Springfield, Massachusetts-April of 2009: 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hanged himself in his home. Northampton, Massachusetts-January of 2010: 15-year-old Phoebe Prince hanged herself in the stairwell of her apartment building. On May 12, 2010…just a few weeks ago, Alex Moore of Jemison, Alabama jumped from an overpass…another teen suicide.
Aside from their early deaths, these kids have one thing in common: they were all bullied at school. According to SacBee.com, bullying has become a more centralized issue since Prince’s suicide in January. Since then, Massachusetts has passed a law making bullying illegal, as reported by MyFoxBoston.com.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA) website defined bullying as “…One or more persons repeatedly [saying] or [doing] hurtful things to another person who has problems defending himself or herself.”
"Bullying is a very serious problem in schools, but teachers rarely see it," said Alicia Gleed, an Art teacher at Fairfield Junior High School. According to SAMHSA: “40 to 75 percent of bullying takes place during breaks…in the corridors, at recess, or in…bathrooms.”
Gleed agreed, “Most bullying happens in the hallways, away from the scrutiny of teachers.”
The newest forum for bullying is online. According to MyFoxBoston.com, Phoebe Prince was harassed online as well as at school. This form of harassment has been dubbed “cyber-bullying.”
While teachers would like be there to help their students, Gleed said there are limits to what they can do. “At this point, cyber-bullying needs to be controlled by the parents. It has to be the parents.”
Many people wonder why teachers don’t do more to help kids when they’re having trouble with other students.
“We [teachers] are in education to help kids, it’s hard to look at my students and think about them being bullied. I want to be there for them, but unless they report it, there’s nothing I can do,” Gleed stated.
When asked why she thinks kids don’t report bullying more often: “If the kid is more introverted, they won’t report the problem in order to keep attention off themselves,” Gleed said, “But then there’s the opposite problem, those kids that will “cry wolf” on a regular basis in order to get more attention. But we still try to investigate every case. I sometimes worry that those quieter kids that are having the most trouble are being overpowered by those that make a big deal out of every little thing.”
SAMHSA concurred with this view, dividing victims into two categories: passive and proactive. Passive victims are the most common, quiet, sensitive, and have poor self confidence. Proactive victims tend to act out more. They’re clumsier, immature, and may themselves try to bully students that are weaker than they are.
Student witnesses also face a difficult internal dilemma in deciding whether or not to report bullying. “Kids see more than teachers do, but sometimes they don’t recognize it as bullying, or even if they do they’ll think: ‘If I get involved in this, then I’m going to get bullied,’” said Gleed.
Bullies are often thought to be shy kids trying to cover up their insecurities. However, according to SAMHSA’s website, studies show that bullies have unusually high or about average self confidence. They will also show aggression towards adults, have a marked need to dominate other students, and tend to have a talent for talking themselves out of difficult situations.
“The kids are getting more and more vicious,” said Gleed, “I don’t want to stereotype everyone, but there are a lot of cases where it starts at home. It’s a fine line in parenting, supporting your kids without enabling.”
According to SAMHSA, it can be very difficult for parents to discover or acknowledge that their child is a bully. But there are signs that parents can watch for in their kids to see if they need to look into a situation more closely.
For more information about how to recognize if a child is being bullied or doing the bullying, SAMHSA’s website offers a wealth of information:
http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/SVP-0052/#four
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