Bullying What can we do about it?

What is bullying? Physical abuse Taunting Exclusion from groups and activities Attacks on the internet or with cell phone texts

Verbal bullying—most common Verbal bullying—most common. Name calling, offensive remarks or making the person the butt of jokes. Physical bullying—aggressive hitting, pulling, pushing or shoving. Indirect bullying—common among girls. Back-biting and spreading false rumors.

Social alienation—mostly girls…where one or more are excluded from groups. Intimidation—any type of verbal threat with the purpose of making the victim give in to the bully’s demands Cyberbullying—bullying via the internet or cell phones. Involves smearing the victim’s reputation via emails, blogs, forum posts, text messages, etc.

Who are bullies? Myth! Bullies pick on others because they Kids that are bullies want to feel powerful and in control. They seem to get satisfaction from hurting others or making them feel bad. They even say that the victims provoked them or made them be mean. They are generally defiant toward adults, antisocial, and will break school rules and not care. Bullies seem to have little anxiety, and strong self-esteem Myth! Bullies pick on others because they feel bad about themselves.

Who are the victims? Victims are typically anxious, cautious, insecure, and could have low self esteem. They rarely defend themselves. They could lack social skills and have few friends. They tend to be close to their parents, and parents could be overprotective. The defining physical characteristic of victims is they tend to be physically weaker than their peers—weight, dress, glasses don’t seem to be significant factors

The costs of bullying For the victims—they often spend their school years in a state of anxiety. Bullying can result in a reluctance to go to school. The victims suffer from frequent headaches, and stomach pains, bed wetting, poor appetite, anxiety, aggression and depression. These kids suffer from low self esteem. Very extreme cases have led to the victims taking out their anger in school shootings, or by committing suicide.

The costs of bullying For the bullies—they don’t get a chance to learn an alternative to aggression. Research states that they often develop a tendency to abuse power. About 25 percent of school bullies will be convicted of a criminal offense in their adult lives.

The costs of bullying The bystanders—report they don’t like what is going on but they don’t know how to stop it. They don’t want the bullies to target them if they say something. They often believe they are powerless to stop abusive behavior in others for their entire lives.

The costs of bullying For the school—absentee rates go up. Bullying is a difficult problem to stop, and the community may have a negative perception of the school. The schools feel responsible for suicides and school shootings by students targeted by bullies. This could lead to low teacher morale, and low academic performance from the victims.

Cyberbullying What does it mean? When a child is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or targeted by another child using the internet, digital technology or phones. It is minor vs. minor. With an adult involved it is harassment.

How cyberbullying works Cyberbullies are limited only by their imaginations. A cyberbully one moment can be the victim the next Children have killed each other, and committed suicide after being cyberbullied. Usually not a one time incident, unless it involves a death threat or threat of bodily harm.

Sometimes cyberbullying turns into cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. It is called cyber-harassment or cyberstalking when adults become involved. This is not the type of bullying that turns into offline meetings, as those are done by a sexual predator. It could be parents getting involved because their child is being bullied. This gets more serious when adults get involved.

Why be a cyberbully? They could be motivated by anger, revenge, or frustration. Entertainment, because they are bored, have too much time on their hands or have too many electronic “toys”. Power hungry kids do it to feed their egos. Mean girls do it to help remind people of their social status. It is fairly easy, because there is no face to face contact, and even the “nerds” can be a cyberbully and fight back if they have been bullied by others.

Statistics 23% of Elementary students reported being bullied one to three times in a month. Recent statistics show that half of all bullying incidents go unreported. Statistics say that 100,000 students carry a gun to school for protection.

28% of kids that carry a gun have witnessed violence at home. In a recent study, 77% of the students said they had been bullied. 14% of those who were bullied said they experienced severe reactions to the abuse. Each day 160,000 kids miss school for fear of being bullied. Playground stats—every 7 minutes a child is bullied…Adult invervention—4%, peer intervention—11%, no intervention 85%.

More Statistics! They are a little scary! Statistics say that kids in the lower grades are in twice as many fights, but the seriousness of the violence is higher in the upper grades. Teenagers say that revenge is the strongest motivation for school shootings. 87% said shootings are motivated by wanting to “get back at those that hurt them.” 86% said “other kids picking on them, making fun of them or bullying them” causes teenagers to turn to lethal violence in the schools.

We know it exsists…what do we do now? Early intervention, effective discipline and boundaries are the best ways to stop bullying. Multi-faceted school programs that involve counseling and re-teaching are important. Give questionnaires to all students and ask about bullying. Define exactly what bullying is. This is a great way to see how widespread the bullying is, and what type of bullying you are dealing with. Get parents involved in a bullying program. Stopping the bullying takes teamwork and a concentrated effort on everyone’s part.

What do we do? MAKE THE PARENTS AWARE! In the classroom, all teachers should work with the kids on bullying. At least monthly if not weekly. Post rules around about bullying and the consequences. Make sure schools have enough supervision at school to lessen and prevent bullying.

Reduce bullying by-- A reduction in bullying has occurred in schools where teachers and students are willing to intervene, treat each other fairly and demonstrate that they care. Adult and student intervention in bullying is critical from elementary through high school. A positive relationship with adults and students at school and a school culture of trust and fairness are key to reducing bullying. Schools with lower levels of bullying report higher scores on statewide tests! From 2008 bullying prevention study in Colorado Schools CONSISTANCY!!!!

It isn’t easy! We all have to work together to make a difference! Develop and consistently enforce consequences for physical aggression and verbal abuse. Build positive connections between staff and students and a positive feeling tone in staff-student interactions. Monitoring to make sure that consequences and education are effective. Effective counseling for kids who bully, after enforcement of consequences. They could feel anxiety from that. Effective support for targeted youth, including protection from repeated mistreatment Empowering bystanders to tell adults, support victims, and discourage unacceptable behavior. It isn’t easy! We all have to work together to make a difference!

“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?” ---Eleanor Roosevelt

References Bullying in Schools http://www.bullyinginschools.com/Bullying-Statistics.html Bullying in Schools. ERIC Digest http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/bullying.htm Stop Cyberbullying http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/why_do_kids_cyberbully_each_other.html How to STOP Bullying Stop the harassment before it causes permanent damage http://how-to-stop-bullying.com/bullyingstatistics.html How Do We Stop Bullying in Schools? Psych Central http://psychcentral.com/lib/2009/how-do-we-stop-bullying-in-schools/ Stop Bullying Now http://www.stopbullyingnow.com/