Back-to-school: What you need to know about bullying

Did you know that 66 percent of school-aged children are teased?Bullying has become a real problem – not just in schools, but in communities too. Dr. Manny Alvarez, senior managing health editor of FoxNews.com, sat down with Dr. Lori Evans, a psychologist from New York University Medical Center, and Lis Wiehl, a Fox News analyst and attorney, to discuss the issues involved with bullying.

Evans said bullying can start at very young ages – even kids in kindergarten are bullying.”It’s a club – but you can’t be a part of it,” she said, as way of an example.”If I tease you, and you tease me back, then we’re equal – and that’s not bullying. But if someone has status, power or clout – then you’ve reached the realm of bullying.”Wiehl said bullying resembles the legal definition of harassment, where there has to be a difference in equality and power.She explained how several years ago, her son came home from school and was not acting like himself.When prompted, Wiehl’s son explained he had been …

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WHEN BULLYING OCCURS IN CHURCHES

Bullying is using force to compel a person to do something against their will or to punish rather than correct. It does not aim for the good of the person. It aims to control or to harm.

Despite recent attention on bullying and developing strategies to address it – in schools and in the workplace – very little is being said about bullying in churches. But bullying in churches is very real. Attention to the dynamics of bullying will raise awareness of its prevalence in communal life and help guard against it.

1. The Abusive Use of Knowledge

Bullying cannot occur without the use of force or the exercise of power. In Christian circles such force or power is often expressed as knowledge. Those who are ‘right’ are those with influence within the church group.

Certain characteristics of our theological tradition feed this dynamic. Our faith is grounded in history; we believe on the basis of revelation and we experience the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. These characteristics of our faith bring us certainty and confidence. How do we express our convictions? Usually with vigour!

The difficulty with possessing knowledge is not the knowledge itself but the way it is communicated to others. When knowledge is used to dominate people it is a form of bullying. The church bully is the one for whom the aphorism ‘knowledge is power’ is a working reality.

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When A Public School Becomes the Bully

Happy Mother’s Day 2013

Help Yourself with our Helping Hand!

We expect our schools to keep our children safe from bullies. But what should parents do when their assigned government school becomes the bully?

That’s what happened to the parents of Eileen Parkman, a Hawaiian second-grader who courageously stood up to several fifth-grade boys who were kicking and stomping a defenseless autistic child as he was curled up in the fetal position. The bullies then set their sights on Eileen, whom they threw to the ground and stepped on. The Maui Autism Center gave her an award for her bravery, but the boys continued to hit and kick her and throw balls at her face on several subsequent occasions. School officials at Kamali’i Elementary in Maui were apparently unable to stop the bullying, so Eileen’s parents decided to pull her out of the dangerous environment.

That’s when the school officials became bullies themselves:

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Bullying victim wants to stop the violence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NILES, Mich. — Some victims of bullying lash out in acts of violence. Some take their own life. Some, like Caleb Alkire, speak out about what has happened to him in hopes of getting his message to other victims.

Caleb Alkire is a just a normal twelve-year-old boy. He’s got a strong arm and a solid basketball shot.

He’s also a victim of bullying.

“One incident where my head got slammed into the window of the bus, and sometimes everyday people will trip me. Another incident where they kept on kicking me,” said Caleb.

Photos from his mother’s cell phone show the physical toll it has taken.

She’s more worried about the emotional one.

“You have either the suicide or you have he’s going to strike out in violence. He’s going to blow. He’s going to have enough. He’s going to snap and I refuse to have my child even close to either one of those things,” said Kassie Alkire, Caleb’s mom.

She and her husband are actively involved in helping Caleb cope.

He attends Oak Manor Sixth Grade Center, a school of 250 kids, all trying to find friends and hold their own in the hallways.

“I feel like I’m the only one getting bullied in my hallway,” said Caleb.

Principal Molly Brawley wants Caleb to know he’s not the only one.

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Teachers Who Bully

The problem of teachers bullying students is more common than you think. Learn how to prevent your child from becoming a victim.

In recent years, a slew of books have offered parents ample insight into the minds of young bullies.

But what if it’s the teacher who screams, threatens, or uses biting sarcasm to humiliate a child in front of the class?

Teacher bullying gets little attention, say Stuart Twemlow, MD, a psychiatrist who directs the Peaceful Schools and Communities Project at the Menninger Clinic in Houston. But his new study, published in The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, hints that the problem may be more common than people believe.

In his anonymous survey of 116 teachers at seven elementary schools, more than 70% said they believed that bullying was isolated. But 45% admitted to having bullied a student. “I was surprised at how many teachers were willing to be honest,” Twemlow says.

He defines teacher bullying as “using power to punish, manipulate, or disparage a student beyond what would be a reasonable disciplinary procedure.”

Twemlow, a former high school teacher, insists that he’s not trying to denigrate a praiseworthy — and often beleaguered — profession. “This is not being done to victimize or criticize teachers. There are a few bad apples, but the vast majority of teachers go beyond the call of duty. They’re very committed and altruistic.”

Nevertheless, bullying is a risk, he says. When Twemlow quizzed subjects about bullying, “Some teachers reported being angry at being asked the question,” he writes. “But more reflective teachers realized that bullying is a hazard of teaching.”

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Long troubled by school bullying, Japan now eyes zero tolerance

Japanese responded to record numbers of severe bullying cases last year, prompting a national outcry and calls for legislation. But a proposed bill doesn’t address schools’ intense culture of conformity, critics say.

TOKYO

After months of relentless bullying at the hands of three classmates, 13-year-old Hiroki issued what must have seemed like an empty threat to his tormentors. “I’m going to die,” he told them in a text message. “You should die,” was their response.

In the month before his death, verbal taunts escalated into punching and kicking; his arms and legs were bound and his mouth taped. He was made to eat dead bees, shoplift, and even “rehearse” his own death. When his teachers were finally informed, they issued only a verbal warning.

Soon after, the teenager, identified in the media only by his first name, jumped to his death from the 14th floor of an apartment building in Otsu, western Japan, in October 2011.

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Bullying Prevention at School

Bullying can threaten students’ physical and emotional safety at school and can negatively impact their ability to learn. The best way to address bullying is to stop it before it starts. There are a number of things school staff can do to make schools safer and prevent bullying.

Getting Started

Assess school prevention and intervention efforts around student behavior, including substance use and violence. You may be able to build upon them or integrate bullying prevention strategies. Many programs help address the same protective and risk factors that bullying programs do.

Assess Bullying in Your School

Conduct assessments in your school to determine how often bullying occurs, where it happens, how students and adults intervene, and whether your prevention efforts are working.

Engage Parents and Youth

It is important for everyone in the community to work together to send a unified message against bullying. Launch an awareness campaign to make the objectives known to the school, parents, and community members. Establish a school safety committee or task force to plan, implement, and evaluate your school’s bullying prevention program.

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Bullied Boy Saved from Hurricane Raging Inside

As part of our continuing series “Assignment America,” Steve Hartman takes a look at bullying in America, and speaks to a victim of bullying – and the bullier, who has had a change of heart.

Bullying has become epidemic in this country.

Two out of 10 schoolkids say they’ve been attacked physically. Three out of 10 say the bullying was more taunting or teasing.

Steve Hartman heard from not only from a bullying victim but from the boy who bullied him.

ATLANTA – Like the outside of the private school he attended, Zachary Jamison had an impressive facade. Always smiling in every picture he took even though, for most of junior high, what Jamison really felt was tortured by just about all the kids in his class at the America Heritage Academy outside Atlanta.

Jacob Cordero was one of them.

“Very sad because I had been part of the making fun of him and leaving him out,” Cordero said.

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Grafton High employees say they tried to stop bullying!

The Bully Project

Stand for the Silent (Facebook)

StandfortheSilent.org

 Did Grafton High School administrators do enough to stop the bullying of a student who committed suicide?

That was the focus of testimony Wednesday in York-Poquoson Circuit Court where a jury continued to listen to evidence in a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit that alleges four Grafton High employees failed to stop the bullying of student Christian Taylor, who committed suicide May 31, 2010.

Taylor’s mother, Alise Williams, filed the lawsuit in July 2010. The lawsuit names former Grafton High Principal Paul Hopkins, former Assistant Principal Craig Reed, current Assistant Principal Karen Fahringer and current Guidance Counselor Joseph Erfe as defendants.

Two students and friends of Taylor testified that on the day of his death, Taylor didn’t display any obvious signs of emotional distress and didn’t tell anyone that he was feeling suicidal.

Kendra Lowder testified that she and another friend found Taylor hanging in his bedroom closet with a dog leash around his neck. Taylor didn’t leave a note.

Lowder said Taylor became depressed after enduring bullying at school. Even after school administrators moved the group of alleged bullies to another table in the cafeteria, Lowder said the group would still walk by Taylor and make mean comments.

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“For the Silent”