3. WHAT IS
BULLYING?
Bullying is defined as a
behavior that: (a) is intended
to cause harm or distress, (b)
occurs repeatedly over time,
and (c) occurs in a
relationship in which there is
an imbalance of power or
strength. (Solberg & Olweus,
2003).
4. MYTHS OF
BULLYING
• Children who bully
are loaners
• Children who bully
have low self-
esteem
7. HOME ENVIRONMENT
Discipline that is questionable
Lack of love and attention from parents
Parents fighting in front of kids in a violent way
Parents using abusive language in front of the
children
Movies or sitcoms children watch on television
promoting violence
9. SCHOOL
Threats and
Intimidation
Teachers are not
paying attention to
a child
Pursuit of power
Learning disability
Environment of the
school
12. SIGNS A CHILD IS BULLYING
OTHERS
Get into physical or Have inexplicable extra
verbal fights money or new items you
did not purchase
Have friends who bully
others Blame others for their
issues
Are becoming more and
more aggressive Don’t accept
responsibility for their
Have been sent to the actions
principal’s office or to
detention repeatedly Are very competitive
and are anxious about
their reputation or
popularity (Stop
Bullying.Gov, 2012)
13. ETHICS OF BULLYING
When bullying becomes harassment or takes more
severe forms, it is illegal.
Several States have implemented legislation to deal
with bullying, harassment, and intimidation.
Mental health professionals and teachers must be
aware of the student's right to privacy when addressing
school violence concerns, as well as any legal
mandates concerning privacy.
Students also must be aware of the legal and ethical
obligations involved in bullying activities. (SAMHSA,
2004).
14. BULLYING STATISTICS
1 out of 4 teens are bullied.
1 out of 5 kids admits to
being a bully, or doing some
form of bullying
282,000 students are
physically attacked in
secondary schools each
month
80% of the time, an
argument with a bully will
end up in a physical fight
(Stomp Out Bullying, 2007).
17. References
Baldry, A.C., & Farrington, D.P. (2005). Protective factors
as moderators of risk factors in adolescence bullying.
Social Psychology of Education, 8, 263 -284. doi:
10.1007/s11218-005-5866-5
Bauer, N.S., Herrenkohl, T.I., Lozano, P., Rivara, F.P., Hill,
K.G., Hawkins, J.D. (2006). Childhood bullying
involvement and exposure to intimate partner violence.
Pediatrics, 118, 235-242.
Bowes, L., Arseneault, L., Maughan, B., Taylor, A., Caspi,
A., & Moffitt, T.E. (2009). School, neighborhood, and
family factors are associated with children's bullying
involvement: a nationally representative longitudinal
study. Journal of the American Academy of Child &
Adolescent Psychiatry, (48) 5, 545-553
18. References (con’t)
Cairnes, R. B., Cairnes, B. D., Neckerman, H. J., Gest, S. D., &
Gariepy, J. L. (1988). Social networks and aggressive behavior:
Peer support or peer rejection? Developmental Psychology, 24,
815-823.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 1991- 2009
High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data. Retrieved from
http://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa11/hstat/hsa/pages/225b.html
Espelage, D. L. (2002). Bullying in early adolescence: the role of
the peer group. ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early
Childhood Education Champaign IL.
Espelage, D. L., Bosworth, K., & Simon, T. R. (2000). Examining
the social context of bullying behaviors in early adolescence.
Journal of Counseling and Development, 78(3), 326-333.
19. References (con’t)
Hamarus, P., & Kaikkonen, S. (2008). School bullying as a
creator of pupil peer pressure. Educational Research, 50(4),
333-345. doi: 10.1080/00131880802499779
Lindberg, C. (2010). New Oxford American Dictionary. (3rd ed.)
Mandel, J. (2005). Social life in middle and high school: dealing
with cliques and bullies. New York University Child Study
Center, 10(1), 1-4.
Olweus, D., Limber, S., & Mihalic, S. (1999). The Bullying
Prevention Program. Blueprints for Violence Prevention.
Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of
Violence.
20. References (con’t)
Renda, J., Vassallo, S., & Edwards, B. (2011). Bullying in early
adolescence and its association with anti-social behaviour,
criminality and violence 6 and 10 years later. Criminal Behaviour
and Mental Health, 21, 117-127. doi: 10.1002/cbm.805
Solberg, M.E., & Olweus, D. (2003). Prevalence estimation of
school bullying with the Olweus bully/victim questionnaire.
Aggressive Behavior, 29, 239-268
Stomp Out Bullying (2007). The Issue of Bullying – Bullying
Statistics. Retrieved from
http://www.stompoutbullying.org/aboutbullying_theissue.php
21. References (con’t)
Stop Bullying Gov (2004). Warning Signs of a Bully.
Retrieved fromhttp://www.stopbullying.gov/at-
risk/warning-signs/index.html
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service
Administration (SAMHA) (2004). Legal and Ethical
Issues of Bullying. Retrieved from
http://pathwayscourses.samhsa.gov/bully/bully_7_pg11.htm
Editor's Notes
Good afternoon everyone my name is Cherise Brown and today I will be discussing some risk and protective factors of adolescent bullying. As parents I’m sure there are many of you who would not want their child to be bullied or become a bully and today I’d like to bring to your attention some factors for everyone to be aware of that could lead to your child becoming a bully.
Teenagers today are impressionable and what they are subjected to can affect their behavior and depending on their environment it could lead to bullying. Some of the factors we will be discussing today that might affect your children are peer pressure, home, neighborhood and school. Many people feel that children who bully do so just because and this is not necessarily true. Usually there is something deeper and it could be a cry for help or attention from that child. Bullying has become an important issue across the nation and I feel it is everyone’s responsibility to become educated on the various factors of bullying.
First let’s start with what is bullying? According to some children bullying to them is name calling, stealing money or their lunch and spreading lies. According to researchers bullying is defined as a behavior that: (a) is intended to cause harm or distress, (b) occurs repeatedly over time, and (c) occurs in a relationship in which there is an imbalance of power or strength. (Solberg & Olweus, 2003). Basically what this means is there is someone who has more power or dominance and continues to keep using this power in a negative way towards another person. Growing up I’m sure we have all heard the saying sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me. But we have learned that this is not true and that words are deep and they do hurt. Bullying today is not just between one child according to researchers bullying is amongst groups of students who support their peers and sometimes participate in teasing and harassing of other students. (Espelage, 2002). I’d like to discuss some myths people may have heard about what type of children are considered to be bullies.
When people hear that a child is labeled a bully there are usually two things that come to mind and that is children who bully are loaners or children who bully have low self-esteem. Well I’m here to tell you today that those are both myths and research has proven that children who bully are not socially isolated (Cairnes, Cairnes, Neckerman, Gest, & Gariepy, 1998). It has also been said that children who bullied their peers reported having an easier time making friends than their peers. One might ask how is this so, sometimes the child that is labeled the “popular” kid is also known as a bully. Research has also proven that bullies are not that accepted among their peers but they do have a group of friends and these friends generally are like-minded and fully support their friends bullying behavior (Cairnes, Cairnes, Neckerman, Gest, & Gariepy, 1998). Contrary to the beliefs of many, most research has indicated that children who bully have average or above average self-esteem (Olweus, Limber, & Mihalic,1999). I’m sure we have all heard about the students that play sports in your children’s schools and how they feel they are super stars. There are some students who are key players on their team and they are known for having an above average level of self esteem, and could also be known as a bully. Peer acceptance is so important to young people that some are willing to do whatever it takes to seem cool, or make friends. Which brings us to our first factor peer pressure.
Peer pressure is defined as influence from members of one’s peer group (Lindberg, 2010). The key word in this definition is influence. Our children today are influenced by the television, books, magazines and most of all their peers. Popularity, approval and acceptance play a major role in a young persons life because socially your children want to be the one everyone wants to be around. Adolescents today have situations where they are subjected to peer pressure to fit in with the popular kids. As parents you need to understand at a certain age children are seeking their individuality and mom and dad are not considered being cool any more. Research has acknowledged that at the age of 10 to 12 years old children begin to separate from their parents and identification with peers may become exaggerated and their friends may change frequently and as this process continues the need to belong or fit in becomes vital to an adolescent and cliques and bullies become more prominent (Mandel, 2005). Ladies and Gentlemen your children have their own culture where they are seeking the approval of their friends based on their physical appearance, the clothes they wear and the cool gadgets they own. It has been said that bullying is a way of creating and restoring culturally accepted and appreciated values and ideas (Hamarus & Kaikkonen). As parents what you need to understand is to be accepted in a group your sons or daughters may give into peer pressure and become a bully so that they can have friends.
The pictures on this slide may make you feel uncomfortable, or you may ask what does this have to do with bullying? The home is where children learn morals and values and respect towards others, and the home can also be a factor of a child becoming a bully.
As parents you need to be aware of how your behavior can affect the behavior of your children. What everyone needs to remember is that your children are impressionable and they watch everything you do and listen to everything you say. My parents did not believe in sparing the rod when it came to disciplining me and my sisters but it was never to the point where it could be considered abuse. Discipline is necessary but if a parent is violent and too rough with their child, your child may begin to develop negative feelings inside and take that negativity and turn it into anger and begin lashing out at their peers. No matter how old anyone is we all want to be loved and shown love, and lack of love and attention from parents can cause a child to become depressed or feel unimportant and take out their frustration on their peers and even siblings. Low parental warmth and parental depression are known to be related with behavioral troubles in childhood and these behavioral intricacies might increase children’s risks for becoming a bully (Bowes, Arseneault, Maughan, Taylor, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2009). Parents fighting in front of their kids because of a disagreement, is not an issue but when it becomes violent your child may think the way to resolving an issue or disagreement is to be violent with their peers when they disagree with someone and violence is not what we want to put in a child’s mind. According to research children exposed to interparental violence are more likely to show physical hostility, include bullying behaviors, maybe as a product of social learning with children observing violence to be an acceptable method of resolving conflict (Bauer, Herrenkohl, Lozano, Rivara, Hill & Hawkins, 2006). Children are sponges and they soak up everything and it begins when they are toddlers they hear you curse and they repeat it and you laugh and think it’s cute until they are older and use that language towards you, their peers or teachers. Movies or sitcoms that children watch today promote a lot of violence and that if you want something sometimes you have to be a bully to receive it. Now I’m not saying that your children should not watch television but as their parents I think you should pay attention to what they are watching and even the type of music they are listening to.
There have been many studies that say they feel the neighborhood a child may live in could be a factor to their behavior. Honestly I think it depends on the child and the way they are raised. I personally know many people that have lived in bad neighborhoods including myself and I did not bully, but I will admit I knew people who were bullies. There were numerous incidents that made some children become bullies. Researchers believer that there is one possible explanation for neighborhoods being considered a factor in becoming a bully and it is that hostile interactions in local communities prove children with examples of bullying behaviors that they can reproduce among their peers (Bowes, Arseneault, Maughan, Taylor, Caspi & Moffitt, 2009). If a child has to pass through a dangerous neighborhood that may be known for gang violence a child might have bully tendencies so that they can survive and get pass that area. But the issue is the child may not know any other way but to be a bully because that is what they have had to be their whole life to survive, and this can definitely be a challenge.
It has been said that bullying behaviors if they go unchecked can influence the entire environment of a school; and threats and intimidation associated with bully behaviors can make a negative atmosphere for all students. I’m sure we are all aware that bullying primarily happens in school. But what is it about school that makes a child become a bully. Some children become bullies because they have been threaten or intimidated by their peers and they have had enough. You have children that are upset because the teacher is not paying attention to them or giving them recognition and out of jealousy they will bully the student that may be labeled the nerd or smart one. When in actuality the bully is craving that attention and recognition from their teacher. Teenagers want to be apart of the in crowd, and they seek power in amongst their peers. Studies have been conducted and their findings showed that bullying often results from the pursuit of power, status and popularity (Renda, Vassallo, & Edwards, 2011). Having a learning disability can be difficult for anyone to deal with but especially for an adolescent trying to fit in. If you have a student that is dyslexic and the kids make fun of this student they may retaliate with negative behavior such as bullying and when they see they can intimidate someone they continue this behavior because they believe they now have the power. School is a community for your children and when a child does not feel safe in their environment some children do what is necessary to survive. Bullying at times can be used as a mechanism of defense because an adolescent does not fit in and does not want to be hurt or made fun of.
To give you an idea of how severe bullying is in schools this chart shows high school students who were bullied on school property in 2009 based on race. The percentages range from as low as 13.7% to as high as 33.8%. The thing that I find most interesting on this chart is that the higher percentage of children that are bullied are minorities or children of mixed race. There has been an increase over the years of reports of bullying occurrences among school-age children and adolescents on the origin of gender, cultural, language differences and ethnicity. (Merrell-James, 2006). When children are subjected to something new like a new culture if they are not familiar with it, some children can be insensitive and make fun of the unfamiliar. Which leads us to a factor I did not see too much of in my research and that is multicultural factors of bullying.
Today’s society is made up of many cultures and religions and as parents you need to be aware of various forms of bullying towards people of different cultures. Through out my research bullying was based mainly on age, and grades of children but researchers did not address how children of different cultures are bullied or bullies themselves. If children from other cultures are bullying sometimes it is out of self-defense because they are ostracized and have a feeling of isolation and retaliate buy bullying the children that make fun of them (Merrell-James, 2006). It is hard trying to make friends when you have a language barrier or have different religious beliefs then the majority of the school. As parents it is your job to educate your children of different cultures and to be respectful. To the parents of children that may be bullies help your child understand that their heritage is nothing to be ashamed of and not to lash out in anger but maybe try to teach or share with your peers what your culture is about (Merrell-James, 2006). Future studies should interview children of different cultures to see how many were bullied because of their culture. Then they should interview children of different cultures that are considered to be bullies and ask them why are they bullying. I believe this should be done because our nation has become a melting pot and in the future there will be children mixed of many races and this phenomenon of bullying could get worse in the future if we do not have a better understanding of all the factors of bullying. Everyone needs to learn to work together.
There are some signs as a parent you should pay attention to that could let you know if your child might be bullying others. Such as your child gets into physical or verbal fights, have friends who bully others, are becoming more and more aggressive, have been sent to the principal’s office or to detention repeatedly, have inexplicable extra money or new items you did not purchase, blame others for their issues, don’t accept responsibility for their actions, and are very competitive and are anxious about their reputation or popularity (Stop Bullying.Gov, 2012). If your child may have one or two of these signs that does not necessarily mean they are a bully, but if they have all of these signs it is definitely time for you to intervene and have a conversation with your child.
Across the nation bullying has become a major concern of all and there have been rules and regulations that have been put into place to make sure ethical issues of bullying are addressed. Teachers and facilities that work with children have ethical obligations they must adhere to. When bullying becomes harassment or takes more severe forms, it is illegal. Several States have implemented legislation to deal with bullying, harassment, and intimidation. Mental health professionals and teachers must be aware of the student's right to privacy when addressing school violence concerns, as well as any legal mandates concerning privacy. Students also must be aware of the legal and ethical obligations involved in bullying activities. (SAMHSA, 2004). There is an obligation to report when a child is being harmed physically or emotionally. When someone ignores when a child is being bullied it is definitely unethical.
Here are just a few statistics showing how severe bullying amongst our children is today. 1 out of 4 teens are bullied, 1 out of 5 kids admits to being a bully, or doing some form of bullying, 282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month 80% of the time, an argument with a bully will end up in a physical fight (Stomp Out Bullying, 2007).
Psychology plays a major role in bullying because many children are affected psychologically in ways where they could develop depression or anxiety. Children can also be affected socially in ways where they feel ostracized and this could affect their social skills as they get older. They could grow to have a social complex. Bullying definitely can affect a child’s personality in a way where they can either feel they can bully and always get what they want or they may feel they do not fit in, and choose to isolate him or her self. Each of these psychological issues a crucial and something parents need to be aware of and pay close attention to your children’s behavior patterns. When you see something unusual or you have an uneasy feeling you should definitely seek professional help for your child. The earlier you address the issue the better.
As parents you need to know what is going on in your child’s life. Become involved show your children you care about them. After discussing all these factors and facts there is still so much more out there about bullying and it is vital that you the parents become educated about bullying. Share with your children what you know about bullying, and also teach your children about diversity. There may be some parents in here that need to be educated on diversity. Your children are our future and we want to raise well rounded, ethical, educated and amazing children of tomorrow. Thank you.