BULLYING

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BULLYING

• A PRESENTATION OF INFORMATION STRATEGIES
• Michael Wellins
• M.S. M.F.T
• Orange Police Department
• Crisis Intervention Specialist
• Frank Boehler
• Orange Unified School District
• Director, CWA

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• BULLYING
• This weeks favorite family

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• BULLYING

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• BULLYING
• Intolerable
• BULL ON BULLYING

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• BULLYING
• 24 - 365

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• BULLYING
• Deep

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• BULLYING
• Knows no limits

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• BULLYING
• Consequences

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• BULLYING
• Time or money

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• BULLYING
• Facts

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• BULLYING
• Who, Where Whens

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• BULLYING
• Two wrongs dont make a right!

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• BULLYING
• Take a stand

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• BULLYING
• Face to face

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• Collaboration

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• Intensity

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• Prescriptive

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• Endurance

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• Classroom instruction, assignments and homework

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• BULLYING
• The Problem!

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Bullying Statistics

• The NEA estimates that 160,000 students miss
  school every day or 28 million missed days per
  year, due to fear of attack or intimidation by a
  bully.
• One-half of all violence against teenagers occurs
  in school buildings, on school property or on the
  street in the vicinity of the school. Most begins
  as bullying or put-downs.
• 80 to 90 percent of adolescents report some form
  of victimization from a bully at school.

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• Students receive an average of 213 verbal
  put-downs per week, or 30 per day.
• 90 percent of all students felt that bullying
  caused social, emotional, or academic problems
  for those students who were bullied.
• 69 percent of all students believe that schools
  respond poorly to bullying and victimization.
• 10 percent of students who dropout of school does
  so because of repeated bullying.
• There is adult intervention in 4 of cases and
  peer intervention in 11 of cases.
• 20 percent of all high school students surveyed
  report avoiding the restrooms out of a fear of
  being bullied.

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• Being bullied during middle school is predictive
  of low self-esteem 10 years later. By age 23,
  children who were bullied in middle school were
  more depressed and had lower self-esteem than
  their peers who had not been bullied.
• By age 23, about 60 of the boys identified as
  bullies in middle school had at least one
  conviction of a crime and 35 to 40 had three or
  more convictions.
• Being bullied leads to depression and low
  self-esteem, problems that can carry into
  adulthood.
• Bullies at age 8 are three times more likely to
  be convicted of a crime by age 30.
• Bullies are less likely to finish college or
  locate a good job.
• Chronic bullies seem to maintain their behaviors
  into adulthood, negatively influencing their
  ability to develop and maintain positive
  relationships

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• Parents are often unaware of the bullying
  problem and talk about it with their children
  only to a limited extent and student surveys
  reveal that a low percentage of students seem to
  believe that adults will help.
• Bullying usually involves more than the bully
  and the victim 85 of bullying episodes occur
  in the context of a peer group.
• A survey of bullies in the Midwest found that a
  clear majority of the bullies felt that their
  victims were at least partially responsible for
  bringing the bullying on themselves. The bullies
  also felt that bullying toughened a weak person,
  and some felt that bullying "taught" victims
  appropriate behavior.
• A bully's triumph over the victim is the reward,
  and a lack of negative consequences may increase
  the likelihood of other children being
  aggressive.

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• BULLYING
• WHAT IS BULLYING?

A spectrum to consider! ?Being Mean
?Bullying ?Assault/Battery ?Murder We
need to draw the line early!
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What is Bullying?

• Student bullying is defined as any ongoing
  physical or verbal mistreatment where there is an
  imbalance of power and the victim (target) is
  exposed repeatedly to negative actions on the
  part of one or more other students.
• The following are some of the common examples of
  bullying
• Name calling, put-downs, cruel teasing
• Saying or writing nasty things about them
• Deliberately excluding them from activities
• Not talking to them
• Intimidation
• Threatening them with bodily harm
• Taking or damaging their things
• Hitting or kicking them or
• Making them do things they dont want to do.

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Kinds of Bullies

• There are several kinds of bullies.
• Proactive bullies need no provocation and are
  naturally more aggressive towards others. This
  group frequently has poor social and relational
  skills and compensates for this lack by picking
  on others.
• Reactive bullies have often been victimized by
  other bullies who then retaliate by becoming a
  bully.
• A third group of bullies might be called
  Provocative bullies. These people provoke
  fights or aggressive encounters with others. They
  are quick to become oppositional or defiant and
  cry or display exaggerated responses in conflict
  situations. This group is the most rejected by
  peers and has the fewest friends.
• Recent studies showed, in several cases, it is
  often difficult for even peers to identify who
  are the bullies and who are the victims because
  the vortex of violence is so prevalent and so
  many participate in it.

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What is Bullying?

• Bruce Perry stated this phenomenon in the Vortex
  of Violence (Perry, 1996a).
• Violence always travels from the strongest to
  the weakest or from the most powerful to the
  least powerful. People who are the object of
  violence absorb it, modify it and then pass it
  on. Young children, who are at the bottom of this
  vortex, often do not have anyone to pass it on to
  so they absorb it, accumulate it and wait until
  they are old enough, big enough, or strong enough
  to erupt in some dramatic way that hurts other
  people.  

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How does bullying differ from normal peer
conflicts?

• In a bullying situation, there are 6 defining
  factors
• Intent to harm. The perpetrator finds pleasure
  in taunting or trying to dominate the victim and
  continues even when the victims distress is
  obvious.
• Intensity and duration. The bullying continues
  over a long period of time and the degree of
  bullying is damaging to the self-esteem of the
  victim.
• Power of the bully. The bully has power over the
  victim because of age, strength, size or gender.
• Vulnerability of the victim. The victim is more
  sensitive to teasing, cannot adequately defend
  him or herself, and has physical or psychological
  qualities that make him or her more prone to
  victimization.
• Lack of support. The victim feels isolated and
  exposed. Often, the victim is afraid to report
  the bullying for fear of retaliation.
• Consequences. The damage to the victims
  self-esteem is long lasting and leads the victim
  to markedly withdraw from school or they too
  become aggressive.

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How does bullying differ from normal peer
conflicts?

• In a normal peer conflict situation, students
  display the following elements
• Do not insist on getting their own way.
• Give reasons why they disagree.
• Apologize or offer win-win suggestions.
• Are free to bargain and negotiate to get their
  needs met.
• Can change the topic and walk away.

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Factors Contributing to Bullying

• Family Factors
• The home is the most violent place in the United
  States.
• Children from violent homes are three to four
  times more likely to become a bully.
• There three primary predictive family factors
• A lack of solid bonding/attachment with the young
  child.
• Poor supervision and neglect of the childs
  needs.
• Acceptance and modeling of aggressive or bullying
  behaviors by parents or older siblings.
• There are very few early identification and
  intervention programs to help children who show
  aggressive tendencies

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Factors Contributing to Bullying

• School Factors
• The amount of adult supervision is directly tied
  to the frequency and severity of bullying in
  schools.
• A negative school climate where negative behavior
  gets most of the attention encourages the
  formation of cliques and bullying.
• Some teachers threaten, tease, shame or
  intimidate students to maintain control of their
  classroom.
• 25 of teachers see nothing wrong with bullying
  and put-downs. Schools condone this behavior and
  do nothing to prevent bullying and put-downs.
• Schools in poor urban neighborhoods experience
  more violence in and around the schools.
• Schools located in neighborhoods with high turn
  over also have more bullying.

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• BULLYING
• WEBSITES RESOURCES

www.teasingvictims.com Bullies 2 Buddies
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• BULLYING WEBSITES RESOURCES

www.teasingvictims.com Bullies 2 Buddies
Student Lessons How to stop being teased and
bullied without really trying

• Know why you are teased
• Change your attitude
• Three warnings
• How to handle rumors
• How to handle physical bullying

• Getting revenge
• How to stop people from hating you
• Have a sense of humor
• Lose your fears
• Dealing with brothers and sisters

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• BULLYING WEBSITES RESOURCES

www.teasingvictims.com Bullies 2 Buddies
Adults Manual A revolutionary manual for
handling childrens aggression

• What do we really want for our children?
• How we teach our children to be hurt by words
• Our mistaken attitudes towards childrens
  aggression
• The importance of freedom of speech
• The Magic Responses, part 1,2, 3 4
• The mystery of laughter, the best medicine

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• BULLYING
• SPECIFIC
• STRATEGIES
• www.teasingvictims.com
• Bullies to Buddies

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Strategies for Students!

• Sit in the front of the bus!
• Don't hide what is happening from the adults you
  trust. There is nothing wrong with asking for
  help when you are in trouble
• Mediation
• If you are being bullied, tell a friend, tell a
  teacher and tell your parents. It won't stop
  unless you do.
• If you have to walk part of the way, and you're
  afraid of being ambushed, then vary your route,
  try to leave home and school a bit later or a bit
  earlier, or see if you can walk with other people
  who live near you, even if they're older or
  younger.
• Try to stay in safe areas of the school at break
  and lunchtime where there are plenty of other
  people. Bullies don't like witnesses. 
• If you are hurt at school, tell the teacher or
  supervisor immediately and ask for it to be
  written down.

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Strategies for Students!

• If you have a mobile phone, be careful who you
  give your number to.
• If you receive threatening phone calls or emails
  then tell your parents and school officials.
• Being bullied can make you feel very lonely and
  you might think you haven't got any friends. Keep
  your eyes open. If you see someone else on their
  own try to start a conversation, about anything,
  schoolwork, anything at all.
• If you see anyone else being bullied at your
  school, discreetly tell someone about it (parent,
  teacher, secretary, friend, friends parent).
• Sooner or later you'll find a genuine friend who
  likes you for yourself.
• If people are making nasty remarks about you then
  it may be because they are jealous. One way of
  dealing with remarks is simply to say ...yeah,
  whatever, .... each time so that you show them
  that it isn't having the effect of upsetting you
  in the way they think. Try to avoid eye contact
  with them so that they can't see how upset you
  are and you can't see their sneers.

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Strategies for Students!

• Keep in mind, if there's a ringleader then it's
  possible that other people who used to be your
  friends probably still like you, but they could
  be worried that if they go around with you
  they'll get bullied in the same way.
• To have friends you also need to be a friend and
  you can do that by trying to be open and friendly
  with people.
• Body language tells us a lot about other people.
  If youre trying not to be noticed and looking at
  the ground a lot while darting into school it can
  make you more noticeable. You look defensive and
  vulnerable. If you step out boldly you send out
  a quite different message of confidence, as
  though youre the sort of person who might answer
  back if the bully tries a smart remark. You may
  not be very confident but youll certainly look
  it.
• Sometimes, when youre very unhappy you might
  want to stay at home to avoid the bullying.
  Every day you go in to school is a triumph over
  the bullies because by being there youre showing
  them that you have every right to be there and
  that their behavior hasnt upset you as theyd
  hoped.

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Strategies for Students!

• Avoid going into areas where bullies normally
  congregate. If involved in an activity, do not
  be one of the last to leave. Enter, remain
  around, and exit with other students attending
  the same event.
• Victims of bullying are often put in positions of
  confrontation and humiliation. You can minimize
  the negative impact of these situations by being
  prepared. Think in advance of possible
  situations. Think of words that you can say to
  minimize and diffuse the situation!
• Never ever use retaliation as a tool in your tool
  box. Two wrongs will never make a right and you
  may be facing a stiffer consequence than the
  actual bully.
• Always remember right from wrong and never
  confuse the two!

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Strategies for Students!

• REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO
  ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL
  SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE!
  REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO
  ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL
  SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE!
  REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO
  ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL
  SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE!
  REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO
  ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL
  SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE!
  REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO
  ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL
  SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE!
  REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO
  ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL
  SOMEONE! REMEMBER TO ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE!
  IMMEDIATELY!

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Strategies for Parents!

• Be Realistic! Bullying goes on in every school.
  It's the way it's dealt with which makes the
  difference between life being tolerable or a
  misery. Bullies are very cunning and are expert
  at getting away with it.
• Finding out that your child is being bullied is a
  stressful and distressing experience. Its
  natural for a parent to feel anger, confusion and
  guilt. Some children are good at hiding their
  feelings and you may be the last to know that a
  problem exists.
• Keep your eyes and ears open for coming home
  with cuts and bruises torn clothes asking for
  stolen possessions to be replaced losing
  dinner money falling out with previously good
  friends being moody and bad tempered Being
  quiet and withdrawn wanting to avoid leaving the
  house aggression with brothers and sisters
  doing less well at schoolwork insomnia
  anxiety
• One of the worst thing to do is to over-react and
  storm into school demanding action. Dont forget
  that if you didnt know your child was being
  bullied then the school may not have realized it
  either.

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Strategies for Parents!

• If you think your young child is being bullied,
  but youre not sure, ask a few simple questions
• Contact you childs teacher and explain your
  worries in a friendly non-confrontational way. 
  Ask how your child is getting on with others in
  class and raise any issues of conflict with other
  children.
• Ask if the teacher has noticed that your child
  seems unhappy and isolated and is being excluded
  from games in the playground or regularly not
  having a partner to work with in class.
• Ask the class teacher, or the head of year at
  secondary school, if he/she can keep an eye on
  the situation and let you know if they have any
  concerns. Ask what the teacher suggests would be
  the best way of sorting it out. At a primary
  school perhaps the supervisors could take a more
  active role in the playground by keeping an eye
  on your child and ensuring that people are not
  excluded from games.

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Strategies for Parents!

• It might be helpful to try to increase your
  childs circle of friends, by inviting a number
  of children home regularly, to forge stronger
  friendships.
• If bullying continues Keep a diary of what your
  child says is happening get your child to keep
  his/her own diary write a note to the class
  teacher or head of year, explaining that the
  problem is still unresolved suggest that contact
  between the bully and your child is monitored and
  limited, perhaps by the bully moving to another
  classroom/playground area.
• If bullying continues, its time to meet, confer
  and provide documentation to the principal
  outlining everything that has gone on, including
  evidence from the diary to back up your
  complaint.
• If your child has been assaulted at school, home
  or in the community, then make a complaint to
  the police. Remember, many bullies go on to have
  criminal violations later in life. Engaging the
  police may actually prevent further criminal
  activity towards others. Attacks by older pupils
  may result in prosecution, particularly if injury
  is involved.

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Strategies for Parents!

• Its wise, when your child is so stressed by
  bullying, and so frightened that they cant face
  school, to telephone the districts Office of
  Child Welfare and Attendance and ask for
  assistance.
• Transferring your child to another school may
  seem a tempting idea at the time, but think about
  it carefully. You need to consider
• Can the problem be resolved at the school site?
  Will your child miss his/her friends? What
  impact will your child have adjusting to a new
  school in the middle of a school year? Do the
  bullies also have friends at the new school or
  even worse, what would you do if the bully was
  involuntarily transferred into the new school
  later in the year? Will the travel arrangements
  be more difficult on your family?

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Strategies for Parents of Bullies!

• Take the problem seriously.
• Talk to your child, talk to his or her teachers
  and administrators. Keep in mind that a bully
  will try to deny or minimize his or her
  wrong-doing.
• Make it clear to your child that you will not
  tolerate this kind of behavior, and discuss with
  your child the negative impact bullying has on
  the victims. Do not accept explanations that "it
  was all in fun."
• Arrange for an effective, non-violent
  consequence, which is in proportion with the
  severity of your child's actions, and his or her
  age and stage of development. Corporal punishment
  carries the message that "might is right and you
  will be reported to Child Abuse Registry.
• Increase your supervision of your child's
  activities and whereabouts, and know who they are
  associating with. Spend time with your child, and
  set reasonable rules for their activities and
  curfews.
• Co-operate with the school in modifying your
  child's aggressive behavior. Frequent
  communication with teachers and/or administrators
  is important to find out how your child is doing
  in changing his or her behavior.

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Strategies for Parents of Bullies!

• Praise the efforts your child makes toward
  non-violent and responsible behavior, as well as
  for following home and school rules. Keep
  praising any efforts the child makes.
• If your child is viewing violent television
  shows, including cartoons, and is playing violent
  video games, this will increase violent and
  aggressive behavior. Change family and child's
  viewing and play patterns to non-violent ones.
• Make sure that your child is not seeing violence
  between members of his or her family. Modeling of
  aggressive behavior at home can lead to violence
  by the child against others at school and in
  later life.
• Seek help from a school psychologist, social
  worker, or children's mental health centre in the
  community if you would like support in working
  with your child.
• Support the efforts of local law enforcement.

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Strategies for Schools

• Schools can intervene effectively to reduce
  bullying by developing a safe and supportive
  school climate.
• Awareness and involvement on the part of adults,
  with regard to bully-victim problems.
• School survey
• Programs/conferences devoted to bully/victim
  problems.
• Effective supervision during recess and lunch
  hour by adults.
• Consistent and immediate consequences for
  aggressive behavior.
• Generous praise for pro-social and helpful
  behaviors by students.
• Specific class rules against bullying.
• Class meetings about bullying.
• Serious individual talks with bullies and with
  victims.
• Serious talks with parents of bullies and
  victims.
• A meeting of the school parent-teacher
  organization on the topic of bullying.

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Strategies for Schools

• Develop a curriculum which promotes
  communication, friendship, and assertive skills.
• Improve communication among school
  administrators, teachers, parents and students
• Listen respectfully to bullying concerns raised
  by students, parents, and school staff.
• Avoid sex-role stereotyping
• Avoid emphasis on competitiveness at school.
• Enlist classmates to help alleviate the plight of
  victims and include them in group activities.

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Specific Strategies for Schools

• Intervene immediately stop the bullying behavior
  as soon as it occurs.
• Talk to the bully, and talk to the victim,
  separately. If more than one child is involved in
  perpetrating the bullying, talk to each of the
  perpetrators separately, in quick succession.
• If a peer mediation program is in place, be very
  careful in referring cases where there is
  bullying, as the power imbalance will likely make
  this a very intimidating situation for the
  victim. The victim's communication and
  assertiveness skills may be very low, and will be
  further eroded by the fear resulting from past
  intimidation and fear of future retaliation. Your
  may wish to exclude such cases from peer
  mediation.
• Consult with administrator and other teachers, as
  well as staff, to get a wider reading on the
  problem, and to alert them to the problem.
• Expect that perpetrators will minimize and deny
  their actions and responsibility. Refer to school
  and class codes of conduct in telling the bully
  why their behavior was unacceptable. Tell them
  what behavior you do expect of them. Inform
  bullies of the sanctions which will be imposed,
  that their parents will be involved and police
  contacted.
• Reassure the victim that all possible steps will
  be taken to prevent a recurrence.
• Inform the parents of the bully and of the victim
  as soon as possible. A quick call to the home the
  same day is preferable, followed by an
  appointment at school for the parents, if it is
  deemed necessary. Better results are obtained
  when parents are involved early in a bullying
  situation, before behavior patterns are
  entrenched and extremely serious.

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Specific Strategies for Schools

• Involve parents in designing a creative plan of
  action, whenever possible.
• For victims, involving them in groups and
  situations where they can make appropriate
  friends and develop their social skills and
  confidence is important. An example of this is a
  peer support group, new student orientation
  group, a co-operative learning group in class, or
  a special activity group or club. Parents can
  also arrange for these kinds of opportunities
  outside of school. The goals should be to develop
  the child's peer support network, social and
  other skills and confidence. Specific instruction
  in assertiveness skills may also be helpful.
• For the bullies, specific re-education, as to
  their behavior, is important, in addition to
  sanctions, such as removal of privileges,
  detention, etc. Some schools have had good
  success with in-school detention situations where
  aggressive students must complete social skill
  modules designed to reduce aggressive behavior
  and develop empathy for others.
• Follow up in communicating with parents and with
  other teachers and administrators about the
  situation, until it is clearly resolved.
• Monitor the behavior of the bully and the safety
  of the victim on a school-wide basis.
• If the bullies will not change their behavior,
  despite concerted efforts by school personnel,
  they, and not the victim, should be the ones who
  are removed from the class or school, or
  transferred to another program. Consequences for
  the perpetrators will be of considerable interest
  to all students, and will set the tone for future
  situations. THE ABSENT CHAIR SPEAKS LOUDLY.

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• Keep current Bullying Research Bullying
  Literature available for staff, parents
  students

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• Discuss the literature
• and learn from others!

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• OUR CHILDREN NEED MORE TOOLS IN THEIR TOOL BOXES!
• It is our job to see to it that they have what
  they need to be successful!

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Final Thoughts!

• A basic law of psychology says
• What you pay attention to is what you are going
  to get more of. If we focus too much of our
  attention on negative behaviors and not enough on
  positive behaviors, it is easy to see why there
  is so much negative behavior.

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• It is time to accentuate the beauty of our
  children inside and out. The focus should be on
  the good, not the bad. Every generation needs
  this lesson!

As Jackie DeShannon said in her 1960s hit song,
What the world needs now is love sweet love,
thats the only thing that theres just too
little of
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Thank you for attending today!

• In the event of any questions, contact
• Mike Wellins, at
• Orange Police Department
• [phone]
• mwellins_at_cityoforange.org
• Frank Boehler at
• Orange Unified School District
• [phone]
• frankb_at_orangeusd.k12.ca.us
• www.orangeusd.k12.ca.us/cwa/