BULLIES AT SCHOOL 

Not Looking Forward

There are some children who don\'t look forward to going back to school when September arrives. Some of them just don’t like school – they’re not the academic type. Some don’t like their school – there’s a mismatch between the child and the school. Some kids don’t mind school but don’t like who they’re going to have to deal with there – the bullies in their midst.

 In order to answer these and other questions that parents have, let’s examine the topic of bullying in greater depth.

What is Bullying?

There are lots of different definitions of bullying but they all involve deliberate, repetitive, hurtful behavior. Bullying is an action involving an imbalance of power: one who holds power uses it to harm a less powerful victim. The power can be physical, financial, emotional or social. In school settings, the abuse of power is usually physical or social in nature. For instance, an older or bigger child intimidates a younger or smaller one. A popular girl makes fun of a less popular child. A gang of children exclude those from a less desirable group.

Bullying can be divided into two main categories: direct and indirect bullying. The former includes overt aggression like pushing, punching, pinching and otherwise hurting a person or attacking his property (grabbing, throwing, defacing or destroying belongings). It also includes threatening any of the above tactics. Indirect bullying uses a variety of strategies to socially isolate a child such as spreading rumors, refusing to play with a child, ostracizing other children who play with the victim, mocking a child’s appearance or status markers (wrong color skin, wrong parents, wrong financial status, specific disability etc.), name-calling, ignoring or otherwise dismissing, humiliating or rejecting a child.

Bullying can occur face to face or by telephone, text-messaging, letters/notes, internet communication or any other form of communication. For instance, a child who sends out written invitations to her birthday party to every girl in the class except the “victim” is using the written word to engage in bullying. Whatever form it takes, bullying is the antithesis of socially responsible behavior.

Effects of Bullying

Being bullied can lead to serious emotional consequences. Feeling helpless, unlikable, lonely and insignificant are common feelings of bullied children. Social rejection is extremely painful for human beings of all ages. Experiencing a lack of control and frequent emotional and/or physical assault can make the experience of attending school highly unpleasant and even traumatic. Many bullied children develop psychosomatic complaints such as stomach problems, headaches, illnesses and nervous disorders. Some have trouble eating or sleeping. Some experience confusing changes in mood – sudden aggression, unexplained tearfulness or uncharacteristic timidity. Many cannot concentrate on their schoolwork, experiencing underperformance and dropping grades (which can further affect their self-concept and eventually affect their long term goals). Bullied kids often miss many days of school as they desperately try to avoid having to face their tormentors.

Who is the Bully?

Children and adults who bully have often been bullied and mistreated themselves. Their parents, teachers or peers may have “taught” them how to bully by treating them with emotional, verbal or physical aggression. However, not all children who are mistreated end up mistreating others. In fact, some become very sensitive and protective of vulnerable people. The interaction of “nature” and “nurture” determines a bully: only some children will respond to aggression with aggression, depending on their inborn characteristics.

Children are born with personality tendencies in place. Some kids, for instance, are controlling and bossy from infancy: they need everything to go their way. If this particular tendency is combined with other traits like impulsivity (a tendency to NOT consider consequences before acting) and bad temper, then even the youngest toddler can become a bully within the family even though the parents themselves are mild mannered. Some bullying children seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others and lack empathy for their victim. Such children may have inherited traits characteristic of personality disorders such as conduct disorder. Some bullies have a defiant streak that leads them to believe they are independent of outside authority and can do whatever they want to whoever they want – characteristics of oppositional-defiant disorder. Some kids lack self-control and are prone to explosive behavior when frustrated – as is often found in children with bi-polar disorder, autistic spectrum disorders and tourette-spectrum disorders (including attention-deficit disorder). In other words, the bully may be manifesting symptoms of an inborn psychological disorder.

Regardless of why a child is behaving aggressively toward others, parents will try to intervene. However, they may soon give up in frustration or helplessness, hoping that the child will outgrow his violent tantrums. Although most children do indeed drop such behavior for more civilized ways of handling disappointment, some children carry on right into the school years. Bullying behavior that isn’t modified, often grows up along with the child. Childhood bullies have a higher chance of becoming abusive spouses, employees and bosses as well as a higher chance of becoming involved with adult criminal activity.

Parents and teachers can help bullies experience a better adult outcome by taking all possible steps to stop childhood aggression. Professional counseling and support for parents of difficult children creates a more positive outcome. Sometimes play therapy, art therapy, behavioral therapy or specific anger management therapy may be indicated for the child (depending on his age and the nature of his aggressive behavior). Medical and/or naturopath treatment may be beneficial as well, the nature of which will change as the child becomes an adolescent and young adult.

Who is the Victim?

Many victims of bullying tend to be quiet, insecure or anxious. Sometimes they are very nice children who have a passive, withdrawn nature. However, to others they seem weak and vulnerable and indeed, they rarely take assertive steps to protect themselves. In some cases, victims have low self-esteem or insecurity due to some inherent challenge like a speech defect, learning disability or other physical or mental challenge or feelings of inadequacy due to previous bullying, poverty, social class issues or other differentiating characteristics. Through posture, body-language and mannerisms they often send the message that they cannot or will not defend themselves.

Helping the Bullied Child

Children who are being bullied don’t always tell their parents about their problems. Often they feel abnormal and ashamed. The experience itself makes them feel like a “loser.” Therefore, parents need to take the initiative in “bully education” by bringing the topic up for discussion. Parents can bring home library books on the subject, discuss articles they’ve read on it and even share their own childhood (or adulthood!) experiences of being bullied. Older children in the family can share their acquired wisdom on the topic including talking about strategies they’ve used successfully to ward off bullies, behaviors of peers that were conducive to being bullied or that helped them end bullying and so on. Giving suggestions on how to respond to insults (i.e. turning to humor, ignoring the comment or agreeing with it) can be helpful. Stressing the importance of selecting friends who treat you well and being a good friend is also important. Normalizing the experience of dealing with in-groups, out groups, cliques and gangs can help youngsters feel O.K. about themselves and increase their confidence in handling social politics. Such discussions should occur at regular intervals in the household to ensure that all children eventually learn the material they need to know.

Encouraging assertive behavior can be helpful. When children are subject to bullying from siblings (a normal experience in family life), parents can take the opportunity to teach their children basic skills of assertiveness and boundary setting. Instead of simply advising “walk away from your brother when he’s bothering you,” they can suggest more proactive interventions like “tell your brother you want him to stop doing that” or “let him know you don’t like it when he does that” or “tell him you won’t play with him if he keeps doing that” and so on. At the same time, parents need to intervene with the bullying sibling to teach that certain behaviors like name-calling, insulting, pushing and other forms of aggression will not be tolerated and will be punished (with fair, non-aggressive punishments!). Naturally, parents must be careful to refrain from modeling bullying (aggressive) behaviors to their children.

Helping children to develop personal confidence by encouraging special talents and unique skills is also important. Confidence becomes body language and sends the message to other children that the child is a force to be reckoned with. Parents can help children learn to play a musical instrument, become skilled in a craft or artistic endeavor, develop physical strength through swimming or other athletic and physical activities and so on. In fact, anything that helps a child develop good posture and social confidence will help prevent victimization. Some activities that do this are self-defense classes, drama classes and speech classes. Whether the child becomes the expert family baker, the best story-writer or the most clever gadget fixer doesn’t matter; what matters is that the parent helps each child to find individual strengths and unique identities within the family.

Once a child divulges that he or she is experiencing some sort of bullying, parents can help by listening sympathetically, providing advice and offering professional support. Some communities offer anti-bullying programs and classes in assertiveness training. Parents can set up such facilities if they do not already exist locally. Psychotherapy can help heal the traumatic effects of being bullied and prevent long term negative consequences.

Community Awareness

Children need grownups to help them solve the bullying problem. Bullying is occurring. We need to heal the bullies in order to help create a generation of marriageable young people. We need to heal the victims in order to prevent the cycle of bullying and its lifetime negative effects. We have a responsibility right now to make school a safe place for every child – a place that he or she will look forward to attending at the beginning of every school year.