Bullying laws: Sometimes people just aren’t nice. Should kids learn that lesson in school?
As a psychotherapist, Israel “Izzy” Kalman often talks to parents who can’t make their children get along and be civil to one another. So, Kalman questions the growing movement to hold teachers and principals legally responsible to stop bullying among hundreds or even thousands of children in a school.
“It is absolutely unrealistic and it is immoral to ask schools and teachers do this,” says Kalman, a school psychologist formerly in New York City schools and director of Bullies2Buddies, a system he describes as “a solution to bullying.”
“Most families tell me their children fight every day,” he says. “If two parents can’t make their own couple of kids be nice to each other all the time, how can a teacher make 30 children be nice to each other all the time?”
Kalman doesn’t underestimate the extent of bullying or the damage from it, acknowledging that cruelty by classmates has pushed children to suicide. However, he says the drive to turn teachers into 24-hour bully police and impose criminal punishments will only worsen the problem.
October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and it seems everyone is talking about how to deal with bullies. CNN airs an Anderson Cooper Town Hall special Sunday night about it, kicking off a week-long series on bullying. Lady Gaga called on President Obama last week to help stop school bullying. Thursday, the governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, and leaders from Facebook and Time Warner urged students and parents to sign an anti-bullying pledge.
Kalman maintains that those efforts are misplaced, that bullying is best stopped by the victims, not by teachers, schools, the president or more laws. While nearly all states have anti-bullying laws, New Jersey may well have the toughest. Enacted this summer, the state’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights requires schools adopt comprehensive policies, designate an anti-bullying specialist as well as safety teams of parents, teachers and staffs and launch an investigation into every allegation of bullying within one day of receiving a report and complete the probe within 10 school days. Districts will be graded by the state on their responses, and educators who fail to comply with the law risk losing their teaching licenses
The law is already sparking complaints that it is too sweeping and that its broad catch-all of bullying behaviors — any harassment, intimidation, physical or emotional harm to the student “whether it be a single incident or a series of incidents” — will lead to overreactions. And, indeed, a bullying probe was triggered in one New Jersey school when a student told another he had cooties.
As with most bullying laws, New Jersey’s was inspired by a vile act; the secret videotaping of a gay sexual encounter in a Rutgers University dorm room. Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge when he found out that the private moment was streamed over the Internet by his roommate.
Kalman contends that such actions are true crimes and should be punished but says the vast majority of schoolyard taunts and jibes don’t rise to criminal levels and treating them like crimes causes more harm than good.
“This anti-bullying movement has spawned an industry, but no one seems to be noticing these efforts are not working,” he says. “They are taking normal though negative behavior and treating it like it is abnormal.”
At a recent conference on bullying, Kalman says one of the other speakers said that schools should make sure children don’t roll their eyes. “Kids are not allowed to do anything that can upset someone else, but the only place where everybody is always nice to each other is heaven,” he says.
“Schools are trying to get rid of bullying by making everyone nice to each other. But people don’t think that they are the bad guy. When you tell kids, ‘Don’t be mean. Be nice,’ they think, ‘Of course, I’m nice. It’s the other person who’s mean.””
By overemphasizing that people should be nice all the time, Kalman says kids overreact when someone is not. “We are making kids vulnerable when they are treated badly,” he says. “They don’t know what to do. People are supposed to be nice. How can they be so mean to me? ”
Putting the onus on teachers to stop bullying won’t work because research shows bullying is not overt. A research experiment in Canada that examined 52 hours of playground exchanges documented more than 400 incidents of bullying, which on average lasted only 37 seconds.
“Kids are not stupid enough to torment each other when the teachers are looking,” Kalman says.
Kalman contends that when teachers intervene in bullying episodes it often makes it worse. A child who reports that a classmate called her names is not going to make a pal of the other child by bringing in the principal. “Now, that person is going to hate her and want revenge,” says Kalman.
Kalman argues that the more effective strategy is to concentrate on the bullied rather than the bully. His program teaches children to stop getting upset by bullying, as he says it’s the response that triggers the repetition of the torment.
“The only reason that children get picked on over and over again is because they are getting upset,” says Kalman, who role-plays with kids to show them how hard it is to bully someone who remains calm, rational and unfazed. Role playing is critical as the victims of bullying tend to be anxious, sensitive and quiet, cry easily and have fears of confrontation.
(Kalman and I went through some brief role-playing routines in our phone interview, and I was convincing enough that I had to pause to reassure my desk mates that I was not calling someone I was interviewing a charlatan and crook for real. It was interesting to play the role of a tormentor faced with a relaxed victim. Kalman tells kids whose classmates call them “sluts” or worse to counter with a simple and calm question, “Do you think I am?” and “That’s interesting. Why do you think that?” Those responses were so unexpected that I had to regroup and reconsider what I, as the bully in the script, would say next. )
Schools must teach students to handle bullies, not protect them from bullies, says Kalman. “Kids don’t go to school to be protected from math. They are expected to learn how to do math. We shouldn’t protect kids from bullying, but teach them the social skills to deal with difficulties.”
Because, in the scheme of life, Kalman says, “schools are the places where the least amount of bullying goes on. It happens more often among adults in the workplaces, and the place where the most frequent and serious bullying of all takes place in the home. Bullying goes on through life.””
There is another reason Kalman says the focus ought to be on victims. “The worst acts of aggression to themselves or others are by people who feel like victims. Bullies do not commit suicide or shoot up schools. People who feel victimized do. The best solution is to teach people not to think and act like victims.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled
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101 comments Add your comment
Bullying laws: Sometimes people just aren’t nice. Should kids learn that lesson in school? – Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)
October 7th, 2011
5:01 am
[...] the growing movement to hold teachers and principals legally responsible to stop … Read More… Posted in School [...]
Very Passionate About Our Schools
October 7th, 2011
6:04 am
A great amount of bullying goes on while kids are on the school buses. The driver is the only adult present so the victim goes to the driver. Instead of the driver reminding ALL students that bullying is wrong, the victim gets the blunt from the driver who calls them whiner, fools, buffoons, etc., thus becoming part of the problem. Also the “politically correct” nonsense is just plain wrong. Why should a victim be told that nothing can be done because of political correctness? I don’t care where the bully originated from; the bully is now in the USA, bullying is not acceptable, so go by our rules or go back where you came from and be a bully. Too many kids remain victims because of political correctness. And yes parents can get a strong hold on their child. Mine knows the acceptable boundaries in behavior and knows going beyond them will result in appropriate punishment at home. The problem is alot of parents don’t care; they think bullying is funny and showing “them people” just who is in charge.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
October 7th, 2011
6:34 am
Kalman is right: Children should be taught how to identify and handle bullies. Of course, one of the tactics our kids should learn is to seek adult intervention when reasonable efforts fail a victim.
“The bone I have to pick” is with teachers and other adults whose blind-eyed and “don’t-bother-me” responses to “tattle-taling,” snitch-victims allow bullies to run amok among our kids.
catlady
October 7th, 2011
7:01 am
Very interesting, and follows along with what I have always believed for 40 years in education. The bully’s victims need to be taught responses. Now, I am NOT talking about physical bullying! But so many kids will report, “He said he wouldn’t be my friend.” as bullying. I say to the “victim”, “do you WANT to be his friend, after he said that? No? Well, he is just trying to bother you. You are letting him win when you get upset. Tell him Pfft and walk away to be with NICE people.”
Because, in this world, not everyone is going to be Miss Sunshine. And bullies get their rocks off by making others upset and to react. Don’t give them that!
DeborahinAthens
October 7th, 2011
7:06 am
The last thing we need in this country is more laws! Geez Louise we are trying to legislate ever moment of our lives, and it is making us weak, stupid and unwilling to try to deal with other humans. Humans are not going to change. There have always been bullies. There always will be bullies. When I was a thirteen year old girl there was a girl who made my life a living hell. Finally, one day, she went too far and slapped me. I went from Anglo to Saxon in one heartbeat and beat the living crap out of her–the only time in my sixty-one years I have ever hit another person. She never, ever bothered me again. My son, who went to the same school I went to, was bullied on the bus. I told him to resolve it himself. He decided to ride his bike to school instead of taking the bus. The result of these learning moments, I believe, are that we become smarter, stronger, wiser than if we tried to legislate a different outcome. I believe in survival of the fittest. This legal interference, for everything seems to me that it makes for the opposite of survival of the fittest. I don’t think it is a good thing, and I don’t believe it will stop bullying.
teacher&mom
October 7th, 2011
7:10 am
I have three children. Every single one has dealt with a bully. My husband and I did not go to the school to “fix” the problem. We worked with our guys at home and talked about how to deal with the bullying. A couple of times it required one of them to actually deal with the bully in a more *ahem* physical manner. Eventually the bully got the message and moved on.
In middle school, one of my boys was accused of bullying. That was quickly nipped in the bud. While my son wasn’t physically bullying the young man, he was teasing. I won’t bore you with the logistics of that entire situation, but I will say this, my son wasn’t intentionally bullying the kid. He just thought he was treating the boy like everyone else in his middle school peer group. When it became evident that any word or action toward the boy was perceived as bullying, we told him to stay away from the young man. He did.
All this to say….we decided as parents to be the parents and use the situations as “teachable” moments. We didn’t step away and let the teachers and principals take care of the situations.
I believe the result was three young adults who are a little more compassionate and understanding.
Have to be anonymous...I'm being monitored at my school
October 7th, 2011
7:11 am
By the way, that word “bullying,” creates a knee-jerk response for any educator.
I am legally bound to report any instance in which a child says “I’m being bullied.” The kids know the magic words and will yell them out just stop class short. Our kids are starting to recognize there are buzz words like “bullying” that can get them immediate attention and can create a total halt in the day’s lesson. With power like that, how can we expect kids NOT to be tempted to use it.
They will cry wolf, and every single time the educators must respond. After all, we never know when it might be an actual wolf (or in this case, an incident of bullying) or just a desire to stop class for 20 minutes and win a free trip to the counselor. If we don’t respond to a kid’s outburst of “Miss! Miss! He’s bullying me!” no matter how many times a kid has falsely accused others of bullying, we could be open to lawsuit.
I suppose though, these side effects of anti-bullying laws aren’t taken into consideration when schools are trying to use teachers as their fall guys. After all, it is all about avoiding lawsuits for the last great social service, isn’t it?
Very Passionate About Our Schools
October 7th, 2011
7:25 am
Too much government intervention where more parent intervention should be happening. If a child is found to have yelled bullying just to get attention, then the parent(s) should be contacted, a meeting held, and the child be made to understand that tactics such as these involve punishment at home as well as appropriate punishment at school.
Ed Johnson
October 7th, 2011
7:29 am
“Those responses were so unexpected that I had to regroup and reconsider what I, as the bully in the script, would say next.”
Indeed, calm inquiry can have a disarming effect. But working against that in school is, for example, excessive standardized testing that encourages kids to learn to answer questions more so than to ask questions.
philosopher
October 7th, 2011
7:41 am
Maureen, you’ve covered this before. What I have learned as a parent and a healthcare professional is that bullying is perfectly acceptable to many adults….and that DOES include teachers. Bullies grow up to be sneakier, meaner bullies and teach their children to be bulllies. And as long as this is OK with so many of the adults, it’s never going to go away. It will take all the adults in a child’s life understanding that it is wrong (we are no longer cavemen who need to weed out the weak), teaching that it is wrong, and disciplining those who use it as a tool to get what they want, before any progress is ever made to stop it.
philosopher
October 7th, 2011
8:12 am
Certainly some kids aren’t nice and neither are many people; teachers are not all nice, either…but that is a ridiculous excuse for ignoring adult responsibilities. Children are in school 6.5 hours a day 5 days a week. I don’t want teachers responsible for teaching my kids morals or philosophical issues…heaven forbid! But I DO expect them to put a stop to unacceptable behaviors. I have to entrust my children to educators during the day and those educators have a responsibility keep my kids reasonably safe. Bullying is not reasonable.
carlosgvv
October 7th, 2011
8:33 am
The real problem is that teachers are being asked to do much more than teach. Society is requiring them to be surrogate parents as well. This will not work no matter how much we hand wring and complain about school conditions. It will simply drive away the really good teachers and make room for incompetents who cannot find employment anywhere else.
Shar
October 7th, 2011
9:05 am
There is no time in the current pressure cooker that masquerades as a school day for teachers to stop and referee every single crosspatch incident. If a particular student is the cause of too many complaints, that child should not be permitted back in school until there has been a parent conference and next steps agreed to. Otherwise, children should be given a standard note to take to their parents, and which has to come back signed, alerting them that either their child has said they were bullied or that the child was accused of bullying behavior. The parent has to deal with it, not the teacher.
My daughter was bullied by another student at school – little mean things as well as notes. I got tired of trying to do what Mr. Kalman advocates, as it wasn’t making any difference to the harassment. Instead, I called the girl’s home and told her mother I needed the girl to come to my house for a discussion. The mother, understandably, came as well. We all sat together and I had the daughter read aloud the notes she’d written. She could only get through the first two, then she was sobbing and I had the mother read the rest of them to herself. The girls decided to go off together and work it out, and they did. The bullying stopped.
Bullies do not want to own their actions. Mediating and soothing the victim lets them off that hook, and asking overworked teachers to do so wastes their time. Let the parents know this is happening and expect them to deal with their children. If they do not, stand the bully up in front of the school and force them to acknowledge their actions. They’ll stop.
Judy
October 7th, 2011
9:07 am
Try talking to your own kids in your own home about behaving in appropriate ways and treating others with kindness… hey,adults should do the same thing.
Nikole
October 7th, 2011
9:08 am
In first grade, all of this bullying information is causing 6 year olds to claim that every disagreement or argument or put down is bullying. The problem with 6 year olds is that they are fighting one minute and best friends the next. Most of what they do is not bullying, but this is the new word they’ve been taught and when they tell their parents they’ve been bullied it becomes a big problem. I also disagree with New Jersey’s assessment that a single incident is bullying. By definition, bullying occurs in a series of incidents.
EC Mom
October 7th, 2011
9:13 am
True bullying does need to be dealt with by the school. Teachers and administrators can not allow bullying to occur at school, and if the bully won’t change his/her behavior than the school needs to be able to get him/her out of the school. The problem is parents who want the school to take action every time their little darling doesn’t like something another child said or did. A child simply saying something to another child that isn’t nice, or a child not wanting to be someone’s friend is not bullying. Parents are much better off teaching their children how to deal with those non-bullying situations rather than calling the school every time someone hurts their child’s feelings. True bullying – a child being physically harmed or emotionally tormented by another child – needs to be addressed by the school. Why more special laws are needed for this I have no clue. I would think true bullying violates the school code of conduct that is already in place.
mm
October 7th, 2011
9:23 am
I was bullied by kid(s) as well in school. Never one on one always one or more. Only thing i wish i did different was pickup the largest object i could find and knock them over the head with it. That would of solved the whole problem.
Anonmom
October 7th, 2011
9:25 am
My college kid earned his black belt in 5th grade — in 6th grade he didn’t want to go to his gifted Impact classes — I went to school with him after 4 days of “moving an elephant” to get him to school — his English teacher (whose English was pretty awful because she was from elsewhere), looked up at me and commented that “she was waiting for me to come in” — but she hadn’t indicated to me that I should come in… it turns out that he was hit in class by a very large child who was notorious for being a bully. He was perfectly capable of bringing the kid to his knees with his black belt skills — even though he was much smaller — but when I asked him why he didn’t — his response was “zero tolerance” — I’d didn’t want to get into trouble … I told him that he had those skills for self defense and if he used them for self defense, we would go to bat for him and defend him. The boys in the group (about 8 of them) were then put through “programming” with an assistant principal (about 5 of them were “clustered up” when a number of kids went private leaving the Impact group too small that year — the ones who were moved were almost all “troubled” kids — with issues — we spoke regularly about possible Columbine type issues that could arise). He received an award at the end of the year for “surviving” because it was such a difficult year (he had 2 exceptional teachers that year on his “team” of 4 teachers — 2 of the kids moved private the next year as his elementary “group” shifted to a different middle school — this was my first red flag to move private that I ignored– but this isn’t to say that we don’t speak about how to handle bullying in private school too but this particular incident would have been handled very differently in a private school setting — e.g. kid would have been booted with the physical assault). To this day (7 years or so later) — I regret not filing a police report. I also think that DCSS grossly mishandled the Jaheem case and the “oral report” that taxpayers spent nearly $500,000 on by a Judge to find “no bullying” . Yes, kids should be taught how to handle the bullier and the “zero tolerance” policy should allow the “bullied” to defend him/herself. I agree that the bullied are the ones who are going to present the problems in the long term.
Jack
October 7th, 2011
9:27 am
When I got into trouble at school, I knew more trouble awaited me at home. But if the other guy hit me first, that was a different story.
Columbus Day
October 7th, 2011
9:28 am
Our son was bullied for several years and eventually beaten for being intelligent. Finally, we recognized that we had to make the changes. We moved him to a more challenging academic program where he fit in better with other students. We moved him to a new church where he could ask questions about religions, not just one. And we gave him counseling to help his confidence. We couldn’t change the school but he took it from there, excelled, created lasting friendships with the new kids he met, and is now working on his future in education. The school and church where he was bullied only gave us minimal help. They saw it as solely his problem that he didn’t fit in. That was when we realized we needed to find environments that supported who our child was, not expect environments to adapt to him. Not every parent can make these kinds of changes, but finding a better support system, especially with adults who are understanding and are against bullying, can make a big difference.
Tychus Findlay
October 7th, 2011
9:30 am
Bullying is a byproduct of perceived weakness between two individuals. Using a third party to mediate doesn’t eliminate that perception of weakness. While it would be nice to teach children to use their words instead of their fists, bullying won’t be solved without the dissolution of that perceived weakness.
ABC
October 7th, 2011
9:36 am
Ok, the example here is very basic, but let’s see if it gets my point across. When my youngest son was in preschool he was a biter. Now, I know that at the age of 2, that’s not exactly bullying, but still. We tried everything to get him to stop and he wouldn’t. So one day, one of the “bitees” bit him back. Hard. he had a bruise for days. He never bit again.
To me the bottom line is to teach children to defend themselves. I know teachers and administrators cannot condone that, but I have told my children to fight back and that I will defend them to the bitter end.
The other issue here is that I believe that there are two types of bullying: active and passive. The active bullying can be dealt with by those in charge pretty much only if noticed. But passive bullying is watching it happen and doing nothing. We need to teach our children to stand up for others too. If they witness it (which they are MUCH more likely to do than an adult), they should stop it!
Dennis
October 7th, 2011
9:42 am
As a middle school and high school counselor for many years I can tell you that bullying is a serious problem, and often it’s not just the physical type but the emotional attacks that hurt and often damage children. Many schools accross the counrty are overwhelmed with not only educating children but trying to be surrogate parents, due to a lack of parenting by the parent, to children who bring family, social, physical and emotional issues into the schoolhouse door. Even with in-place bullying laws and programs, determing who is the one doing the bullying and who is the victim can be a difficult tasks, especially with middle school children. Teachers and administrators can be brought to task for “labeling” a student as a bully by irate parents. Programs that teach all students, not necessarily just the victim, to stand up to bulling behavior are some of the most effective. Unfortunately, administrators, teachers, and counselors trying to deal with bullying incidents are handcuffed by a lack of funding, lack of personnel, and demands by state and federal education mandates to just teach our children and help them obtain a good education. Bullying laws are often passed by states, but are not coupled with the necessary resources to do something about the problem.
Robin
October 7th, 2011
9:46 am
Why does it have to be one or the other? By all means, help teach children not to act/react like victims, but when you see those who bulldoze over every polite social convention to get their own way at the expense of others, then it’s right for the adults in charge (parent, teacher, principal) to get in that kid’s face and say, “No, this isn’t how you do things, you don’t get to put yourself ahead by stomping on other people, and here comes the consequence.” That’s not just curbing a bully and protecting his/her victims, that’s guiding the bully down a better path toward adulthood.
TC
October 7th, 2011
9:52 am
I don’t expect teachers/schools to be parents, cooks, or do anything else as I parent that I am to do for my children. But I do expect them to teach my children and keep them safe when they are under their roof. When I have kids over at my house, my job is to keep them safe under my roof and I expect the same when my kids are at their friends’ house. It is the responsibility of the teacher/school to keep kids safe and to give them a good education. Everything else is the parent’s responsibility.
Carolyn
October 7th, 2011
9:54 am
I like Izzy Kalman’s take on this–it all rings true to me.
I prefer approaches where you prepare youngsters for events by role-playing and thinking about what you would do if some partticular event happened. Having a response prepared for a bully’s tactics makes a child more confident, and makes a bully less interested in carrying on because no reaction is happening–only a response.
West Cobb Mom
October 7th, 2011
9:58 am
I removed both a son and daughter from a W Cobb HS due to bullying that was ignored by the Administration. My son was physically attacked and had red ligature marks around his neck that lasted for over 24 hours. He was attacked on school grounds, right outside of camera range of course. When we told the school and campus police we wanted to press assault charges, we were told we couldn’t because there was no proof. The bully was not punished and was free to continue his reign of terror. If they had stepped up and done their job, the next criminal act might have been avoided. My son was kidnapped at gunpoint and robbed by the same bully and his friends outside of school. After pointing a loaded gun at his head and threatening to kill him, they pushed him out of the car. Police caught them all within a few hours and they are all now serving a 7 year prison sentence for kidnapping and armed robbery.
When my daughter was threatened by a group of vicious girls at the same school, the same Principal did absolutely nothing again. This wasn’t teasing we are talking about. They threatened to “crush her skull into the concrete” among other things. This time a teacher was present during the verbal assault but claimed she didn’t hear anything. It was obvious to me the kids ran that school and the adults were probably too scared for their own lives or careers to do anything to help. And people don’t understand why the HS dropout rate is so high in GA…
mike thompson
October 7th, 2011
10:03 am
I have noticed whenever there is an incident of bullying it always goes one way. The big guy with the muscles beats the snot out of the victim. Later in life they give the bully a night stick and a gun and put them on crowd control for places like The occupy Wall Street.
We need a change in attitudes.
Chip Shirley 'the Dixie Dove'
October 7th, 2011
10:06 am
Any kind of anti-bullying laws are helpful to deal with a horrible problem that has gone utterly ignored forever! I moved around a lot as a kid and was constantly picked on, I was lucky, I was fairly big and could defend myself, but if that weren’t the case and I had become a source of ‘legal torture’ I swear to god I would have burned some effing schools down! Time after time I heard teachers, administrators, parents and other adults say ‘So what fight back’ they are all lucky I could. No doubt our cold shoulder to this evil is what led to Columbine Va Tech etc.
Maureen Downey
October 7th, 2011
10:06 am
@West Cobb, Anyone would agree that these incidents were criminal acts that required calling the police. I certainly think that if these were recent events — within the last three or so years — I would ask for a meeting with the new Cobb superintendent to make him aware of them.
Maureen
Sanity rules
October 7th, 2011
10:09 am
There will always be bullies. But we need these laws to let kids know what will be tolerated by society and to help define what we see as acceptable.
Nativebird
October 7th, 2011
10:10 am
Another smokescreen for the inadequacies of the entire failed system. This futile exercise of attempting to solve misbehavior through legalistic “policy” is nothing but a futile effort to mask the travesty of removing corporal punishment from the public schools as well as the premeditated lining of lawyers’ pockets. Giving deaf-dumb & blind bureaucrats (union controlled teachers) the power to “choose” who the bully actually is does nothing but empower little, insecure Napoleons with the slightest hurt feelings to lash out at whomever they desire to ruin.
Bring back corporal punishment; problem-solved.
Eddie G
October 7th, 2011
10:11 am
There have been bullies since the beginning of time, and no amount of legislation is going to make it go away. Anyone that thinks otherwise is simply fooling themselves. The fact of the matter is that there are ADULT bullies in the schools – why would anyone believe that kids aren’t going to continue with this if the adults in the schools don’t stop?
Old School
October 7th, 2011
10:17 am
The old school approach works more times than not. Fight back! If you can’t win one on one then several bullied students gang attack the bully. In almost every case once the bully sees his or her own blood, they want to be best friends with their old victim(s). As I told my sons when they said “dad we will get suspended?” I told them just like in Hockey “two minutes well worth it.”
Pompano
October 7th, 2011
10:23 am
An interesting perspective. Nice article Maureen.
lula
October 7th, 2011
10:25 am
Please give me some feed back on bulling at the workplace. and your thoughts on it
Dennis
October 7th, 2011
10:26 am
Battery and/or assault to a student on a school campus are different than bullying in many ways. Battery or assault is a part of criminal law as either a misdemeanor or felony. Bullying that does not cross the line as on of those criminal behaviors is viewed and handled in a different manner, through school administrator intervention following local school board policies. That could include such things as discipline referrals that result in suspension, expulsion, referral to counseling, etc., etc., It would be unrealistic for a school to try to be the cops by dealing with every incident that occurred between students in a criminal manner. Most are not and those that are can be investigated by a school resource officer (a police officer with the local sheriff’s or police department). Parents can always attempt to file a charge with local authorities against another student for battery or assault, but often do not do so when they really need to. Schools often do the very best thay can when confronting bullying and some are better than others.
V for Vendetta
October 7th, 2011
10:27 am
Sigh. Bullying again? Haven’t we been over this before? I know I’m unpopular in regards to this subject because I expect kids to–heaven forbid!–deal with their own problems, but I stand by that viewpoint. My parents taught me from a young age to stand up for myself. I was hardly the paragon of coolness. I encountered my fair share of bullying scenarios, most of which could be disarmed with some well placed words or, at worst, a few pushes or shoves. Only once or twice did the scenarios escalate to any kind of physical violence. I won one. Lost the other. Both resulted in no more bullying.
You can argue all day long that the stakes have been raised and bullies are more violent than before. Perhaps. But I doubt it. In the event that they are, such as the example provided by West Cobb, then the obvious course of action would be to press charges, or, if that did not elicit the expected response, move out of such a situation. The bellyaching about the mental side of bullying makes me want to puke. Our children are only as strong as we make them–both mentally and/or physically. Even the shrinking wallflower can be taught to stand up straight and defend himself or herself. Dealing with bullies is LEARNED behavior, and it is up to us as parents to instill that within our children.
Not the schools. Not the lawmakers.
Take some responsibility.
Dr NO / Mr Sunshine
October 7th, 2011
10:36 am
Just another molly-coddling liberal pile of horse manure. Teach the kid being bullied to kick some rear-end and the bullying will stop post haste as most bullys are all mouth.
philosopher
October 7th, 2011
10:36 am
“Bring back corporal punishment; problem-solved.” Yeah- great! So we teach kids who are already bullies that when all else fails, beat the hell out of your victim…after all it got the grownup what he/she wanted ….at least temporarily!
Kawla
October 7th, 2011
10:44 am
Does anyone have any information on anti-bullying classes in the metro area? I do think it would be good for my kids to learn to deal with bullies, and I can help them, but would be interested if there was a class near me that dealt with this issue.
Mr. Mike
October 7th, 2011
10:44 am
October is National Bully Prevention Month. I have developed a bully prevention show for elementary schools. Highlights of the show can be seen here…
http://youtu.be/2qAvD01RD9E
http://www.StopBullyingShow.com
Nikita
October 7th, 2011
10:45 am
*The school and church where he was bullied only gave us minimal help. They saw it as solely his problem that he didn’t fit in. *
I’m now married to a teacher, and I myself was bullied quite a bit when I was in school back in the dark ages of the late 80s and early 90s. I’ve experienced what you’re describing — being attacked for “acting smart” and “acting too old” when in fact I was several grade levels ahead of my classmates both academically and in terms of maturity — and experienced a radical improvement in my personal circumstances once I moved to a private school with a focus on serving kids like myself.
I don’t know what the answer is — though I have a sense that some of the things I was subjected to really should have gotten a more serious reaction from the school, like the time that a teacher interrupted a group of girls several years older than me preparing to give me a beat down in an isolated corner of the school. I appreciate being saved, and I’m sure the school appreciates it since my mother would probably have sued if I had been physically harmed, but what I ultimately had to do was call in a much older, much larger ally to make it clear to them that if they touched me he would harm them. And stay very close to someone who could protect me all the time. And that wasn’t really an optimal outcome.
On the other hand, I also know how difficult it is as a teacher to deal with something that isn’t really your core purpose and has a lot of context that you can’t see. My husband has a zero tolerance, straight-to-discipline standard for any identity-based verbal aggression or physical intimidation or aggression, but there are a lot of strange interactions between the kids where he may see a kid seemingly lash out at another when in fact that kid is retaliating against a kid who’s smart enough to bully others without being seen by those in authority. It’s not appropriate or possible for a teacher to solve the bullying problem, especially if parents aren’t working to solve it as well.
Finally, we as a society should be more vigilant about what influences our children encounter. Studies have shown that even “educational” programming for children often depicts without consequence aggressive social behavior, and non-educational children’s programming is worse. It’s not just television, either. And kids are, among other things, learning social skills from every thing that they observe. Therefore if we want our kids to be subject to less bullying, and if we want to reduce bullying in general, we should actively advocate for materials and media that give our children positive interactions to model.
philosopher
October 7th, 2011
10:46 am
Bullies, for the most part, learn bullying at home-they are beat up by their parents- the parents beat them to get what they want. Now what sense does it make to teach a kid to hit back?? The bully has learned to pick on someone smaller and /or weaker than himherself (the parent is definitely bigger hitting someone smaller- or emotionally bullying a child and teaching the child to do the same). So most bullies don’t pick on someone strong enough (either physically or emotionally) to adequately defend themselves. The whole idea of suggesting that a child fight back is useless…bullies are mean, but not usually stupid!!!
SMH
October 7th, 2011
10:50 am
One of the biggest problems is that any victim of bullying who tries to fight back is treated by the school as a “co-instigator” and punished the same as the bully. If someone is all up in your face and they won’t back off, you can’t punch them in the nose because you’ll be suspended for fighting. I remember putting up with all sorts of abuse in school because the only way to shut the bullies up would have landed me a suspension. End that nonsense and bullying won’t be such a problem.
There is a difference between fighting and a bully’s victim teaching him a lesson.
Bad parenting
October 7th, 2011
10:53 am
Too often do you see parents these days totally oblivious of their child’s behaviors, they turn a blind eye because the dont see their kid as a bully or a culprit of teasing and bullying. More and more these days I see kids completely out of control in public areas and the parent or parents dont care and ignore their destructive behaviors. In my opinion the parents should be held accountable for their childs behavior, more penalties towards the parents I hope would make them get involved more and to teach their kids to better people.
Sadly, the parents out there are the real problem.
Sedgrid
October 7th, 2011
10:58 am
You have to empower the victim to stop bullying. The school can’t control it. That is why we developed our app Bully Block to give teens resources. Teens now have a weapon to fight back! @cyberbullyapp
mystery poster
October 7th, 2011
10:58 am
@ SMH
“One of the biggest problems is that any victim of bullying who tries to fight back is treated by the school as a “co-instigator” and punished the same as the bully”
Exactly. My son was being bullied on the bus when he was in middle school, one kid slammed his face against the back of the seat and broke his glasses. They made my husband come in and watch the tape. He said that due to the high seats, you couldn’t really see exactly what was going on. The school’s verdict: my son was just as responsible and he was suspended off the bus for a week, even though he hadn’t fought back.
I think that the school didn’t want to be responsible to replace his glasses.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
October 7th, 2011
10:59 am
West Cobb Mom,
Call Major Roland Craig of the Cobb County Sheriff’s Department if something like this happens again?
Tell him one of his Augusta cuzzes gave you his name.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
October 7th, 2011
11:00 am
OOPS: !, not ?