Transcript Bullying

Bullying ?
What is Bullying?
•Bullying is harming others
repeatedly and over time.
A bully carries out negative actions on
someone who has difficulty being able to
defend himself/herself. The bully uses:
• Physical Contact
• Words
• Indirect ways such as:
- Spreading rumors
- Intentionally excluding someone
from a group
Bullying is:
• Classified as proactive aggression
• Done by one person or by a group
• Is an unfair match since the bully is either physically,
verbally, and/or socially stronger than the victim
• Most bullies have weak to nonexistent father figures
(Berdondini & Smith as cited by Curtner-Smith)
Facts about Bullies:
Bullying has been implicated in many school
shootings, including March 2001 slayings of
two students in Santee, CA and 1999
Massacre of 13 at Columbine High School.
Factors in the Home Environment:
• Family relationships of bullies tend to be troubled.
• Parents of bullies are hostile, rejecting, and
Indifferent.
• The parents frequently use punishment that is some
form of harsh power combined with violent
emotional outbursts (Olweus as cited by CurtnerSmith, 2000
• Most bullies have weak to nonexistent father figures
(Berdondini & Smith as cited by Curtner-Smith)
Bullying has changed in recent years to
be more intense in frequency and
seriousness (Beane, 1999)
• Bullies are not generally popular; however
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some bullies are popular and even leaders of
aggressive groups like high impact sports or even
gangs (Pellegrini et al.).
They may target hot tempered students who lose
control.
More facts:
• Other research shows that people who were bullied
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as children are prone to depression and low selfesteem as adults and that bullies are more likely to
engage in criminal behavior.
Bullying intervention programs in England and
Norway have shown that school based intervention
programs can reduce bullying by 30-50% (Olweus).
Bullies are more likely to have poor grades, smoke,
and drink alcohol.
Types of Bullying
•Rejection
- Young people fear
rejection. They crave
acceptance and will do just
about anything to get it.
Terrorizing
Terrorizing is the use of fear to torment
and manipulate.
- Perpetrators do this to:
• Achieve dominance
• Obtain payoffs like:
- Money
- Material items
- Status with peers
- Power
Isolating
This involves cutting someone off
from essential relationships. The
irony is that isolating students can
actually drive them to pair up in
their estrangement from the
larger group and become
dangerous.
Corrupting
Influencing a student to learn ways of
thinking, speaking, and acting that make
him or her increasingly unfit for normal
healthy experiences. Examples include:
- Students who speak, using angry and obscene language.
- Students who are antisocial.
- Students who mock those who work hard in school.
- Students who endorse negative activities like cutting class.
(Garbarino, 2003)
- Gesture Abuse
• Threatening or obscene gestures
• Menacing stares
• Deliberately turning away to ignore someone (Rigby, 2001)
Effects of Bully’s Behavior
• Many students are frightened.
• A climate of fear exists in the classroom.
• Some students think it is funny when they see the immature behavior
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of a bully.
School time is wasted.
Students who are being bullied are threatened and become highly
emotional and upset and afraid to come to school.
Physically weak students may follow the bully for protection.
The teacher may loose power in the classroom.
A negative atmosphere is created.
The teacher may become afraid of the bully.
Girls demonstrate their
aggressiveness by:
• Slander
• Spreading of rumors
• Intentional exclusion of the group
• Manipulation of friendship relations
• Malicious gossip
• Backstabbing
• Lying about others
It is believed that this is because the media
is beginning to glamorize this. (ProthrowSmith, 2002)
An interesting fact about girl victims is
that girls who mature early are commonly
victims of bullying. (Viadero, 1997)
Five Mistakes Teachers Make with Bullies
What You need to do Instead!
Publicly put down the bully.
This is often done with the intention of helping
the victim feel better. It backfires because the
bully feels like “he has lost face” in front of his
peers.
Threaten the bully.
Threats do not work with this child. It is
better to tell the bully what to expect and
then always follow through.
Treat the bully inconsistently.
The bully, like other children, needs
consistency and structure. Always treat the
bully so that he/she knows what to expect.
Try and bribe the bully.
This only adds fuel to the bully’s need to feel
important in negative ways. Instead, work
with the bully to have the bully come up
with consequences for his/her own
behavior.
Overlook the bully’s Behavior
Correct Behavior immediately
Implementing an Anti-Bullying Program
• The Basics
- Awareness-raising of students, faculty, and parents
- Consultation with parents, school psychologists, and outside
sources
- Development of draft policy and procedures including data based
monitoring protocol
- Finalize and disseminate policies and procedures with students,
parents, teachers, and staff.
- Training of teachers and staff.
- Implementation of program.
- Evaluation and adjustments as needed on a regular basis. (Carney and
Merrell)
The How-To’s for handling
bullies
• Class Discussions
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Who can tell me what bullying is?
What happens to people who are bullied?
How do you think bullies feel?
What’s it like to see someone get bullied?
Do you think that bullying is a problem in our classroom?
Who would like to have a bully-free classroom?
What do we do to make our classroom bully-free?
Discuss the NO-BULLY POLICY
Have the children discuss what it means
to have a “no-bully” policy. Students learn
to refuse to join in or watch bullying.
Students learn to say, “Don’t do or say
that. It’s not right.” (Beane, 1999)
OUR CLASSROOM
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We treat each other with respect.
We speak up if we see others being treated unfairly.
We like it that people are different.
We don’t have to all dress the same or act the same.
We try to solve problems peacefully.
We treat each other the way we want to be treated.
We have the right to be ourselves.
We have the right to be safe.
We speak up if we think there is something that is not
safe.
Empathy: The #1 Link to Changing
Bully Behavior
• It’s very important to teach bullies
to have appropriate REMORSE.
EMPATHY
• Empathy is the ability to identify with and
understand how another person feels. It
is the ability to put yourself into someone
else’s place.
Empathy
• It is important to have empathy in
order to build positive relationships.
• Children need to be taught to
empathize not only for those people
whom they know in their families, but
for others as well.
Ask students questions.
• “How do you feel, knowing you have hurt
Nita?”
• “How does it feel when someone takes
something of yours?”
• “What are you going to do so Nita feels
better?”
“How would you feel…”
• If you were new in school?
• If you were the shortest kid in school?
• If you were the most popular student in
school?
• If you had a tough home life?
• If you did not feel attractive?
• If you could not hear well?
• If you had to wear thick glasses?
3 Important Rules for Bullies
• We will not bully other students.
• We will help others who are being bullied
by speaking out and by getting adult help.
• We will use extra effort to include all
students in activities at our school.
-Viaadro, 1997
Relevant Take Back Strategies
How to Reduce and Stop Bullying
Educators need to make sure children
know that they need adult help to
deal with bullies because of the
power imbalance that occurs.
Convey a “can do” attitude to the student.
Model confidence that bullying can be
changed and that victims can protect
themselves. Adults need to have a nonpunitive, matter-of-fact attitude.
The classroom intervention shifts power
away from bullies by setting explicit rules
against bullying and expecting all students
to stand up for the victims.
Caring and reinforcement by adults
shifts power toward the caring majority
of children.
• Discussion works better than lecture.
• The more that children are involved in
defining bullying and the strategies to use
against it, the more effective the
intervention will be.
• The classroom teacher is a key component
to the success of the program because the
teacher can reinforce caring behavior and
can remind the students of the bully-proof
rules.
• Teachers have been found to be more
effective when they have a facilitator to
help them teach the course. (Garrity, 1997)
My Statement of Responsibility
I have a responsibility to tell someone if I
am being bullied. I have a responsibility to
not remain silent when someone else is
bullied. I have a responsibility to speak up
on behalf of all students who need help. I
will honor that responsibility.
__________________Student’s name
__________________Date