You send your child to school and you can’t help but worry about the bullying problem that is reportedly happening in most learning institutions. It is even worse when you know very well you also encountered bullying at one point during school, either as the victim or bully. In today’s society, so many children are affected by bullying and wake up every day scared to go to school. Yes, you may try to take a few initiatives to protect your kid from bullies, however, most of the time the bullying may be occurring right under your nose or you may not even suspect it.
Today I am going to tell you about one of the ways to get rid of bullying and that is martial arts. When it comes to martial arts, it is a solution for both the bully and the victim. Martial arts can be done by everyone and really helps curb the bullying problems and this is how it does it.
Martial Arts Instills Respect
When it comes to martial arts, respect is one of the first values one has to learn. Have you ever wondered why in boxing the competitors touch gloves and Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes must start with a bow? It all comes down to respect irrespective of age and gender. Once your child embraces respect, then he may actually be able to look at his faults and try to correct them. Martial arts helps children understand that they should respect other people’s feelings and the effects their action has on them. They will, therefore, be able to view the world in a more respectful way.
Martial Arts Enables Children Understand all About Sportsmanship
In many schools today, there is a lot of competition and losing or winning is very crucial to the kids. This is usually one of the main causes of bullying. Martial arts will actually teach children that it is not all about winning, but the whole game and how you play it. Your children will, therefore, understand what true sportsmanship is all about and get to appreciate the small wins while accepting defeat when they don’t win. Children will come to understand that you actually gain a lot from the loss because you gain experience. Generally, your kids should understand true sportsmanship because it helps them in every stage. The world is never fair and there are so many challenges they are bound to encounter in their life.
Martial Arts Impacts Them with a Sense of Responsibility
When you learn martial arts you must learn to be responsible and use martial arts for nothing else but self-defense. Once your child is able to responsibly practice martial arts then he will be able to resist bullying by showing a sense of responsibility. With time your child realizes that physical conflict affects both him and the opponent. Your child will clearly be able to understand bullying is wrong and there are consequences.
Martial Arts Gives Children a Positive Attitude
When you practice martial arts you get enriched with a positive attitude and you are always simply glowing. This is usually because martial arts is not all about the physical body but spirit and mind. Your mind, spirit, and body actually need to work in unison this will clear the negativity and leave you with a cool positive vibe. Your kids will, therefore, be more positive everywhere, making them not be victims of bullying and they will not instigate bullying. When you really want to stop bullying, why not start by giving our kids a generally positive happy life. When the vibe is positive there is usually no reason for bullying and children tend to play nice.
Martial Arts Builds Lasting Relationship
Martial arts teaches children the value of teamwork and how we help each other achieve different goals and achievements. When your child starts learning martial arts, he or she will begin to appreciate friendship and cherish them. This means that the children will begin to focus on building friendships rather than pushing people away.
Conclusion
Martial arts is clearly a way to get rid of bullying once and for all. You should ensure you enroll your child in a martial arts program that is available close to you. They will benefit as individuals and grow with so many positive core values.
Bullying is a serious offense. People get hurt and traumatized through the experience. Some people grow up and never recover from childhood bullying. They continue to experience the same circumstances in the real world, and the cost to the world is their stress leaves and illnesses.
In martial arts, when children come to the program with issues, most instructors are happy to teach them. They understand as most of us adults do that bullying is born out of insecurity. It is this insecurity and sense of inferiority that drives a bully to assert power over victims in any way possible. This temporarily makes the bully feel elevated as aggression is being inflicted on the “weaker” party.
However, these tactics are not conducive to real world success. Even bullies can grow up to be miserable, lonely people who only relate to people in terms of the dynamic of fear and intimidation. These people might succeed in certain careers, but they certainly are not liked by their peers.
Martial arts instructors understand that aggression and fighting against the world is also a fight against oneself. The child feels powerless in a large world, and yet the child is not. The techniques taught in martial arts can teach self defense instead of simple acts of aggression. The child will be schooled that diplomacy is better than physical force, and that the techniques are merely to prevent harm to oneself and others. Martial arts essentially aims to stop the cycle of violence by encouraging oneness with the environment.
This can be accomplished through respect. If a person respects the life force of another, then they will learn not to disrupt that. They learn that there is better harmony if each person is allowed to go about their day contributing their part to the world. If the bully is threatened, then this child can learn to talk things out with the appropriate parties, especially approaching adults first.
In any situation later in life, arbitration will be an excellent skill to have. If the child finds oneself later in a high stress marriage, then the person will learn to talk rather than demand one’s way. They will relate better to their peers at work having learned that having no people skills can actually ostracize people and make them less likely to speak well of that co-worker.
With the lessons come micro lessons that the child can use to help to deal with the inner conflict that the child has. They can identify their inner problems more easily and learn why they used force in the past as a means of deriving self esteem. The child will also build new friendships in the class through learning how to fight with another child who is considered an equal opponent, not a lesser person.
While respect is a life long process, a child who is a bully will need to take baby steps towards gaining complete respect for oneself. They are walking away from a path of aggression into one of healing, and with the right martial arts training, they will gain a whole new appreciation for others and themselves.
Bullying is a huge problem for many kids in school. Kids who are bullied often lack self-confidence and self-esteem. They are always under a constant fear, and it hinders their overall progress. It is a problem that needs to be tackled before it gets out of hand and causes permanent mental scarring.
There are many ways to tackle this problem, but the best way is to instill self-confidence in your kids. With confidence comes the courage to stand up for themselves. One of the best ways to do this is through martial arts training.
Martial arts instill qualities such as self-confidence, respect, discipline, self-control and self-defense that are keys to fight bullying. Training can not only help your kids to feel good about themselves, but it also helps them to be physically capable of defending themselves.
Here are some ways martial arts training can help your kid to stand up to and face his/her bullies.
1. Building confidence
It is a fact that bullies pick on the victims that they feel are easy targets. If your child lacks self-belief and self-confidence, he/she is more likely to be bullied and pick on. Martial arts training helps your child to build confidence and courage. Children who train in any form of martial arts project an aura of confidence that deters the bullies from picking on them. The kids gain the physical strength and mental confidence that enables them to resist and stand up to bullies. Strong, confident kids and less likely to be bullied and even if they are picked on, they can handle themselves better.
2. Developing leadership skills
Bullies tend to pick on less popular kids who have few friends. If your child is socially awkward and has few friends, he/she may be a target of bullying. Martial arts training can help such kids to be more sociable. The training develops a feeling of camaraderie and teamwork that helps kids to be more social. They can make friends easier and can overcome social anxiety. 3. Learning self-defense
Bullies pick on kids that appear physically weak and unable to defend themselves. They like to overpower kids to submission. Martial arts training can help your children to learn self-defense skills and develop the physical strength. The feeling that they can handle their bullies instills confidence in children that can help them control themselves better.
4. Self-control
More often than not, a particular behavior precipitates bullying. Unfortunately, some kids fail to recognize this triggering behavior. Martial arts training can help kids to realize self-control of their behavior. Self-control can also help the children to control their emotions and prevent the situation from escalating into something ugly.
5. Discipline
Mastering martial arts is not an easy feat to achieve. It requires a lot of discipline and focus. Kids training in martial arts often exhibits a higher level of discipline which helps them to control their impulsive behavior. It is a life lesson that will help your child throughout his/her life. Bullies don’t pick on kids that seem calm and together.
Something to take home
Bullying is an inevitable phenomenon. As long as there are kids, there are going to be the ones who bully them. Instilling confidence and courage is the best way to deal with bullies and martial arts can help your child achieve just that. It doesn’t matter what martial art your child chooses, all of them have the same basic principles of instilling confidence, esteem, respect and focus.
Bullying is an epidemic which has been present in the learning experience for many years. However, bullying has also evolved over time and with particular intensity over the last 20 years or so with the invention of mobile phones, the internet, and social media. In fact, bullying has gotten way out of control across schools and online, becoming almost intolerable. Each year, thousands of kids worry about going to school in the morning because they fear a bully. Many children cannot even escape the bullying when they leave school as the bully can now easily reach them online.
The psychology of a bullied child, however, remains the same as it has always been throughout the years. Many children who are bullied either in school or online are afraid to tell their parents or a teacher for fear of reprisal from the bully, because they are ashamed, or simply because the feel an adult will not be able to help. It is, therefore, imperative for kids to develop confidence in themselves which will enable them to counter bullying and deal with being bullied in a healthier way. Martial arts has long been cited as an excellent way to combat bullying, for many years due to the self-defense aspect of the sport. However, as bullying has become more psychological in recent times, martial arts is adapting to teach kids much more than simply how to defend themselves.
The Evolution of Bullying
There are three different types of bullying which have been experienced by children in schools for many years – social, verbal, and physical. However, in today’s modern society children must also deal with a fourth type of bullying – online. Each type of bullying has detrimental effects on the child who is experiencing it:
•Social – Every school has groups, clicks, gangs, or whatever you wish to call them, of kids who can often be quite cruel when going with the group. These groups can torment and tease a classmate by starting rumors or mocking an aspect of their appearance. This can result in the bullied child withdrawing from social activities and events and even lead to depression.
•Verbal – While verbal bullying is not tolerated in schools, bullies can still verbally abuse a victim without an adult hearing or knowing about it. By calling a child names and assaulting them with words in the hallway, bathroom, or other places teachers cannot hear them, the bullied child can suffer regarding their grades and self-confidence, often dreading going to school.
•Physical – The worst form of bullying is a physical assault. Getting punched, kicked, or hit leaves a physical reminder of what the victim is going through and in the worst cases can lead to serious bodily harm to the bullied child.
•Online – The newest form of bullying takes places online via instant messaging, social media, and other forms of online communication. It can be tough to know if a child is being bullied online as they often keep their messages and social media private, however, this form of bullying can seriously damage a child’s ability to socialize and have confidence in themselves.
These forms of bullying display the evolution in how a bully targets their victims. Bullies are very adaptive and will use one or all of these methods to achieve their goals. For instance, just ignoring taunts in the hallway of school could lead to the bully seeking retribution by bullying a child online. If they continue to be ignored, a bully might even turn to physical assault. For these reasons, it is essential martial arts evolves with bullying and does not become outdated when providing kids with the skills to counter bullies.
How Martial Arts Counters Bullying
Beyond the core training, martial arts equips children to deal with all forms of bullying. The way in which martial arts is taught to kids adapts with the times and provides them with skills such as:
•Development of self-esteem. Children who have high self-esteem are less likely to become the victim of bullying and will learn not to be afraid to stand up for themselves.
•Self-control. While bullies are often hot-tempered and dominant, martial arts teaches self-control, discipline, and respect, which can lead to them being a better person.
•Faster thinking. Martial arts also develops thinking skills which will help a child to respond quicker in troublesome situations.
•Physical fitness. Kids who train in martial arts will gain a better physique, leading to them not being the attention of bullies anymore.
These essential skills develop both the body and mind to help children counter bullies whatever way they try to attack. However, bullies will always evolve new ways of targeting their victims, and it is important that martial arts continue to develop techniques which will help children counter these methods and reduce bullying.
Martial Arts Helping Children Overcome Bullying
