"When you plant a lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer or more water or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce."
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Understanding Bullying
Bullying is a deliberate form of aggression in which one person, or group of persons, feels entitled to exert power over another person. People often use the terms bullies, perpetrators and victims when referring to students involved in bullying. However, these labels focus on the students rather than the behaviours, and ignore the fact that many individuals may take on both roles in different situations or at different points in their lives. For these reasons, we use the terms students who bully or students who are bullied on this Web page.
Students may bully others because they feel a strong need to dominate, either in general or in a certain situation. As a result, students are most likely to be bullied when they appear withdrawn, sensitive, cautious or anxious. Although students who are bullied typically withdraw from confrontations, the students who bully often perceive hostility where it does not exist and believe that aggression is the best solution to the perceived conflict.1
Bullying can be direct (such as hitting or name-calling) or indirect (such as gossiping or exclusion) and can take many forms. A relatively new and growing form of bullying is cyber-bullying—the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phones, pagers, text messages and personal Web sites to taunt, threaten or humiliate another student. Although the specific forms of bullying can vary greatly, there are a number of key characteristics that determine whether a behaviour is bullying or not:
- a power imbalance
- an intent to harm
- feelings of distress by the student who is being bullied
- repetition over time.
Parents and teachers are generally unaware of the extent of bullying among children. Many students who have bullied or been bullied do talk to their teachers or parents about the problem; still, many students downplay or hide bullying incidents, often because they fear retaliation, feel pressured to deal with their own problems or feel that adults are unable to protect them from future bullying.2
Bullying behaviours cross all age groups, sometimes beginning as early as two or three years of age and reaching into adulthood. Although the forms of bullying may change as people get older, the issues of power and control remain the same. Similarly, boys and girls are involved in bullying at about the same rate, but how they bully may differ.
Misconceptions about bullying
There are a number of common misconceptions about bullying that can interfere with efforts to make schools a safer place for all students.
Misconception: Bullying does not do any real damage.
Reality: When we dismiss bullying as "just teasing," we ignore the serious consequences of such behaviour for the individual students involved, the school community and society. Students who are bullied may experience physical symptoms such as stomachaches, headaches and nightmares. They may also experience social isolation, develop a negative view of themselves and school, and have increasing difficulty with school achievement.3 Widespread bullying creates a school environment of fear and hostility that negatively impacts the feelings and learning of all students. In the long run, bullying can be a precursor to other aggressive behaviours with serious social effects.
Misconception: Bullying is just a part of growing up.
Reality: Bullying behaviour is not just a matter of "kids will be kids." Bullying is a learned behaviour. Often students are imitating aggressive behaviour they have seen on television, in movies or at home. Furthermore, without intervention, bullying behaviours tend to remain constant or escalate rather than improve as the child gets older. Bullying behaviour that is ignored may progress into gang attacks, physical or sexual assault, dating violence, marital violence, workplace harassment, and child or elder abuse.4
Misconception: Students who are bullied just have to learn to stand up for themselves.
Reality: This misconception can lead people to believe that handling bullying on their own will help students "build character," and discourage adults from responding effectively to students who report bullying. In reality, when students report bullying, this usually means that they have tried to resolve the situation and cannot cope with it on their own. Their complaints are a cry for help.
Misconception: There have always been bullies and there always will be.
Reality: Even if this belief is true, it needs to be challenged. By working together, teachers, students and parents have the power to change how things have been and to create a better and safer future for all children.
Observing bullying
Eighty-five percent of bullying taking place in the presence of others. When students observe bullying, several things commonly happen:
- aggressive behaviours are modelled by someone who appears to be more powerful
- more positive peer attention is paid to the student who bullies than the student who is bullied
- the presence of others makes it seem that several people are involved.
These factors combine to reduce the feelings of guilt in the student who engages in bullying and lower the inhibitions of the students who are observing. As a result, even though most students report that watching bullying makes them feel uncomfortable,5 observing these incidents may actually make students more likely to engage in bullying themselves.
On the other hand, when onlookers do intervene, they are often effective in stopping bullying.6 Furthermore, if the school community values and encourages active intervention in bullying situations, students are more likely to challenge bullying behaviours than remain inactive.7 By providing students with the skills and confidence to intervene in bullying situations, schools can take a significant step towards stopping bullying behaviour.
Endnotes
| 1.. |
Fried, SueEllen and Paula Fried. Bullies and Victims: Helping Your Child through the Schoolyard Battlefield. New York, NY: M. Evans and Company Inc., 1996. |
| 2.. |
Garfalo, J., L. Siegel and M. Laub. "School-related Victimization Among Adolescents: An Analysis of National Crime Survey Narratives." Journal of Quantitative Criminology 3 (1987), pp. 321–337. |
| 3.. |
Fried, SueEllen and Paula Fried. Bullies and Victims: Helping Your Child through the Schoolyard Battlefield. New York, NY: M. Evans and Company Inc., 1996. |
| 4.. |
Pepler, Debra J. and Wendy Craig. "Bullying: Research and Interventions." Youth Update, a publication of the Institute for the Study of Antisocial Youth, 1997. |
| 5.. |
Pepler, Debra J. and Wendy Craig. "Bullying: Research and Interventions." Youth Update, a publication of the Institute for the Study of Antisocial Youth, 1997. |
| 6.. |
Craig, Wendy and Debra J. Pepler. Naturalistic Observations of Bullying and Victimization on the Playground (unpublished report). Toronto, ON: LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution, York University , 1997. |
| 7.. |
Smith, Peter K. and Sonia Sharp. School Bullying: Insights and Perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge Publishers, 1994. |
