Stomp Out Bullying: A Team Approach to Bullying
Your second grade daughter misses getting her picture taken due to a doctor’s appointment. Her teacher instructs her to accompany a fourth grade class who is just heading down to get their photos taken. She does so, but as she is leaving the photo session, she accidentally gets turned around. Several of the older boys point, giggle and laugh at her.
Bullying? Not really. Bullying is when an individual repeatedly and on purpose does or says hurtful or mean things to another person. Usually the other person has a hard time defending themselves in the situation. In the example above, the behavior of the boys was definitely inappropriate and rude, but not bullying.
Families, neighborhoods and schools need ground rules in place to help prevent and deal with bullying. Many school bullying programs are different from what you may remember as a student yourself. Gone are the days when bully prevention falls squarely on the shoulders of teachers or other school staff. Today, everyone is encouraged to get involved: school staff, students and even the community. Steve Brown, Blue Springs School District Emergency Services director, explains, “Dealing with bullying takes a team effort between schools, parents and the community.”
Even though bullying still encompasses some of the “typical” forms that usually come to mind, such as lunch money being wrestled out of the hands of a younger/smaller student, physically picking a fight and verbal harassment, there are other forms that are being addressed today. How about being repeatedly left off of the team or chosen last? What about name calling? And of course, cyber-bullying.
In a few short weeks schools across Kansas City will dismiss for the summer. That means our children will be in day camps, at the pool and in the neighborhood. Bullying, however, doesn’t take a vacation.
That’s where families and communities come in. One Lee’s Summit mom, who has been dealing with the bullying of her middle school child this year, believes that parents, not schools, have the main responsibility to thwart bullying behaviors. “I know there are circumstances where parents try their hardest, and the child still willfully disobeys,” she said. “But too often, parents don’t seem to be involved deeply enough to help their child work through conflict appropriately.”
As adults, we can show our children, by example, how to treat other people. If we each put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, we can begin to understand how it feels to always be left out, or be the student no one wants to hang with. Maybe we can even begin to understand “the bully” who, we may find out, is having a very hard time at home, or maybe has an undiagnosed illness or disability that is extremely frustrating to deal with. Let’s work to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
Sandy Brooks and her husband live in Lee’s Summit with their two children.