Learning Martial Arts Can Help Prevent Bullying
October is National Bullying Prevention Month, time dedicated to teachers, students, and martial arts schools to work together to end bullying.
Statistics show, “that nearly 30% of students in 6th through 12th grades report being the victims of bullying. More than 70% of students in those same grades say they’ve seen bullying at their schools.”
StopBullying.gov says bullying is behavior that includes:
AN IMBALANCE OF POWER:
Kids who bully use power to harm or control others. Power can come in the form of physical strength, access to embarrassing information.
REPETITION:
Bullying behavior happens more than once, or has the potential to repeat.
Bullying most often occurs in school, on the bus, and online through social media apps. The three main types of bullying are verbal, social and physical. Here are some examples of what the different types of bullying can look like:
VERBAL – SAYING OR WRITING MEAN THINGS (which include)
Teasing or taunting
Name-calling
Threatening harm
Sexual comments
SOCIAL OR RELATIONAL – DAMAGING ANOTHER’S REPUTATION OR RELATIONSHIPS
Spreading rumors Intentionally embarrassing another student
Excluding someone on purpose
Telling other students not to be someone’s friend
PHYSICAL – HURTING SOMEONE OR DAMAGING THEIR BELONGINGS
Hitting, kicking, pinching, tripping or pushing
Taking someone’s things or breaking them
Mean gestures and spitting
MARTIAL ARTS TEACHES SELF-CONFIDENCE, SELF-CONTROL AND SELF-RESPECT
Therefore, learning martial arts may seem like an obvious way to ensure your kids don’t become victims of physical bullying. As a result, they receive the self-defense training they need to protect themselves and fight back.
In addition, martial arts also equips our kids with another important tool for preventing bullying:
Confidence. Students develop healthy self-esteem when they learn martial arts, which gives them confidence to stand up for themselves, without using force.
In summary, they learn self-control, how to be assertive, think on their feet when being picked on. When a student keeps their composure and doesn’t engage, a bully loses their power.
There’s one more characteristic martial arts teach that’s important to stopping bullying:
Respect. Students learn to respect others and themselves. This means they’re less likely to tolerate being bullied or to bully others.
CONTACT AMERICAN KARATE INSTITUTE TODAY
At the American Karate Institute, we teach a way of life. Our Miami martial arts school and MMA Classes has developed a well thought out curriculum that teaches more than just the art of self-defense. We delve deep into our students’ technique, skill set, intelligence, intuition and overall physical fitness. Contact us today if you’re interested in mixed martial arts and self-defense classes and schedule your free-trial class!
