Indeed, and the same bias extends to the adult stage as well - everyone wants to be tolerant, nobody wants to be “judgmental.” And of course charismatic and powerful folks get away with more. For kids there’s the additional problem that some adults don’t consider child behavior morally weighted (“boys will be boys”)
So, with the research that’s been done on this in community psychology, it appears that the most important factor in bullying incidence is the school environment. High-risk schools targeted with social and emotional learning programs have been shown to have a change in school climate which reduces the incidence of bullying. Social and emotional learning is just a fancy way of teaching kids to deal with their emotions like mature, rational human beings. This is because contrary to popular belief, bullies are extraordinarily narcissistic, and therefore generally unaware of other people as legitimate beings. Teaching kids how to deal with their feelings constructively is the key to reducing aggressive behavior in general. As Otara mentions, there are definitely interventions that have been proven to work for bullying, so we don’t need to throw up our hands in hopelessness.
ETA: My half-assed cite.
Restorative justice is also apparently pretty effective. That is usually reserved for more serious juvenile delinquency, but it involves the aggressor making amends with the family. It’s more of a mediation guided by juvenile courts. I know some of you bristle at the very notion of using social development to ameliorate aggressive behavior, but it has been proven to work. The problem of course is that nobody will get behind it because everyone wants to use punitive measures, which have not been proven to work.
I was bullied in junior high, but my experience is so foreign to other kids who have been through this I feel weird to say I was bullied. It didn’t really… bother me. I was annoyed but otherwise completely emotionally detached from the experience. In the end I ended up getting into a physical altercation with one of the bullies and she never bothered me since. It was over by high school and for that I am grateful because some kids really got it. I tried to stick up for them whenever possible and I could get the other kids to back down in that moment but nobody really changed their behavior over the long-term.
So I don’t think any campaign that’s targeting bullying directly is really going to be successful; drawing attention in this way is only going to normalize the behavior (in the same way that the DARE campaign is a colossal failure because it normalizes drug use.)
As far as the gay element, it matters, but you’re really dealing with two different issues. Gay kids are at higher risk for depression, suicide, sexual and physical assault, and homelessness, but discrimination against gays is a whole different ball of wax than general bullying and if you’re asking me what I’m more worried about I’m going to say discrimination against gays.
This is probably the truest post in the thread. So much of the bullying behavior seems to be related to kids who value edginess and rebelliousness over empathy and kindness. Being kind and empathetic gets you a label of “dork” or “candy-ass” or whatever term kids are using today, but being an asshole gets you adulation from other kids who probably wouldn’t have the balls to say or do any of this if it weren’t for the asshole doing it, but all the chorus does is egg the asshole on. Lather, rinse, repeat. Adults tend to praise the asshole for being a “real go-getter” or “assertive” or whatever. And the asshole never learns that his behavior is hurting other people.
Hey Scifisam,
You identified one of the major problems with how we handle bullying; we have been in the practice of making it about the bullied person’s feelings. What we need to do is make it about the law, and fear of external punishment (that’s the part of moral reasoning that is supposed to kick in earliest). If we told kids that assault, harrassment, stalking, and intimidation were against the law, and consequences were severe (and actually enact consequences, not just talk about them), it would go a long way.
I think we need to make a distinction between violent and nonviolent bullying. The distinction is important because there needs to be different strategies for each.
Violent Bullying – Real or threatened violence, intimidation, or coersion.
** Non-violent bullying** – Negative teasing or sarcastic remarks.
For violent bullying the authorities should get involved in the first offense. The kid should not feel like he has to fix this situation himself. The bully should be removed from the situation and addressed just as we do with adults who make threats.
But for non-violent bullying, the kid should have a plan to initially address the situation himself and then a plan of escalation if that doesn’t work. This planning will give him the confidence to handle the situation most of the time himself.
The main reason kids get teased is from lack of confidence. If a 2-year-old calls him ugly, he shrugs it off. But if a 12-year-old says the same thing, he’s reduced to a teary, quivering mess. Why? Lack of confidence. So what we need to do with kids is tell them that they will get teased for how they look, dress, talk, walk, and everything else. Then work with them for strategies for how to deal with those situations. This way even if they aren’t confident, they’ll know what to do in these situations.
Here’s how I think kids should deal with teasing:
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Don’t try to refute or respond with questions. That only allows the bully to respond.
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Come up with pat responses to common teasing situations. For example:
–Name calling - Respond with something like “Wow. You must have just arrived from the 3rd grade. I thought only little kids did that”
–Sexuality - “No, I’m not. But you seem to spend a lot of time thinking about it. Maybe you should look into that”
–Clothing - “You seem to be awfully concerned about what people wear. I wonder if you’ll be a fashion designer” -
If they keep teasing after those types of responses, respond with “There must not be much going on in your head if that’s all you can think about”
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If a kid has a physical attribute which is ripe for teasing (big nose, small frame, etc), have the kid pull out a notebook when teased. Pretend to look something up and then say “You’ll have to try for something more original next time. That insult is one of the top 3” (See the movie Roxanne to see this in action). If the bully comes up with something really original, say “Wow! there is a brain in there. I’ve never heard that one before”
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If a kid has tried these strategies and it doesn’t stop, he should say something like “We’ve had our fun, but I’d prefer that you leave me alone now”. If that doesn’t work, go to escalation.
Plan of escalation. Some bullies just won’t back down. The kid should know that if he can’t solve it, the authorities will. What we need is a type of restraining order in schools. It would say that the two kids are not allowed to talk, intimidate, or interact with each other for some period of time. When the kid asks for this, he should say something like “Soandso has been teasing me for the past two weeks. I’ve asked him to stop but he won’t. I’d like a restraining order between us.” Get the kids together and make them sign it. Have well defined punishments for breaking it. This way if the bully continues, there’s no wiggle room about what should be done.
Dealing with the bully. Not every bully is an evil devil-child. Many times it’s just a normal, self-centered kid who has not yet developed enough empathy. The authorities need to work with the bully on strategies he can employ to not say things that are taken as mean.
These stragegies won’t end bullying, but it can greatly prevent it from getting to a stage where kids are emotionally beat down. In the same way you can’t expect to hit all green lights or not have any weeds in your garden, you will have to deal with some form of bullying and teasing in your life. By preparing kids to handle bullying, they will gain the confidence so that it’s not a problem. As Stewart Smalley says, if you want the ground to always be soft, you can either carpet the world or put on slippers.
The “It Gets Better” video by Ft. Worth City Councilman Joel Burns is getting attention on various news programs. I saw it last night on “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell.
This is fine for teaching kids how to become adults, but in my experience it doesn’t do jack to limit or resolve bullying. I was sexually harassed (among other things) from 7th-12th grades. The first time it moved from being strictly verbal to a bunch of boys groping me on the bus, I did, in fact turn around, look them straight in the eye, and said loudly and firmly, “STOP IT.” The result of that was that they laughed in my face and kept right on groping me. The bus driver did nothing, btw.
Assertiveness means nothing if there’s no actual power behind it. Why should they stop just because I said so? It had already been established by years of precedent that even if I ran off to tell a teacher/parent/principal, those in authority would do nothing.
This, and, boys as singles and boys as groups harass girls, too. If I’d tried to physically throw down with my tormentors I would have absolutely gotten my ass handed to me; most of the time the boys ran in packs of at least two or three, and I was physically smaller than they were, and I had no fight skills at all. The results would have been the same as above – they’d laugh in my face, and I’d have just given them new ammunition to use against me. I did, btw, once attempt to kick one of my bullies to get him to stop. I missed. He laughed his ass off. No, he didn’t stop.
Nor does this address the fact that sometimes it’s the teachers who are the bullies. Growing up I witnessed adult teachers physically assaulting 10-year-olds. There’s not a chance in hell a 10-year-old would win that fight.
What chaps me is that the behaviors that bullies engage in are already crimes. Why are they not being treated as such? In the adult world we do have systems in place to deal with people who choose to act inappropriately. Why are we leaving kids, who are much less well-equipped, to fend for themselves?
Well said. Most of the people who used to bully me have been arrested (not because of me.) If they start shit with me again all it would take is one phone call to the police and they would go back to jail. Unfortunately for them, I can easily win a he said she said battle against them in court because of their criminal backgrounds. I know most of their names, and so do the police, so there is little chance of them hiding. I’ve learned that this is the paradigm that the nerds who run society use to fuck over high school bullies.
Bottom line is that unless they are willing to kill me, no one is going to get away with bullying me.
The safest people in society are the ones that know how to “tattle.” If you get assaulted you shouldn’t consider yourself weak for going to the police. The police are there to safely handle these problems so that you don’t have to. This works for all the families living in the suburbs who wouldn’t last 30 minutes near the inner-city projects. Yet they are ten times more safe than the toughest inner city dwellers.
The biggest problem for children is that they don’t know they can demand this kind of safety. They are taught that you have to defend yourself, and that if you can’t, then the bullying is your fault. Schools get away with this attitude because children are easy to ignore.
There are three main players involved in bullying - kids, parents, schools - and each one of them can do something to reduce the bullying.
Kids - Learn to tattle. If you are ignored keep going up or sideways through the chain of command until you find someone who won’t ignore you. Get your parents to help with the bitching if you can.
If no one believes you then things get more tricky. Sometimes you can easily win a battle words because everyone knows the kid you’re accusing is a complete asshat. When you’re accusing someone more respectable I would learn how to gather better evidence. Either record the incident, the injury from the incident, or give authorities the names of witnesses who can be questioned. If all else fails go to the police and beg them to trick the bullies into confessing.
Parents - Teach your kids to tattle. If they tell you about a bully, force them to call someone from the school and to explain the situation. If they’re too scared then of course you should show them how it’s done, but otherwise try to get them used to dealing with authorities. Also tell them not to worry about consequences to their grades if they bother teachers. Tell them you’ll let it slide if they somehow get penalized for complaining too much.
Schools - Take complaints about bullying seriously. I like the idea of using adult words like harassment, stalking and assault. When there is little evidence and you can’t tell who’s lying, you can still take steps to separate the child from his alleged abuser.
Any student who doesn’t feel safe should be taken seriously. If they can’t handle sarcasm and start to cry then something should be done. If it would be illegal in the adult world then something should be done about it at school. No hateful remarks about race, gender or sexuality targeting a specific person should be tolerated at all.
This. This needs to be our central message. This, right here.