How Do We Stop Bullying ?
Written by admin on April 7, 2010 – 3:34 pm -
How does it feel to be bullied and teased? Hopefully it is something we will never experience. Being a mother this is a topic very close to my heart. I live with dread that my child will be bullied. Every parent wants to protect their child but bullying often happens away from the eyes of adults. It is deliberate and is meant to harm. It is a horrible thing to experience whether you are a child or an adult. It tends to peak in the 11-12 age group and the severity of the incidents tend to increase as age increases. As parents and care givers we need to understand that bullying is not a normal part of growing up.
Bullying is a general term which is applied to a pattern of behaviour where one person chooses to displace their aggression onto another person, generally chosen for their apparent vulnerability to the bully, they consistently criticise, nit-pick, exclude the child, isolate them and tease them using verbal, psychological, emotional and physical violence. When a child confides in us that they are being bullied we should take it extremely seriously. Going through the trauma of being bullied is very distressing for the victim and needs to be dealt with quickly. It is a terrible experience, which can leave the child fearful and desperate. Being bullied is never the child’s fault.
There tends to be three types of people involved in the majority of bullying incidents, the bully, the bullied and the bystander. Bystanders aid them by encouraging or rewarding them for their behaviour, laughing, participating or by failing to intervene and are in many cases as much to blame as the bully themselves.
Bullying happens in every school whether we want to believe that or not. Good schools are proactive in their approach and deal with incidents of bullying promptly, firmly and fairly. Whereby poor schools try to brush it under the carpet denying that it ever happened. In most schools which claim “there’s no bullying here”, the primary objective is to protect the school against bad publicity and to divert attention away from the fact that the head teacher does not have control of discipline, has poor interpersonal skills and is themself a poor teacher. The experience of being bullied for the child is traumatic.
Bullies torment their prey for months, often years. They are weak, disordered, dysfunctional and emotionally immature as evidenced by their need to bully. They tend to have negative interactions with others and such interactions are a characteristic of low self-esteem. Even adults find it difficult to defend themselves against the onslaught of bullies, especially a serial bully. It is a form of violence which is designed to cause the maximum physical, psychological and emotional injury. Bullying prevents children from undertaking their studies and results in grades which are lower than they would otherwise be, which means that the school appears lower down the league tables than they otherwise would. Bullying is initiated by one or more individuals with the intent to cause harm, fear or control over another person. The parents of these child bullies are responsible and they should be held accountable.
If a child learns how to bully, and gets away with it, there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest they leave school and carry on their bullying in the workplace. What message are the teachers and parents sending when they don’t take bullying seriously. Children can be cruel but it is up to the adults to guide them and be in charge. Children who live in homes where parents and older siblings “bully” are naturally going to have those tendencies. “This pattern of being bullied is associated with increased rates of absenteeism from school, lower grades and feeling sick.” Bullying is a leading cause of suicide in our young people.
Parents need to discourage inappropriate name calling, gestures and hurtful teasing. Parents need to act on this behaviour, let their children know that it is just simply not acceptable. Parents need to teach their children that people are different in this world, and help children learn to coexist with people who look differently, act differently, or may have medical conditions that may make them behave out of the norm from time to time. Some parents believe that if their child is picking on other students that this is just a normal growing process for their child and developmental in nature.
Every child has a right not to be bullied, harassed, assaulted or abused in their everyday life. At its extreme it can result in the death of a child, either from suicide (a very conservative estimate is that 16 children commit suicide in the UK each year because they are being bullied at school ), or from violence. Research shows that at least 50% of our children will be bullied at school. It has been shown that if you are severely bullied as a child, the trauma can last a lifetime.
Being bullied is something that should always be taken seriously. It is always very distressing for the victim and needs to be dealt with. You have to be very careful that your child does not feel that being bullied is their fault. If we allow our children to be bullied, what are we telling them about the world they live in? That it is acceptable behaviour? Bullying happens in the work place aswell and needs to be stamped out before it even gets there.
Just remember being bullied is never your child’s fault. Everybody has the right to live their lives without feeling bullied, threatened or unsafe.
Rachel Harding is a qualified nurse and mum of 3. She has a great deal of expertise with children and offers valuable support and free resources including stories, forums, recipes, article’s, gifts and books at => http://www.yourkidsshop.com
Tags: bullying, Stop
Posted in People | No Comments »
You Can’t Stop School Bullies Until You Stop Adults Who Teach Them How
Written by admin on March 17, 2010 – 3:07 pm -
Children who are bullied need to know they are not the problem. Bullying is about the bully needing to feel powerful. They believe their wants are more important than anyone else’s. They have learned to be abusers.
Bullying always involves:
· Intimidation through specific tactics meant to instill fear
· Threats of emotional, physical and psychological harm
· Discrimination by accusing the victim of being inferior or wrong
· Isolation of the victim from others who may give support.
We must help the victims. This can be done by;
· Listening to their stories of life at school
· Watching for changes in behaviour, especially from happy to fearful
· Observing their play and listening to how they interact with others
· Asking about any indications that hint at being afraid or avoiding people or places.
You are looking for fear of the school yard, anxiety about who will be in their class, talk of having no friends, worry about their teacher’s treatment of them and in general a focus on feeling safe rather than excited to be able to learn and grow.
We can identify bullies by;
· Watching the way they talk to and about other children
· Observing the way their parents speak to them
· Look at who their friends are and the interaction between them
· Paying attention to the types of games they play and TV programs they prefer.
Signs include belittling and name calling, talk of “getting” other people, a superior attitude with lack of care and empathy for others and forming groups where the group acts aggressively against siblings, younger children or members of a race, religion or sexual orientation. Bullies often present as confident and popular so people believe they are not the cause of the problem.
Parents must hold school officials accountable to stop abusive behaviour on the school yard and in the classroom. The first place to look is at the principals and teachers who bully students.
Every school year parents work to keep their children out of certain teacher’s classes because those teachers are bullies. It is often the parents who are least involved in their children’s lives whose children get the abusive teachers.
Too often children are seen as the problem, their aches and pains and reluctance to go to school are looked at but not the classroom environment.
· Parents can work together.
· Get supportive people to work as a group to hold bullies accountable.
· Avoid TV programs that show bullies in action.
· Be Self aware of tactics you may use to get your way
· Watch the way others speak to your child and confront abuse.
People who bully are usually going about their lives confident that the victim’s physical and emotional reactions were because they are too sensitive, not mentally well and author of their own misfortune.
Bullies have usually been bullied. They are afraid of appearing weak or fearful. They need to tell their story of who has bullied them and how that behaviour has influenced their life to break the chain. It may be a parent, sibling, grandparent, friend, neighbour, role model on television, religious leader or teacher. Legal tactics include bullying as do many other forms of business interaction. Many workplaces are filled with bullies. War is bullying to the extreme.
There are lifelong repercussions of bullying that effect the way a person functions in their home and in society. Bullying causes a loss in self confidence, hinders achievement, disrupts routines, brings fear into the lives of parents and children, prevents parents from protecting their children out of their own fear and leads to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
Accountability involves forgiveness. Bullies need to,
· Hear the impact of their behaviour on their victim
· Be willing to accept responsibility for the harm they have done
· Compensate the victim
· Apologize
Society must evolve to a point where bullies are held accountable and their behaviour is seen as unacceptable if we are to ever live in peace as people, nations and globally.
Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem M.Ed. is a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist who consults to families in business on relationship issues including bullying. More About Marilyn
Marilyn is author of books on personal growth through travel. Questing Home: A Safe Place for My Holy Grail is her third book and is about Marilyn’s experience of being bullied by her former husband, his lawyer and others as she went through the process of divorce.
Read the Preface and Chapter One Free
Tags: Adults, bullies, Can't, School, Stop, Teach, them, Until
Posted in People | No Comments »
Does the fear of embarrassment stop you from trying new things?
Written by admin on March 17, 2010 – 11:40 am -Tags: embarrassment, fear, From, Stop, Things, trying
Posted in Behaviors | 8 Comments »
