Bully Prevention

He wins a scholarship for a speech-aid device.

By Dan Scanlan

Matthew Reid is a 13-year-old whose 2-year-old stepbrother, Aidyn, is dealing with cancer.

If that’s not enough, Matthew stutters, making him the target of school bullying, he admits.

But thanks to eloquent words he wrote about his life with stuttering, his spoken words now flow more easily. Matthew’s essay won a SpeechEasy Sean Anderson Scholarship. And a tiny hearing aid-like device was presented to him Wednesday at Wolfson Children’s Rehabilitation Services in Jacksonville.

He called that “pretty sweet.”

“I actually feel pretty excited and it just feels awesome,” Matthew said after a few minutes of steady speech with the device.

“His stuttering had gotten so bad everybody was getting a bit aggravated,” said his mother, Dora Reid. “It is so different to actually have a conversation with him. … I can’t ask for a better blessing, with the exception of healing Aidyn. This is a blessing beyond words.”

Matthew is a tall teen with two older sisters and his stepbrother who live in Waverly, Ga., with Dora and Mark Reid. His stuttering lengthens and sometimes stalls words. Home-schooled for three years due to bullying and Aidyn’s medical issues, he had to stop speech therapy when his stepbrother was diagnosed with germ cell cancer and underwent nine chemotherapies, 25 radiation treatments and 11 surgeries.

He admitted that school with a stutter was very tough, so he couldn’t wait for the device so he could go back to class as an eighth-grader.

“Every other week, this one kid would try to pick fights, but that’s just how he is,” Matthew said. “I want to just talk a little bit smoother and just hope people would stop making fun.”

The road to SpeechEasy started when the Wolfson staff noticed Matthew’s stuttering when he was there visiting Aidyn and arranged an evaluation. He was urged to write an essay about how stuttering affected his life, which won the scholarship.

Started by Ocoee residents Andy Anderson and Martha Lopez-Anderson, the scholarship provides free SpeechEasy devices and therapy to children who stutter. It is named in memory of their 10-year-old son Sean, who received the device nine months before his death in early 2004.

Looking like a hearing aid, the $4,700 SpeechEasy mimics what is called the choral speech effect. That’s when stutterers improve when they talk, sing or read with other people, said Judy Hammer-Knisely, the speech pathologist who evaluated him.

“The stutterer thinks someone else is speaking with them,” she said.

Hammer-Knisely placed the device in his left ear Wednesday and asked his mother to help with simple exercises.

“How do you think this is going to help you with your brother?” Dora Reid asked.

“It will help a lot because I wouldn’t want him to try and talk like I do,” he answered.

Lopez-Anderson said she had happy memories as she held her late son’s photograph through Matthew’s first session.

“I see the same progress and the same improvement I saw in my son,” she said with tears in her eyes. “A child should have an opportunity, besides speech therapy, to have an improvement in their stuttering, anything that will give them the tools to not withdraw.”

This is the fourth year a child served by Wolfson rehab has received the Florida scholarship.

By SUSAN ENGEL and MARLENE SANDSTROM

HERE in Massachusetts, teachers and administrators are spending their summers becoming familiar with the new state law that requires schools to institute an anti-bullying curriculum, investigate acts of bullying and report the most serious cases to law enforcement officers.

This new law was passed in April after a group of South Hadley, Mass., students were indicted in the bullying of a 15-year-old girl, Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide. To the extent that it underlines the importance of the problem and demands that schools figure out how to address it, it is a move in the right direction. But legislation alone can’t create kinder communities or teach children how to get along. That will take a much deeper rethinking of what schools should do for their students.

It’s important, first, to recognize that while cellphones and the Internet have made bullying more anonymous and unsupervised, there is little evidence that children are meaner than they used to be. Indeed, there is ample research — not to mention plenty of novels and memoirs — about how children have always victimized one another in large and small ways, how often they are oblivious to the rights and feelings of others and how rarely they defend a victim.

In a 1995 study in Canada, researchers placed video cameras in a school playground and discovered that overt acts of bullying occurred at an astonishing rate of 4.5 incidents per hour. Just as interesting, children typically stood idly by and watched the mistreatment of their classmates — apparently, the inclination and ability to protect one another and to enforce a culture of tolerance does not come naturally. These are values that must be taught.

Yet, in American curriculums, a growing emphasis on standardized test scores as the primary measure of “successful” schools has crowded out what should be an essential criterion for well-educated students: a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others.

What’s more, the danger of anti-bullying laws, which have now been passed by all but six states, is that they may subtly encourage schools to address this complicated problem quickly and superficially. Many schools are buying expensive anti-bullying curriculum packages, big glossy binders that look reassuring on the bookshelf and technically place schools closer to compliance with the new laws.

But our research on child development makes it clear that there is only one way to truly combat bullying. As an essential part of the school curriculum, we have to teach children how to be good to one another, how to cooperate, how to defend someone who is being picked on and how to stand up for what is right.

To do this, teachers and administrators must first be trained to recognize just how complex children’s social interactions really are. Yes, some conflict is a normal part of growing up, and plenty of friendly, responsible children dabble in mean behavior. For these children, a little guidance can go a long way. That is why the noted teacher and author Vivian Paley once made a rule that her students couldn’t exclude anyone from their play. It took a lot of effort to make it work, but it had a powerful impact on everyone.

Other children bully because they have emotional and developmental problems, or because they come from abusive families. They require our help more than our punishment.

The kind of bullying, though, that presents the most difficulty in figuring out how and when to intervene falls between these two extremes: Sometimes children who aren’t normally bullies get caught up in a larger culture of aggression — say, a clique of preadolescent girls who form a club with the specific function of being mean to other girls. Teachers must learn the difference between various sorts of aggressive behaviors, as well as the approaches that work best for each.

Most important, educators need to make a profound commitment to turn schools into genuine communities. Children need to know that adults consider kindness and collaboration to be every bit as important as algebra and reading. In groups and one-on-one sessions, students and teachers should be having conversations about relationships every day. And, as obvious as it might sound, teachers can’t just preach kindness; they need to actually be nice to one another and to their students.

Teachers also need to structure learning activities in which children are interdependent and can learn to view individual differences as unique sources of strength. It’s vital that every student, not just the few who sign up for special projects or afterschool activities, be involved in endeavors that draw them together.

Look at Norway, where the prevention of such incidents became a major emphasis of the school system after three teenage victims of bullying committed suicide in 1983. There, everyone gets involved — teachers, janitors and bus drivers are all trained to identify instances of bullying, and taught how to intervene. Teachers regularly talk to one another about how their students interact. Children in every grade participate in weekly classroom discussions about friendship and conflict. Parents are involved in the process from the beginning.

Norway’s efforts have been tremendously effective. The incidence of bullying fell by half during the two-year period in which the programs were introduced. Stealing and cheating also declined. And the rate of bullying remains low today. Clearly, when a school and a community adopt values that are rooted in treating others with dignity and respect, children’s behavior can change.

Indeed, our analysis of successful bullying-prevention programs across the United States and abroad reveals that the key common factor is their breadth: both in terms of the people who participate and of the deep connection between specific policies and the larger social ethos of the school community.

Involving the legal system makes a strong statement that a society won’t tolerate bullying. But for laws like the one in Massachusetts to succeed, they have to be matched by an educational system that teaches children not only what’s wrong, but how to do what’s right.

Susan Engel is a senior lecturer in psychology and the director of the teaching program at Williams College, where Marlene Sandstrom is a professor of psychology.

New Delhi, July 21, 2010

Fed up of the relentless bullying by her schoolmates, 5th-grader Ziainey Stokes decided to approach US President Barack Obama directly. The president not only responded to her letter but also inspired her to start a national anti-bullying organisation.The girl not only mentioned her own problem
but also addressed the problem of bullying in general in her school.

“What I wrote about (in my letter) was that the kids at my school were being bullied and how it wasn’t right,” Ziainey tells the Philadelphia Inquirer. The president, who reads 10 letters from the public each day and personally answers a handful, replied: “Your letter demonstrates a desire to change the culture of your classroom as well as your community.”

Ziainey is now recruiting people for her still-unnamed group and researching similar organizations. “She’s really taken an initiative,” says her mom, “and I stand by her.”

Twelve-year-old William Orr, right, gets help from teacher Matt Ferrelli on his anti-bullying story, as Javier Palau, 12, listens during the The Humanity Project's summer At-risk Reading/Writing Program at Olsen Middle School in Dania Beach. (SARAH DUSSAULT/STAFF / July 13, 2010)

The two pre-teens have little in common except for their ages, their obnoxious behavior, and the fact each is the figment of the collective imagination of a group of about 50 middle schoolers collaborating on a book called “I Was a Bully … But I Stopped.”

The book, a work in progress, is on a fast track to be printed next month, in time to be distributed throughout Broward County’s elementary schools as part of the school district’s anti-bullying program. It will also be available online.

“Bullying really hurts everybody in school, and it takes everybody to stop it,” said local author Bob Knotts, who conceived of the book and, as founder of the Dania Beach-based Humanity Project, developed the free workshop producing it.

After the book is distributed in Broward, Knotts said he intends to offer it to the Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade school districts.

Broward County was the first school district in Florida to develop an anti-bullying program; the rest of the state’s districts following suit by the end of 2008. The school year that ended in June was marked by two high-profile incidents that raised awareness of bullying, both at Deerfield Beach Middle School.

In October, seventh-grader Michael Brewer skipped school for fear of being confronted by a schoolmate who had allegedly tried to steal a bicycle belonging to Brewer’s father. That schoolmate and two others are accused of assaulting Brewer off campus and lighting him on fire. Brewer survived.

Then, in March, Deerfield Middle eighth-grader Josie Lou Ratley was violently attacked at a campus bus stop by Wayne Treacy, a Deerfield Beach High School student who accused her of insulting his dead brother in a text message earlier in the day. Treacy, 15, sent threatening messages to Ratley and to other friends, but apparently no one, including Ratley, took them seriously enough to report them.

Treacy has been charged with attempted murder.

The Ratley beating prompted the district to more vigorously promote its Silence Hurts program, an anonymous way students can report bullying and threats of violence. The district’s anonymous tip line is 754-321-0911.

Knotts said he has two goals with the Humanity Project workshop — to provide an academic exercise for children “at-risk” of low achievement or failure in the school system, and to engage them in bullying prevention.

He didn’t compel the students to talk in front of the class about whether they had personal experience with bullying. “I expect some elements of all their experiences will end up in their finished stories,” he said.

“I used to be bullied a lot,” said Elizabeth Dash, 12, of Hallandale Beach. “It’s because I carried a book with me wherever I go. I love to read.”

Working on the book, Dash said, is giving her and other students in the workshop at Olsen Middle School in Dania Beach a chance to get inside the heads of bullies. The students came up with the back story for their central characters: Michael Rose and Lucina, whose last name hasn’t been decided (and may not be).

Michael is a 12-year-old dyslexic boy of interracial heritage (his dad is black, his mom Asian) who bullies because it’s all he knows how to do. Lucina is a white girl from a wealthy family but whose parents recently divorced.

Once the characters were developed, the students were sent into groups to work on their stories. Each group was free to create a victim and to figure out a realistic way for the bully to change before the story’s end.

With a bully as the main character and reform the turning point of the story, the students learn to focus on changing the causes of bullying rather than just reciting the effects. The bully, through the process of change, becomes almost as sympathetic as the victim.

“I can relate to Michael a little bit,” said Dash. “But only a little bit. I don’t think he wants to be a bully. I actually think it’s because of what he’s going through.”

And allowing the students to create the victims provides insight into how it feels to be bullied.

One group of girls imagined Michael terrorizing a small, freckled boy with a squeaky voice, demanding the boy’s lunch money.

“It happens more to people that look weak,” said Nickhayla Meikle, 11, of Hollywood. Her group plans to stop Michael’s bullying by introducing a female peer to teach him the error of his ways.

“It’s awful that people bully people just because it looks like they can’t fight back for themselves,” she said. “Sometimes if it gets out of hand, I’ll go and tell an adult.”

Other groups may choose to have the victim fight back, to have an adult intervene, or to turn the tables by making Michael the victim of a bigger bully.

In Dash’s group, the target of Michael’s bullying has a protector. How that person figures into the ending is still being worked out, she said.

Knotts said he’s eager to see what happens in each of the stories, which are due at the end of July. Knotts will then take elements from each of the stories and blend them into two tales: one about Michael, one about Lucina.

The finished product, Knotts said, will be published through a State Farm grant.

“This is a really good class,” Dash said. “It’s not just teaching me about bullies. It’s helping me be a writer, and that’s what I want to do.”

What are parents to do if their child tells them that he is being bullied?

First, listen; gauge the seriousness of the incident and whether there is a history of such bullying.
Then find out what has been tried and work out options with your child – such as being more assertive, avoiding people and places, and seeking help through the school.
It is tempting to confront the bully’s parents or even the bully. Don’t. It seldom pays and commonly makes matters works. When bullying occurs at school, work through your teacher and principal.
When help is needed, call on the school. It has the prime responsibility for keeping students safe. Schools can help, especially if parents work closely with them.1
One of the most important things that a parent can do in this situation is to talk with your child. Tell your child that you are concerned and that you’d like to help. Here are some questions that can get the discussion going:

I’m worried about you. Are there any kids at school who may be picking on you or bullying you?
Are there any kids at school who tease you in a mean way?
Are there any kids at school who leave you out or exclude you on purpose?
Sometimes, more subtle questions are needed:

Do you have any special friends at school this year? Who are they? Who do you hang out with?
Who do you sit with at lunch and on the bus?
Are there any kids at school who you really don’t like? Why don’t you like them? Do they ever pick on you or leave you out of things?
It is also important that parents talk with staff at school. Share your concerns about your child and ask the teacher such questions as:

How does my child get along with other students in his or her class?
With whom does he or she spend free time?
Have you noticed or have you ever suspected that my child is bullied by other students? Give examples of some ways that children can be bullied to be sure that the teacher is not focusing only on one kind of bullying (such as physical bullying).2

References:
Ken Rigby, Children, Parents and Social Bullying
Stop Bullying Now! U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Warning Signs that a Child is Being Bullied.

Bullying is a complex and age-old problem with many factors causing its prevalence in our schools. Understanding these factors is the first step to solving the problem of bullying. Also understanding the powers struggles that lead to bullying means a greater chance of finding methods to help stop it.

•Bullying others is a way of feeling powerful. Children need a positive way to feel their personal power.
•Bullying others is a tool for gaining popularity. Children need a different way to feel popular. The challenge is to redirect the child’s leadership potential from negative bullying behaviors to positive leadership skills and opportunities.
•It takes two. The aggressor-victim relationship can involve a complex dynamic between two children. Aggressor-victim relationships may form when a potential aggressor finds a victim who can be successfully dominated because the victim is weaker, has few friends who will stick up for the him or her , and shows signs of suffering (such as crying).
•Social aggression is learned behavior. Research documented from early childhood through mid-adolescence suggests that social aggression or bullying may be more of a learned behavior than physical aggression.
•Peer group reputations stay the same. The reputation of a child or adolescent in the peer group tends to be stable over time (whether a victim or a bully).
•The rewards of bullying stay the same. Bullies do not work alone. The bully forms a coalition with other children in their peer group, which increases their status and helps the bully stay in charge. Because of such rewards, the bullying continues.
•What peers expect of bullies and victims stays the same. Children expect their peers to behave in the same way they always do – for bullies to continue bullying and for victims to continue on the path of victimization. As a result of this, they unintentionally help them to continue their behavior.

References:
1.Dagmar Strohmeier. Bullying and its Underlying Mechanisms.
2.Debra Pepler, Wendy M. Craig. Bullying, Interventions, and The Role of Adults.
3.Noel A. Card. It Takes Two: Rethinking the Aggressor-Victim Relationship.
4.Mara Brendgen. Shoving, Gossip, and Beyond: How Environment Shapes Bullies.
5.Antonius Cillessen. Why is Bullying Difficult to Change?

Bullying is a problem that affects ALL of our children – those who bully, those who are victimized, and those who are witnesses to interpersonal violence.

Statistics on the rates of bullying and cyberbullying vary between studies due to the measures used, the questions asked, and the population studied. However, the general consensus is that one out of three children are bullied at school, in the neighborhood, or online and that one out of three children bully others.

Additionally, the rates of bullying vary considerably across countries. Approximately 9% to 73% of students reported that they have bullied another child, and 2% to 36% of students said that they were the victim of bullying behaviors. When young people, aged 11, 13 and 15 were asked to report on their experiences with bullying and victimization within the preceding two months, prevalence rates ranged from 1% to 50% across 25 countries in Europe and North America.

References:

Shelley Hymel, Susan M. Swearer. Bullying: An age-old problem that needs new solutions.

Elizabeth K. Englander, Ph.D.

What do you do if your child is traumatized by online bullying? And what can be done to help bullies understand the impact of their actions? Those are among the questions about cyberbullying readers asked our expert, Elizabeth K. Englander. Dr. Englander is a professor of psychology and the founder and director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State College, which provides anti-bullying and anti-violence training programs and resources to schools and families.

Q.In the case of cyber- or text-bullying, what do you suggest if the victim’s grades start to drop or he or she feels too degraded to attend school? What type of disciplinary action do you recommend for the aggressors? — Concerned

A.Dr. Englander responds:

You’ve asked two questions here. First, how can you help your child cope with the trauma of being cyberbullied? And second, what is the appropriate way for schools to respond?

Let’s begin by addressing the first question. I’ve seen many kids traumatized by both bullying and cyberbullying, and it is an undeniably painful ordeal for both you and your child. Parents want to just take away the hurt, but as with all traumas, an instant solution isn’t going to be possible. So the trick is to focus on (a) restoring your child’s sense of safety in school, and (b) building up his or her other emotional resources so that the trauma has as little impact as possible.

You may need to meet with your school’s administrator and your child’s teachers to construct a plan to improve your child’s sense of safety in school. Consider possibilities like: can we reduce the contact between my child and the bully as much as possible? Can we increase the contact between my child and the children he or she likes and enjoys being with? Can we increase adult supervision?

It’s also helpful to plan how your child will handle unstructured settings — for example, you don’t want your child to have to walk into a cafeteria and be faced with having to find a safe place to eat. A table with friends, or at least friendly children, should be prearranged and ready and waiting, with an adult who has an eye on it.

Finally, a big part of the plan should be a safe person whom your child can see, upon demand, until he or she feels better about school. Ask your child whom he or she particularly likes. Is it the principal? Or a guidance counselor? Or maybe the school nurse? Arrange to have that individual tell your child, in person, that he or she may come visit anytime, with no restrictions. Although some children will exploit this privilege to avoid schoolwork, that is a separate issue that can be addressed later — their sense of safety must come first.

It’s important to build up a child’s emotional resources by underlining that there are people who love and care for them. Arrange for play dates for your child, or offer to let your child host a party for friends. Spend more family time together, and do something fun that the kids will really enjoy. The goal is to make their good feelings about the people in their lives “stick out” more than their anxieties or fears around the cyber-related incidents.

Your second question is about the appropriate response for schools. This is a trickier problem. Generally speaking, my understanding of the law (with the caveat that I’m not a lawyer) is that schools are limited to responding to misbehavior that occurs either on school grounds or that has a “substantial disruption” upon the school. That term, “substantial disruption,” is a legal term, and it has not been really defined by the courts. When an incident involving cyberbullying occurs, school administrators must make a judgment call: it may be true that a child has been traumatized, but has the incident caused a “substantial disruption” to our school? If the answer is “no,” then regardless of your child’s emotional state, schools may feel that they cannot, legally, opt to discipline a cyberbully.

Legal constraints, however, do not mean that the school’s hands are 100 percent tied. There are still important ways that the school staff can respond to cyberbullying, even when they determine that there is no disciplinary jurisdiction.

School administrators and other staff members can and should try to support and help the child or children who are the targets, as I’ve discussed above. They should educate potential cyberbullies about the risks that they are taking online — perhaps by arranging a meeting in the principal’s office — and they should warn students that any further bullying or retaliation in school will not be tolerated. They should also warn the target’s teachers to be on the lookout for any such bullying, and they should make a safety plan in conjunction with the target’s parents. Finally, they should check back with the target and his or her parents to ensure that no further incidents are being overlooked, and that the target is progressing towards a better and more safe feeling about school.

The bottom line is that this issue is new to all of us, parents as well as educators. You may not only need to help your child through this trauma, you may need to help educate your school’s administrators as well. Free materials on our Web site, MARCcenter.org, might help. Good luck.

Q.What should the teachers/administrators and parents do to help the bullies? I am a teacher and I can console and counsel the bullied students, but it is the bullies themselves I worry about. They seem to have no empathy and no concern for the consequences of their actions. They mostly think what they are doing is funny. I don’t know how to help them understand how hurtful they are being. I fear they will turn to worse crimes as they grow older, as they have no respect for other people’s feelings or property.

A.I commend you for your empathy. So many K-12 teachers today are feeling overwhelmed by this problem that the difficulties faced by bullies themselves often get lost in the mix.

Of course it’s true that victims and targets need to be the first concern, but adults should be concerned about all children — including those who are trying to engage us by misbehaving severely. One principle of our society (and our legal system) is that children can, and should, be rehabilitated — we should at least try.

That being said, what needs to happen with bullies? Much of their callousness is probably posturing, since statistically speaking, it just isn’t likely that we’ve bred that many children who truly lack all empathy. And of course, remember that bullies are typically rewarded by their peers for appearing indifferent — particularly as adolescence approaches. And right there is where we need to start.

Bullies need to learn empathy, but first and foremost, they need to learn to adhere to the rules of society and of their school. This means that we need to ensure that they understand the rules and the consequences if they break them, and then we must follow through with any consequences that we have already identified. Following through is often the hard part, but it must be done.

In addition, the bullies’ peers need to learn about their own behaviors that support and enable bullying. If a bully finds himself or herself isolated for bullying, that is a powerful incentive to stop.

Finally, you want to know how to help these children be empathetic — to not simply behave properly, but believe that it’s right to behave correctly. This final goal may not be within the reach of an educator. The child’s parents may need a referral to a good psychological counselor who can help this child understand why he or she persists in abusing others.

Bullying is a huge epidemic in schools across the country that needs to be stopped. Most schools cannot get a handle on stopping bullying.

Many people suffer from this each and every day. That is why bullying needs to be stopped and or prevented.

I experienced an issue of bullying firsthand. My experience lasted so long that I had to switch schools just to focus. My problems happened in places where there is no supervision, like in the gym locker rooms and in the hallways. Even if there was supervision, there was no stopping this issue. More action against this is needed — more severe punishments or just teaching kids to be nice.

Authorities at the school where I was highly bullied thought it would be beneficial to take me out of the social scene all together. This made me feel like I was the bad guy and it did not help in the end.

Without stopping or preventing this issue, it could end up making the world crumble. Authorities and students need to be made aware of how bad bullying has become.

Please stand up for students who are bullied as they may feel as they do not have a voice. Talk to the schools to ensure safety, and get programs of prevention started. If everyone is made aware, maybe it can make a difference.

Kevin Bradford, Lexington

DA Says Reports In South Hadley Increasing

Boston – Just months after 15-year-old Phoebe Prince committed suicide in South Hadley after relentless bullying, allegedly by other students, more teens are saying they’re still being tormented.

The Prince case brought a lot of attention to South Hadley, and yet, at least six other students have since come forward saying they’ve been bullied, state prosecutors said.

After the Prince suicide, the entire country took notice and the state Legislature passed a law to address bullying, and the town has now adopted new rules.

But according to the Boston Herald, the district attorney there said reports of bullying are increasing.

It’s troubling after so much attention over the past several months has focused on taking care of the problem.

State law now requires school staff to report harassment they find out about and the law targets bullying not only in the classroom, but also online.

Nonetheless, the Herald spoke with at least one parent who said she’s afraid to send her son back to school in the fall. His case is now in the courts.