Responding to Bullying
Schools, parents, victims must work together
By ROSEMARY J. STAUBER
In the March/April edition of SAN ANTONIO WOMAN, I wrote in Family Issues about "Ariel," a middle school student who was being bullied in her school. I described bullying and the typical characters in the scenario: The bullying person, the target and the bystander.
I also talked about the difference between boy bullying and girl bullying. (Boys tend to be more physical and girls more social in their bullying. The term relational aggression is often used to describe typical female bullying.) I committed to write a follow-up column about programs for intervention into bullying.
Following are suggestions for those involved in bullying situations.
THE TARGET
The target has a choice to make whether to assume the victim role or not. The easier path is to give in to feelings and move into the victim role, but that gives the bullies more power over him/her. A better course of action: Tell an adult, and if you don't get help from the first adult you talk to, find another one. (Some adults think kids should work this kind of thing out on their own. That is wrong. Most kids don't have the tools they need to do that.)
Read Don't Feed the Bully. It's on the Web site, www.dontfeedthebully.com. The cost is low, and you can download an Acrobat Reader version for under $15 and have two books sent to you, as well. The author asks that the second book be donated to the school library.
Write down the taunts that are being used against you. Most bullies use the same ones over and over. Then you and your friends or family can come up with funny responses to defuse the situation. Role-play (practice) the responses until they become automatic.
PARENTS OF THE TARGET
Listen to your child and recognize the courage it took for him or her even to tell you. Ariel's parents went to the school to talk to the administration about the problem. They did not have any sense that this helped. I congratulate them for doing so, however. If enough parents speak up, something will be done.
PARENTS OF THE BULLY
Help your child learn to respect others. Family therapy may be in order here. If your child is practicing bullying behavior, chances are some bullying behavior has been going on in his/her environment. As long as the bully gets "rewards" for this behavior, the bullying is likely to continue into adulthood.
SCHOOL AUTHORITIES
Recognize that bullying goes on in ALL schools. It is a mark against you only if you do nothing about it when it's brought to your attention. Remember Columbine and all of the other schools in which targets of bullies have risen up in a rage and killed their bullies and the people who didn't stop them. In the process innocent people were killed as well.
Ariel's parents wanted her bullies to be punished. I say the appropriate response is education. (The word discipline comes from the Latin disciplina — instruction, knowledge.) Good discipline teaches.
I recommend that the administration develop a program that shows the school staff how to handle bullying situations and teaches the children basic communication skills and safety techniques. Preferably, this will occur as soon as possible. While no one tends to think their bullying situation could escalate into a Columbine (we feel safer when we think that way), the administration at those schools where the escalation DID occur probably didn't think so either.
Diane Senn, author of Bullying in the Girl's World, recommends an all-school program including:
Barbara Coloroso wrote the book The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander. From her Web site, I got the following:
1. INTERVENE WITH DISCIPLINE
Communicate clear discipline policies. Every student should know that unkind acts will result in immediate discipline. Create policies that give children who bully ownership of the problem and ways to solve it via restitution, resolution and reconciliation. When dealing with children who bully, it is important to leave their dignity intact.
2. CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS TO "DO GOOD"
Communicate clear discipline policies. Every student should know that unkind acts will result in immediate discipline. Create policies that give children who bully ownership of the problem and ways to solve it via restitution, resolution and reconciliation. When dealing with children who bully, it is important to leave their dignity intact.
3. NURTURE EMPATHY
Communicate clear discipline policies. Every student should know that unkind acts will result in immediate discipline. Create policies that give children who bully ownership of the problem and ways to solve it via restitution, resolution and reconciliation. When dealing with children who bully, it is important to leave their dignity intact.
4. TEACH FRIENDSHIP SKILLS
Communicate clear discipline policies. Every student should know that unkind acts will result in immediate discipline. Create policies that give children who bully ownership of the problem and ways to solve it via restitution, resolution and reconciliation. When dealing with children who bully, it is important to leave their dignity intact.
5. MONITOR CHILDREN'S EXPOSURE TO MEDIA
Communicate clear discipline policies. Every student should know that unkind acts will result in immediate discipline. Create policies that give children who bully ownership of the problem and ways to solve it via restitution, resolution and reconciliation. When dealing with children who bully, it is important to leave their dignity intact.
6. ENGAGE CHILDREN IN CONSTRUCTIVE ACTIVITIES
Communicate clear discipline policies. Every student should know that unkind acts will result in immediate discipline. Create policies that give children who bully ownership of the problem and ways to solve it via restitution, resolution and reconciliation. When dealing with children who bully, it is important to leave their dignity intact.
7. TEACH WAYS TO "WILL GOOD"
In the book integrity, Stephen Carter defines "willing good" as "speaking and doing what is right even when the burden is heavy." Sticking up for a peer means taking a risk, and children must be inspired to do so. Reading stories such as Number the Stars by Lois Lowry can help children understand what it means to "will good."
Coloroso cautions against programs that focus on conflict resolution. "Bullying should not be dealt with as a conflict," Coloroso maintains. "It's not [conflict], it's a person having contempt, a basic disregard for the other person as a human being."
RESOURCES:
Rosemary J. Stauber, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in San Antonio and founding director of the Bexar County Women’s Center.