Bullying 201- I win...you die.

"I win....you die.", I  remember first hearing this as my 5 and 7 year old grandsons would declare a victory over each other in one game or another.  In my day we may have crowed, "I win...you lose." when we raced each other up a hill, or played hide and seek, but in the day where play is so influenced by videogames the phrase became "I win...you die.".  I have to wonder how much influence that has had on the prevalence of, and the devastating effects of bullying today. 

To be sure there have always been bullies.  I remember Dickie T.  the adolescent kid next door when I was in elementary school (yes that would be as far back as the early 1960s).  Always ready to taunt, chase, intimidate and give nugie's (knuckles on the top of the head...owww), to smaller, weaker kids, Dickie was given a wide berth by most of us.  But we had a triumphant day when my older brother Bobby tried to stand up to Dickie, (perhaps he was just cornered by Dickie, but I prefer to remember it as standing up to him).  Dickie made a fist and, putting his full force behind hitting Bobby on the head he swung his fist, missed, and wound up connecting his wrist to the top of Bobby's head.  Bobby yelped, but the triumph was that Dickie howled and doubled over in pain grasping at his now fractured wrist.  Dickie was in a cast for 8 weeks, and I don't remember him bullying us after that. 

When your video character dies there is no funeral, no weeping relatives, no pain or suffering...you simply get a new life, and start playing again.  "I win...you die, let's do it again."  Are our children engaged in such play being robbed of developing empathy for others? 

Empathy is the antidote to bullying.

Certainly empathetic children don't bully others, but more importantly empathetic children stand up for each other against bullies.  The research is clear that having adults provide intervention in response to bullies in not effective.  Telling the teacher, lunch duty worker, or other trusted adult is often our first advice to kids being bullied, but it doesn't work.  Our kids know that.  They don't tell on bullies because it makes it worse.  Bullies just get sneakier.

What stops bullies, or at least reduces the damage they cause?  The most effective response is when kids stand up to kids who are bullying.  Sadly most kids today will not do this.  They are either grateful that they are not the target, so they keep a low profile, or they are going along with the torment in order to gain popularity. 

When Dickie T. used to bully us, we had each other.  He would call us 'idiots and knuckleheads' (among other more vile things), and we would declare, "I know you are but what am I?"  We would turn to each other and affirm that we weren't those things...Dickie was.   When my brother stood up to Dickie T. he had a crowd of kids surrounding him, cheering him on, celebrating his triumph, commiserating with him when he hurt.  We had friends who countered the taunts of the bully.  More often today kids who are singled out by bullies, lose all friends.  It is this isolation that makes the torment of the bullies so devasting to kids.

I'm not suggesting the destruction of all video games, violent or not.  I am suggesting that parents, teachers, coaches, aunt, uncles and grandparents have to bring some balance to what children today are experiencing.  We have to help kids develop empathy, to care about their peers, to understand and experience that in real life, people's feelings matter.  We have to coach our kids into standing up for each other. 

Bullying 101

Anyone out there okay with bullying going on?  (the silence is deafening!)  Yet the estimates are that anywhere from 10% to 84% of children in school experience bullying. I found the variance in statistics fascinating - is it that some schools are more intimidating than others?  Actually, from my research it would appear that unless your child's school has an effective anti-bullying program that includes educating the teachers, parents, and kids, anonymous tip reporting, consciencious monitoring, and is dedicated to creating a bully free school culture, then probably 1 in four kids in your school is being bullied in some manner. 

So today when you pick up your child from school, just count the kids going by and when you get to four, just know that one of those kids is probably not having 'a good day'. Too severe? Perhaps you think your school is 'too nice' for that sort of thing to happen...o.k. then cut the statistic is half - count to eight and know that one of those kids is having a not so good day.

I looked at research articles working with every age group from Headstart to high school - bullying is there.  The peak period of bullying is middle school which makes sense as it is such a challenging time anyway. 


Bullying happens when someone repeatedly hurts or scares another person on purpose and the person being bullied has a hard time defending himself or herself (espcially vulnerable are kids deemed as 'different' - ADHD, obese, tall, short, thin, disabled, sexual orientation and so on).

• physical: pushing, hitting, pinching, tripping etc.
• exclusion: from lunch tables, conversations, groups, parties, activities
• verbal: name calling, taunting, teasing, spreading mean rumors
• cyber: texting, posting mean pictures or blogs, spreading mean rumors etc

Kids at your kid's school are probably being bullied today, even if is isn't your kid, it is not unlikely that your child has witnessed bullying.  What are they learning from that?


http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/

Me- part 1

After my first post, I Skyped my youngest daughter (following my own instructions to connect with someone in your family), she says..."you have to post something about you so people can connect to you!"  Smart kid, what would I do without her?

I sometimes tell people I was raised by wolves.  I'm the second of five kids and the only girl.  Let that sink in. I love my brothers, and they have taught me a lot.  I can still whistle loudly enough to get kids attention across the park, turn my eyelids inside out, and if I tried (which I haven't lately) I bet I could still make gross bodily noises with my hand in my armpit. I grew up climbing trees, building forts and making 30 foot leaps into canals and lakes. My childhood years of the 1950's and 60's were filled with independence, exploration and discovery.  My parents loved us and I have many wonderful memories of times spent together. 

One missing piece for me was what I can best describe as direction.  It seems to me that my parents wanted us each to come to our own conclusions of who we were, and what personal values we should hold. Career choices, religion, personal relationship choices were not lengthy discussions that I recall.  Political views against the war (in Vietnam...yeah I'm that old), women's rights, the sexual revolution, the right of educators to unionize and strike (both parents were educators) were all dinner table talk.  I knew that if my older brother's draft number came up in the top of the draft lottery my dad was serious about moving to Canada. But I never knew what my parents thought was I good at or what I should do with my life.  I know my Dad was often very uncomfortable with any discussion he deemed as 'meddling in my life'.  I think I might have liked a little more 'meddling'.  Maybe not.

To be continued......

Aren't you glad you are not a giraffe?

If you were a giraffe, you probably would have been dropped on your head at birth, perhaps as much as a five foot fall, and in 30 minutes you would be standing up. By the end of the day your instincts would have you running with your mother across the savannah. 
If you were a sea turtle you would have hatched out of an egg burried on a beach weeks ago by your mother who promptly left you there to swim out to sea and carry on with her life. You would by sheer instinct head for the water, dodging predators bent on your destruction for their breakfast. When you reach the water you would swim frantically for as much as 24 hours straight until you reach deep water where you are safer from predators. 
But in all likelihood, you are neither a giraffe nor a turtle, your human birth meant that even if you were born with no complications at full term, you did not stand up within a half an hour, nor did you head for a swim in the ocean.  What you did was get hungry and cry, get tired and fuss, mess your diaper and call for help.  The human instinct is to connect.  And when the grown ups in charge of you responded to your cries, you  learned who you are, and what you can expect from humankind.
It takes us humans 18 years (give or take) to reach adulthood, but it takes connecting to survive, to thrive, and to mature.  This is why we have families, our first connection, and the one that prepares us to connect with others in our uniquely human way.  After you read this blog, take a moment to connect with someone in your family.