Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

http://www.slate.com/id/2223976/pagenum/all

by pchristensen • 17 years ago

24 50 17 years ago

Well, I've never been bullied, but if an adult "bullied" me (as an adult) in any serious way, I would refer him to the police within a matter of minutes. This is the proper solution. Any assault on a child should be dealt with legally, and if it means moving a thug to a reform school, then all the better.

bobdole26952• 17 years ago

Right, because criminalizing the behavior of children just starting to understand social dynamics isn't a way out of proportion response.

berntb5• 17 years ago

I'm far from an expert, but that was naive. You missed that part about bullies often having problems in school, didn't you?

Generally, you want to stop the bullying for one of the same reasons you want to stop rapes -- it damages the lives of many victims. But you also want to catch this, because the bully often needs help.

Edit: I don't really have an opinion on when/if the police should get involved. It probably depends on bow fscked the teacher subculture is.

mynameishere2• 17 years ago

So...free pass then. Right, carry on.

You say to the thug, in no uncertain terms, "The next time you do XYZ, the consequences will be a removal from school." And, yes, have the police deal with it because they are actually equipped for such activity, unlike your typical teacher.

...and to be clear, I'm talking about instances of actual assault, and not the vast bulk of things in the category "bullying".

runinit• 17 years ago

As someone who was bullied for the better part of his early school career (kindergarden to grade 6) i'm going to have to say that if a group of kids cant understand that gang beating someone is wrong, they deserve to be put in a special school.

talvisota2• 17 years ago

Kids are really good at low-level social dynamics. They know the balance and go with the flow. That's how bullying often is so successful. For a bully, only limiting factors are fear of punishment and disapproval by peers.

If making bullying a legal case is the only way left to proceed, any parent should just go ahead, and take it as far as necessary. Sometimes it's just the school administration who need a kick in their collective ass to actually do something about it. At the far end, it's the bully himself who is in need of that kick.

You are assuming that somebody wants to make things out of proportion. Is it out of proportion, for example, to call police if your kid has been beaten or robbed on the way home? You can't be seriously claiming that to protect the fragile worldview of the thugs/thieves you should sacrifice the one of the victim?

philwelch4• 17 years ago

Like prison guards, school authorities and the police won't protect anyone from bullies. So, just as if you were in prison, you have to respond to bullies yourself.

bonsaitree• 17 years ago

Applying adult standards to child behavior is so fraught with flaws, I don't even know where to begin.

Suffice it to say that, with near universal applicability, all human societies throughout recorded history have made clear distinctions between the boundaries of acceptable social behavior (and punishments for breaching these boundaries) for children and adults.

There's also quite a large accumulated body of modern scientific measurements which suggests that children and early teenagers lack the sufficiently streamlined cerebral pathways (pre-puberty) which would allow them to make the social judgment calls and impulse control to both avoid being a bully and/or a bullied victim. In both roles, they can not balance the short-term costs against the long-term consequences.

You also make a gross assumption about the training and responsiveness of a local police force to situations involving minors in the custody of a school. Baring extreme violence, a history of criminal behavior, or property damage, in most municipalities, this is the fiduciary responsibility of the public school district. For private institutions, a specific set of liability clauses and insurance is part of the enrollment contract.

imgabe2• 17 years ago

It's been a while since I was in school, but I haven't been out so long that I'd be naive enough to think that a child whose parent is leading a school-wide crusade against bullying would be LESS of a target for bullies.

sethg5• 17 years ago

ISTM that if you're in a school where not-bullying is seen as the crusade of one individual parent, rather than an issue that a group of concerned parents and teachers are working on together, then the school culture already has serious problems.

imgabe2• 17 years ago

Almost by definition, bullying is a problem that affects a minority of students. I'm not saying this to imply that it isn't a serious problem, just that it's sometimes difficult to get parents involved in their own children's education, let alone involved with an issue that isn't affecting their kids directly.

ams6110• 17 years ago

My son put a quick halt to a bullying situation by responding in kind. Luckily the school was enlightened enough to consider the matter closed at that point.

barrkel2• 17 years ago

Quote from article:

> Some readers will now be eager to share stirring success stories that prove standing up to a bully really does work

ryanwaggoner6• 17 years ago

Yes, because they anticipated people countering their hollow and completely unfounded advice with real-world experience to the contrary, we should discount anyone with an opinion based on fact and personal knowledge of the subject.

ryanwaggoner6• 17 years ago

Sorry, but this article is total bullshit. Here's why:

They list four possible responses to your child being bullied, including standing up to the bully, ignoring and avoiding the bully, involving the parents of the bully, or involving the teacher/school. They state that these are all likely to be ineffective.

That said, their problem with kids standing up to bullies isn't that it's ineffective, though they paint it that way, but rather that your kid probably won't do so if you tell them to, because if they had the guts to do so, they wouldn't be targets of bullying in the first place.

Their preferred "solution" is to have a conversation with the child and brainstorm ideas and strategies, which essentially come down to: a) avoiding the bully, b) involving the teachers and school. So essentially a mix of two of the strategies they discounted at the beginning of the article.

No evidence or data is presented to back up any of the points. The author even invokes mockery of readers with evidence (albeit anecdotal) that standing up to bullies works.

Feels like we're teaching these kids victimhood and to look to someone else to get them out of a rough spot, instead of having enough confidence and self-respect to stand up for themselves.

pchristensen2• 17 years ago

The key to the solution is for the kid to come up with something. You want the kid to feel some power over the situation, some ability to help themselves and change the context, so they no longer fit the victim profile anymore.

The last paragraph links to a sidebar full of sites with more information and research.

tptacek2• 17 years ago

Whatever else you may have to say about how this is "total bullshit", this article isn't the standard half-educated reporter writing whatever comes in their head for The Guardian. Alan Kazdin has more scholar hits in his field than anyone commenting here has for theirs.

You're right that there's not a lot of data in the article that backs up his point, but you'll be wrong if you follow that logic to the conclusion you seem to want to take it to.

ryanwaggoner6• 17 years ago

I stand by what I wrote. His position may be backed by reams of data and rigorous scientific study, but this article is bullshit, for three reasons:

1. None of that data is presented.

2. He leverages mockery to preemptively discredit people with real-world experience that disagrees with his position, despite offering no evidence, experience, or data of his own. Come on, linking to a standard response that someone who disagrees with him can use to come up with their own formulaic response? Clear anti-intellectual mockery, and hardly the mark of a rigorous scholar.

3. His logical process as presented in this article makes absolutely no sense, particularly with regard to why telling your kid to stand up for themselves is a bad idea.

To repeat an analogy I used in another comment: this is like saying that you shouldn't advise someone whose website just got hacked to secure their app, because they got hacked because they didn't follow proper security protocol, and are therefore unlikely to follow your advice.

To accept the article as a well-written and well-argued piece on the proper response to bullying, just because the author is a leading scholar in his field is just a bizarre kind of reverse ad hominem.

Edit: reworded a few things

kingkawn2• 17 years ago

Not saying everyone can do this, but; My grade school friend was being bullied. He asked people's advice on what to do, they said 'don't be violent, just talk to an adult, talk to your parents, and they'll help you resolve this.' He went to his mother, she told him to beat the kid up or learn to live with being treated like shit. He beat up both the kid and his friends by himself. I still laugh thinking about it.

pchristensen2• 17 years ago

Was your friend's name Charles Norris?

inovica• 17 years ago

Great story but it doesn't work for everyone. I actually took this approach and because I was big enough it worked. My own child has a different temperament to me and would not do this. The child who goes up against the bully and loses, ends up being deeper in the cycle of bullying because he feels powerless. I don't have an answer - as everyone is different - I'm just pointing out that the above only works for some people

kingkawn2• 17 years ago

I did start my story with that same caveat. And I think the moral was that relying on adults to guide you through this process is not always preferable.

mdakin3• 17 years ago

The time-honored assumption is that if your child cleans a bully's clock once...he'll leave your child alone. It would be nice if life worked this way...but it usually doesn't.

This is inconsistent with my personal experience. I would like to know how the author drew this conclusion. Granted I might be a special case. For my size (small) I have always been quite strong/athletic. For my general demeanor (sweet/calm) I have always had the capacity for fearless action and rage even when provoked. And despite being generally peaceful and nonviolent I had martial-arts training from a very young age. I also knew I'd never get into trouble with my parents for "finising" a fight. (Though starting one would be a different matter.) (I've never started a physical fight in my entire life.)

In my experience a bully would start by pushing or shoving or punching the shoulder. Nothing particularly vicious. But a vicious response (bloody or broken nose, black eye) solved the problem quite fast.

These tactics worked well in the urban scruff in and around Boston where I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Fights were always one-on-one matters (relative to a gang attack, multiple-on-one). I don't know if this works in a gang-type situation.

The author pre-discounts my data-point. Which I think is a bogus tactic. I'd like to see his data. I admit mine is anecdotal. I bet his is too.

ryanwaggoner6• 17 years ago

The author isn't even really making the argument that this won't be effective, but just that your kid won't do it:

One hallmark of a bully is a sophisticated ability to pick victims who won't put up a fight. When you urge your child to stand up to a bully, you're asking him to do something that the bully already figured out he was unlikely to do. That's why the bully picked him in the first place. Bullies tend to choose victims who are socially withdrawn, seem anxious or fearful, are nervous in new situations, or have some physical characteristic that might make them more vulnerable.

What makes me angry is that the author is essentially arguing that the kid should continue to be vulnerable and passive, rather than stand up for themselves.

If bullies tend to pick on people who are unlikely to fight back, you should fight back so they'll move on to an easier target.

Analogy: this is like saying that you shouldn't advise someone whose website just got hacked to secure their app, because they got hacked because they didn't follow proper security protocol, and are therefore unlikely to follow your advice.

mdakin3• 17 years ago

Agreed. It seems he believes the children have Dweckian fixed/entity mindset. And that would be a very bad thing for a psychologist to believe.

berntb5• 17 years ago

>> I'd like to see [the author's] data. I admit mine is anecdotal. I bet his is too.

Sigh, just Google his name: www.yale.edu/psychology/FacInfo/Kazdin.html

Edit: I am also stupid. :-) Just check the end of the article.

"Alan E. Kazdin, who was president of the American Psychological Association in 2008, is John M. Musser professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale University and director of Yale's Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic. Carlo Rotella is director of American studies at Boston College."

mdakin3• 17 years ago

He has written over 600 papers and 40 books. Perhaps his data about the efficacy of standing up to bullies is somewhere buried in that writing. But it's not obvious at all that it is given your Google search. I'm not particularly interested in his background or qualifications. I want to see the actual data that substantiates his thesis quoted above.

fauigerzigerk5• 17 years ago

That's a very strange account of how bullying works. The impression I get from what people tell me and situations I have witnessed is that the lonely male bully described here is a very rare exception.

The typical situation is a group of people led by a smaller sub-group acting against an individual in pretty obvious ways. The victim is sidelined and ridiculed openly so everybody knows. Teachers always know.

The authors describe the bully as some kind of genius who always selects the right victims and always chooses occasions wisely. That's complete nonsense.

People who become victims are completely random. Take any closed situation where people can't leave at will, like schools, military camps, prisons, the workplace, and anyone can be made a victim. No need for the bullies to choose wisely.

There's just no way anyone can defend himself against a socially dominant group who decides to bully them. The only right way to react is to leave instantly. Victims can be harmed for life if left in a situation like that. That's what I learned from someone very close to me who was a victim of bullying and researched the whole thing extensively later.

If you have kids who are being bullied, just take them away from the bullies immediately!

philwelch4• 17 years ago

"People who become victims are completely random. Take any closed situation where people can't leave at will, like schools, military camps, prisons, the workplace, and anyone can be made a victim. No need for the bullies to choose wisely."

This is patently untrue: it's always some particular subgroup that's bullied. School bullies usually target smaller kids, "nerdy" kids, or unpopular kids with poor social skills. Prison bullies usually target small, young, white prisoners who are not members of prison gangs.

fauigerzigerk5• 17 years ago

I think you are wrong, but I guess we'll need some statistics to resolve that one.

However, the point I was trying to make has nothing to do with the share of nerds among the victims. The point is that it's unnecessary to select particularly weak people because anyone targeted by a determined group of bullies becomes weak and most of the time there's no way to turn the situation around.

It's a mistake to think that anyone could be strong enough to do that, nerd or not.

sethg5• 17 years ago

I don't think the authors are claiming that bullies are geniuses. You don't need to be a genius to know who you can get away with bullying. You just need to know that if you abuse X then the only people who might witness the abuse are people who are highly unlikely to snitch.

fauigerzigerk5• 17 years ago

There are way too many witnesses for that argument to hold water. Usually everyone knows who is being bullied and who is doing the bullying.

When confronted the bullies will present a long list of reasons why the victim deserves to be a victim. Of course violent attacks are kept semi private if you can call it that considering those "happy slapping" pics that are being posted on the internet and sent to people's phones en-masse.

talvisota2• 17 years ago

Many of the commenters here seem not to understand the setup: when a bullying "relationship" has been established, it already has become a difficult issue.

Standing up against a bully works - but only when it is a fair show of balance of power. Let it be sophisticated or vulgar. If this doesn't happen very soon after supposed bullying starts, it is probably not going to happen. And if the resistance works, where is the bullying here?

It can be observed that even in this flow of comments it is not seen that a shy kid is entitled to life without bullying. By not cutting off the bullying, you're raising the shy kid into accepting that yeah, he truely is a victim, and nothing can be done. It's a jungle, live with it. "Civilization" is just a word, "justice" is a joke, and "human rights" just an invention of a twisted mind. The only way left to put things back in balance for a tormented kid is by getting a gun and showing everybody the exact reason why everybody should have some kind of elementary respect to each other.

People, kids, do have different temperaments. The mind is not tabula rasa. You can't tell a shy kid "stand up and show them" and expect it to happen or have any effect.

It is completely useless to offer solutions which apply only to those who don't really have problems.

abecedarius• 17 years ago

How hard might it be to catch a bully in the act with a hidden mike or a friend with a cellphone or some such? That sort of thing was completely impractical in my day -- I'm not sure what tools kids have now.

sethg5• 17 years ago

I suppose it's worth trying, although the victim may not be so keen on having his or her own victimization recorded for posterity.

I have also heard that among girls, one common form of bullying these days is to pretend to be the victim's friend long enough to get some embarrassing confidential information, and then spread that information around. Modern technology makes that kind of sting a lot easier.

Bullies can be stopped, but it takes a village

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