Warning Signs that a Child is Being Bullied

What is bullying?
Bullying among children is aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power or strength. Typically, it is repeated over time. Bullying can take many forms, such as hitting and/or punching (physical bullying); teasing or name-calling (verbal bullying); intimidation using gestures or social exclusion (nonverbal bullying or emotional bullying); and sending insulting messages by phone or computer e-mail (cyberbullying).* Many children, particularly boys and older children, do not tell their parents or adults at school about being bullied. It is important that adults are vigilant to possible signs of bullying.

Warning signs
Possible warning signs that a child is being bullied:

•Comes home with torn, damaged, or missing pieces of clothing, books, or other belongings;
•Has unexplained cuts, bruises, and scratches;
•Has few, if any friends, with whom he or she spends time;
•Seems afraid of going to school, walking to and from school, riding the school bus, or taking part in organized activities with peers (such as clubs);
•Takes a long, “illogical” route when walking to or from school;
•Has lost interest in school work or suddenly begins to do poorly in school;
•Appears sad, moody, teary, or depressed when he or she comes home;
•Complains frequently of headaches, stomachaches, or other physical ailments;
•Has trouble sleeping or has frequent bad dreams;
•Experiences a loss of appetite; or
•Appears anxious and suffers from low self-esteem.
What to do if you suspect that your child is being bullied?
1. 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:

Some direct questions:

•“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?”
Some subtle questions:

•“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?”
2. Talk with staff at your child’s school. Call or set up an appointment to talk with your child’s teacher. He or she will probably be in the best position to understand the relationships between your child and other peers 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).
Ask the teacher to talk with other adults who interact with your child at school (such as the music teacher, physical education teacher, or bus driver) to see whether they have observed students bullying your child.

If you are not comfortable talking with your child’s teacher, or if you are not satisfied with the conversation, make an appointment to meet with your child’s guidance counselor or principal to discuss your concerns.

If you obtain information from your child or from staff at your child’s school that leads you to believe that he or she is being bullied, take quick action. Bullying can have serious effects on children.

If, after talking with your child and staff at his or her school, you don’t suspect that your child is being bullied, stay vigilant to other possible problems that your child may be having. Some of the warning signs above (e.g., depression, social isolation, and loss of interest in school) may be signs of other serious problems. Share your concerns with a counselor at your child’s school.

References
•Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do. NY: Blackwell.
•Olweus, D., Limber, S., & Mihalic, S. (1999). The Bullying Prevention Program: Blueprints for violence prevention. Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence.
*Children with disabilities may be at a higher risk of being bullied than other children.

Misdirections in Bullying Prevention

In recent years, increasing numbers of educators, health professionals, parents, and other adults who interact with children and youth have come to understand the seriousness of bullying. Bullying among children is aggressive behavior that is intentional and involves an imbalance of power and strength. Many proven and promising prevention and intervention strategies have been developed.

Unfortunately, some misdirected intervention and prevention strategies also have been developed lately.

Zero tolerance policies
Many schools and school districts have adopted “zero tolerance” or “three strikes and you’re out” policies towards bullying, in which children who bully others are suspended or expelled from school. These policies (also called “student exclusion” policies) raise many concerns.

•These policies affect a large number of students. Recent surveys of elementary and middle school students indicate that approximately one in five students admit to bullying their peers periodically (Melton et al., 1998). Even if policies are limited to physical bullying, the numbers of affected children are still significant.
•Threats of severe punishments, such as suspension or expulsion, may actually discourage children and adults from reporting bullying that they observe.
•Bullying can be an early marker of other problem behaviors. Children who frequently bully their peers are at risk of engaging in other problem behaviors such as truancy, fighting, theft, and vandalism. Children who bully are in need of positive, prosocial role models, including adults and students in their school.
Although suspension and expulsion of students may be necessary to maintain public safety in a very small number of cases , these practices are not recommended as a broad-based bullying prevention or intervention policy.

Conflict resolution and peer mediation
Conflict resolution and peer mediation are common strategies for dealing with conflicts among students. Many schools also use peer mediation and conflict resolution to address bullying problems, but this is not recommended. Why?

•Bullying is a form of victimization, not conflict. It is no more a “conflict” than are child abuse or domestic violence.
•Mediating a bullying incident may send inappropriate messages to the students who are involved (such as, “You are both partly right and partly wrong,” or “We need to work out this conflict between you”). The appropriate message to the child who is bullied should be, “No one deserves to be bullied, and we are going to do everything we can to stop it.” The message for children who bully should be, “Your behavior is inappropriate and must be stopped.”
•Mediation may further victimize a child who has been bullied. It may be very upsetting for a child who has been bullied to face his or her tormenter in mediation.
•There is no evidence to indicate that conflict resolution or peer mediation is effective in stopping bullying.
Group treatment for children who bully
Another strategy that some schools use to address bullying behavior involves group therapeutic treatment for children who bully, including anger management, skill-building, empathy-building, and seeking ways to build the self-esteem of bullies. Although these interventions are well-intentioned, they often are counter productive. Students’ behavior may further deteriorate, as group members tend to serve as role models and reinforcers for each others’ antisocial and bullying behavior.

Simple, short-term solutions
Often, school administrators and their staff adopt a short-term, piecemeal approach to bullying prevention. Bullying may be the topic of a staff inservice training, a PTA meeting, a school-wide assembly, or lessons taught by individual teachers. Although each of these efforts may represent important initial steps in the adoption of a comprehensive, long-term bullying prevention strategy, they likely will do little to significantly reduce bullying problems if implemented in a piecemeal way. To reduce the prevalence of bullying we need a change in the climate of the school and its exceptions for student behavior.

References
•Chase, B. (March 25, 2001). Bullyproofing our schools: To eliminate bullying, first we must agree not to tolerate it. Editorial. Retrieved August 12, 2005, from www.nea.org/publiced/chase/bc010325.html.
•Cohen, R. (2002, February). Stop mediating these conflicts now! The School Mediator: Peer Mediation Insights from the Desk of Richard Cohen. Electronic newsletter, School Mediation Associates. Retrieved August 12, 2005, from www.schoolmediation.com.
•Conolly, J. C., Hindmand, R., Jacobs, Y., & Gagnon, W. A. (1997). How school promote violence. Family Futures, 1(1), 8-11.
•Limber, S. P. (2002). Addressing youth bullying behaviors. Proceedings from the American Medical Association Educational Forum on Adolescent
Health: Youth Bullying. Chicago, IL: American Medical Association.
•Limber, S. P. (in press). Implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program: Lessons Learned from the Field. In D. Espelage & S. Swearer
(Eds.) Bullying in American Schools: A Social-Ecological Perspective on Prevention and Intervention. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
•Limber, S. P. (in press). School and community efforts to reduce and prevent bullying. Journal of Health Education.
•Melton, G.B., Limber, S.P., Cunningham, P., Osgood, D.W., Chambers J., Flerx, V., Henggeler S., & Nation, M. (1998). Violence Among Rural
Youth. Final Report to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention.
•Mulvey, E. P., & Cauffman, E. (2001). The inherent limits of predicting school violence. American Psychologist, 56, 797-802.
•Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R. S., Ruan, J., Simons-Morton, B., & Scheidt, P. (2001). Bullying Behaviors Among US Youth: Prevalence and
Association With Psychosocial Adjustment. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, 2094-2100.
•Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: what we know and what we can do. NY: Blackwell.

Preventing Bullying

Bullying is aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power or strength. Often, it is repeated over time and can take many forms. In many respects, research on bullying prevention is still in its infancy. Although researchers have documented success of some comprehensive programs in reducing bullying, we still have much to learn about which aspects of these programs are most important.

However, a review of existing bullying prevention programs and feedback from educators in the field led us to suggest ten strategies that represent “best practices” in bullying prevention and intervention.

1. Focus on the social environment of the school.
To reduce bullying, it is important to change the climate of the school and the social norms with regard to bullying. It must become “uncool” to bully, “cool” to help out students who are bullied, and normative for staff and students to notice when a child is bullied or left out. This requires the efforts of everyone in the school environment–teachers, administrators, counselors, other non-teaching staff (such as bus drivers, nurses, school resource officers, custodians, cafeteria workers, and school librarians), parents, and students.

2. Assess bullying at your school.
Intuitively adults are not always very good at estimating the nature and extent of bullying at their school. Frequently we are quite surprised by the amount of bullying that students experience, the types of bullying that are most common, or the “hot spots” where bullying happens. As a result, it is often quite useful to assess bullying by administering an anonymous questionnaire to students about bullying. What are the possible benefits of conducting a survey of students?

•Findings can help motivate adults to take action against bullying;
•Data can help administrators and other educators tailor a bullying prevention strategy to the particular needs of the school; and
•Data can serve as a baseline from which administrators and other educators can measure their progress in reducing bullying.
3. Garner staff and parent support for bullying prevention.
Bullying prevention should not be the sole responsibility of an administrator, counselor, teacher–or any single individual at a school. To be most effective, bullying prevention efforts require buy-in from the majority of the staff and from parents.

4. Form a group to coordinate the school’s bullying prevention activities.
Bullying prevention efforts seem to work best if they are coordinated by a representative group from the school. This coordinating team (which might include an administrator, a teacher from each grade, a member of the non-teaching staff, a school counselor or other school-based mental health professional, a school nurse, and a parent) should meet regularly to digest data from the school survey described in Strategy 2; plan bullying prevention rules, policies, and activities; motivate staff, students, and parents; and ensure that the efforts continue over time. A student advisory group also can be formed to focus on bullying prevention and provide valuable suggestions and feedback to adults.

5. Train your staff in bullying prevention.
All administrators, faculty, and staff at your school should be trained in bullying prevention and intervention. In-service training can help staff to better understand the nature of bullying and its effects, how to respond if they observe bullying, and how to work with others at the school to help prevent bullying from occurring. Training should not be available only for teaching staff. Rather, administrators should make an effort to educate all adults in the school environment who interact with students (including counselors, media specialists, school resource officers, nurses, lunchroom and recess aides, bus drivers, parent volunteers, custodians, and cafeteria workers).

6. Establish and enforce school rules and policies related to bullying.
Although many school behavior codes implicitly forbid bullying, many codes do not use the term or make explicit our expectations for student behavior. It is important to make clear that the school not only expects students not to bully, but that it also expects them to be good citizens, not passive bystanders, if they are aware of bullying or students who appear troubled, possibly from bullying. Developing simple, clear rules about bullying can help to ensure that students are aware of adults’ expectations that they refrain from bullying and help students who are bullied. For example, one comprehensive program, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (see resources section on the Web site) recommends that schools adopt four straightforward rules about bullying:

•We will not bully others.
•We will try to help students who are bullied.
•We will make it a point to include students who are easily left out.
•If we know someone is being bullied, we will tell an adult at school and an adult at home.
School rules and policies should be posted and discussed with students and parents. Appropriate positive and negative consequences also should be developed for following or not following the school’s rules.

7. Increase adult supervision in hot spots where bullying occurs.
Bullying tends to thrive in locations where adults are not present or are not vigilant. Once school personnel have identified hot spots for bullying from the student questionnaires, look for creative ways to increase adults’ presence in these locations.

8. Intervene consistently and appropriately in bullying situations.
All staff should be able to intervene effectively on the spot to stop bullying (i.e., in the 1–2 minutes that one frequently has to deal with bullying). Designated staff should also hold sensitive follow-up meetings with children who are bullied and (separately) with children who bully. Staff should involve parents of affected students whenever possible.

9. Focus some class time on bullying prevention.
It is important that bullying prevention programs include a classroom component. Teachers (with the support of administrators) should set aside 20–30 minutes each week (or every other week) to discuss bullying and peer relations with students. These meetings help teachers to keep their fingers on the pulse of students’ concerns, allow time for candid discussions about bullying and the harm that it can cause, and provide tools for students to address bullying problems. Anti-bullying themes and messages also can be incorporated throughout the school curriculum.

10. Continue these efforts over time.
There should be no “end date” for bullying prevention activities. Bullying prevention should be woven into the school environment.

Parents take control!

Why Should Adults Care About Bullying?
There are a number of reasons why adults should be concerned about bullying among children and youth.

1.Many children are involved in bullying, and most are extremely concerned about it.

•Studies show that between 15-25% of U.S. students are bullied with some frequency (“sometimes or more often”) while 15-20% admit that they bully others with some frequency.
•Not only is bullying prevalent, but children and youth report being extremely concerned about it.

In a 2003 Harris poll of 8-17 year-old girls, commissioned by the Girl Scouts of the USA, bullying topped girls’ list of concerns regarding their safety. When asked what they worried about the most, the most common response was being socially ostracized-being teased or made fun of. [Feeling Safe: What Girls Say by Judy Schoenberg, Ed.M., Toija Riggins, Ph.D., and Kimberlee Salmond, M.P.P. (New York, N.Y.: Girl Scouts of the USA, 2003). 114 pp. (Executive Summary, 23 pp.)]
2.Bullying can seriously affect the mental health, academic work, and physical health of children who are targeted.

•Children who are bullied are more likely than other children to have lower self-esteem; higher rates of depression, loneliness, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Recent studies indicate that there may be reason to be concerned about the school attendance and academic work of children involved in bullying.
•Research on the health-related effects of bullying indicates that victims of frequent bullying are more likely to experience a variety of health problems, including headaches, sleeping problems, and stomach ailments.
•Some emotional scars can be long-lasting. Research suggests that adults who were bullied as children are more likely than their non-bullied peers to be depressed and have low self-esteem as adults.

3.Children who bully are more likely than other children to be engaged in other antisocial, violent, or troubling behavior.

Findings from research in the U.S. and abroad indicate that children who bully are more likely to:

•Get into frequent fights
•Be injured in a fight
•Steal, vandalize property
•Drink alcohol
•Smoke
•Be truant, drop out of school
•Report poorer academic achievement
•Perceive a negative climate at school
•Carry a weapon
4.Bullying can negatively affect children who observe bullying going on around them–even if they aren’t targeted themselves.

•Children who are bystanders to bullying can feel fearful (“Maybe I’ll be targeted next!”), guilty (“I should do something to stop this, but I’m afraid to.”), and distracted from school work.
•Bullying can contribute to a negative social climate at school.
5.Bullying is a form of victimization or abuse, and it is wrong. Children should be able to attend school or take part in community activities without fear of being harassed, assaulted, belittled, or excluded.

IS IT YOU?

Signs That You Bully

Okay, time for the truth. Or at least time to consider if you have a confession to make! Take this quiz to find out if you’ve ever bullied someone. Put a check in the boxes if you’ve done these things before.

There’s a boy or a girl (or maybe more than one) whom you’ve repeatedly shoved, or punched or physically pushed around in a mean way just because you felt like it.

You had someone else hurt someone you don’t like.

You’ve spread a nasty rumor about someone, in conversation, in a note, or through email or instant messaging.

You and your friends have regularly kept one or more kids from hanging out or playing with you. Examples: at your lunch table at school, during sports or other activities, or activities that are a part of a club or other kind of group activity.

You’ve teased people in a mean way, calling them names, making fun of their appearance, or the way they talk or dress or act.

You’ve been part of a group that did any of these things – even if you only wanted to be part of the crowd.

If you answered yes to any of these, you’re not alone. All over the country, in all types of neighborhoods and schools, there are all types of young people who bully others. Bullying is serious business. It causes young people a lot of pain, and it can affect their ability to do well in school and their general happiness.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. By visiting this site – and taking a look at our Webisodes – you can learn about better ways to treat your friends and acquaintances, as well as become part of the solution to this serious problem!

WHAT CAN YOU DO

                                           Do You Bully?
If you bully others, we’re glad you’re here. If you’re not sure if what you’re doing is really bullying, then take our Quick Quiz/Signs That You Bully. (But here’s a hint: If you are hurting or threatening others in some way and using your size, strength or popularity to do it … you’re probably bullying someone!)

Hey – let’s face it, hurting and making others feel bad is NEVER cool. Just admitting that you are doing things to harm others takes some guts. But that’s not enough. Trying to find out what you should do to change the way you’re acting … now that’s a step in the right direction! So check out these tips … they’ll help you to start treating others with the respect they deserve.

Think about what you’re doing … and how it affects others. If you think calling others names is really harmless, or if you think pushing, hitting or stealing from other kids is funny, you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be hurt yourself! Teasing, hitting, keeping others out of a group – all of these things harm someone. All of us have been hurt at one time or another and we all know how it feels – awful! So the next time you are about to bully someone:

•Put yourself in their shoes
•Think about how it must make them feel
•And just don’t do it
Talk to an adult. Making other people feel badly should never make you feel good. If it does, or if you’re not really sure why you bully other kids, you need to talk to an adult about it. Even though you might think an adult won’t understand, or that you’ll get yourself into trouble, they can help! Whether it is your parent, a teacher or another trusted grown-up, you should tell an adult how you’ve been acting so that they help you deal with it. School counselors are also great people to talk to about how you feel and how to change the way you treat others.

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