The school year isn't so new any more, but a cer­tain amount of 'set­tling' is still go­ing on in schools. The Form Ones and Form Six­es in par­tic­u­lar are get­ting used to sig­nif­i­cant changes: new school, new class­mates, new sub­jects, new teach­ers, new 'every­thing'. The school and sub­jects are one thing, but get­ting used to the new per­son­al­i­ties is some­thing else again, and a big part of deal­ing with that is learn­ing how to stand up for your­self. There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ways to do this. The main thing to re­mem­ber is that stand­ing up for your­self doesn't mean be­ing de­fi­ant or dis­re­spect­ful. It's quite the op­po­site. Stand­ing up for your­self means main­tain­ing your dig­ni­ty. So this can mean – among oth­er things – in­sist­ing on your point dur­ing a de­bate with a peer, mak­ing sure your opin­ion is heard by oth­ers, not let­ting oth­ers sway you from your prin­ci­ples and (most dif­fi­cult of all) re­fus­ing to al­low some­one's dis­re­spect to in­vade you.

You have to de­cide how you want to stand up for your­self based on the sit­u­a­tion at the time and your own strengths. If you are quick-wit­ted and quick-tongued, a swift ver­bal re­sponse is prob­a­bly al­ways your first choice - which is fine with your peers, but which can lead you in­to prob­lems with adults, where it risks be­com­ing de­fi­ance or dis­re­spect. In such a sit­u­a­tion, where an adult is be­rat­ing you un­de­served­ly and you need to de­fend your­self, the best bet may be to breathe deeply, say noth­ing un­til the adult has fin­ished and then say that you're sor­ry for what­ev­er trou­ble this sit­u­a­tion has caused and could you speak with them again about this lat­er. So you calm down the sit­u­a­tion with the apol­o­gy while serv­ing (re­spect­ful) no­tice that the de­bate isn't over yet. This strat­e­gy is al­so a good idea for those who don't think quick­ly on their feet and need time to gath­er their thoughts and ar­gu­ments. Young peo­ple who aren't glib of­ten end up un­de­served­ly on the los­ing end of dis­agree­ments with adults be­cause they sim­ply can't put their case well enough. And there's no rule that you have to be able to de­fend your­self on the spot. You can post­pone these things to give your­self time.

So a de­layed re­sponse can work in your favour. But there are al­so times when you don't have to make a re­sponse at all. This works well for sit­u­a­tions where you know the adult on the oth­er end won't en­ter­tain any dis­cus­sion at all, ei­ther now or lat­er; or for times when you are be­ing be­set by a crowd of peers who won't give you a chance to an­swer – a favourite trick in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school, as we re­mem­ber. How do you stand up for your­self with­out say­ing a word? Some peo­ple who have mas­tered 'The Look' sim­ply draw them­selves up and de­liv­er it. What's The Look? If it's an adult, then it needs to be a calm, lis­ten­ing, re­spect­ful look which al­so sig­nals that you have a dif­fer­ent opin­ion. It is an un­yield­ing, but ut­ter­ly po­lite look. Prac­tise it in the mir­ror. If you are try­ing to stand up to your peers, then you have many more choic­es. De­pend­ing on your au­di­ence, it may be a Cool Look, a Dis­dain­ful Look, a Bored Look or any one of a num­ber of Looks.

You may then ei­ther walk away with your head held high or say (po­lite­ly): I don't wish to dis­cuss this any fur­ther, and then walk away. You can do this while the oth­er per­son is still talk­ing if you wish, be­cause there is no rule that you have to stay trapped in a dis­re­spect­ful and poi­so­nous con­ver­sa­tion. If you have tremen­dous trou­ble re­mem­ber­ing your dig­ni­ty with this par­tic­u­lar per­son or group of peo­ple, then, as a last re­sort, we move to guer­ril­la war­fare. As you stand there, be­gin pic­tur­ing what you would like to hap­pen to this per­son. Train wrecks, ex­plo­sions, be­ing de­voured by drag­ons, a man-eat­ing plant in­fec­tion which turns their skin in­side out...pic­ture it vivid­ly and com­pre­hen­sive­ly. That should put you in the right frame of mind to put a smile on your face, throw your shoul­ders back and say: I don't wish to dis­cuss this any fur­ther!