AskM: Handling a new bullying style

Dear M,  

There is a different type of bullying that seems to be fairly new. It’s unique and you can’t deal with it like other situations. I’ve noticed this group of kids who are bigger and stronger and all around more powerful get some smaller kids to hang out with them, usually less powerful kids that will do anything to hang with the bigger kids. They don’t bully the small kids. They find a victim and tell the first little kid to tell a second little kid to taunt the real kid they wanna bully. So the kids bully him and when the victim tells a teacher on the kid who directly bullied him, and the first kid tells the teacher that the real bully made him do it, but there is no direct proof the actual bully did it, so he doesn’t get in trouble. Basically the bully group uses human proxies and the more proxies you have the harder it is to find the main server.
Please help,

Uncomfortable Bystander

 

Dear Uncomfortable Bystander,

If you’re uncomfortable, go tell an adult hat you saw. I think the fault lies with the little kid that did the bullying, under the influence of the real bully. He has the choice to say no. The bully can’t make him do anything, and if they are under the influence of someone much more powerful than them that does threaten to hurt them (even though that might not be the case), then they need to tell an adult or someone that will put a stop to this. In this situation, the only way the adults will know the truth is if the bystanders step in and tell them what they saw, adding proof to the accusation.

Hope all goes well,

M

 

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