IF YOUR CHILD IS
BULLIED AT
SCHOOL
How to combat
negative behavior

By ROSEMARY J. STAUBER

First, a story about Ariel
Some time back, one of my friends, “Mary,” called to tell me her daughter, “Ariel,” was being bullied, and she was having difficulty getting the school authorities to pay attention and intervene..

She told me that shortly after school started, Ariel began complaining about school and saying she didn’t want to go. In October, one of the girls pushed Ariel and kept urging her to hit her back. Ariel
walked away and went on to the track with some friends. The girls were following them and yelling at her. Then the bell rang, and they went to the counselor’s office.

The counselor was on the way to a meeting, so she had Ariel write down what had happened. The counselor seemed to be in a hurry to get to her meeting and Ariel felt rushed. She didn’t get to write a thorough description of what had happened. She ran home after school that day because the girls were waiting for her, and she wanted to avoid them. When she got home, she told her mother, finally,
what had been going on.

Mary and her husband immediately went over to the school to let the principals know what had been happening. The principal and the vice principals were in a meeting, so they left a message for the principal to call. The vice principal called that evening. She said she would call Ariel into her office on the next day to find out what was happening. That did occur.

The bullying continued in the subtler, typical girl-bullying style. The chief bully was encouraging other girls not to associate with Ariel, etc. She also threatened to hit her at one point. Mary called me after five days passed and no action had been taken. Ariel was sad and withdrawn. She continued running home after school to avoid the girls who were tormenting her, and she would go immediately to her room and straight to her bed.

Ariel was sleeping too much at night; she was having nightmares and flashing back to earlier traumas. She was confining herself to her room, was not eating and was watching TV excessively in her waking hours. She was crying, feeling anxious and having difficulty in school because she wasn’t focusing on her homework. Her grades were dropping drastically. Mary then asked me to join her and Ariel at the school for a meeting with the principal and the assistant principal.

Interestingly, after we arrived at the meeting, we were told that they were proud that there is no bullying at their school. Red flag! Mary is known to me, and to the school authorities, as an intensely protective mom — appropriately protective, I believe — although sometimes too aggressive. My role, I suspect, was to help her to contain herself and to approach the issue assertively rather than “head-on.” She did a good job, and I had little to say.

The outcome was that the vice principal would talk to the child who seemed to be the lead bully and call her mother, and Ariel would go to a weekly group meeting. That rankled Mary a bit, since it seemed that Ariel was being punished (going to a group), and the bullies were still not being held accountable. I, of course, reminded her that going to a group is not punishment. In fact, I told her, I think the other children were being shorted if they didn’t get counseling. And we had no idea what the “talk” would entail.

I went back to my office and over the next few days began some research. I talked to one school counselor whom I knew and asked her what was the policy at her school. She said, vehemently, “Zero tolerance.” She faxed me a lot of information about bullying and how schools and parents can intervene. Then I went to the Internet. I downloaded several short articles and ordered a book, Bullying in the Girl’s World, by Diane Senn, published by Youthlight, Inc., 2000. It takes a workbook approach to the subject. I will pass on the gist of what I learned from my research in this article and the one in the next issue.

Definition: “Bullying is repeated behavior intended to harm or hurt someone physically, emotionally, or socially and typically involves an imbalance or a perceived imbalance of power” (Senn, 2000, p. 1). She also recognizes that girl bullying tends to be less physical and more “social.” She credits Dr. Nicki Crick for coining the phrase Relational Aggression (RA) as the kind of bullying that is used more by girls:

RA ... uses aggressive or hurtful behavior to harm someone by damaging or manipulating his or her relationships with others. The purpose of relational aggression is to socially exclude or damage a person’s reputation or status within the peer group and can be motivated by either fear of not being a part of a group or to gain power and prestige in a desired group. (Senn, p. 7.)

The participants: Senn describes three primary roles in a bullying situation: the person doing the Bullying Behavior, the Target and the Bystander. I appreciate that Senn is separating the child from the
behavior and recognizing that the child, while behaving badly, is not “bad,” the behavior is. The Target has a decision to make: whether to succumb to the desire to take on the feelings of humiliation and devastation and to try to fit in by yielding to the bullying one, therefore becoming a victim, or to maintain her sense of self. The Bystander may be someone who admires the perceived power in the bullying one and aspires to be like him or her or may be someone who just happens to be there. That person has a chance to intervene and change the direction of what is going on. Keep in mind that ALL participants in this struggle are potentially being damaged by these interchanges. And all need help in working through them. Senn speaks more to the “girl bullying” situation.

She writes:
The girl bullying/relational aggressive behavior appears to be motivated by underlying fear and insecurity. The aggressor may be insecure and worried about remaining “on top,” so she uses manipulation
and control of others to avoid having her own weaknesses exposed. The victim often lacks the confidence to stand up for herself and may feel that she deserves the ill treatment. The bystander is afraid and lacks the self-confidence to take a stand and may join in the aggression, either passively or overtly, to avoid being targeted herself. (Senn, p. 8.)

Suggestions for:

Target: Tell someone. Go to a teacher or counselor to say what is happening. And tell your parents.

Parents: Do intervene in this situation. Don’t just sit back and let them “work it out.”

Teachers: When a child approaches you, take action.

School administrators: Bullying occurs in ALL schools, especially at the elementary and middle school levels. Take a proactive stance by developing a program aimed at stamping out bullying behavior. Senn’s book is a great resource for this approach, and there are many more resources on the Internet. I will write more about programs for intervention in the next article. It’s been several months now, and Ariel is doing well. Her grades are back up. The school doesn’t get any credit, though. It all goes to Ariel and her parents. She is basically stable and values herself. She is learning not to let others
who target her turn her into a victim.

Rosemary J. Stauber, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in San Antonio and founding director of the Bexar County Women’s Center.