BBC RADIO LINCOLNSHIRE Interview 8 Feb, 8

The speaker discusses a book called "Stand Strong: How to Tame a Bully and Get Your Life Back" written by Nick Johnson. Nick was inspired to write the book based on his own son's experience with bullying. The book provides simple tactics to deal with bullying, such as staying calm, acquiring proof and evidence, overcoming fear, and disclosing the issue to a trusted adult. The speaker mentions that bullies may have been bullied themselves and encourages standing up to them. Nick plans to visit schools to promote his book. In the end, the speaker briefly mentions Nick's involvement with Grantham football club. the 90s mid-tape on BBC Radio Lincolnshire 13 minutes back there now you remember when you were younger school every school had a school bully sometimes more than one um and you know you might have had a terrible experience with this because it could have been horrendous some people you know still have this years and years on don't they uh here's something you could have popped a book called stand strong how to tame a bully and get your life back that sounds good advice doesn't it it's written by Nick Johnson who is from uh Stanford he's also the director of Grantham football club and he's with us now on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Nick you you were sort of spurred into writing this based on experiences with your own son at school right yeah yeah I was indeed yeah good morning uh yeah well I was inspired by I wrote I read a book a self-help book for my child and then I thought afterwards well maybe I could write one myself so we sort of discussed um subjects and I think the bullying thing came up which was my son he he was diagnosed with global development delay so he had sort of mild bullying on and off so that's what inspired the idea um so we yeah and how typical was it for you to go through that um it was it was it was quite tough because kids can be cruel and stuff but we we worked with teachers and therapists and we came up with some strategies that really worked for him so that's why we decided you know why don't we put it into a book and it could help other kids yeah and and it's very bold title how to tail a bully and get your life and is it again I think is it is it a different way and make them aware but you in the book you're saying there are things you can do to try and get over this in other ways yeah I mean I think it's just sort of simple tactics sometimes the answer is quite simple but you know we we all want the best for our kids and want to give advice but we just did some research and we we came up with the you know the steps and the steps that people can remember so um I can run you through them if you like yeah I was gonna say I don't know I don't know to give the whole book away but I mean yeah if you could give us some broad first tips of what what would be how how so many people go through this and everybody will have their own experiences yeah so basically what we wanted something that the kids would remember that's why we came up with like an acronym stand so the first step would be like stay calm um you know people can panic and you know it can rob you of your piece of my life you can get angry as kids can get angry obviously we don't want kids to be angry and get violent so first of all stay calm that's the ST the second thing is like the A is like acquire proof and evidence because sometimes you get my someone sometimes said well he said this she said that which is not bullying obviously so you know acquire evidence over some time then the final two steps are no fear because sometimes people kids are worried about what's the reaction going to be from the teachers or the bullies and things like that and then the final step the D is disclose you know go to your teacher or your your your sort of mentor or your parents and sort of go to them in one one step so it's just sort of standing up the simple steps but they're easy to remember yeah yeah and and i suppose as well it's trying to get into the body's mind as well because sometimes the bullies have been bullied themselves and that's why they do it isn't it yeah exactly right yeah so i think but if if we do stand up to them then you know we can change can't we yeah it's you know we just need to sort of take that first first step and um yeah it basically it works you're going to go around schools with the book aren't you yeah we are so we're going to my son's school my well he's at college now so we're going to my son's school first and we're working our way around schools here so any schools in Lincolnshire are interested i'll be happy to come and read to their kids yeah excellent well look we look forward to seeing more about it it's called stand strong your life back uh just while you're on nick out of ground from town there's been a bit close to the bottom of the table this year at times aren't they they're going to be all right uh yeah i'm um i'm praying i'm i'm i'm i'm an i'm an optimist you can you can write another book later in the year when you've got out of trouble yeah yeah exactly yeah good to touch good to touch you know nick is from stanford he's a director at the grandland south football club he's book he's called out the table bully and get your life back it's bbc radio nick is sure i've got all this great music loaded up and ready to play for you thank you so much nick awesome thanks very much for saying that that was great oh yeah no it was brilliant it's just to let people know so um yeah i really plan lots to play around and you get um give us a lot of schools too that'll be really nice that's great awesome thank you for your help have a good day