![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crazyjaneI'm watching The 7.30 Report - tonight, it's all about bullying. That's been true of most of the media today - provoked, of course, by the terrible events in Brisbane yesterday, when a child was stabbed and killed by a schoolmate. It's inevitable, when things like this happen, that there will be reactive media, and to a certain extent it's good that the focus has shifted to bullying. There's a note in all of this, however, which is - frankly - boggling my mind.
It's the notion that somehow bullying is new, or at best, that it is orders of magnitude worse than it used to be. Experts - ranging from teachers, to social workers, to child welfare volunteers - are breathlessly declaring that we are experiencing an 'epidemic' of bullying in our schools. Something, they assert, must be done. It's already out of control, and we need to act now.
Don't get me wrong - I absolutely think that bullying is a major problem in our schools today, and one that should be tackled. What bothers me is that, when the thinking is that this is a new problem, people tend to look around at what is new, and blame that.
The internet is to blame! Look at cyber-bullying - now a kid can get harassed on MySpace, or Facebook, or Bebo. Kids can find upsetting messages in their email inboxes, or fall victim to drive-by IM nastiness. In some cases, kids have been hounded to the point of suicide. So, the internet must be responsible, right? Get rid of the internet! Censor it! Ban it! Keep your kids away from it!
Or wait, maybe it's not the internet. Maybe it's those violent video games. We all 'know' that kids get desensitised to violence by playing these games - our politicians tell us so, and we've even seen it on Law and Order, so it must be true. We need to keep those games away from our kids. Better yet, let's just make sure they never make it into Australia!
Now, there's no denying that cyber-bullying is a horrible, pernicious phenomenon. Whether it's IM, SMS, email or social networking, the idea that even when you go home you can't get away from the bullying would be enough to make you despair. Maybe playing violent video games does suggest possible violent ways of resolving schoolyard conflicts. It's all kind of missing the point, though.
The internet or video games are just the method. Maybe it's easier now to bully someone at a distance, but it was always possible. I remember finding notes in my schoolbag or locker threatening to bash me up, telling me I was ugly, a nerd, a teacher's pet, and recommending that I should just die. The notes were always anonymous, and I remember clearly how my heart rate would jump up whenever I had to go to my locker for something.
A friend told me of how the neighbourhood kids used to ride through the alley at the back of her house on their bikes every night about the same time, yelling abuse at her. Because she had the back bedroom, she was usually the only one who heard it. She used to watch the clock, dreading when it would come, trying to think of excuses to stop doing her homework and just not be there to hear it.
One enterprising bully conducted a letter-writing campaign of terror on a friend's brother. The bully regularly posted abusive letters to the boy. Although the parents started throwing the letters away as soon as they arrived, the boy always knew what they were - and imagining what might have been in them had almost as unnerving an effect as reading the letters themselves.
All these cases took place long before the internet was around - in my case, before mobile phones even existed. The lack of instant computer access didn't stop those bullies. They found ways to keep up the persecution long after the school day had ended.
What is important when considering bullying is not the method - it's the fact that it occurs at all. However bullying happens, what it comes down to is one child becoming a victim of harassment, cruelty, physical abuse and terror - one child learning what it is to be powerless, and - horrifically - largely invisible.
Because, for the most part, teachers and parents still do not act to protect them.
The girl who receives a threatening email. The boy who gets shoved into a coat locker. The boy who doesn't dare go to the bathroom without a friend because he's had his head shoved into the toilet bowl so many times. The girl who is mercilessly, methodically teased about her hair, or her freckles, or her braces. The boy who ends up in hospital with a broken arm because he was pushed down the stairs. The girl who becomes nervous, anorexic and depressed to the point she won't come out of her room.
The kid who finally can't take anymore, and commits suicide.
And then there's the kid who decides that the only way to answer violence is with violence. That kid who bullies those younger than herself. That kid who starts carrying a knife so that next time he's jumped on the way home from school, he can make them back off. That kid who gets hold of a gun, and shows everyone the only way he knows how that he's been pushed to the point where he's full of hate, and fear, and desperation.
None of this requires the internet or video games. It only requires a culture that does not recognise the hell that bullied kids go through every day. A culture that, even when it knows bullying goes on, still think that perhaps it will somehow build strength of character. A culture that tells the victim to speak up, and then lets that victim go out unprotected. Most of all, a culture that - when finally moved to act - lashes out at the bully with punishment and condemnation, which usually serves to entrench the behaviour that started all this.
If we are going to do something about bullying, it isn't going to start with Net Nannies, or refusing classification for video games. It won't be solved by simply suspending or expelling the bullies, or even by locking them up. It most certainly won't be solved by telling victims of bullying to be courageous and point the finger.
I'm a mother, with children in primary school. My girls come home and I hear about what happens in the schoolyard. None of it is new. I remember being on the receiving end of those nasty comments and the carefully orchestrated ostracism. I listen to them talk about how a girl in their class calls another on the phone to tell her she's going to burn down her house - because of an incident where the bully did not get picked to play a game at recess. I hear that Meglet's intranet webpage was accessed by someone else in the class, who wrote damning statements about the school and her classmates, leading to Meglet being subjected to their anger. I hear about the boy who, apparently out of frustration, will bash any kid near him when he doesn't shoot a goal in the basketball hoop.
I don't claim to have the answers. What I do see, again and again, is how little respect these kids have for each other, and for themselves. I see how they literally have no idea how to resolve their conflicts without resorting to violence. Lilygirl reads at an incredibly high level - she can read books aimed at Year 8 kids - but when she's frustrated, she becomes angry and nasty, and takes it out on those around her. She's not a 'bad' kid - but she is typical of her schoolmates.
We are very concerned with literacy, and numeracy. We make sure our kids can do their healthy eating projects, and their presentations about climate. We sign them up for sports, or music, and encourage them to 'get involved'. All of this is wonderful, and necessary.
Why are we not teaching them basic self-respect? Couldn't we teach them the idea that they are all smart, beautiful, capable kids? Teach them that yes, they will make mistakes, they will find some things difficult, and some people will seem to be so much 'better' than they are - but it doesn't make them bad. They're not failures.
How about respect for others? Even as adults, it's very easy to see others as not quite 'real'. If people aren't real, then you're not hurting them. Basic empathy isn't something that some people just have - it's something you learn. For the most part, we learn it piecemeal. Couldn't we start actually helping kids develop empathy from the time they are really young? When they snatch another baby's toy, we tell them to 'share', but we don't tell them why. We growl at them for being 'selfish' - but really, what else do they know?
What about conflict resolution? We usually encourage our kids to appeal to authority - come and tell Mum, or Dad, or the teacher on duty in the yard. We don't give our kids tools to try to understand, or work it out. We don't teach children non-violent ways of resolving conflict. We don't help them develop the skills to know when to talk, and when to walk away. We say 'don't argue with your sister' or 'if you can't play without fighting, no one will play at all'.
As I said, I don't claim to have the answers. These are ideas. Maybe they're good, maybe they stink. I just don't think the answer is not to demonise the tools of everyday life for kids who bully, to diagnose them as ADHD or Aspberger's and medicate them, or to simply classify them as 'bad', 'difficult' kids who should be punished until they learn some unfathomable lesson. I also believe that keeping kids away from fictional, stylised violence will not teach them to deal with bullying in better ways.
There's something rotten here, and it's not new. It's been going on forever - and that's just far too long.
It's the notion that somehow bullying is new, or at best, that it is orders of magnitude worse than it used to be. Experts - ranging from teachers, to social workers, to child welfare volunteers - are breathlessly declaring that we are experiencing an 'epidemic' of bullying in our schools. Something, they assert, must be done. It's already out of control, and we need to act now.
Don't get me wrong - I absolutely think that bullying is a major problem in our schools today, and one that should be tackled. What bothers me is that, when the thinking is that this is a new problem, people tend to look around at what is new, and blame that.
The internet is to blame! Look at cyber-bullying - now a kid can get harassed on MySpace, or Facebook, or Bebo. Kids can find upsetting messages in their email inboxes, or fall victim to drive-by IM nastiness. In some cases, kids have been hounded to the point of suicide. So, the internet must be responsible, right? Get rid of the internet! Censor it! Ban it! Keep your kids away from it!
Or wait, maybe it's not the internet. Maybe it's those violent video games. We all 'know' that kids get desensitised to violence by playing these games - our politicians tell us so, and we've even seen it on Law and Order, so it must be true. We need to keep those games away from our kids. Better yet, let's just make sure they never make it into Australia!
Now, there's no denying that cyber-bullying is a horrible, pernicious phenomenon. Whether it's IM, SMS, email or social networking, the idea that even when you go home you can't get away from the bullying would be enough to make you despair. Maybe playing violent video games does suggest possible violent ways of resolving schoolyard conflicts. It's all kind of missing the point, though.
The internet or video games are just the method. Maybe it's easier now to bully someone at a distance, but it was always possible. I remember finding notes in my schoolbag or locker threatening to bash me up, telling me I was ugly, a nerd, a teacher's pet, and recommending that I should just die. The notes were always anonymous, and I remember clearly how my heart rate would jump up whenever I had to go to my locker for something.
A friend told me of how the neighbourhood kids used to ride through the alley at the back of her house on their bikes every night about the same time, yelling abuse at her. Because she had the back bedroom, she was usually the only one who heard it. She used to watch the clock, dreading when it would come, trying to think of excuses to stop doing her homework and just not be there to hear it.
One enterprising bully conducted a letter-writing campaign of terror on a friend's brother. The bully regularly posted abusive letters to the boy. Although the parents started throwing the letters away as soon as they arrived, the boy always knew what they were - and imagining what might have been in them had almost as unnerving an effect as reading the letters themselves.
All these cases took place long before the internet was around - in my case, before mobile phones even existed. The lack of instant computer access didn't stop those bullies. They found ways to keep up the persecution long after the school day had ended.
What is important when considering bullying is not the method - it's the fact that it occurs at all. However bullying happens, what it comes down to is one child becoming a victim of harassment, cruelty, physical abuse and terror - one child learning what it is to be powerless, and - horrifically - largely invisible.
Because, for the most part, teachers and parents still do not act to protect them.
The girl who receives a threatening email. The boy who gets shoved into a coat locker. The boy who doesn't dare go to the bathroom without a friend because he's had his head shoved into the toilet bowl so many times. The girl who is mercilessly, methodically teased about her hair, or her freckles, or her braces. The boy who ends up in hospital with a broken arm because he was pushed down the stairs. The girl who becomes nervous, anorexic and depressed to the point she won't come out of her room.
The kid who finally can't take anymore, and commits suicide.
And then there's the kid who decides that the only way to answer violence is with violence. That kid who bullies those younger than herself. That kid who starts carrying a knife so that next time he's jumped on the way home from school, he can make them back off. That kid who gets hold of a gun, and shows everyone the only way he knows how that he's been pushed to the point where he's full of hate, and fear, and desperation.
None of this requires the internet or video games. It only requires a culture that does not recognise the hell that bullied kids go through every day. A culture that, even when it knows bullying goes on, still think that perhaps it will somehow build strength of character. A culture that tells the victim to speak up, and then lets that victim go out unprotected. Most of all, a culture that - when finally moved to act - lashes out at the bully with punishment and condemnation, which usually serves to entrench the behaviour that started all this.
If we are going to do something about bullying, it isn't going to start with Net Nannies, or refusing classification for video games. It won't be solved by simply suspending or expelling the bullies, or even by locking them up. It most certainly won't be solved by telling victims of bullying to be courageous and point the finger.
I'm a mother, with children in primary school. My girls come home and I hear about what happens in the schoolyard. None of it is new. I remember being on the receiving end of those nasty comments and the carefully orchestrated ostracism. I listen to them talk about how a girl in their class calls another on the phone to tell her she's going to burn down her house - because of an incident where the bully did not get picked to play a game at recess. I hear that Meglet's intranet webpage was accessed by someone else in the class, who wrote damning statements about the school and her classmates, leading to Meglet being subjected to their anger. I hear about the boy who, apparently out of frustration, will bash any kid near him when he doesn't shoot a goal in the basketball hoop.
I don't claim to have the answers. What I do see, again and again, is how little respect these kids have for each other, and for themselves. I see how they literally have no idea how to resolve their conflicts without resorting to violence. Lilygirl reads at an incredibly high level - she can read books aimed at Year 8 kids - but when she's frustrated, she becomes angry and nasty, and takes it out on those around her. She's not a 'bad' kid - but she is typical of her schoolmates.
We are very concerned with literacy, and numeracy. We make sure our kids can do their healthy eating projects, and their presentations about climate. We sign them up for sports, or music, and encourage them to 'get involved'. All of this is wonderful, and necessary.
Why are we not teaching them basic self-respect? Couldn't we teach them the idea that they are all smart, beautiful, capable kids? Teach them that yes, they will make mistakes, they will find some things difficult, and some people will seem to be so much 'better' than they are - but it doesn't make them bad. They're not failures.
How about respect for others? Even as adults, it's very easy to see others as not quite 'real'. If people aren't real, then you're not hurting them. Basic empathy isn't something that some people just have - it's something you learn. For the most part, we learn it piecemeal. Couldn't we start actually helping kids develop empathy from the time they are really young? When they snatch another baby's toy, we tell them to 'share', but we don't tell them why. We growl at them for being 'selfish' - but really, what else do they know?
What about conflict resolution? We usually encourage our kids to appeal to authority - come and tell Mum, or Dad, or the teacher on duty in the yard. We don't give our kids tools to try to understand, or work it out. We don't teach children non-violent ways of resolving conflict. We don't help them develop the skills to know when to talk, and when to walk away. We say 'don't argue with your sister' or 'if you can't play without fighting, no one will play at all'.
As I said, I don't claim to have the answers. These are ideas. Maybe they're good, maybe they stink. I just don't think the answer is not to demonise the tools of everyday life for kids who bully, to diagnose them as ADHD or Aspberger's and medicate them, or to simply classify them as 'bad', 'difficult' kids who should be punished until they learn some unfathomable lesson. I also believe that keeping kids away from fictional, stylised violence will not teach them to deal with bullying in better ways.
There's something rotten here, and it's not new. It's been going on forever - and that's just far too long.
