Bullying. It’s a hot topic today.
It’s also something that’s gone on for many years. Today, bullying is separated
into categories; there are childhood bullies, adult bullies, physical and
psychological bullying. There’s cyber bullying, covert (hidden) bullying,
physical bullying, and verbal bullying. All
of these types of bullying are harmful. If there is one type that is worse than
the rest, I would have to say it is covert bullying. I know. Aside from dealing
with child abuse, I suffered physical and verbal abuse from kids in my
neighborhood; I also endured “covert” bullying at the hands of my classmates
during my seventh grade year.
I started junior high
school at Wilbraham and Monson Academy. The kids at WMA quickly realized they
could get away with bullying me, and did so quite viciously. I spent about $500 on text books during the
first semester, and spent the rest of the year carrying ALL of my books around
with me throughout the day. When I used
my locker, some of the kids would break into it, steal and burn the contents,
then put the ashes back into my locker for me to find.
During
art class one day, we were using small tools to burn designs into leather
squares. The teacher had stepped out of
the room, and some boys in the class took the opportunity to grab my leather
square and burn it so I could no longer work on my design. I was so upset that I walked out of the room
and refused to go back. The teacher sent
me to the Dean of Students, who told me I would have to be punished for my
insubordination. The punishment was for
me to spend all day Saturday and Sunday the next weekend sitting in the main
hall of the school; I was not allowed to listen to music, read, or do any other
activity. My mother spoke to the Dean of
Students; when she pointed out my reason for walking out of class, the Dean
threw up his hands and said, “boys will be boys!”
There are many more resources for bullied
kids today than there were back in the 1980s. However, just as in days past,
bullied kids still react predictably.
WebMD notes that bullied children are likely to be “sensitive, socially
withdrawn…, anxious, passive…, and more likely to get depressed” (WebMD,
2005-2016). Some of these kids are acting out aggressively, even fatally. Some
children act out by becoming bullies themselves or by shooting other kids at
school. Many other children, however, turn inwards. They exhibit the signs
listed by WebMD; they attempt suicide. Many children, unfortunately, succeed. Partway
through the school year that I spent enduring the bullying I mentioned above,
around the middle of January, I attempted suicide. Luckily, my mother caught me
in time, and I am able to share my story today. I took some positive lessons
away from that experience. Many children, however, are not able to do so.
The question is how can we stop bullying?
Historically, kids who bully others were punished. They were told not to act so
badly towards others. In his article written for the Science of Us (2016),
Jesse Singal notes that peer pressure is more effective in encouraging or
stopping bullying than lectures aimed at children are. Social norms in school
that are dictated by the most influential children are most effective in
determining whether or not bullying will occur, according to the study
referenced in Singal’s article. This is certainly a positive step in the
research on stopping bullying; however, more research needs to be done to
determine how these influential children could be encouraged to create social
mores in school that dictate an intolerance of bullying.
Children who have been bullied need to be
noticed and given more individualized attention to aid them in building their
own defenses against the bullies. If a child is more confident, he or she will
be less likely to succumb to the effects of the bullies’ behavior. Therapy,
whether provided by the school or by a therapist of the parents’ choosing, is
certainly a good step. In conjunction with the therapy, however, the bullied
child should be given tasks that will enable him or her to build confidence. These
tasks need not (and probably should not) be pointed out to the other children
in the school/classroom. If the child is allowed to quietly succeed at the
tasks he or she is given, the self-confidence needed to combat the bullies’
messages will come from within. Such self-confidence is infinitely more
effective than external, public recognition. Children who are depressed and
withdrawn are more likely to dismiss praise and public acknowledgement as “not
real” or insincere.
Another step to take in combatting bullying
is to make sure that we as adults are not bullying others. Many people use
intimidation tactics to get what they want. Some people use their size or
willingness to use physical force as a weapon. Others attack and label the
behaviors of the person they are bullying as bullying behavior. This, then, is
taken as an excuse to use social or legal means to force the bullied person to
get what they want.
M., a sixth grade student, reached a point
at which she was fed up with being told that she had to “be friends” with a
girl in her class who would cycle through specific behaviors: the other girl
would act nicely toward M., then start telling other students that M. was
bad or flawed in some way. M. would
react by walking away from and ignoring the other girl, who would then tell
their teacher that M. was “being mean.” M. would be instructed by the teacher
to “be friends” with the girl, and the cycle would begin again. After three or
four years of this, M. took to social media on a Friday evening after she had
gotten home from school. M. wrote, “*Girl’s
name* is a bitch.” Within half an hour, M.’s mother had seen the post and
it was deleted, after a discussion with M. about the post and the reason for
it. On the following Monday, M. was brought into a meeting with her parents,
the school principal, and the police officer assigned to the school. M.’s
father, principal, and the police officer proceeded to tell M. that what she
had done in making such a statement on social media was bullying, even illegal,
and she could be arrested for such behavior. She was then suspended from school
for the remainder of the week. Although she does have some emotional problems
stemming from this and other incidents, however, M. was allowed to succeed at
multiple tasks during her earliest years that, the successes combined with her
naturally strong personality to give her the ability to overcome the behaviors
of, and even ignore, those who would have bullied her.
The incident involving M. brings to light
more covert bullying. The mother of the girl who M. was in conflict with used
the school principal to “punish” M. for saying what she did in her post. In
addressing only M.’s post, the other girl’s mother positively reinforced her
own daughter’s bullying behavior. In only punishing M for her social media
post, the school principal and police officer indicated to M. that bullies can
get what they want if they act in a specific way, and that those who speak out
are the ones who will be punished for their actions. In the meeting with her
principal, the police officer, and her parents, M. was sitting with her back
against the wall; her father, the police officer, and principal were all
standing above and leaning toward her in what can only be described as an
intimidating manner. Here again is an example of bullying from adults. Such
behavior must be stopped if we are to lead children by our own example.
Researching ways in which we can encourage
children to create social mores that restrict or even prevent bullying is an
action that must be continued. More research will hopefully result in a
reduction in bullying. In addition to such research, though, we adults must
lead by example. We need to make sure that our own behaviors are not those of a
bully, and we need to stop those adults who continue to use bullying behaviors,
including intimidation tactics, themselves.
References
Singal,
J. (2016, January). The key to stop bullying: Popular kids. Science of Us.
Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/19/health/popular-kids-can-stop-bullying/index.html
WebMD. (2005-2016). Bullying-Characteristics
of children who are bullied. Retrieved from
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/tc/bullying-characteristics-of-children-who-are-bullied
