Moms Talk: Bullying

Bullying has always been a concern for parents with school-age children. In an age of Mean Girls, school shootings, and out-of-control bullying scenarios playing out on YouTube and the local news, bullying has become an even greater concern for local parents who want to keep their kids safe. 

This week's Mom Talk question was raised by our Moms Council in a recent discussion: How can schools and parents improve the ways they deal with bullying? 

Veronique Autphenne: Luckily, my boys have not been subjected to bullying, or at least not yet.  I hope that by keeping the lines of communication open with them and with their teachers and school officials, I will find out about any bullying incident before it gets out of control.  We’ve seen news coverage of how out-of-control bullying can become, leading to violence and even death.  I absolutely think that laws need to be in place against bullying and there needs to be an infrastructure in place so kids have a safe place to turn to if they are being bullied as well as a place for bystanders to be able to leave anonymous tips.

Jacqueline Cooney: When I was a child, the word “bully” to me meant a kid who beat up other kids for lunch money.  I thought I was lucky having never encountered one.  As an adult, however, I know that bullying has a much broader definition: a bully is a person who uses power to hurt or belittle another, weaker person.  Most of us have learned to deal with the bullies of the world as we’ve grown into adults.  It hurts, though, to see your child be the victim.  (And it hurts just as much to see your child be the bully.) 

Last year, a child in my son’s class was widely ostracized by his classmates.  By all accounts, this child’s behavior in some ways invited the ostracism.  Nonetheless, when my son would complain about this student, I told him to ignore the bad actions and always be kind to this child.  Imagine, I said, if you were the person in the class whom nobody wanted on their team.  What if you were the one who nobody wanted to sit by at lunch?  Even if you did something wrong, wouldn’t you want your classmates to treat you with respect?  Later in the year, my son experienced similar, albeit milder, problems with some of the same classmates.  At that moment, I believe he finally understood what I was saying.  In each instance, the school guidance counselor and the teacher took actions that made both the first child and my son feel that the grown ups were looking out for them.  Thankfully, recent changes in the awareness of and attitudes toward bullying have changed the way schools view this problem.  Many schools are adopting zero-tolerance policies for bullying, which is a step in the right direction.  As parents, we have to be proactive, too.  We need to teach our kids to treat others with kindness and to let parents and teachers know when they are being treated badly by peers.

Kristin Brennan Matheis: We hear so many tragic stories about bullying on the middle school and high school level, but as a parent of younger children, I think we, the community as a whole, tend to overlook the foundation of that bullying that was established at the grade school level. Bullying doesn't just all of a sudden appear in middle school. By kindergarten, girls are already forming cliques and boys are dividing themselves out on the playground into the athletic and non-athletic groups. If a child doesn't fall into what is deemed the "cool" group, they're left on the sidelines, or worse, taunted and picked on. I hate when I hear parents and teachers alike say this is just typical behavior for this age group and you can't really call it bullying; the outcast children are just too sensitive. Maybe to a certain extent, but how do you explain that to the child who doesn't want to go to school anymore because they don't have any friends? How do you tell a child that the way they are feeling essentially doesn't matter? 

Parents and educators need to work together to thwart bullying. It is foolish for one group to think they can be successful in doing so without the cooperation of the other. As parents, we need to talk about it at home and not rely on our schools to do the talking for us. And if we don't think our schools are doing enough, we should not be afraid to take a stand and speak up. Sometimes a "mom-to-mom" conversation can be the most powerful ally in putting an end to bullying. 

Michele McDonald: Not too many years ago if you told a teacher someone was bullying you, it only made the problem worse.  It’s not that way anymore, at least in the younger grades.  A few years ago one of my sons was routinely and aggressively teased by another classmate on the playground.  He told him to stop. The other student didn’t.  After a couple of weeks, he told me.  I told his teacher, who stopped it cold while treating both boys with compassion.  My son later said he wished he had told me sooner.  I talked with a teacher the other day about bullying and she says students now are taught to be empathetic.  They’re asked not only how they feel in certain situations but how someone else might feel. Those conversations didn’t happen when I was in school.  Now, they’re happening in kindergarten.

But not all schools or parents have those conversations.  There’s probably going to be more bullies out there than we’d like.  There are certainly more ways for bullies to reach their victims in this Internet age.  A report from ABC News said 14 students committed suicide in 2010 due to bullying.  Some 160,000 children stay home from school every day because they’re afraid of bullies, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

I don’t know if legislation will deter bullying but it sends a message if the consequences are real.  Prevention and education seem to be a strong course. Still, that takes time to show results and doesn’t help the kids who are being picked on today.

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