School bullying has gained new
attention after two students in Massachusetts hanged themselves separately in
recent months after suffering repeated harassment from classmates. In one of
the cases, six students are criminally charged in connection with the student's
death. A Massachusetts law bans bullying on school property and cyberbullying.
While the law is good, the problem
still exist and seems to take a life of its own. We read about a 14 year old who is charged
with stalking a 12 year old, causing her to commit suicide in Winter Haven,
Florida.
It seems that a controversial Facebook
post is what led to the suspect’s arrest.
Two girls, ages 14 and 12, were arrested in connection with the death of
Rebecca Sedwick, who jumped from an abandoned concrete plant.
"Yes IK I
bullied REBECCA nd she killed her self but IDGAF," the Facebook post read.
Grady Judd, sheriff of Polk County, Florida, said the online vernacular meant
"I don't give a (expletive)."
This was a
confession, right?
All forms of bullying
has been around for years. Being
confronted in the restroom at school, in the gym showers, or on the playground
has always seemed to cause problems for someone along the way. But, now it is no longer confined to the
playground or the schoolyard. Bullying
is showing up in electronic form in more ways and causing more grief than some
who are bullied can handle.
Cyberbullying: What you
can do to help your child
From: US Department of
Health and Human Services
As a parent, you should
know that playgrounds and schoolyards aren’t the only places bullies hang
out-they can also be found in cyberspace.
Cyberbullying occurs
when bullies use the internet, cellphones or other technology to hurt or
embarrass someone. It’s a common problem
among teens.
Examples of cyberbullying
include:
·
Sending
hurtful, rude or mean text messages
·
Emailing
rumors or lies about someone or posting them on social networks
If you think or know
that your child is being cyberbullied:
·
Don’t
ignore the problem or hope it will go away.
Instead, talk to your child about it and reassure him or her that the
situation can be handled.
·
Tell
your child not to respond to the bullying-it may only make it worse.
·
Block
the person who is cyberbullying. Many
websites and phone companies will let you do this.
·
Document
bullying incidents, and report threats or other criminal behavior to the
police.
·
Check
with your child to make sure the cyberbullying has stopped. If not, contact the appropriate people,
websites or companies again or take with an attorney. Kids who are bullied are at risk for having
emotional and physical problems, including increased thoughts about suicide.
Published in
PARTNERS;
Jackson Hospital,
Montgomery, Alabama;
Winter 2014
This
form of bullying takes on an immensely more and deeper meaning because of the
far reaching effect it has on an individual.
The advent of cell phones, computers, and tablets as well as communication tools
including social media sites, text messages, chat, and websites are all worthy
and well-meaning uses in this technological age. If used right and appropriately these will
connect us with the world, but can be and are being used for greater harm. Cyberbullying which includes mean and
degrading text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social
networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles
all are causing a great amount of grief for individuals these are aimed at
through technology.
Kids who are being cyberbullied are
often bullied in person but adding technology kids who are cyberbullied have a
harder time getting away from the behavior.
Cyberbullying can happen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, reaching a kid
even when he or she is alone.
Cyberbullying messages and images can be posted anonymously and
distributed quickly to a very wide audience. It can be difficult and sometimes
impossible to trace the source. Wanting
to get away from this type of bullying becomes frustrating when they attempt to
delete inappropriate or harassing messages, texts, and pictures finding that it
is extremely difficult after they have been posted or sent.
Many in the world today want to lay
the blame on something, as it is with gun control, misinformed people will
blame the technology. Yet, cell phones
and computers themselves are not to blame for cyberbullying. As much as social
media sites can be used for positive activities connecting kids with friends
and family, helping students with school, and for entertainment these tools can
also be used to hurt other people. Whether done in person or through
technology, the effects of bullying are similar.
Kids who are cyberbullied are more
likely to: use alcohol and drugs; skip school; experience in-person bullying;
be unwilling to attend school; receive poor grades; have lower self-esteem;
experience more health problems
Statistically,
numbers show that the occurrence of cyberbullying is on the rise:
·
The 2008–2009 School Crime Supplement (National Center for
Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics) indicates that 6% of
students in grades 6–12 experienced cyberbullying.
Research on cyberbullying is
growing. However, because kids’ technology use changes rapidly, it is difficult
to design surveys that accurately capture trends.
School
administrators, teachers, and employees, working hand-in-hand with parents and
students are the three fold cord in this fight against an enemy which is
driving our children to despair and death.
Working together, taking seriously the problem, and educating students
in what is to be reported and how it will be handled are worthy
considerations. It is often said, and
correct in my humble opinion, that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, the village needs to step up to the
bat.
Everyone
has a stake in this battle!
Know the signs of
bullying!
Each member of the
three fold cord needs to take seriously these signs. Know them and act on them appropriately!
Physical bullying
1. Causing physical injuries
2. Stealing
3. Punching
4. Shoving
5. Fighting
6. Slapping
7. Debagging (removing trousers by force)
8. Giving wedgies
9. Attacking
10. Initiating school pranks
11. Teasing and abusing
Emotional or indirect
bullying
1. Spreading rumors
2. Instigating or participating in excluding certain people
from a group
3. Instigating or participating in "ganging up" on
someone
4. Ignoring people on purpose, the silent treatment
5. Harassing
6. Provoking
7. Whispering to another person in front of someone, a whispering
campaign
8. Keeping secrets from a so-called friend
Verbal bullying
1. Teasing people in a mean way or cursing at at someone
2. Calling someone names
3. Making mean comments about clothing, looks, body, anything else
4. Tormenting
5. Harassing
6. Using profanity
Cyberbullying
1. Sending mean-spirited e-mail
2. Posting inappropriate or mean-spirited comments to blogs or
other websites about another person
3. Using someone else's name to spread rumors or lies
4. Sending mean-spirited cellphone communications including text
message, pictures, video, calls
Recognizing a pattern
Bullying is a form of
abuse. It is comprised of repeated acts over time that involve a real or
perceived imbalance of power with the more powerful individual or group abusing
those who are less powerful. The power imbalance may be social or physical.
Forms of bullying include but or are not limited to physical, emotional,
verbal, electronic and sexual.
Source: Caddo Parish (La.) School Board
I have left this article as it
was published on the World Wide Web
8/21/11
Cyberbullying
is no LOL matter
‘Everybody,
everywhere has a bullying problem’ — virtual harassment outside of school can
be emotionally and mentally damaging
The
headlines filled televisions, magazines and newspapers.
“Teen
commits suicide due to bullying.”
“Cyberbullying
led to teen’s suicide.”
“My
bullied son’s last day on earth.”
Bullying,
once relegated to the halls of schools and playgrounds, has spread to cyberspace.
And no small town or big city is exempt.
“All
schools have problems. In inner-city schools with 2,200 people and country
schools with 100 students, everybody, everywhere has a bullying problem,” said
Kirk Smalley.
This
fact Smalley, a father, husband, resident of the rural farming town of Perkins,
Okla., and now activist, knows firsthand. In the past 461 days, Smalley and
wife Laura visited 120 schools and reached out to 100,000 students. They will
speak in Gadsden on Oct. 19.
Ending
bullying is his life’s mission.
“One
month and seven days after Ty’s death was Father’s Day. I made my boy a promise
that day. I promised I would stop bullying in the world, and I never break a
promise to my son,” Smalley said.
Smalley
buried his 11-year-old son Ty on May 17, 2010 — four days after he committed
suicide, four days after the school suspended him for what Smalley called
retaliating against a bully.
For
two years, Ty was the victim of bullies. For two years, Kirk and Laura Smalley
made calls to the school, pleading with the administration to stop the
bullying. For two years, he said, the school told them “boys will be boys.”
“On
the morning of his death the bully began picking on Ty. Ty had had enough and
fought back,” Smalley said. “He was suspended for three days.”
Laura
Smalley, a cafeteria worker at the school, took Ty home, told him to do his
chores and returned to work.
“At
2:30 p.m. on May 13, we came home and Ty had not done his homework or chores.
We found him in our bedroom closet,” Smalley said.
Two
weeks away from finishing sixth grade, the boy, a staunch St. Louis Cardinals
fan and lover of dirt bikes and video games who attended church with Ms. Lila,
his 85-year-old neighbor, shot himself with a pistol.
Intent
on finding a reason in his son’s death, Smalley began his mission to end
bullying by talking to schools, students, teachers, administrators, church
officials and community leaders through Stand for the Silent program.
One
of the biggest obstacles in Smalley’s mission: technology.
“Bullying
is a lot different now. Now they can get to you 24/7 through email and text and
Facebook,” he said. “There’s no hiding from it. There’s no safe place anymore.”
Dubbed
cyberbullying, the online virtual bullying includes teasing, posting hurtful
comments and spreading rumors.
According
to the Cyberbullying Research Center, one in five 11- to 18-year-olds has been
the target of cyberbullies. The harassment, the center noted, occurs more often
with teenage girls. Compared to 16.6 percent of boys, 25.1 percent of girls
said they experienced cyberbullying. Along with Facebook, MySpace and through
email and text messages, cyberbullies use portable gaming devices, Formspring
and ChatRoulette.
“With
this information age, we are seeing more and more cyberbullying,” said Renee
Kennedy, counselor at Hatton Elementary School. “It isn’t physical, but it
hurts just as much emotionally and mentally. This can result in depression and
the student’s grades can drop.”
‘No school is immune’
Bullying,
whether physical or verbal, spans all social demographics, income levels,
ethnicities and ages, said Dwight Satterfield, supervisor of school safety for
Decatur City Schools.
“Bullying,
if not the single hardest disciplinary issue, ranks among the hardest. No
school is immune from bullying,” he said. “We could do bully prevention
programs eight hours a day for the 161 days of school and there will still be
bullying. But bullying doesn’t occur just at school. It happens in churches, it
happens among adults, it happens in cyberspace.”
In
2009, Alabama passed the Student Harassment Prevention Act tasking school
systems to develop anti-bullying policies.
The
act defines harassment as “a continuous pattern of intentional behavior that
takes place on school property, on a school bus, or at a school-sponsored
function including, but not limited to, written, electronic, verbal, or
physical acts.”
‘Bullies are smart’
“Bullies
are smart. They are not going to do it in the open, so most of the time it
occurs outside of school,” Satterfield said. “If we want to change the way our
kids act, we need to change the way we act as a society as a whole. Parental
involvement is key.”
Smalley
agreed.
“If
adults can learn to start treating each other with respect, then maybe we can
raise a generation of no bullies. You don’t have to like each other, you don’t
have to be friends with everyone, but you have to respect one another,” he
said.
Eighth-graders
Greer Cauthen, Alwyn Ambrose and Saisha Awasthi shared that message with
younger girls last year when they staged a relationship rally.
The
three cadet members of Decatur’s Girl Scout Troop 88 discussed cliques,
self-esteem and bullying.
“It’s
so hard going into middle school, that we wanted to share our own experiences,”
said Cauthen. “Hopefully we stopped some people from being bullied and
bullying. Hopefully they will stand up for themselves.”
Smalley
urged adults not to ignore the little things.
“At
one of the schools a teacher saw a big girl picking on a little girl. That same
day another teacher saw the same two girls. Later, the bus driver saw the same
girls,” Smalley said.
None
of the adults reported the incidents, each referring to it as “something
little.”
“This
girl was picked on all day. To adults what may seem like something small may
mean the world to this little girl,” Smalley said. “Each school needs to have a
documentation procedure in place.”
Documentation
is essential for establishing the “continuous pattern of intentional behavior,”
Satterfield said.
Bystanders ‘just as bad’
Students
who are bullied should tell an adult they trust each time the bullying occurs.
Bystanders,
Smalley said, are not immune to responsibility.
“Being
a bystander is just as bad. One word, just one, can stop a bully because most
bullies don’t like to be called out in public as bullies,” he said.
“We
could stop bullying if people would speak out,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got to get
away from the boys will be boys, girls will be girls mind frame. We have to
quit letting it stay in the shadows.”
“One in five 11- to 18-year-olds has been the target of
cyberbullies, according to the Cyberbullying Research Center. Cyberbullying can
include teasing, posting hurtful comments and spreading rumors. Bullying spans
all social demographics, income levels, ethnicities and ages,” said Dwight
Satterfield, supervisor of school safety for Decatur City Schools.
Tips for
parents to prevent cyberbullying
·
Establish that rules for interacting with people in real life
also apply for interacting online or through cellphones.
·
Educate your children about appropriate Internet-based
behaviors. Explain to them the problems that can be created when technology is
misused, such as damaging their reputation and getting in trouble at school or
with the police.
·
Model appropriate technology usage. Don’t harass or joke about
others while online, especially around your children.
·
Monitor your child’s activities while they are online. This can
be done informally with supervisions and formally with software.
·
Use filtering and blocking software as a part of online safety.
·
Utilize an “Internet Use Contract” and a “Cellphone Use
Contract” to foster a clear understanding about what is appropriate and what is
not with respect to the use of communications technology.
·
Cultivate and maintain a candid line of communication with your
children, so they are willing to come to you whenever they experience something
unpleasant or distressing in cyberspace. Victims of cyberbullying and the
bystanders must know that the adults who they tell will intervene rationally
and logically, and not make the situation worse.
Cyberbullying
research center
·
Read text messages and monitor what is happening on Facebook.
·
Pay attention to who your child is shunning or making fun of.
·
If your child is bullied, keep a written documentation of each
time the harassment is reported to the school.
Dwight
Satterfield, Decatur City Schools safety supervisor
·
Believe your child when they tell you something is happening.
Kirk Smalley, parent
Cyberspace
etiquette for students
·
Assume everyone (parents, teachers, future employers, and law
enforcement) has access to your profile, even if you have your profile
restricted to “friends only.” Don’t discuss things you wouldn’t want them to
know about. Make sure you set your profile to “private” so you can control who
has easy access to your information.
·
Use discretion when putting pictures on your profile. Your
friends might think that picture of you acting silly at the party last night is
hilarious, but how will your parents or a potential employer react? Also
remember that when your friend or a stranger takes your picture, it may end up
on their profile for all to see.
·
Assume people will use the information on your profile to cause
you harm. Don’t put anything online you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to know.
Cyberbullying
research center
How to handle
bully situations
·
To avoid blaming the bullies, use “I” instead of “you”
statements, such as “I really don’t like when ...”
·
Take a stand, lend a hand; 60 percent of the time, bullying will
stop in less than 10 seconds if a bystander intervenes.
·
Find out how bullying is handled at your school.
·
Try not to show you are angry or scared, because bullies like to
upset you.
·
Stick with friends. If you are not alone, the bully will be less
likely to bother you.
·
Avoid situations where you may be more likely to be bullied, for
example, sit in the front of the bus rather than the back.
·
Tell a trusted adult.
Girl Scout
troop 88
Warning signs your child is being bullied:
·
If your child becomes withdrawn or their Internet use becomes
obsessive, they could either be a victim or a perpetrator of cyberbullying. —
Cyberbullying Research Center
·
If your child has a history of being bullied and they quit
telling you, it is time to start being very concerned. — Kirk Smalley, parent.
·
Look for any changes in their emotional, mental and academic
state. If their grades drop, their whole demeanor changes or they start
dressing differently, it may be time to investigate. — Renee Kennedy, Hatton
Elementary counselor.
·
Loses interest in visiting or talking with friends or suddenly
has fewer friends. Loses interest in schoolwork or begins to do poorly in
school. Avoids certain places. — Stopbullying.gov.
Warning signs your child is bullying others:
·
Becomes violent with others.
·
Gets sent to the principal’s office or detention a lot.
·
Has extra money or new belongings that cannot be explained.
·
Is quick to blame others or will not accept responsibility for
their actions.
·
Has friends who bully others.
·
Needs to win or be the best at everything.
stopbullying.gov
Bullying 101
Some
misconceptions about bullying behavior:
Kids being
kids.
Rumor
campaigns, teasing, name-calling and excessive fighting are not just “girls
being girls, kids being kids,” says Erika Holiday, a Los Angeles psychologist
who co-wrote “Mean Girls, Meaner Women.”
Without clear
guidelines at school or in other settings on what is and isn’t considered
bullying, parents are left to make judgments that might not jibe with the
beliefs of others.
They’ll
grow out of it.
Research
indicates that bullies, who often were victims themselves, are more likely than
non-bullying peers to face serious trouble later in life.
“Bullies are
at higher risk for alcoholism and drug abuse, at higher risk of going to jail,”
Holiday says.
Good
controllers.
Rosalind
Wiseman, who wrote “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” the basis for the movie “Mean
Girls,” urges parents to tune in to warning signs early on. She calls bullies
“good resource controllers” who can manipulate other children with ease
starting at a young age.
“When they’re
younger, they control the tricycle on the playground that everybody wants and
as they get older it can be things that they’re organizing or things that put
them in positions of leadership, unofficial or not.”
While bullies
are often “socially intelligent, can read people well and are charismatic,”
Wiseman warned parents to be on the lookout for such behavior, and that not all
kids with those traits bully peers.
Parental
emotions.
Parents may
play out their own pasts as bullies or victims when taking on the social lives
of their kids.
“There are
parents who want their kids to be socially accepted and because they want the
child to have a lot of friends, they accept mean behavior so long as the right
people like you,” Wiseman says.
The dynamic is
an important one for bullies, who rely on “wannabes,” or followers, to help
make it happen.
“We are on the
long road to making decent human beings,” Wiseman says. “You’ve got to hold
your kid accountable.”
The
Associated Press
More to read and research:
Get involved!
Someone’s life may depend on you!
We
are seeing more and more campaigning as we head toward the magic month of June
and then on to November. So many have
seen fit to throw their hats into the political arena as they hope and pray for
support at the ballot box for national, state, and local elections.
Being a political leader means more
than winning enough votes to get seated; it means being able to do a job,
making wise decisions, and not being concerned with always making people
happy. When it matters enough to the
elected official, it will matter to the constituents who elected them. Being a true leader will bring with it much
sorrow, but doing the work to honor God will cause great rejoicing and
multitude of blessing.
