
Feature/General
Parenting 101
Bullying: It's NOT Just Part of Growing Up!
By Pat Nielsen, RN, MEd
Mar/Apr 2007
I have a 14 year old daughter
who cries more than I have realized in the past. She came home
tonight, saying there is a rumor going around in school saying
she has a
"disease." Her response was, "Mom, how can I have
a disease when I'm not . . ."
For the last four years, she has had to deal with people being
very ugly and rude. My daughter explained to me, "Mom, I can deal
with all the name calling, but this one about a disease really
hurts." She is at the point she doesn't want to go to school.
As a mother, I don't wish my children to be unhappy. I worry
about her very often. I am looking for some answers on how to deal
with other children starting rumors like this one.
Like I mentioned to her tonight, she has a strong front, but
deep down I know she is hurting. What can I, as a parent, do to
help her get through this?
-Hopeless
Loss
Every day, more than 160,000 children stay home from school because
of bullying. Almost one in four children in grades 6 through 10
report being bullied at school each year. Whether it is verbal
taunts or physical fighting, bullying has a profoundly negative
impact on children - both bullies and victims. It negatively affects
school performance, harms a child's mental and physical health
and can lead to more serious violence in adulthood. People who
were bullied as children are more likely to suffer depression and
low self esteem as adults. Bullies are more likely to be involved
in criminal activity later in life.
Bullying is meant to harm another person and it happens repeatedly
over time. Physical or emotional (direct) bullying includes teasing,
threatening and hitting. Relational (indirect) bullying includes
spreading rumors, intentionally excluding or socially isolating
someone. Bullying peaks in the middle school years and tends to
taper off in high school.
University of Georgia professors, Pamela Orpinas, PhD, MPH and
Arthur (Andy) M. Horne, PhD, authors of Bullying
Prevention: Creating a Positive School Climate and Developing Social
Competence, say
that if parents and teachers really believe bullying is wrong and
understand the harm it does both to the victim and the bully -
they will act to stop it. Bullying is not tolerated in adults and
it should never be okay for children. Often, acts that adults can
be prosecuted for - stealing money, threatening to hit or injure,
and physically assaulting others - are not punished at all when
the bully is a child. The behavior is reinforced if it is not stopped.
There are several risk factors that contribute to a child being
a bully. These include poor academic performance, a disruptive
family life, peers that support bullying, parents who encourage
aggressiveness and lots of unsupervised time. Studies indicate
that children who come from abusive families are more likely to
be bullies. The more risk factors a person has, the more likely
they are to engage in high risk behaviors.
I always told my children that bullies probably didn't feel very
good about themselves. While this is sometimes true, some bullies
have very strong self esteem. Bullying has been successful for
them. This fake self esteem is based on fear and intimidation and
putting others down. Healthy self esteem comes from having good
friendships, satisfying interests and feeling valued as a person.
Bullies are sought after because they are powerful, not because
they are loveable. Usually, they are not really liked at all as
children or as adults.
Many adults see bullying as "just part of growing up." According
to Orpinas and Horne, there is a great deal more violence in schools
now. Two thirds of children who commit homicide in school are the
victims of bullies. Statistics are similar for children who commit
suicide. It's difficult to tell how many children drop out of school
because of bullying, but it is believed to be a significant number.
"When you ask adults about being bullied as children, most
can recall a bullying incident. We don't remember things that happened
to us 20 or 30 years ago if they had no impact on our lives," says
Horne. "Often these incidents affect how people handle conflict
as adults - avoidance, aggression, etc."
Orpinas stresses that victims should not be expected
to stop the abuse. Adults must step in and make the behavior stop.
Encouraging the child to "fight back" is not recommended. It can
backfire and make the problem worse. Teachers need to know the
difference between tattling (meant to get someone in trouble) and
asking for help (wanting the problem to stop.)
What can
parents do?
If your child is a bully:
- Children want to have friends and often
don't know how. Teach them to be influential in positive ways.
If you don't know how to do this, talk to your school counselor
or another professional.
- Have an open, loving relationship with your child.
- Let your
child know bullying is always wrong.
- If your child threatens
violence, go to the principal or the police for help. Parents
shouldn't try to handle dangerous threats themselves.
- Keep a
record for a week: when does the bullying happen, who is there,
who said what to whom? Let your child know you are not going
to keep this a secret. They have to believe you're going to do
something about it.
- Allowing or encouraging bullying never helps
your child. It hurts in ways that will negatively affect his/her
whole life.
If your child is a victim:
- Let your child know bullying is always
wrong, no matter what the bully says.
- Don't promise to keep
the bullying a secret. It is up to you to get the behavior stopped,
not the child.
- Help your child learn ways to help stop the bullying
- forming friendships, talking about it, practicing comebacks.
- Take
photos of bruises, cuts, torn clothes, damaged books. Use these
to insist appropriate action be taken.
- Find out what your child
has already done and what happened. If safe and easy measures
worked, encourage using them more. If your child had to use unsafe
measures (e.g. avoiding using the bathroom all day) or is scared
to go to school, meet with the principal immediately.
- Meet with
the principal and develop a plan. Document the plan, what you
expect to happen, a time line and plans for what to do if the
first plan doesn't work.
Children need and want their parents
to be involved in their lives no matter what your 13 year old
says! Do fun things together as a family. Eat dinner together.
Know who their friends are and what they are doing on the internet.
It's not just about supervision, it's about being involved in
a loving relationship. This involvement begins in infancy and
builds over a child's life.
Being a bully or the victim of one is not a "sentence." With
intervention, a child can learn from and be strengthened by it.
But stopping it is up to adults, not children. It's not just
part of growing up.
Pat Nielsen, RN, MEd is a Maternal Child Educator at Athens
Regional Medical Center and an Athens Area Child Abuse Prevention
Council Board Member
|