I have always disliked the philosophical approach to phrases like, “wait until you get out into the real world,” or “it won’t be so easy in the real world.” The real world, drum roll please, is the one that you are living in.

My daughter Annie’s world is real as well. Today she looks for an apartment and tries to make her paycheck stretch. She has to find money for car insurance.

When she was being bullied in junior high school, that was real as well.

Interview with a punching bag

As Annie’s father I have an exclusive — mostly because she doesn’t talk to anyone else about bullying.

I sit down at the table with her over egg salad sandwiches, popsicles and my laptop, and I ask her a few questions. The first is whether she thinks the realities of her junior high life have prepared her for her life now?

Annie’s answer: Yes and no. Yes, because I can spot bullies and bullish behavior and try to avoid it, or at least plow through it like a game of Red Rover. The answer to your next question is “would you go through it again if given the choice,” and no I wouldn’t. Would you? I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t as though the twins on the bus or the girls at school gave me an option.

Q: What do you think you learned from dealing with bullies?

A: That I hate being punked on. The only thing I learned from it was empathy for those in similar situations. Everything else I could have learned in a positive, supportive environment with friends and neighbors who were kind to each other.

Q: Many claim to have been bullied. What is your definition of bullies and bullying?

A: The basic answer may be hard to pin down on paper, but everyone knows (bullying) when we see it, or hear it, or feel the results from it.

Annie and I Google the word “bullying.” It’s defined as "the use of force or coercion to intimidate or abuse others."

Q: What do you say to last week's column — about the swinging pendulum, about those bullying becoming bullies or using bully tactics later in life?

A: I sort of agree and sort of don’t.

Dad scowls because he wrote that column.

She continues: What I mean is that people might think you are saying that they should remain passive and let bullies have their way. Standing up for yourself is not bullying. Gandhi might say that it's better to sit in for peace or whatever, but sit-ins shouldn’t happen in the middle of the freeway. First, get out of the way of harm, and then gather your friends for a sit-in.

Q: Should you fight back?

A: Self-defense is OK. I couldn’t really fight back by punching. When the school didn’t do anything about it, then I went to a school where I could be normal. That was the choice I made. Getting physical wasn’t for me. And when I tried to use words to defend myself, I just looked dumb and it made things worse.

Annie has had time to think this over. She still worries about what she would do if confronted by a bully, so much that the thought keeps her inside much of the time.

She only half-heartedly agrees with her parents when they say that anything past acting in self-defense is bullying the bullies. Mostly she wants them all to get it in the end.

Q: The end of what? I ask.

Related:

My daughter the bully tamer: How our family dealt with bullying

As someone trying to be a better parent — one who considers himself to be the Prodigal Dad — it was important to educate myself on bullies and bullying, using my own personal experience and new knowledge to give my daughter a better life.

A: You know, the end. When everything is even.

Higher ground

For Annie, the wait is on, as it is for most who are getting out from under, healing or recuperating from, overcoming or forging ahead through bullying. She does what she can to deal and heal, but the process for her is slow, as it is with many. Individual recovery and techniques differ. Approaches and time frames vary as well.

But I don’t want her to wait. I want to help her be proficient at strengthening herself and keeping herself out of physical or emotional danger. I don’t want her to postpone having a life until the bullies “get it” — though the thought of bullies in general getting it in the end makes me smile a little too much. (Heaven help me from being a bully.)

Real-world bullies continue on to college, business, neighborhoods and sometimes right on into the house. Annie’s written experience, along with her mother's and mine, may help to “bully-proof” kids. Kids need to know that even more than defending against a bully, they can regain trust in others and esteem for themselves.

The real peril, even over a black eye, is loss of self worth. I, myself, will stop warning against the bully when everything is even. Until that day, Annie has some work to do, and so do her parents.

This is the third in the Prodigal Dad series on ksl.com about bullies and bullying.

*

Cheney writes the "Prodigal Dad" family column weekly for ksl.com. He grew up in Idaho Falls. See his other writings at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com and Twitter @DavisonCheney.*

Related topics