Taking a time out for Bullying

Cowardice asks the question: is it safe?

Expediency asks the question: is it politic?

Vanity asks the question: is it popular?

Conscience asks the question: is it right?  And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular - but one must take it because it is right.

~Martin Luther King Jr.

Defining moments happen early in life.  Decisions made in grade school, decisions that might seem small, can have life-long impacts and social repercussions in life and death terms.

Lately, I spend a lot of time worrying about my youngest daughter. She is experiencing, at the ripe age of 6, bullying.  As a society, we are not only aware of, but even expect, bullying in our schools.  As parents we hope it is never happens to our children.  When we see it happen, or hear about it, we are relieved when it is not our own kids suffering.

Bullying, as I hope to illustrate through a series of posts over the next few weeks with the help of excellent book resources like the bully, the bullied and the bystander by Barbara Coloroso, Social Psychology by Thomas Gilovich, Dacher Keltner and Richard E. Nisbett, Raising Happiness by Christine Carter, theBully Action Guide by Edward F Dragan and various social psychology academic articles and studies, is a problem that society, as a whole, is responsible for and society, as a whole, suffers from. 

◦Bullying is…

Bullying is characterized by three fundamental elements: intent to harm, an imbalance in power, and threat of further aggression.  Coloroso adds to the definition of bullying a fourth element, “bullying is a conscious, willful, and deliberate hostile activity intended to harm, induce fear through the threat of further aggression, and create terror.” (p13, Coloroso). (Emphasis added).

There are different types of bullying: verbal, physical and relational.  Verbal bullying is utilized by both boy and girl bullies.  Physical bullying is more often used by boys; and relational bullying is the cornerstone of girl bullying tactics.  No form of bullying is exclusive to either sex; both boys and girls can use any of the forms of bullying together, separately or move between them.  It is known that twenty-five percent of students in the national population are bullied. (Bullying Statistics 2010).

“The one thing we know for sure is that bullies are taught to bully”.  (p18, Coloroso).  Bullies, like their targets, are formed through society.  Bullies are not born to bully and they NEED the indifference of adults and peers to gain power.  “Bullying is not about anger.  It’s not even about conflict.  It’s about contempt – a powerful feeling of dislike toward somebody.”  (p 20, Coloroso).  Contempt originates from a sense of superiority, intolerance of differences and a desire to exclude.  Often these feelings and actions are a facade to cover a deeper pain or feeling of inadequacy.

“The basis at the foundation of this contempt are often deeply rooted attitudes found in our homes, schools, and our society.”  (p 21, Coloroso).  Prejudices like race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, economic status, mental abilities or physical attributes that are taught at home, and reinforced in the community, can lead to differences that create a potential target population or individual. 

Bullying is created by a neglectful society and it becomes a larger scale issue that affects us all. I will post on the affects later, but the most obvious affects are bullycide (suicide executed by teenagers to escape bullying) and school shootings.

I will break the posts into the bully (this post), the bullied, the bystander and then a series of relevant posts following this.  I hope to really cover the topic. 
Our News:
I have been researching bullying now for a few weeks while we struggle with addressing a bullying issue at my daughters school. This has been a frustrating experience and has caused my daughter a great deal of distress.

My husband and I are trying to learn in a rapid time frame exactly what bullying is and how we can help our daughter with what she is going through. Bullying touches more children than many want to realize and as I am reading I am learning that this happens with many adults too. It is worth thinking about not only your past, your current relationships, but also what we are teaching are children in our homes now, because as it turns out, what we are teaching in our homes will help make the difference on whether we have bullying in our schools at all.

Right now I am learning strategies to help my daughter help herself. I am trying to apply pressure to the school to eliminate the problem entirely. I can post on the different strategies we are using if they come in handy some day for others.

1.  We have been keeping in close contact with the teacher, principle, leadership head, counselor ect at the school to come up with interventions ect.

2. We have our daughter in friendship groups, supported by a counselor. These groups strengthen her social skills, friend forming strategies and help create a network at the school.

3.  We read books on the topic and try to discuss strategies she can use from the books.

4.  We have done role playing - I pretend to be the bully and have her yell stand up to me ect.

5.  And we are throwing a large party to help the kids get some 'street cred' and bolster their friendships.  Not to mention it will be great for us to meet some of the other parents.

I can not wait for the day to post... we did it!  She is no longer dealing with the bully... I feel like we are close.