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A revised form: I have realized that the form on page 120 of the first edition and 114 in the first printing of the Research Press edition- the letter home from the principal- could be clearer. To get the form to fit on one 6x9 inch page I originally wound up compressing the layout, and lost the space in which the principal writes a narrative about the student's behavior. Click here to see a revised version of that form in pdf format..
M.D. writes:
" Thus far, it's been the most sensible book I've ever read on the subject. I have, however, gotten to your comments on the "reactive victim", and I think
you're overlooking a possibility there. I would certainly have been classed as a "reactive victim" as a 12-year-old in eighth grade, and possibly later on
as well. While PTSD may have played some part in that, it was in large measure a conscious decision, a last-ditch coping mechanism adopted in
desperation.
I reasoned that there were two kinds of bullying, physical and non-physical.
I knew I must not show any reaction to physical pain, but no one had ever forbidden me to react to non-physical bullying, or even discouraged me from
doing so. So I thought that, since what they seemed to want was a reaction, if I gave them a satisfactory reaction at the least little thing, then they
would not keep on probing until they found something to say that really hurt, and they might not even hit me as often.
The downside of this, of course, was that I did look rather silly to the
teachers, wailing, "Stop it! STOP IT!" whenever the other kids chanted "M. eats cornflakes for breakfast!" at me in a sing-song. And it
didn't work as well as it might have, because I found that eventually I started actually caring about the unimportant things I was making a fuss
about, so that I felt just as bad when they said that, and other silly things of the same kind, as when they made fun of, say, my weight or my clumsiness.
It also didn't seem to help with the physical bullying at all. My best guess
in retrospect is that the physical bullies and the non-physical bullies were entirely different groups of kids, but I couldn't tell at the time.
I'm prosopagnosiac, though I didn't know that when I was a child. That's a
neurological problem which keeps me from being able to recognize people by their faces. So it really did seem to me, as literal truth, that everyone
was bullying me, or at least that I had absolutely no way to predict who would and who wouldn't. I could recognize one bully reliably by sight; all the
others were just Them."
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RTW writes:
"I saw a report about "Stop Bullying Now" on the news just now and I felt extremely compelled to speak my mind on a subject with which I have become too intimately familiar.
I became the object of contempt early in grade school after someone leaked out word about my having a very high IQ test score. Most of the 12 years I spent in parochial grade school and public high school (not to mention my four years in college) were rife with being picked on, getting called names, being mocked anytime I stammered, getting my name attached to the most unpopular girl in the class and being the designated target in games of tag.
Clearly, my biggest regret was failing (or refusing) to ignore my tormentors. But the fact the schoolteachers and administrations refused to correct those who harassed me, and sometimes pinned the blame on me for constantly being picked on surely did not help matters any. It was not uncommon for some of my teachers to call me the same names my classmates hung on me.
Not only that, but in an effort to win acceptance I resorted to disrupting the class by trying to be funny. Ironic, isn't it, that the same kid who got punished for disrupting the class often got picked up on by kids whose deeds often went unpunished?
Stan, this incessant harassment during my formative years has prompted to me recoil into a shell into which I never have recovered. I have poor people skills, do not take criticism as well as I need to, and often have put off doing things for the simple reason that I have become sick of hearing the word "no."
At age 48 I am still single even though I am as heterosexual as many of the guys who picked on me and went on to get married. A lot of that, I'm sure, is rooted in the lack of confidence that resulted from bullying. I have basically lived my entire life scared
Kids don't think of how their peers will wind up when they reach their 20s, let alone beyond. But if it ever occurred to their parents that bullying can ruin a kid's life now and for the rest of his of her life, maybe the parents would do what they must to discourage such asinine conduct.
I am living proof that bullying can damage people's lives. I am not out for revenge against my antagonists; the damage already has been done. I would like for our next generation of leaders to become aware of the long-term damage that bullying can cause, try to understand how they might feel if they were bullied, and to do what they must to make bullying as passé as McCarthyism and the Kentucky colonel tie."
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A clear, research-based and helpful curriculum, mixed with excellent recommendations for teacher action; this book comes in two versions, for grades K-5 and 6-8. Highly recommended:
And a new childrens' book:
An addition from Joan Hurdle, community activist, Billings, Montana:
"Bullying is like many of the other problems in our current society in that
it reflects inability to put oneself in another's place, to understand how others might feel. This can be taught of course, but the lesson often
doesn't take if the learner is damaged and hurt to the point of aggressive rage.
Bullies must get "over on" others and is closely related to what is too often considered to be "normal" male aggressiveness.
Much male
aggressiveness has gone way past normal in our violence-prone society and we don't do anyone any favors with a "boys will be boys" attitude. While not
all men are overly aggressive, nearly all women are potential victims. A few
women and girls even imitate the aggressor in their own actions, becoming aggressive bullies themselves and a few become aggressive criminals.
Nevertheless excessive aggressiveness is a male attribute, and one that is too often excused..
By ignoring the underlying sexism in bullying, we fail to deal with it. This is a man's world. Even in elementary schools , boys and girls are often
required to line up in separate lines. A teacher wishing to discipline a little boy will often threaten him with having to line up in the "girls
line," a potentially demeaning threat. A boy certainly wouldn't want to line up with girls, the apparent lowliest in school society and the most frequent
victims of both bullying and school murders.
Women and girls can count on the support of a few good men, and have done so since men gave women the right to vote in 1920. Now we need good men to help
us take an honest look at the underlying sexism in bullying, and get over
the idea that this is a problem originating equally with boys and girls. We've had enough of tough, macho maleness so glorified in our entire culture.
Its time to honor gentility, empathy and caring, natural female attributes.
Some women joke that the whole world is suffering from testosterone poisoning. Like many jokes, that is painfully close to the truth. Face it."
Comment from Stan Davis:
For more information about gender issues in bullying, see below.
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Bus rules and consequences: click here to see this
document in pdf format. A
transportation director and I set up and are piloting this set of rules and
consequences for bus behavior. You are welcome to use it as a starting point for
your rules. I welcome your thoughts.
Stan Davis, June '04
Bullying Survey:click
here to see this document in pdf format. While not giving as
much data as the more scientific Olweus Bullying Survey, this survey (developed
with a K-12 school system I have been working with) is easy to use and gives
data about bullying by grade and by location. You are welcome to use it, with
credit; I would
appreciate your comments and suggestions. It is in pdf format.
Stan Davis, June '04
click
here to see this document in pdf format.
I welcome your comments on this document. Please feel free to share it with
others.
I asked outgoing fifth graders at the James H. Bean
School to write to all the staff about what staff had done that they
appreciated. These students were in Kindergarten the year after we started our
bullying prevention program. All sixty of the students wrote letters. Many
comments appeared in more than one letter. The students said:
WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THE STAFF HERE BECAUSE YOU:
"Always said 'hi'. That made me feel safe.
Helped me.
Asked what was wrong.
Taught me kindness and generosity.
Helped me make friends.
Made sure I understood what I was learning.
When kids were mean, you taught them to be nice.
Told me what what I did wrong, in a nice way.
Encouraged me.
Helped me learn to read.
Taught me responsibility.
Kept helping until I learned.
Taught us to respect others."
And the most frequent comment: "When I walked down the hall, you smiled at
me."
Stan Davis, 6/04
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A lesson about student motivation:
I met with our three fourth grade classes five times each to
discuss what I learned about human motivation from writing my book. I began by
asking them if they think they should do their schoolwork well, giving it their
best effort. They said yes. Why, I asked. They started telling me why they think
they should try hard. In three separate classes of 21 students each, all the
answers were in two categories:
- reasons having to do with others' reactions to or evaluations of their
effort:: they would make a parent happy (or avoid angering a parent); they would
make a teacher happy; they would get a good grade.
- and reasons having to do with results of that effort. All these results were
at least 6 years in the future: they would do better in high school; they would
get into a better college; they would get a better job.
I sorted these answers into two columns on the board without labeling the
columns. I left a third column blank. What, I asked, did the reasons in each
column have to do with each other? The students identified the common elements
in each column- a focus on others' feelings and reactions for the first column;
a focus on the far future for the second column. Did they, I asked, have any
ideas about what missing reason might go in the third column? None of the 60
students proposed an idea.
I asked students to think of a time when they had given
little effort to a school assignment- when they had done homework quickly and
carelessly, when they had come to a test unprepared because they hadn't studied,
when they had done classwork carelessly and without attention. I called on
students and asked them to describe the assignment, and to describe the way in
which they had used little effort. Then I asked each student who described
working carelessly how he or she had felt during and after the assignment
or test. A few students reported feeling good because they had been able to play
sooner. The vast majority of students reported feeling 'bad." When I gave
them a list of more specific feeling words to choose between, students reported
feeling stupid, ashamed, and angry at themselves.
Then I asked specific students to describe a time when they
had done an assignment or prepared for a test with their full attention- when
they had double-checked their answers, tried different ways to solve problems,
and re-read the questions. After they described the task and their actions, I
asked how they had felt during and immediately after the assignment. Students
reported feeling 'good,' and when I gave a list of options, reported feeling
proud, smart, and content.
Who benefits when they give schoolwork their best effort, I
asked. "We do," they said. "Do you benefit years from now or
right away?" "Right away," they said. I asked them if this was a
new idea for them. To my surprise, all the students said it was. We had an
interesting opportunity to see what results this discussion would have. One of
the three teachers was out sick the day we had our first discussion. I caught up
to her at lunch the next day and asked her if her students had told her about
our conversation about motivation. They had not, she said, but she went on to
tell me that she had set them a difficult writing assignment that morning and
every class member had begun writing when she told them to start and continued
writing and revising until she asked them to stop. This was not the class's
usual pattern.
In the next four meetings we continued to discuss their
observations of how they felt when they gave schoolwork, household chores,
or sports their full effort and concentration. We continued to discuss how
they felt when they worked or played carelessly, without full attention.
Every week they reported that they were finding that their effort and
concentration made them feel happy, smart, and proud- and that their inattention
and carelessness made them feel sad and stupid. At the end of the fifth session,
I asked them to summarize for me what they had learned about learning. They
said:
- When we concentrate and do our best we make ourselves happy;
- Learning is for us; and
- When an assignment or chore is boring, we can make it interesting by giving it
our best attention and effort.
I welcome hearing from you about your explorations on these topics.
Stan Davis, June '04
Steps for school staff to take when witnessing teasing or
harassment
(For use in schools that have a schoolwide behavior response to peer-to-peer
aggression and harassment)
Approach and ask the aggressive student: “What did you just do?” in a calm
voice.
Repeat the question a few times if needed, or say: “And what else?”
Stop after three times or when it is clear the student will say no more.
Tell the student what you saw or heard if he or she does not describe fully.
Thank the person for honesty if he or she does describe what you saw or heard.
Tell the student that what he or she did is against school rules and write (and
submit) a behavior report.
Establish safety for the target. “Him getting in trouble is not your fault. He’s
the one who broke the rules and I’m the one who saw him do it.” If needed,
tell the aggressor there will be severe consequences for further aggression
against target and make safety plan with target.
Return to supervising the area.
(created with participants at the 2004 advanced bullying prevention seminar)
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What about school shootings?
I just finished reading Katherine Newman's excellent book RAMPAGE: The Social Roots of School
Shootings. (Basic Books, February 2004). This book rests on in-depth
interviews at the scene of two school shootings and makes clear, research-based
recommendations for schools. For all of us who have wondered why these shootings
happened and what we can do to prevent them, this book is indispensable.
Counseling
young people who bully- for mental health professionals
(in pdf format)
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Counseling
young people who are bullied- for mental health professionals
(in pdf format)
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New draft of discipline rubric for elementary school (in pdf format)
Description of classes-only
consequence (in pdf format)
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Bullying
and bystander observations from a student in middle school (in pdf format).
The blank diary form this student used is described below.
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In working with young people who want to
move from silent watchers to active defenders, I have found it helpful to have
them write diaries about what they see. This diary
form has helped them focus their observations, and provides material for
discussion when we are training young people to act against bullying.
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Shifts in
language- suggestions for teachers (in pdf format)
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"Some
reasons why kids bully" by Kathy Masarie at Full Esteem Ahead (in
pdf format)
Kathy has given me permission to post this excellent article here. See http://www.fullesteemahead.org
for more about this organization.
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About I-messages:
I am an elementary school counselor and wanted to email my I message story that I had talked to you at the conference about: A 3rd grade boy I was working with told me he had tried an I message with his bullier. "Great!" I said. "What did you say?" He said "I told him I feel sad and angry when you call me a shrimp everyday and I want you to stop." "Great!" I said. "That was just as we had practiced in class. What happened?" He said, "He gave me an I message back. He said,
"I don't care!" See, It never works. Nothing will work."
This was the first time I realized that the I messages that I was teaching the students only worked with two parties that actually care about each others' feelings. I am now implementing an action I message such as "I will/will not ____ when you____" into the elem guidance curriculum.
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From one middle school's student handbook:
"BULLYING
No student should be afraid to go to school because of bullying, and no parent should be worried that their child may be bullied. Bullying is any hurtful or aggressive act toward a person or group of people. Bullying behaviors include hitting, kicking, insults, threats, name-calling, put-downs, spreading rumors, and making fun of people to name a few. Some acts of bullying break laws when they become extortion, battery, sexual harassment or hate behaviors. Bullying is cruel, disrespectful and not allowed at Lincoln Middle School. Any member of the school community should feel free to report bullying without fear of retaliation for reporting. Students who bully others can expect inevitable and escalating consequences.
Please see School Committee policy for Harassment on page XYX for more information."
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Recommended resources about gender, sexual orientation, and social class issues in bullying prevention:
Questions and answers about using rubrics
> Some issues that our committee has encountered have been how to use rubrics and WHEN is something considered
>"bullying." In light of the definition (of bullying) including repeated behavior over time, the committee has
> talked about not sending home our parent communication form until the > second time an incident occurs...using the first
>time as a "warning," since a pattern of behavior is not yet established.
From Stan Davis:
Actually, I have found it better not to call specific actions 'bullying behavior'
, which requires repetition, power imbalance, and intent, but to call it what it is- hitting, exclusion, namecalling, threatening, etc..
We should still be calling sexual, racial, or other legally sanctioned
harassment by those terms because targets of those types of harassment have
legal protections and we have legal obligations. I have found this approach is better for three reasons:
- You may well not know about prior events and so a single event may be an example of repeated behavior.
- Young people, especially those who are gifted at lying and manipulation, may convincingly tell you that they did not intend to
hurt; in addition, power differentials can be hard to see from the adult perspective.
- and most important, I think, parents get very defensive and fight with you when you use the word 'bullying' about their child- seeing it as an
attack on the child's character and thus their parenting. In my experience, you hear: "He didn't mean it," "My child is NOT a bully," "I
know my child wouldn't want to hurt anyone," and "It takes two..." much more often when you use the word "bullying" than when you just describe
the actions ("He hit a student in the stomach." "He called a student
"trailer trash.") I discussed this issue with Dan Olweus, who agrees that we can deal with
a single incident and that, when we consequence peer-to-peer aggression we are consequencing the subset of that aggression that we call bullying.
> We would still call it "bullying behavior," but I think there is some confusion as to whether we should start with the first
>incident on our rubrics, or whether the second incident should start the first
tier of the rubric. (I hope this makes sense.)
> Another question that has been raised is what the consequences are/should be after the third offense has occurred. Does the
> consequence for the third offense remain in place continuously at that point? I have
mentioned to the staff that persistent >violent behaviors should be referred to P/I for assessment and possible
treatment. Is this a good step after a number of >bullying behaviors have been logged? (We talked about this in the intervention for the child who bullied...possible referral, if
>needed).
From Stan Davis: I find that after three incidents in a year is a good time for a
parent/administrator/teacher conference to set up an individual plan for the student- to assess needs and develop a set of consequences, supports, and possibly at home attentional rewards
to help the student meet the same behavior expectations. You will find another rubric draft on my web site, in the book additions page, that goes to five times and outlines this process in more detail.
> We also have some questions about the types of offenses and the rubrics. For instance, if the first logged offense is for
>non-verbal bullying behavior, but the second is for physical bullying behavior
(which likely have different consequences), is >the consequence for the physical incident given as the second offense under physical
bullying behavior, or undert the first >offense for physical bullying because it's the first time physical bullying has occurred?
From Stan: The idea is to have a procedure re: this. I think the best is to consider the second behavior the second offense in its own category (tease and hit= two hits) and leave the option for the administrator to give the kid a break and call it one hit if the teasing was light, some time ago and followed by good behavior, or if there are other circumstances re: the behavior). But most important is finding a protocol for this event that you and your community can support. The size of the consequence is much less important than its consistency from student to student and its inevitability each time. Having consequences that start small and escalate slowly in each category is helpful in many ways- and makes this decision easier and less subject to challenge.
What about bullying and self esteem?
What about bullying and anger management?
These are questions I get asked often. Here's how I see it:
I agree with many people who have written that some of the literature confuses and combines the two main subgroups of bullying youth:
- youth who use aggression for a purpose- to get and maintain power. This subgroup have high self esteem, tend to come from homes that do inconsistent discipline and are low in warmth and parental attention, and use agression in a planned way against anyone who they think the school culture will not stand up for. They often seek and get the approval of peers and appear to adults as model children because they hide or justify their aggression- and their aggression may be directed toward youth who the adults see as less important or annoying.
- and youth whose aggression is primarily related to impulsivity and anger, who are defiant, who may have low self esteem, and who may well have been hurt by their parents or witnessed violence at home. Some of these young people have a neurological/organic component to their aggression, with head injury, lead poisoning, FAS, or ADHD being possible contributors to the impulsivity. Often this group's social skills are marginal while the other group's social skills may be superb. Interventions like anger management or social skills training will only work with the impulsive group- as I see it,these are Olweus's bully-victims and represent a small subgroup of bullies.
I think some of the literature has supported misconceptions by lumping these two groups of youth together. Paul Frick, Dan Olweus, and others have presented them as separate groups. A similar distinction has been found in domestic violence work- some abusive spouses' blood pressure and pulse goes UP before hitting their spouse (they act in anger); some have their blood pressure and pulse go DOWN before (they hit in a calculated, goal-seeking way).
Baumeister's work on self esteem seems important to me . (Baumeister, R. F.,
Bushman, B. J., & Campbell, W. K. (2000). Self-esteem, narcissism, and
aggression: Does violence result from low self-esteem or threatened egotism? Current
Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 26-29. and Baumeister,
R. F. (2001). Violent pride: Do people turn violent because of self-hate, or
self-love? Scientific American, 284(4), 96-101.) See also "Does High Self-Esteem Cause Better Performance, Interpersonal Success, Happiness, or Healthier Lifestyles?"
by Roy F. Baumeister, Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger, and Kathleen D. Vohs
, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Volume 4, Number 1 · May
2003 .
The self-esteem issue is a tough one because you could get 20 people together in a room and wind up with 25 definitions of self esteem, and then those people might find more different definitions of on-the-surface self esteem and underneath or real self esteem.
I don't find the term significant for that reason- as a vague and therefore
un-measurable construct with many different definitions, I think it tells us little. More to the point for me are the psychiatric concepts of ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic behavior- in other words, some behaviors fit with our view of ourselves and are thus comfortable for us and some behaviors violate our view of self and thus cause us anxiety. For the young people using purposeful aggression, their bullying of others is often something they are quite comfortable with and see no need to change. For the impulsive youth, they may feel guilty about their aggression and wish to change it. (As they get older, if they are not helped to change their behavior, I find that they often find a way to make this guilt go away through blaming others for their behavior or denying it. )
I welcome your thoughts.
Stan Davis
“My adult daughter came
into the room while I was viewing your "What works in bullying
prevention" video. Your words attracted her attention and she sat down
to listen to what you had to say. She was bullied in Junior High....and to this
day says that the teacher of the class where the bullying took
place....should have handled it, but, decided to "turn the other
cheek".
The bully threw food in my
daughter's hair, threw spit balls at her and did many other unkind
things during that class time. This went on for most of the school year, but I
never knew it until after my daughter graduated from High School. My
daughter said tonight...after she watched and listened to your video.....that
she never realized until she was an adult...that what she should have done was look
this girl in the eye and tell her to stop...or at the very least, ask for help
handling the situation. She said she really didn't think anyone at school would
do anything about it and she didn't want to tell me because she knew I would go
to school and fight for her, which she felt would make the whole situation
worse. So she just continued to take it and kept it inside....which, now as I
look back on it, was most probably the cause for her wanting to stay home so
many days during those school years...even though I attempted many times to find
out why....I never dreamed it was because of a bully.”
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High School Students speak out about what they need from teachers.
I asked high school students at a bystander workshop in New
Jersey what they need from their teachers. They said:
"Let us report bullying (of ourselves or others) with
protection- privately and confidentially.
Welcome our reports and act on them.
Form strong positive relationships with us so we feel free to report bullying to
you.
Don’t be afraid to take action to stop bullying.
Listen- keep your eyes and ears open."
A set of student-created goals and strategies to improve school climate, from the James H. Bean School- an example of what young students can imagine and create when given the opportunity.
Students at the Bean school created these grade-level goals, and steps to reach their goals, in our monthly grade-level community meetings.
Three types of connections: a cognitive tool to help young people create positive respectful behavior with students who are not their friends.
What
about student fears of retaliation?
A friend wrote: "We are finding in our discussions with
kids that they are extremely afraid of retaliation from the bully and
this often stops the bystanders from speaking up when they know they should."
----------------------------------------------------------
I wrote: "This is understandable. I think we should treat their fears as reality-based and look at
the parallel to rape reporting. As I saw it working with this issue in the 70's there are two parts of the reporting equation:
- the target perceives either that the report will lead to a successful prosecution (that is, some likelihood that the rapist will be removed
from the community for a while and thus that other potential targets will be safer) - or that the report is unlikely to lead to any
meaningful consequence for the rapist.
- the target perceives either that she herself will be free from harassment during and after the reporting process and free from the risk
of retaliation afterwards OR that she will be harassed and blamed during the reporting process and not protected from retaliation later.
Both these conditions affect the likelihood of reporting- and the parallel in bullying is this:
- if you don't think anything meaningful will happen to stop the bullying because of your report, you won't accept ANY risk of retaliation.
-if you think adults at a school will treat you as a 'tattletale' or be irritated with you for telling, you won't accept ANY risk of
retaliation.
- and even if you think there will be meaningful consequences and that you will be treated respectfully during the process, you need specific
guarantees about retaliation- which come down to supervision and serious inevitable consequences for any act of retaliation- stated explicitly
and in advance to targets, bystanders, and bullies. After all, adults insist on witness
tampering and jury tampering laws and that is why we are willing to testify in criminal trials. Children deserve no less.
"
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