Well said, Brunhilda. I’ve bolded the parts about your suggestion I really like:
Calling it “bullying” belittles the experience. It needs to be treated as the serious act that it is. It shouldn’t be minimized by referring to it with a very juvenile “kids will be kids” sort of term.
Additionally, removing the zero tolerance policy on fights for those whose parents have made complaints about the harassment is an excellent idea. Just knowing that the kid you hassle could turn around and punch you and get off scott free would be a deterrent in some cases, and in others having the victims fight back would help end the abuse.
Yeah Curtis spoken as a young man.. If you notice the bullies in the school.. get a good look at the parents. Either they will be social misfits who the school does not want to go 12 round with.. or their mother will be one of the ones who has a lot of pull at the school.. and theirs no way the Principal will risk this.
Ah, but there’s the rub. What exactly is “bullying”? Mostly, it’s in the ear of the individual. What more thick skinned students pass off as teasing others may perceive as verbal assault. Teaching/counseling more sensitive and emotionally vulnerable students how to deal with slights is more effective than trying to set up police states in the schools.
And how could the schools possibly protect against so-called cyberbullying? They can’t, except to try and educate kids on how to respond appropriately and put the experience into a reasonable context.
One of the frustrating aspects of being bullied by multiple other children was that since I was the common theme of the incidents, they were treated as if I was the sole cause and so the others did not get into trouble, I did. The others learned this quickly and took delight in finding new ways to get me in trouble. They were good at framing what the teachers saw. I read modern accounts that make it clear this is often still the case. If we start “coming down on the bullies with the fury of God’s own thunder” we risk adding new dimensions of terror to victims.
One of the striking aspects of the anti-bullying programs based on the Olweus model is the emphasis on inclusion. Instead of looking for bullies and treating them just like the little criminals they are or are becoming, the program emphasizes not retaliation, but inclusion, teaching that this kind of division is not going to be allowed to stand.
I worry about the message being sent by all of the focus on the suicides of bullied kids. Depression is a serious illness and all of the focus on bullies makes it seem as if mean kids are the problem. When the real problem may be undiagnosed mental illness.
Also the vitriol directed at the roomate who taped the GW bridge jumper, and at the people who were mean to that irish girl could be dangerous. We don’t want to plant the idea in a teenager’s head that suicide can be a way to visit revenge on people who have wronged you. When I was a depressed teen, it seemed much of the appeal of suicide was thinking about how terrrible certain people would feel at the funeral. The idea that killing yourself could result in a bully being publicly shamed might tempt more people to attempt it.
In general news stories about suicides increase attempts, so all of the publicity around these tragedies could be having consequences that are opposite those intended.
School administrators need to make sure that all of the teachers are on the look out for bullying and that they take it seriously when it is reported. Teachers know who the bad kids are but if the administration does nothing teachers will not report bullying. Too many administrators are more interested in avoiding a lawsuit from a bad kids parents than protecting children. School vouchers could help by making it easier to switch schools. My niece was bullied at a school and her parents switched her to a private school she loved. If she had come from a poorer family, she would have been stuck with the bullies. Too many people are financially stuck in a school with bullies and have to navigate the maze of school bureacracy to try to get someone to help. Making it easier to leave a dangerous situation would help immediately.
First, I don’t agree that bullies are the privileged kids or the “jocks”. In my experience, and I was bullied plenty, it was the troubled kids. The ones who’s parents didn’t care, who were clearly going to end up in jail some day and were practicing their technique. I’ve always thought that a lot of bullying could be mitigated by giving those kids the attention they need - or by separating them.
Secondly, I’m not convinced that this is any more of an issue for gay kids than anyone else. Certainly there have been some recent public cases of gay kids committing suicide, which says more about how open gay kids are in high school these days than it does about who gets bullied. Dan Savage is an outspoken gay guy so his focus is going to be the gay students and good for him. His message is useful without getting into a fight about who takes the most abuse and he addresses an important point. We can’t stop all people from being bad but maybe we can convince kids not to commit suicide over it.
I believe that bullying is human nature and if you take away one form it will appear in another form. I didn’t mind being pushed or punched at school, the verbal stuff was far more harsh. I thought the way the teachers always held up a few choice students as examples of what failures the rest of us were was equivalent to bullying so why shouldn’t the kids get to do it? The schools should be clear about what behaviors are not allowed and the adults there should be aware of who is behaving inappropriately. But we don’t need thought police.
I don’t understand. We don’t deal with workplace harassment by telling the victim to find a new job. We deal with it by hammering the perpetrator. Why should the inability of the victim to change schools be relevant? The victim shouldn’t have to change schools.
I understand some of the bullies’ parents are a huge part of the problem; that was part of the reason why I suggested that in some cases these bullies need to be referred to the family court system. Not handling a child’s problems at an appropriate level (and many bullies have major problems developmentally, based on my observations) is neglect, and the family may be in need of some intervention. Maybe parenting classes, maybe counseling, maybe something judicial.
A school should also be liable for cases where a parent has documented the bullying continuously and nothing has been done, and a greater harm has been caused. Ignoring this after it has been documented needs to be shown to be a bigger liability than handling it properly in the first place.
I must confess, if my kid were getting beaten up on a regular basis or intimidated, the school would be my last call, after documenting the situation with the cops.
“I believe that bullying is human nature and if you take away one form it will appear in another form.”
That doesnt seem to match up with the results in well designed programs. A common similar fear with domestic violence perpetrators was that if they just stopped being physically abusive they’d become more emotionally or verbally abusive instead.
In practise it seems to be all forms of abuse tend to reduce when interventions are carried out, its a quite well studied area. There are exceptions of course, but the overall trend was pretty clear.
The reason why I’m saying that more conservative measures are often better than going in with both guns blazing is because bullying is a very sensitive and delicate subject for bully, victim, and the people around them. I’ve seen and experienced fallout from episodes of bullying when a teacher or administrator goes off half-cocked; the bully may be punished, but the class, if not the school, is disrupted until the dust settles, and that’s not fair to the rest of the students. Being conservative works more than it doesn’t, and because it’s being dealt with quietly, the school doesn’t risk making things worse for the victim by calling attention to him/her, and it’s better for the bully because he doesn’t get the attention and hero worship that public punishment brings.
It’s part of the problem that the big kids are the biggest predator in the pool and they know it. They don’t fear reprisals from adults because they know it doesn’t happen in the school system. But it could.
Teaching kids “resilience” isn’t always the answer, either. Some kids are picked on for things they can’t control, such as physical or emotional problems, learning disabilities (“Hey! Let’s pick on the retarded kid!”), or their family’s socioeconomic status, especially when that status makes the kid stand out. Some of these kids can’t learn resilience because of their problems. Others can. But it’s not a universal solution.
What teachers and schools can do is teach assertiveness skills so kids learn to stand up for themselves. I think that if those skills were taught, the incidence of “bullying” will go down.
“Anti-bullying” measures are a joke. It is nothing but folly to think that we can stop it if only we take the right measures.
Bullying is nothing more or less than human beings acting like human beings. One person asserts dominance and the “victim” either fights or flees. And now, with the belief that “fighting never solves anything”, the victim has the choice of fleeing and getting more of the same or fighting and getting severely punished. In that respect we have encouraged bullying because the aggressor knows that he need only not get caught in a blatant act and he’s home free. It used to be that standing up to a bully got you a bloody nose, a black eye, maybe a detention or two, and some respect which more than made up for the price paid. Now it draws suspensions and assault charges, and creates little monsters that lash out in much more violent fashion (Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc.). I can see how that is a much better end result than a few piddly social fights a year.
It will never go away. Never. It is, was, and will be an inherent aspect of human nature for as long as we exist as a species. You can’t breed it out, you can’t suppress it, and you can’t ignore it. It’s how we interact, from the person-to-person level all the way to the way we behave as nation-states.
Now, that’s not to say that the targets will not change. The so-called “weak” people (who are only weak in that they have been more or less kneecapped by authority) will always be victims, but the nature of their “weakness” will change. Nevertheless, knowing who the target du jour is won’t help them. The only thing that stops a bully is a show of strength. In my experience it works every time, unlike “ignoring them until they go away”.
And? I like how there is the implication that simply by saying “That sure is a broad brush you’re painting with” you are demonstrating how wrong it is. So how’s it wrong?
To the people who keep suggesting fighting as the best way of dealing with bullies: Please be aware this isn’t a very good option for people who weigh 90 pounds in high school, or are victims of group harassment.
I agree, there is definitely a subgroup of kids who do need more protection from bullying behavior, developmentally delayed and Asperger cases are prime examples. Teaching assertiveness skills to all kids is also part of a reasonable approach to the problem.