The Third Option
- Nov 11, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 12, 2025
Shared ahead is one of the first papers I wrote as part of my degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution from the Carter School in Arlington, Virginia. The topic is relevant across social spaces and cultures, and each parent, child, and teacher thinks about this issue at least a few times in their life. The following paper was written for CONF 600 in the fall of 2019 and is put here with good intentions to increase better understanding about this universal issue.
As for any of my own experiences, bear in mind I went to school in India in the 1990s when cyberbullying was not really possible and the current scenario in schools may be different.
Just to give you some idea before sharing this delicate topic, as a child I got to see a range of positive and negative social experiences because I was selectively talented, witnessed the thin line between making people laugh as a class-clown to gradually turning into someone people laughed at. Then, I saw flying colors in my grades like a resuscitated bird two years later by high school. As a young teenager, I used to succeed only when I liked a subject immensely. Once I became self-disciplined, I systematically improved my grades and essentially did well when no one was looking and when things couldn't get any worse for me. In the Indian academic context, academic standing is closely associated with social experiences in adolescence. In my case there wasn't much active bullying. However, I had no friends for two years from 14-16, which is difficult during this age range. The observer in me took birth during this time, which is when I must have first wondered about this topic.
The Third Option
“It takes a village to raise a child.” This well-known proverb has often felt incomplete to me because it also takes a village to kill a child. During my short span of teaching Social Psychology, one particular topic that evoked deep emotions in students opened with the following question, “How many of you know someone who ended their life due to bullying?” Regardless of the class-size or university, at least one-fourth of the students always raised their hand. Then they used to look at each other in surprise. My lecture used to end with the proposal of a third option – effectively using the space between stimulus and response – a zone of solution that sits at the core of conflict management.
There are two main learned responses to bullying – get bullied or become a bully. In this paper, I do not discuss bullying as an ever-present division between the good versus bad apples loitering in our school corridors. Bullying is a conflict encouraged by an ‘every man for himself’ ideology that understands force as impact, aggression as genetic fitness. Therefore, I will be using political realism and the cultural approach as an analytic framework to build my argument and conclude with suggestions for solving this prevalent and important issue.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Department of Education, bullying is marked by unwanted aggressive behavior, observed or perceived power imbalance, and repeating such behaviors ("Facts About Bullying" n.d.). Bullying can be direct (e.g., bullying that occurs in the presence of a targeted youth) and indirect (e.g., spreading rumors). Additionally, the four broad categories of bullying are — physical, verbal, relational, (e.g., harming the reputation or relationships of the targeted youth), and damage to property. In the past decade, electronic or cyberbullying bullying has further magnified the ill effects of the existing forms of bullying ("Facts About Bullying" n.d.). The link between bullying and suicide is so strong that there is even a separate term for it – bullycide; a term first used in 2001 by journalists Neil Marr and Tim Field (Serani, 2018) in the book, Bullycide: Death at Playtime (Marr & Field, 2001).
Bullying is active amplification of power differences in one-to-one contexts. In some ways, it is possibly our first introduction to the intent of domination and war. This can be explained using the lens of political realism. According to political realism, power and dominance is assumed as a natural expression of human nature and seeking harmony of interests is supposed to be unusual (Morgenthau, 2006). Dissected even further, it is based on the premise that the self or any territory attached to your identity needs to be protected at any cost which ultimately leads to self-preservation. This made perfect sense in the barbaric battle days of medieval history when most wars were waged largely as unlawful alpha-male driven territorial expansions. When human beings exercise bullying behavior, they are probably not thinking of the nature of war, at least not actively. However, war has been the most salient template for what ultimate dominance means to people. This template fails miserably in facilitating everyday social dynamics because we forget that wars are designed to acquire territories but destroy relationships and people. In everyday social contexts, self-growth and self-expansion are more likely to happen by the way of interdependence. The secret to be whispered in the ear of any big bully, with a gentle arm around their shoulder, is “Self-preservation is in strengthening your understanding of people, not in overpowering people.” Because even in a crude political realistic world, we all need friends who can prevent our untimely demise if we are about to get attacked and no one’s looking.
The formative academic years of my life were informed by the humanistic perspective (e.g., Maslow, 1971) which assumes all people to be potentially good. For this reason, I have hope even for the most deterring political realist or the biggest bully. One way of pushing a fierce political realist or a bully toward long-term self-preservation is to instill belief in righteous power (i.e. dominance without destruction, dominance expressed in the protection of others which can also ultimately protect the self). In the larger sense, it can encourage a sort of political dominance that aligns better with a post-World War II and a post UN Peacekeeping world not because it is politically civil to be good, but it is socially intelligent to be good. In schools, a social learning template based on protection motivated dominance is bound to make any school bully reconsider their methods because it promises self-preservation in the long run.
Culture, according to one author, involves “customs, habits, beliefs, and values that shape emotions, behavior, and life patterns.” (Tseng, 2003). Societal pressure gets introduced in each culture differently. In my original culture, back in the 1990s up until 2002, a poor exam result was more aversive to health and life than possible death due to bullying. An academically challenged kid was not perceived as someone who should travel for one year, without a declared major, and eventually discover their talent in a non-scientific field. It meant ultimate doom and shame for the family. Interest in extra-curricular activities after 9th grade usually meant a diversion from ‘what actually mattered.’ In my own experience during school years in India, bullying was never an issue. At best you got left out but never beat up. School buses usually had one teacher and sometimes a bus monitor (i.e. a conscientious student especially in charge of maintaining proper social conduct in the bus) riding the bus as a rule. Any extreme behavior meant immediate issuance of a red (danger zone of poor conduct) or a yellow card (warning zone of poor conduct) which meant an unwanted PTA meeting invitation to the aggressor’s parent. During such parent-teacher meetings steps to build a progressive non-aggressive version of the child was usually discussed. Having said that, in my original culture, things were imperfect for different reasons such as young minds having to deal with the societal pressure of academic success. Suicide prevention hotlines used to open around the time of CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) exams held in classes 10th and 12th, but bullying was never a major issue as it is usually reported in the United States. Different societies cause the slow death of childhood uniquely.
My unified experience of two cultures, 18 years in India and 16 years in the United States, did help me contemplate about some commonalities in the social-emotional experiences of emerging teenagers that are important when considering long-term solutions. This was also partly influenced by my study of psychology. The teenage mind is not aptly prepared for high quality emotion regulation. This is bad news for bullies and the recipients of bullying behavior. Emotion regulation areas of the brain become fully strengthened only by early adulthood which is why teenagers exercise cognitive coping strategies with limited agility (Garnefski, Legerstee, Kraaij, Kommer, & Teerds, 2002). In other words, the cruelty of nature steps right when most change hits us. Many adults usually think about this vulnerable time with a mischievous reminiscing smile or a tear in the eye, simply because of experiencing a better regulated brain later in life. The good news is how the brain is also quite malleable during our teenage years which is why introducing better ways of regulating and organizing emotions early on (e.g., by the way of constructive energy directing activities through sports and creative challenging projects) can have lifetime consequences. Learning to engage in effective emotional appraisals by giving reframed or informed meaning to first felt painful emotions is another example of handling emotional responses well. A teenager is essentially a refined child learning to drive an adult body. When we miss this point, as parents or as teachers, we miss the essence of teenage. Because when we do not fully understand the emotionality of teenage, we are bound to categorize kids with poor emotion regulation and limited emotional response options as simply bad (the bully) or weak (the bullied). The way we understand events (i.e. how we perceive, interpret, and explain events) or anything that may normally annoy or anger us is crucial in determining how we respond. This is relevant when feeling like a bully or being bullied. In psychology, this basic notion of emotion re-appraisal was first explained in length by Lazarus and Folkman (1984).
Practice of mindfulness and forms of meditation can bring us to a mental spot of good response because an immediate constructive response may not come to us naturally. Cultivating a pleasant state of mind (e.g., not necessarily happy but devoid of fearful vigilance) can be a first step toward better responding to stressful situations. It involves being prepared for potentially new or difficult contexts without unresolved apprehension, and ensuring a state of emotional balance, enough to evoke a socially successful response. With practice over different contexts and years, a good socially successful (not the same as agreeable) response can become a habit as often seen in long-term relationship partners of multiple decades. Focusing on shared identities tends to help respond similarly in newer unfamiliar contexts. When parents and teachers encourage the habit of mindful considerate social responding (e.g., disagreeing with respect), not just winning an argument, it gets established as an accepted norm. Over time this norm feels psychologically healthy to everyone due to better solutions. A school context built on mindful social responding is gradually supposed to make any school bully recognize a major shift — aggressive outbursts toward others is considered primitive in that context and holds absolutely no potential for increasing dominance. Getting heard, not getting hurt, is everyone’s goal.
References
Facts About Bullying. (n.d.). Retrieved from
Garnefski, N., Legerstee, J., Kraaij, V., Kommer, T., & Teerds, J. (2002). Cognitive coping strategies and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A comparison between adolescents and adults. Journal of Adolescence, 25(6), 603-611.
Lazarus, R., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publication Company.
Marr, N. & Field, T. (2001). Bullycide: Death at playtime. Success Unlimited.
Maslow, A. (1971). The farther reaches of human nature. Penguin Books.
Morgenthau, H., Thompson, K., & Clinton, W. (2006). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace (7th ed. / revised by Kenneth W. Thompson and W. David Clinton.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Serani, D (2018). Bullycide: When a bullied child dies by suicide.
Tseng, W. (2003). Clinician’s guide to cultural psychiatry. Academic Press.
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