Updated: December 10, 2010
Bullying in schools is a long-standing, widespread problem, yet parents often overlook the harassment occurring in their own communities. Many adults imagine bullying to be the obvious intimidation of a child by a physically more powerful peer. While such harassment certainly occurs, the overwhelming majority of bullying involves a variety of behaviors that are not physical in nature, such as gossiping, spreading rumors, and name-calling. These antisocial behaviors are often dismissed as a normal part of growing up by many adults, but they have highly detrimental effects on students’ well-being and academic performance.
Children in all grade levels use difference as a reason to discriminate, exclude, and make fun of their peers. When some acts of bullying (for example, physical confrontation) are punished, but others (such as racist slurs) are not, students learn that harassment is acceptable as long as it is not obvious. Therefore, prejudice and bias are more entrenched in school cultures than most adults realize.
According to findings of the Safe School Initiative conducted by the U.S. Secret Service in 2002, three-quarters of all school shootings have resulted from repeated bullying and harassment. Creating safe and welcoming classrooms must be the responsibility of lawmakers, school personnel, and the entire community.
The lessons children learn outside of the classroom—especially from their parents—about how to treat others are perhaps the greatest influence on their behavior. All parents and guardians can monitor and guide their own children’s behavior, encouraging them to be more respectful toward their peers.
This article is adapted from Creating Safe Schools Is Everyone’s Business by Ryan Schwartz and Debra Chasnoff. This article appeared in the August-September 2007 issue of Our Children magazine, the national PTA organization’s flagship publication for families and PTA leaders. To subscribe to this fact- and idea-filled magazine especially designed to help families who want to help their children succeed in school and life, click here.
- from the PTA Parent, Sept. 25, 2007
National PTA is pleased to inform you of new materials that will help your PTA effectively deal with bullying in your school and community. The materials--two kits developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)--are part of the HRSA's Take a Stand. Lend a Hand. Stop Bullying Now! campaign.
The "Resource Kit" includes advice from a youth-expert panel made up of young people. The kit also contains clear tips and important facts on bullying and bullying prevention for parents, educators, health and safety professionals, law enforcement officers, and others who encounter child and teen bullying. A CD-ROM with tip sheets ready for reproduction and distribution is included.
The "Communication Kit" contains materials designed to assist your PTA in promoting and garnering support for the Take a Stand. Lend a Hand. Stop Bullying Now! campaign in your community. This kit also includes a CD-ROM with materials ready for reproduction and distribution.
The free kits can be ordered by calling (888) ASK-HRSA (275-4772) or by visiting the campaign website. The website has activities for students and resources not included in the kits.
from NATIONAL PTA WEEKLY, Januray 30, 2005
Bullying is no longer confined to the playground or neighborhood. Today there's a new arena for bullies--cyberspace. Bullies are now using the anonymity of the Internet "to hurl threats, spread rumors, trash reputations, and damage fragile egos," assert the authors of an article in the January/February issue of National PTA's "Our Children" magazine. In "The Newest Breed of Bully, the Cyberbully," authors Charlene C. Giannetti and Margaret Sagarese cite current research that found that one in 17 U.S. kids ages 10-17 has been threatened online (often by their peers) and one-third of those kids found the incident very upsetting.
The article goes on to say that since cyberbullying is such a new phenomenon, schools and law enforcement agencies are still trying to determine what their legal rights are when trying to put a stop to such intimidation. Much of what's posted online is protected as free speech, and unless someone posts a direct threat to injure another person, there is little the police can do.
Parents are still the first line of defense against such bullying say the authors. Therefore, Giannetti and Sagarese provide the following strategies to parents wishing to protect their children:
Read the entire article. See more articles on bullying and its prevention.
from NATIONAL PTA WEEKLY, Januray 18, 2005
From the October 2003 Our Children, the magazine of the National PTA Understanding Bullying
Each day hundreds of thousands of children dread going to school and facing the taunts, jeers, and humiliation wrought by bullies. When we think of bullying, the easily identifiable physical and verbal harassment comes to mind, including teasing, taunting, threatening, and hitting. Relational bullying is more difficult for adults to observe and identify. Children who bully through relational means socially isolate their victims by intentionally excluding them or spreading rumors about them. Bullying, then, refers to physical or psychological intimidation that occurs repeatedly, is intended to inflict injury or discomfort on the victim, and creates an ongoing pattern of harassment and abuse.
The bullying relationship is characterized by an imbalance of power, such that the victim of bullying finds it hard to defend him- or herself and begins to feel powerless against the bully. The child who bullies typically is bigger, older, stronger, or more popular than the victim of bullying, and his or her intent is to exert power over the victim. For example, girls who bully through exclusion and other forms of relational aggression tend to have more social power than their victims. The bully is aware that his or her behavior causes distress, the bully enjoys the victim's reaction, and the bullying continues and escalates. Bullies hurt others in order to feel strong and powerful at a given moment.
It's very difficult for most parents to determine whether their children engage in bullying behaviors because most bullying occurs out of parents' sight. See factors parents and teachers can watch for to identify instances of bullying.
Some adults and children rationalize bullying because victims are overly sensitive, cry easily, or act in ways that set them apart from other children. Even if the victim does show these characteristics, adults and children must know bullying is not a healthy coping response—it signals that a child needs to learn how to manage his or her emotions, release anger and frustration in more healthy ways, and learn more constructive strategies for getting along with others. Your role, as parent or teacher, is to help children establish more mature and healthy ways of relating with others, thereby ensuring that they will grow into caring and adaptive adults.
There are at least two types of victims: passive victims and reactive victims. The stereotypical image of the bullied child is the passive victim: He or she avoids confrontation, is physically slight, quiet, does not tease others, and does not defend him- or herself from the bully. The passive victim turns inward when bullied, crying and withdrawing rather than fighting back.
Active victims are much less common than passive victims. The reactive victim provokes attacks by being aggressive, disruptive, argumentative, and antagonizing towards bullies and other children, and retaliates when he or she is bullied. Sometimes reactive victims are referred to as bully/victims because they straddle the fence of being a bully and/or victim. They are difficult to identify because they seem to be targets for bullies, but they often taunt bullies and other children. Not only do reactive victims fight back when bullied, but they sometimes channel their rage and anger into bullying others, especially those younger and weaker than themselves. In this way, some victims of bullies transform into bullies themselves, perpetuating the abuse and singling out new victims.
Bullying is not a normal part of growing up!
Bullying is not a normal part of growing up. Victims of bullying suffer psychological and sometimes physical scars that last a lifetime. Victims report greater fear and anxiety, feel less accepted, suffer from more health problems, and score lower on measures of academic achievement and self-esteem than students who are not bullied. Victims often turn their anger inward, which may lead to depression, anxiety, and even suicide. The experience of bullying is also linked with violence, as the fatal school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, and Jonesborough, Arkansas, have illustrated.
However, it's not just victims who are hurt by bullying. Bullies fail to learn how to cope, manage their emotions, and communicate effectively - skills vital to success in the adult world. Without intervention, bullies suffer stunted emotional growth and fail to develop empathy. Since bullies are accustomed to achieving their immediate goals by pushing others around, they don't learn how to have genuine relationships with other people. Instead, they externalize and blame others for their problems, never taking responsibility, nor learning how to care for another's needs. Bullies who don't learn other ways of getting what they want develop into adult bullies who are more likely to experience criminal troubles, be abusive toward their spouses, and have more aggressive children, perhaps continuing the cycle of bullying into the next generation.
The most effective way of addressing bullying is through comprehensive schoolwide programs. Schoolwide programs, developed collaboratively between school administration and personnel, students, parents, and community members, seek to change the school's culture to emphasize respect and eliminate bullying. So what has been shown to work in preventing and ending bullying?
Tara L. Kuther, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Western Connecticut State University, is the author of Gimme Your Lunch Money: A Guide to Bullies and Bullying (Parent's Guide Press, 2003). Learn more about her work and how to contact her at her website.
This is part two of our series on bullying, begun in the October issue of Our Children. (From the Nov-Dec. Issue) The Bystander: A Bully's Often-Unrecognized Accomplice
A few years ago, an upstate New York newspaper headline noted that 60 high school girls and boys, ages 14 to 21, faced criminal prosecution for leering at and cheering on two brawling 15-year-old boys. The headline and accompanying story startled us. What we found amazing about this news item was that the police were holding "the human boxing ring" accountable. The "innocent bystander" status usually accorded people on the periphery of such violence was ruled out.
The furor over the Glenbrook North High School (Northbrook, Illinois) incident this past May also stripped bystanders of innocence. Even though no one watching or videotaping the vicious female hazing was formally charged, public outrage reverberated throughout the country. The senior girls barraged junior girls with mud, garbage, human feces, and paint thinner while beating many of them with fists, kicks, and buckets. After the videot - was judged harshly for permitting the alcohol-laced incident. (See "Empowering Girls to Face Their Bullying Counterparts").
Historically, in cases of peer-to-peer abuse, whether physical or emotional, the blame is laid on the belligerent boys or girls. The bystanders who hover, chime in, or squirm on the outskirts of the "mean" action are dismissed as irrelevant. Also dismissed are those who spread the tale of the victim's woe through the grapevine. In truth, however, this supporting cast plays a significant role in peer-to-peer violence.
A Canadian study of student bystanders to bullying episodes found that 43 percent of respondents said they tried to help a victim. The remaining 57 percent stood by and watched, but did nothing. Of that number, 33 percent confessed that they should have attempted to help a victim but didn't. The other 24 percent responded, "It was none of my business."
It is their business. Bystanders make or break bullying episodes. Consider this scenario: A 10-year-old boy rides the morning school bus. As he walks down the aisle, an older boy trips him, then takes his hat. The bullying boy then enlists a buddy and the two of them throw the boy's hat back and forth in a mean version of monkey-in-the-middle. The victim is now on the verge of tears as the bus rolls to the curb of the middle school. The other boys and girls on the bus have watched the whole episode, alternately laughing or nervously giggling. Some say nothing but their frowns and scowls imply they are seething inside or suffering vicariously. At the same time, the bully enjoys being the center of the action and the center of attention.
Now consider this: If the students on the periphery ignored the bully, or expressed no emotion, the incident would be far less satisfying for him. Every bully needs onlookers; without them he has no audience, and no opportunity to act out his power play. Therefore, those who bear witness to a lesson in ridicule actually control the situation as they enhance the bully's standing. They do so with their presence, their reaction, and, yes, even with their silence.
How about someone, anyone, rising to defend the victim? Despite the number of students in that Canadian study who tried to help a victim, young bystanders usually don't confront a tormentor. Why not? After all, most parents have raised their children to help someone in trouble. That may be true, but early adolescence often finds these young people fearful of risking their social standing with peers.
During middle school, children find it excruciatingly difficult to risk opposing a bully. Between the ages of 10 and 15 particularly, children feel extremely self-conscious and tentative. They want desperately to fit in and are hypersensitive about doing anything that might either bring attention to themselves or put them "on the outs" with their peers.
In workshops we have conducted with middle school boys and girls we learned that middle schoolers fear the consequences of a face-off. That fear chokes back courage. They worry, "If I defy the mean kids, I'll be the next target." This turns out to be a legitimate concern because powerful kids who, in essence, act like kings and queens will punish those who challenge their authority.
There is another hitch, too. Bullying often is done by groups of kids. One kid against half a dozen tormentors is daunting odds. Furthermore, the bully is most likely one of the popular kids. According to University of Illinois psychologist Dorothy Espelage, the typical bully doesn't resemble that old stereotypical lumbering outcast. He is usually a popular jock. He's the one that coaches, teachers, and administrators know and often favor.
Most bystanders secretly want to halt the bully in his or her tracks. They think, however, that they have nothing to gain and everything to lose if they oppose a bully. That's not entirely true. Watching cruelty being inflicted on another and doing nothing is costly. The I-should-have-done-something self-talk that inevitably simmers turns into emotional distress. Suellen and Paula Fried, coauthors of Bullies and Victims: Helping Your Child Through the Schoolyard Battlefield, warn that for children who are spectators, "The conflict they experience can lead to feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, and shame." A girl who watches her best friend be bullied and chooses not to defend her is vulnerable to depression. A boy in similar circumstances becomes a candidate for inner turmoil, even rage.
Boys and girls determined to undermine the power of the bully or bullies can use several tactics -some low-risk, some higher-risk - that will depose the ruling tyrants or at least defuse their cruelty.
Offering support on the spot is quite risky. But a tactic with few negative repercussions for the onlooker might be showing empathy for the victim at a later time. For example, let's again consider the school bus scenario referred to earlier: Later in the morning a child bystander could approach the school bus victim and say, "I'm sorry I didn't do anything to help you. You didn't deserve that." Another low-risk option is to squelch a rumor. "I heard some kids say that you were so scared on the bus that you wet your pants. I shouted back to these kids that they were lying. And I made sure that everyone else believed me."
The last resort for most bystanders - at least what many preteens see as a last resort, though it needn't be so - is to get an adult involved. Whatever happened to the knee-jerk reaction of people shouting "Fire!" to get other people's attention when they see danger? Why are kids so reluctant to run for help?
In a Hofstra University study of 1,000 middle and high school students regarding peer-to-peer harassment, the majority of students reported that teachers didn't help when students reported incidents of harassment. Instead they told students to toughen up, and that teasing is part of growing up. Sometimes, kids see bullies get mild punishment, not enough, however, to stop bullies' harassing ways. Only when administrators, teachers, coaches, and lunchroom monitors insist that they are serious about eliminating mean and cruel behavior will students seek them out.
To create that climate, a zero-tolerance school policy against cruelty needs to be clear. A sign should be posted in a prominent place in the school that says, "If you see anyone in danger from bullying, run and get an adult to help immediately!" Parents should talk with their children and ask them, "Whom would you feel comfortable approaching if you felt threatened by a bully or bullies or if you wanted to report a bullying incident?" Each child should have an adult confidant at the school with whom he or she feels safe enough to report acts of peer-to-peer cruelty.
Parents and educators need to correct their attitudes toward bullying - it's not a rite of passage to adulthood. It's physical or verbal harassment of one person by another person who usually wields some power over the victim.
Margaret Sagarese and Charlene C. Giannetti are coauthors of four books published by Broadway Books: What Are You Doing in There? Balancing Your Need to Know with Your Adolescent's Need to Grow (2003); Cliques: 8 Steps to Help Your Child Survive the Social Jungle (2001); Parenting 911: How to Safeguard and Rescue Your 10- to 15-Year-Old from Substance Abuse, Sexual Encounters…and Other Risky Situations (1999); and The Roller-Coaster Years: Raising Your Child Through the Maddening Yet Magical Middle School Years (1997). They also lecture nationally on cliques and bullies, and can be reached at msagarese@aol.com.
In the last few years, it has been revealed that the bully is often female. Girls always knew about mean girls. Adults didn't. The secret is out, however, thanks to a spate of recently published books on the subject and the unforgettable TV images of female hazing that came out of Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois, last spring.
The powerful, popular girl who smirks, whispers secrets, spreads rumors, and deliberately shuts others out of her social circle wields as much damaging power as any physical bully, the Northbrook incident notwithstanding. Meanness is epidemic among girls, and it can turn a girl's life from fine into one of sheer misery instantly. The psychological violence such activities render can leave great emotional scars.
According to Rachel Simmons in Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, the special kind of cruelty girls direct at each other has a name: relational aggression. At the root of this misbehavior is girls' inability to express anger because our culture teaches them it's inappropriate for females to express angry feelings. So girls use their friendship to reward or punish one another. Jealousy, intense competition (often for boys), and emotional abuse run rampant in the cafeteria, at sleepovers, and on Internet instant message boards. The fact that girls in middle school crave popularity makes for intense power plays.
Your daughter needs help understanding how she contributes to female cruelty. In Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence, author Rosalind Wiseman says that girls play roles in a hierarchy of sorts: "queen bee (the leader), messenger (carries out orders of who's in and [who's] out), sidekick (supporter), floater (a sometime clique member)" to name a few. Other roles we've heard about during workshops we've conducted with girls are enforcer and wannabe. Outside of the queen bee, what all these roles share is that of the bystander to the leader who dictates the mean action. When a girl backs up a leader's or group's teasing of another girl, conspires in the exclusion game, carries the gossip, or remains silent, she contributes to and solidifies the reign of mean queens. And she swallows her anger and stifles her remorse, knowing this behavior is wrong.
Ask your daughter about the roles she and her girlfriends play. Who plays the chief gossip? Who leads in popularity pageants? Once she identifies the power brokers, she is ready to grasp the next lesson: her support or silence elects these girls powerful, while rendering others powerless.
Call a spade a spade. Let your daughter know that teasing, backstabbing, and giving others the cold shoulder are forms of bullying. Using loyalty or friendship as weaponry is wrong. Help her find her voice. It is not easy to speak out against relational aggression because it often means going against one's own girlfriends. Debate the dilemma with your daughter. Show her how to get in touch with her anger, especially the anger that comes from being hurt or watching others get hurt.