by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Jason Sperber
My wife and I have been talking and thinking about this for a while. Last December, we heard a heartbreaking episode of This American Life in which a Muslim American family’s American dream dissolves in the face of incessant bullying—by students and a teacher—of their elementary-school-aged daughter. The segment, act one of an episode titled “Shouting Across the Divide,” is called “Which One of Them is Not Like the Other?” As the parents of a young daughter striving to teach her how to live with dignity and stand for social justice, listening to this family’s story made us cry with frustration, anger, sadness and fear all at once, right there in the car.
Now, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy, amidst all the media frenzy over school safety and gun control and mental illness and immigration and all the other topics of the day the talking heads take pains to attach to this human tragedy, we find ourselves back here again. Again and again, we hear stories of perceived or felt difference—ethnic, subcultural, academic, class, status, what-have-you—turned into isolation, alienation. And then these turn kids into both the bullied and those who bully them, hoping to wield a little power in order to mask over their own feelings of difference.
And then… We all were teenagers once, all remember these kind of end-of-the-world feelings, these power struggles for place, for status. But we live in a world and a culture where this emotional adolesence never seems to end. Every day at work, I spend countless hours pouring over blog comments written on my newspaper company’s website by adults who think it normal discourse to namecall, to attack, to bully others based on differences real and perceived, differences of opinion, of lifestyle, of belief. I have to remind myself that these are adults—that many of these people are parents, like me.
So what do we do? Where do we go from here? How do we parent against bullying, not just for our own children but for our culture and community? How do we make difference into something not used as a flashpoint for ridicule, alienation, or worse? I’ll end with the words my wife wrote that sparked this post in the first place:
When I send her out into the world on her own, I want her to have the strength to defend herself from bullies. But I also want to make a plea to all the parents out there to do everything in your power not to raise a bully. In American culture, bullying is almost accepted as a normal part of childhood. Now that I am a parent, I can’t accept that version of the world without question. We need to do something to break the cycle of teasing and bullying. We need to be aware of instances when we model disrespect and bullying in front of our kids. We need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we actively do everyday to teach our children about respecting others’ opinions, personal space, privacy, and beliefs. Do we prey on our children and chip away at their confidence? Or, at the other extreme, do we give them an inflated sense of self-importance and entitlement?
Jason Sperber is a former stay-at-home-dad of a 2-year-old daughter (“The Pumpkin”) and the husband of a family physician (“la dra.”) living in California’s Central Valley. He is currently a writer/blogger/online community manager. A former high school social studies teacher, he has a background in ethnic studies and education for social justice. He writes the blog daddy in a strange landand coordinates Rice Daddies, the group blog by Asian American dads. He can be reached at daddyinastrangeland@mac.com.
Emotional adolescence… oh yeah, that feels dead-on to me. Bullying often stems from insecurity, and I can’t help but think that the current generation of parents must be overwhelmingly insecure.
How else to explain parents flipping out on soccer refs and Little League coaches, using curses and sometimes weaponry? How else to explain the same parents insisting that there’s nothing wrong with their kid, the TEACHER must be the reason Mikey hates math? Or a parent asking their kid not, “Why did you do that,” but “Why did you get caught?”
A lot is always written about the lack of accountability that people under, say, 50 feel – I think that”s bull for most people, but that there’s enough in my generation (and those a bit higher and lower) to understand where it’s coming from. But underneath it all, we KNOW that we’re supposed to be accountable, which leads to the insecurity, which leads to the false “fronting” that creates bullying behavior.
I think also, though, that we’ve lowered the standards of what is acceptable behavior to watch, and then we wonder why children act out on that behavior. I’m not calling for any censorship other than parents actually paying attention to their kids and what they’re watching/doing.
There are 10 year old kids committing assaults in school of a type that I couldn’t even IMAGINE at their age. As my spouse said, “What happened to just putting kids in lockers? And then helping them out afterwards?” I won’t even go into what my mother’s preschool recently dealt with, except to say that 4 year olds should NOT be acting out something they saw on PayPerView. Ever.
Solutions? A zero-tolerance attitude for assaults, verbal taunts, etc. after a certain “age-of-reason” level – say, 4th grade? A first grader certainly shouldn’t be permanently expelled for something that they don’t yet understand.
Vigilance and education so that peers can police peers – most bullying happens because bystanders are either afraid or lack the language tools to speak up without becoming a target themselves.
Schools that model acceptance and teach conflict mediation. It does noone any good if the adults dismiss a problem that doesn’t seem that bad… yet… or reveal their own prejudices when dealing with a diverse student body.
And my Catholic school background also tells me to remove temptation. Ban the use of cell phones on school grounds (there goes the text messages spreading damning rumors during the school day). Keep bathrooms open, but limit who’s allowed in the halls at any given moment. Actively monitor computer usage on school grounds. Have an environment in which teachers have the security and authority to ask questions of students and to exact consequences for misbehavior.
Jason, this is an incredibly important issue. And I think you’re right that we have to take the first step of rejecting bullying as “normal”, beginning when kids first start school. My sons’ school is actively working to send the message that bullying is not OK — from kindergarten on. There have been class plays where the subject is how not to be a bully, plays about what to do if you’re being bullied, school assemblies about respect for others, lesson plans that deal with bullying. The message is repeated ad nauseum, but I think that that’s what works — get started with very young kids and keep pushing the message that no one has to put up with being bullied, and it’s much cooler to be a kid who stops a bully instead of joins in.
And Lyonside, I have to say that I disagree with expelling kids for any but the most extreme behavior. Rigid rules demanding explusion can be a kind of bullying — the clear message to the kid is “you’re not part of our community. we no longer want you, and we will get rid of you.” It’s difficult to teach tolerance with a “zero tolerance” attitude. I think finding a way to model building community — trying to bring offenders in — instead of modeling assertion of power (it’s our school, and you don’t get to stay) is a better way to send all kids the message that bullying is unacceptable behavior. Of course, there are kids who simply can’t be kept in school for safety reasons, but that’s a small minority. I think we have to be very cautious about adopting “zero tolerance” policies is that sweep in kids who don’t really need to be set apart from the community.
“The message is repeated ad nauseum, but I think that that’s what works — get started with very young kids and keep pushing the message that no one has to put up with being bullied, and it’s much cooler to be a kid who stops a bully instead of joins in.”
VeraL-
How interesting that this school (district?) has decided to turn an about face on the culture of the nation as a whole, as Mr. Sperber alludes to. How cool indeed. How uncommon.
Bullying is absolutely transmitted from the adults to the children, and when the adults sanction the ‘mommy with the biggest suv’ syndrome and mentality, the role models are not merely absent, but a vacuous body of authority figures who have real, lasting sway over all of our children. The impact can be devastating, where bullying child nor adult is willing to raise his/her hand to claim the role played.
Teaching our children to recognize subtle forms of bullying, and the ways in which their silence has them acting in acquiescense to the bullying behavior of their peers, is one of the most important lessons we can give and reinforce.
Affirming our children’s strength and “specialness” for having the courage to step away from, and act in opposition to, the crowd, is also one of the most genuinely supportive and intentional acts of transforming the world that we can do.
Vera: OK, I phrased that poorly… I’m probably not using ”
zero tolerance” in the “one strike and you’re out” sense, although I see where you got that because in the very next sentence I talk about not expelling a young child. Let me explain a little…
For older children (at an age they should know better), I want “zero tolerance” in the sense that there are always consequences – and that doesn’t mean expelling the kid. I can’t tell you how many times in 4th grade on up that I found myself caught between “tattletale” and “OMG someone (myself or someone I know) is going to get seriously hurt,” and teachers didn’t want to deal with the situation until there was blood involved. Silly me, I didn’t want it to get to that level before intervention, but some teachers had a “no blood no foul” approach.
But at the same time, younger kids don’t often know what’s going on, and need a lot more support. My spouse (of locker fame) had one incident in kindergarden that set him up for failure for years. His first kindergarden classroom was his first school experience. When the teacher basically pulled his ear (this was around 1980- I doubt any teacher could get away with this today), he kicked her in the shin. This resulted in him being mislabeled as both a behavior problem and learning disabled, and he was expelled from that school, sent to another one in the district, and placed in special ed for SEVEN YEARS… Zero tolerance gone horribly wrong…
Thank you, Jason, Lyonside, Vera L, Kim… this is an incredibly important, oft-neglected discussion. Moral authority isn’t easy to attain but it must be, and then asserted (but not in a bullying way
!!!).
So what do you do with a repeat offender bully? We are struggling at the moment with a bully in our children’s elementary school. He was targeting one of my sons for a while, and I have spoken to the administration, and talked with my kids about standing up for eachother. So the bully moved on to another target. And then another. The child’s parents believe he is “just a boy being a boy”.
Having been a pubic school teacher for many years, I see it from both sides, and I am at a loss for a solution. I do think the school is doing it’s best. They have a program in place similar to what Vera describes… “the Resonsive Classroom”. They do lots of anti-bully work as a school. The child does receive consequences for behaviors, including suspension for physical violence. But much of it is just manipulative, emotional bullying. The most recent incident was banding together the kids in his classroom to exclude one other child. Most of these things happen on the playground, on the bus, in the buslines… where teachers may not see it, and it becomes a “he said/she said” deal. And with the parents believing there son is an angel, it’s hard to dole out a consequence with no ‘real evidence’ so to speak.
When my son was the target, he was not physically bullied at school, just tauntted and threatened when there wasn’t an adult to hear it. Then he would follow up on his threats at soccer practice. We got on top of it, spoke to the coach, and it has stopped. But as I said, he then moves on to another target.
So whats the solution? I don’t agree with the universal zero-tolerance policies either, but how do you keep kids safe from a true bully?
That should be “Responsive Classroom”.
Denise: this situations sounds like a trip and a half… or a juvenile hall date waiting to happen.
Since the school evidently needs evidence, would it be possible to enlist OTHER parents, get all of you to document when, where, and how the bullying takes place? The school can’t ignore all of you – of course, until that gets organized and rolling, everyone’s kid would be at risk for retribution.
But something has to give – not only for your son and his peers, but for this bullying kid who is either going ot get a rude awakening in high school, or get in severe trouble.
Denise,
A parent must be willing to “see” who their kid is, how the child interacts with and respond to others, how compassionate, innovative, responsive and open, and guide the child according to what they see are the child’s needs. Many parents might wish to strengthen what can be perceived to be ‘weaknesses,’ or ‘variations’ on the whole pattern of whatever label they might pin to the child.
Where a parent sees and acknowledges their child’s personality/type, the parent then has various ways of responding: in an affirming and affirmative way, or a harsh and derisive way, or by denying aspects that suggest there is something troubling (and troubled), something which causes concern or consternation, or the presence of unsettling behaviors (toward self or others).
It is hard to recognize that our children are little people with real concerns and needs, and sometimes our own normal behavior patterns, or emotional histories, do not allow us to think that our child exhibits a “problem” that needs to be seriously addressed. Sometimes parents think children will simply, miraculously “make their way” in the world, and it all evens out in the end.
If the school system can take a solid stance with the parents, imposing counseling for the school-age child, or keep their doors open for the parents when they feel in need and at the end of their ropes, there may be real progress made for the bullying child – and for the school community.
May I suggest a book I found humbling and helpful? It is called, “What Do You Do with a Child Like This?”, by L. Tobin. It is more of an instructive guide for teachers and administrators to take a look inside of themselves and assess what in a child they might be responding to emotionally, address their own issues, and then begin to look at the child and his/her needs in a fresh light, and take a fresh approach to be the change in the child’s world that can be surmised is needed.
http://www.amazon.com/What-You-Child-Like-This/dp/0938586440
Jason, this is such an important topic. I don’t have any answers and I wish I did.
I think the sheer size of most public schools is conducive to out-of-control and often violent group mentality.
I did teach in high school for a short while recently and saw this in action. I would stand in the hallways during passing and before I could discern whether or not I was witnessing a very subtle bullying incident, it was too late to step in. Bullying is so hard to spot sometimes.
This school I’m speaking of had about 2,000 students, but I also worked as an educational assistant at a public alternative high school with a total of about 45 students. What a huge difference in how kids interacted with each other! With the exception of the occasional gang conflict, there was very little bullying compared to what I have seen in large schools.
The violence arising from the size of schools – the anonymity and lack of personal stake for shaping the school community – is one of the reasons I am seriously thinking about homeschooling my son – in a community setting, but not in a large institutional setting.
I just came across an article about bullying in middle schools. It talks about a new study that shows bullying, especially anti-gay prejudice, to be extremely prevalent in middle schools.
“The top three reasons students cited by students in the Harris report were bullying and harassment were physical appearance, actual and perceived sexual orientation, and how masculine, or feminine, students are perceived to act.”
You can read the full article here.
Tereza: great point on school size being a factor in identifying and managing bullying. There was a Sunday Inquirer report a few weeks back about public high schools that had been reorganized, and had gone from like 1500 students to just about 500. Predictably the reported violence decreased (but didn’t disappear), but possibly more importantly, the principle could identify almost every student by name, and interviewed students felt more connected to teachers and each other. My guess is those sudents are now more likely to find an ally when bullying happens,