The bully could be experiencing personal issues, such as home or relationship problems, which they project onto you.
Protect yourself
The most important way to stand up to a bully is to ensure that you are safe and protected. Because you are intending to stand up against them yourself, it’s important to set some rules for when you do so:
- Try not to approach the bully, but wait for the times that they approach you. This ensures that you can catch them off guard when you do stand up for yourself, rather than them noticing you have taken time to gather confidence and have approached them willingly.
- Be mindful of your responses. Try not to insult them or bully them back, because it can escalate quite quickly and could turn physical or extremely violent.
- If you want to speak to the bully yourself, ensure to let the people close to you know, just in case you require back up in any situation. It’s important to not go through these things alone, no matter how much you believe you can handle it yourself.
Preventing future bullying
It’s important for the bully to face the repercussions of their actions so they no longer have the power to victimise others. Ways to hold the bully accountable include:
- Reporting their behavior to higher authority figures: In a workplace, school, or online setting, this can jeopardize their position because their actions negatively impact their performance and the environment. On digital platforms, reporting abusive behavior to the platform or using in-platform safety features can help mitigate cyberbullying.
- Discourage negative traits associated with the bully: Informing others that associating with bullies is unacceptable can help discourage bullying behaviors and prevent it from continuing. In the case of cyberbullying, calling out harmful online behavior and promoting positive digital engagement can create a safer online environment.
Create a stigma around being a bully
This enables a healthy and supportive group culture that bullying should not be enabled, supported and tolerated to any degree. These are ways in which organisations, schools and workplaces can deter bullying:
- Identifying and discouraging ‘gateway behaviors’: These can be laughing cruelly at someone’s misfortune, eye-rolling at instructions, ignoring or excluding others in group settings, or engaging in harmful online interactions, such as sharing offensive memes, spreading rumors, or publicly shaming someone on social media.
- Creating a sense of union: This can be achieved in classrooms, a positive corporate culture in the workplace, or fostering inclusive digital communities where respect and support are prioritized.
- Setting serious penalties against bullying: Consequences should extend to both offline and online spaces. These can include job termination, suspension, and interacting with parents about bullying incidents occurring in schools or on social media.
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