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Thursday, March 9, 2000
Battling the bullies | ||||||
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Ever since kindergarten, "Mark" was bullied by the same kids. They called him names such as "fairy fag, fairy bastard." He was beaten up. He had to file for a protection order against one his tormentors. His mom transferred him to to a new school in hopes the harassment would stop.
As a fifth-grader at a Waterville-area private school and later in public schools, "Jack" was bullied. There was pushing and shoving at the bus stop. There was name calling and threats. The kids who picked on him said they were going to throw rocks through his window and burn down his house.
Though they have been given pseudonyms to protect them from embarrassment or future abuse, these children and their stories are real.
So is the pain they feel and the fear they live with. And they are not alone. Bullying has always been the reality in America's schools, at recreation centers, on ball fields. Wherever kids gather. But many experts say bullying is becoming more widespread and more intense, even as educators, more aware than ever of the damage it can cause, struggle to rein it in. "Worldwide, studies show that 8 to 10 percent of students in a school are bullied or harassed on a fairly consistent basis. Eight percent of students in any school bully others on a fairly consistent basis. That's a substantial set of numbers," said Stan Davis, an elementary school guidance counselor at James H. Bean School in Sidney. David trains teachers and students to combat the problem. Bullying is "one of the most underrated and enduring problems in schools today and is a reality in the lives of all children," according to a study released last month of bullying behavior among Maine third-graders. Bullying can range from hurtful teasing and name-calling to threats to hitting or kicking. For victims, it breeds fear of riding the bus, going to school, going to the bathroom or into the locker room. Over time, it eats away at fragile self-esteem. It leads to cynicism, depression and poor grades. Some students even contemplate suicide. Some contemplate murder. The scars can last a lifetime. Bullies who get away with it learn exactly the wrong lesson: that aggression is rewarded and hurting others does not have consequences. "Bullying is the best predictor of adult criminality," Davis said. "If someone is a bully and that behavior is not challenged, the odds of the bully ending up in jail are fairly good." Bullying is not fighting. "It's intentional hurtful behavior, and it's a pattern. It's not two second-graders fighting over a kickball on the playground," said Charles Saufler, a guidance counselor at Wiscasset Primary School and co-chairman of the 2-year-old Maine Project Against Bullying. "The key about a bullying relationship is that there is an imbalance of power," Saufler said. "The bully can be a person who is bigger, stronger or faster verbally, who can cut you apart with their tongue while you just stand there trying to think of a reply." Kids know what it is. "You can ask any kindergarten kid what a bully is and they'll tell you. And that's before the age of 5," Saufler said. What makes one kid develop into a habitual bully? No one really knows, according to experts. Some believe bullies are born more aggressive, that it is at their core. Others believe upbringing and parenting, or lack of it, play big roles. The truth may be a blend of the two. Bullies tend to come from homes where parents show little affection for their children, do not spend much time with them, and do not set and enforce rules, according to Davis. "Kids who aren't nurtured tend to have less empathy for others," and those who don't learn while they are young that there are consequences to their acts fail to learn self control, he said. Said Saufler: "When kids get older and it's an established pattern you'll see a lack of empathy and a lack of caring. Anger management doesn't work for them. Bullies want to be powerful and in control. If the aggressive behavior lasts for years it's not going to be an easy pattern to change. "Researchers say that if you haven't addressed the problem by the age of eight then it's just doing damage control." A bully's victims often tend to be perceived as weaker or simply "different." They may have recently moved to the neighborhood. They may dress differently. Have a speech impediment. May be overweight, wear thick glasses, have a learning disability. Their families might be poor. They may not wear the "right clothes." Eleanor Tibbetts said her five children were bullied when they were growing up in Pittston simply because their father had a rubbish route. "They called them garbage and said they ate garbage and (the bullies) punched them out," said Tibbetts. For a bully's victims, life is lived in what Saufler calls an atmosphere of fear. "Kids will tell you when you ask them. They say, 'We're scared,' " Saufler said. "They avoid parts of the school building, the playground, or people. Kids who are repeatedly victimized lose self esteem, feel anxious, are preoccupied plotting an escape route. They often develop psychosomatic illnesses. They sometimes become so overwhelmingly depressed that they contemplate suicide." Linda Kennedy, of Augusta, said her son, now an 11-year-old sixth grader, has endured bullying since kindergarten. Mainly verbal, but he has been beaten up, too. It has caused much stress for the boy, she said. She said she thinks it has made him insecure. He is not doing as well in school as she feels he should. "It's also affected him because he sees these kids getting away with it," Kennedy said. "He says he can report things to the school and it basically got sloughed off. Now he knows he's supposed to report it, but he doesn't have much faith that anything's going to happen." Playground research done from the 1970s to the early 1990s shows that only 4 percent of bullying incidents were responded to by an adult, Davis said. "By and large, teachers and peers don't do much, so children feel they are alone in facing the bullying, which is probably worse than the bullying itself in terms of isolation," Davis said. "And they feel the bullying is their fault because if it was wrong someone would do something about it. The Maine Project Against Bullying's recently released survey of almost 4,500 third-graders found that for 37 percent of kids who sought help to stop a bullying situation, things got worse or stayed the same. "This perceived lack of assistance at school for victimized students gives the implicit message that these behaviors are acceptable," the study's authors concluded. "This is unacceptable and may have devastating results on the victims' feelings of self worth and subsequently a school's climate." For decades, teachers and administrators all but ignored bullying. They saw it as part of growing up. Children were told to toughen up, to handle it themselves. That attitude is still prevalent today, experts said. Said Saufler: "Part of the problem in schools is you have some people who see it as kids being kids, boys being boys. They say, "I was bullied as a kid and I turned out all right.' As long as we have that, we're going to have the problem." Parents of victims often do not complain to school personnel because they believe it will only make the problem worse, spurring retribution from the bully. That is one of the biggest mistakes parents can make, according to Davis. Because of the bully-victim dynamic, there is little the victim can do to stop the abuse. "It's important to take action to stop it," he said. "And it's important to help victims see it's not their fault, and get them into some sort of activity that's positive." While Davis agrees that getting a kid involved in martial arts or weight lifting can inspire self-confidence, he does not see it as a cure. "Once a kid starts getting picked on, in a peer group, that kid's status in the peer group may be difficult to change without adult intervention," Davis said. Saufler and Davis are among those who believe that, nationwide, bullying is getting worse in frequency and intensity. Contributing factors: increasing rates of domestic violence, parents who spend too much time at work and too little with their kids, and the influence of violent television shows, movies and virtual reality video games. Too many children fail to spot the line between the TV or the movie screen. "I knew a kid who picked up another child and slammed his head onto the asphalt playground," Davis said. "When asked what he was doing, he said, 'I only gave him a driller,' " which is a move from professional wrestling. Over the last four or five years, schools have taken bullying much more seriously. They are combating it with programs ranging from advisor-advisee program to civil rights teams to "zero-tolerance" policies. Experts say that bullying can be reduced significantly, but they emphasize it takes a concerted effort on the part of parents, teachers, administrators, rec directors, coaches and others involved with kids. "Teachers alone can't solve the problem unless there is administrative support, up to the school board," Saufler said. "There needs to be policies against it and well thought out graduated sanctions that everyone is aware of. You need that much support." Davis uses magic and theater in an antibullying program he gives in Maine and other states. He also conducts training programs for administrators and teachers on what works against bullying. He says a successful approach involves two tactics: punish bullies consistently for misbehavior and enlist peer pressure in the fight against bullying. Schools, backed by parents, must set limits for aggressive students and back them up with sanctions when the kid transgresses. The discipline must be progressive if the bad behavior continues, according to Davis. "That teaches bullies cause and effect reasoning," he said. Davis said that technique was applied at the school where he teaches and it worked. "The bullies came back to school this year being very kind to other people," Davis said. "I found a way to talk to those seven or eight kids and ask them what happened. Every one of them said to me, 'Mr. Davis, I got tired of being in trouble all the time.' " Educators must enlist the 85 percent of kids who are neither bullies nor victims in the fight against bullying, he said. That is a particularly potent force in the middle school years. It is key in his programs for young people. "It's a real simple message," he said, "that you are your brother's keeper." Students must be encouraged to tell bullies to stop hurting others, or to tell teachers what is going on. And they should be encouraged to befriend a bully's victims. Davis is fond of quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his presentations that "in the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." One fifth-grade girl later showed that those words had made an impression. David recalls her saying: "I remembered what Martin Luther King said. So I told the person who was teasing to stop. And I went and played with the girl who was being teased because I didn't want her to remember me being silent." "If you ask those kids to take action everything changes," Davis said. "Because bullies operate from a position of social power. And if 85 percent of their classmates disapprove of what they're doing, they lose that power. | ||||||
