I work with bullies. I work with kids being bullied.
I work with parents who are bullies. I work with parents who were bullied.
It’s out of control. In a serious, life-threatening way.
It’s not the bullying of days gone by. I’m only 29, and the bullying that happens today is about 1,000,000 times worse than “my day.” When I felt bullied, it was because someone said I smelled like tuna fish. This may or may not have led to a life-long fear of smelling like tuna fish, but it did not lead to suicide. It did not lead to dreading school, avoiding others, self-isolation, and self-loathing. At worst, it caused me tears and a whole lot of jars in Baby Soft perfume (love that stuff). I don’t mean to belittle any experience with bullying in the past, it is all stressful, but I do believe it is a different beast these days.
A lot of the parents I work with assume that when I talk about bullying, I mean relatively harmless interactions between kids. They throw our sayings like “boys will be boys,” or “that’s how they learn how to toughen up.” I don’t believe that anything about today’s bullying is harmless. In fact, I hestitate to call it bullying- because it is frequently more like terrorizing. And it isn’t just high school. It’s middle school. It’s elementary school.
This changing world of ours allows kid to be in constant contact with one another. I have kids who are in third and fourth grade with cell phones! Why? Just in case. Of what, I’m not sure. Kids who have access to laptops, computers, and iPads. Kids who see too much, hear too much, and are exposed to too much. Bullying is happening earlier because kids are “growing up” earlier, but they can’t handle it. Because they aren’t meant to hear and see so much from the adult world. Pleeease parents, do not let your kids have unsupervised time on the internet.
Bullying is becoming terrorizing because kids can no longer escape it. Social media, internet, phones. They are all connected all the time. It’s easier to hide. It’s easier to be anonymous if you are the one doing the bullying. Being connected all the time isn’t healthy for anyone, much less children who don’t have the ability to distinguish the internet world from reality, nor the established self-esteem to be able to withstand negative comments.
There is no one magic answer for bullying to disappear. Unfortunately. I think much of what it will take is everyone (not just parents, not just teachers, everyone) to be tuned in to what is happening. If a child is complaining of being picked on- this isn’t a time to let it go. If you have kids, know who their friends are. Often times kids will explain their friends, only to find out that their “friends” are bullies or unfriendly kids. Humans do not necessarily come hard-wired to understand what a good friend is – lots of kids assume that any attention means that someone is a friend (or even a best! friend! ever! omg!). Also? Bullying does not happen only if your kid is “different” or gay, or has red hair. It can happen to any kid.
I cannot stress enough how strongly I feel about this, because I see the fall-out every day. Now, we all see it in the news, with multiple suicides from teenagers and new laws being produced around online bullying. As adults in the world, we need to pay attention to this. We need to unplug OURselves and plug in to the youth, to our kids. Before it’s too late.
I can only imagine how a child growing up in today's world feels: when I was bullied 20 years ago, things were so different. My son is not even two years old, and I already see him being bullied by his five year old cousin. It is horrifying, and these are the interactions that we know about! What is being said when no one is listening? Thanks for your insight.
I asked two third graders in an after school class what they wanted for Christmas and it was I phones, I pads, Juicy purses and a diet plan so they could look like Kim Kardashian.
I wish I was kidding.
Media and technology is eroding childhood!
I was bullied hard core from grades 3-8. Bad. As in I have very few memories of the days because when I start to remember, I get shaky and scared and sick to my stomach. I *do* remember being in 4th grade and praying desperately to die. That continued for 4 years.
Now with 3 kids it's my biggest fear, and we try our darndest to keep our kids as 'innocent' as we can. We try to keep them to truly age appropriate stuff. We just started watching (some carefully selected) PG movies WITH our daughter, who will be turning 9 in a couple weeks. She and her 6 year old sister play Polly Pockets, watch only PBS and Qubo (we have no cable, Qubo is a great family/kid station). There's no need for the internet much, and certainly not any social sites.
They don't seem to be missing out on much (although even my 9 year old is asking for an iPad, but that's just to play Angry Birds!) I know I can't protect them forever, but I can try!!
When I was in high school, a certain girl threw paper at me, always written with some sort of horrible phrase on it. "You're a loser." "No one likes you." But I had my friends, and it didn't bother me until one day I got this, "I'm gonna kick your a$$." Then I went to my Mom. I used to call my mom "The Tiger" behind her back, because when it came to defending someone, something, ANYthing….she had a tendency to get a bit carried away. 🙂 This was the first time I was cheering her on. I may have still got dirty looks, but the bullying stopped. My Mom didn't say, "Well, defend yourself, honey. Toughen up." She's my MOM, and her job was to make sure I was safe. I think more and more parents are unprepared and are too skittish about getting themselves involved. If this happens to Cari, I would rather cause her embarrassment by being too "in" her life, than cause her irreparable damage by standing by when she needs my help. I agree technology plays a role. Unplug from the computer, plug into your family. Good for you, Jenn, for tackling a tough subject!!
Excellent post! I had to deal with a few girls when I was in high school. I was a freshman and they were juniors. I so hope they are raising their children to be the same way. I can only imagine how much worse it could have been "now".
Wow… the horror stories you must hear. I feel for those kids. No, I hurt for those kids because they are being terrorized way too early in life. Because I'm kind of egomaniacal, one thing to note, bullying doesn't stop when one grows up. At least for me. I have daily battles with the bullies at my office. They make me want to crawl under the covers for weeks. They trigger nightly PTSD outbursts. Bullies are bullies from cradle to grave it seems.
Thanks, everybody. I hope we can all continue to bring awareness to this epidemic.
@Rachel, I agree that it can totally carry over into adulthood. My hope is that adults can access more resources than children to help(though I know this is not always true). Thinking of you!
My younger son gets picked on occasionally. He seems pretty resilient about it now but I am constantly monitoring, asking questions, etc. because he is headed to middle school next year and I fear it will get much worse. I hope I'm wrong on that.