Being a Teenager: Bullying, Crushes and Mental Health
Resources to help explore challenging issues and strategies to deal with them
Resource created by Phil Beadle, teacher, journalist and author: www.philbeadle.com
CFE Levels 3, 4 and senior phase (ages 12-16)
Contents
About these resources / 1About Juno Dawson / 2
Bullying / 2
The madness of crushes and falling in love / 7
Mental health: Discussion Materials to Support Mind Your Head by Juno Dawson / 10
About these resources
These resources have been created to support Scottish Book Trust’s Authors Live event with Juno Dawson. However, they can be also be used in the study of Say Her Name and/or Mind Your Head. They could also compose a whole (or part of a) scheme of work for PSHE lessons in that they cover the following issues that are likely to affect the lives of teenage students:
Bullying: relational bullying, what kind of person becomes a bully, what kind of person becomes a victim, bystander roles, bullying of appearance.
Love and Crushes: the madness of romantic love, crushes and having a crush on inappropriate people.
Mental Health Issues: The stereotyping of mental illness, ‘ableism’, causes of mental health issues, stress, depression, does school make us ill?, ruminative thinking, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Body Dysmoprhic Disorder, eating disorders and self-harm.
All quotes throughout the resource are from Say Her Name or Mind Your Head by Juno Dawson, unless otherwise indicated.
For Scottish teachers, Curriculum for Excellence outcomes are included at level 4, but are equally applicable at level 3.
About Juno Dawson
Juno Dawson is the award winning author of five works of fiction and three non-fiction books. She is a former teacher (and PSHE specialist). Her work was formerly published under the name of James Dawson.
http://www.junodawson.com/
Bullying
“There was an unmistakable laugh: the ‘Mean Girl Laugh’. It was then as it is now. Cruel, harsh, mocking laughter – girls trying to outdo each other with cattiness.”
We will all experience bullying of some form during our lives: studies have shown that at least 30% of us are victim to bullying during our time at school. The most obvious form of bullying (physical bullying) occurs predominantly amongst males, but it is less likely, even among males, than the other two forms: verbal bullying and what is termed ‘relational bullying’.
Relational bullying is any of the following behaviours. And, more often than not, relational bullying is a girl thing.
· Spreading malicious rumour and gossip about someone
· Excluding the victim (particularly from social activities)
· Finding ways of humiliating the victim in front of their peers
· Withdrawing friendship/ Deliberately ignoring people.
· Making people do things they don’t want to do against their will or better judgement.
· Psychological manipulation (this is detecting the vulnerabilities of the victim and playing on them).
What’s interesting in terms of bullying is that there are four different versions of what are called ‘participation roles’: bully, victim, bully-victim and bystander (and that there are three different types of ‘bystanders’: bully reinforcers, victim defenders and outsiders). Go through the roles and discuss the questions about each one.
What kind of person becomes a bully? HWB 4-04a
1. Do you think that bullies can generally tell the difference between right and wrong?
2. Do bullies generally recognise that they have ideas and beliefs and that other people might have different ideas and beliefs?
3. Do bullies have compassion for others?
4. What do you think bullies seek to get out of their bullying?
5. Are male bullies popular?
6. Are female bullies popular?
7. Are bullies prone to being a bit paranoid?
The answers for this are on page 6.
What kind of person becomes a victim? HWB 4-04a
Assess each axis for where you think a victim might sit on the following continuums?
Popular______Unpopular
Outgoing______Withdrawn
Carefree______Anxious
Socially Skilled ______Socially Unskilled
What is a bully-victim?
A bully victim is someone who exhibits the characteristics of both participant roles. They know what they are doing is wrong; they can recognise that people have different views to them; they are generally unpopular, withdrawn, anxious and socially unskilled; they put other people in distress to affect alter their own social status. If they are male, they are generally socially rejected; if they are female they are generally controversial: popular but disliked.
What are the ‘bystander’ roles?
Bully reinforcers often have big social networks and, though they don’t start any aggression, they are supportive or encouraging to the person who does.
Victim defenders are the smallest group. They are the ones who stick up for the victim and try and stop the bullying.
Outsiders stay out of conflict but will join in if they are a friend of the bully or of the victim.
Questions HWB 4-03a, HWB 4-04a
Which of these people (bully, victim, bully-victim, bully reinforcer, victim defender or outsider) would it be the most morally correct position to be in and why?
Why do you think victim defenders are the smallest group?
What would be the consequences of everyone in a school being a victim defender?
What do you think are the long-term consequences of being bullied?
Some books and films on relational aggression to check out
If you want to research more into the subject of relational aggression, you could try:
· Rachel Simmons – Odd Girl Out: How to help your daughter navigate the world of friendships, bullying and cliques - in the classroom and online, (Piatkus, 2012)
· Rosalind Wiseman – Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping your daughter survive cliques, gossip, boyfriends and the realities of Girl World, (Piatkus, 2003)
· Or you might want to watch the DVD of ‘Mean Girls’ starring Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey.
If you are subject to relational bullying, it is worth remembering Bobbie’s final rejection of Grace in Say Her Name: “Once you leave here you’re nothing but an averagely intelligent, pretty-ish blond girl with nice legs but no sense of humour. Good luck. Let me know how that works out for you.”
The bullying of appearance
‘Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.’ (Dorothy Parker)
What we have seen is that the reason for the bullying is in the bully … it is their lack of compassion that causes them to think it is OK to bully. Verbal bullying can be aimed at several different targets. It could be targeted at the way you speak, a disability, your ethnicity, your religion, your size, your financial background. Very, very often it will be about your appearance.
Read this section of the book Rules for Mavericks by Phil Beadle and then discuss the questions after it.
‘Negative comment about your appearance is the realm of the bully. There are few people who do not have insecurities in this area, and few of us can manage the full frontal assault of the word “ugly” or its many specious variants with any degree of grace. Bullies know this. If you want to really hurt someone then say something unpleasant about their exterior. One of the chief things that conformists despise about those who stand out is that their interior world is generally quite inviolable (though they may have had to develop the inviolable interior as a response to adverse comments about their exterior). The bully does not reach graspingly towards areas he is unable to hurt. His or her intention is to wound, to belittle, in order to make him/herself bigger by comparison; and there is little perverted and ugly fun to be had from assaulting something that regards responding to the assault with anything more than smiling contempt as not worth bothering with. For the bully, the exterior becomes a useful correlative with which he might hurt those by whom he is threatened.
If you are tempted to take this pathological behaviour on the part of another as seriously as they might wish you to, look at the evidence and understand that any assault based upon appearance is really just a manifestation of jealousy, which is, ironically, quite the ugliest of all emotions. It is really best when under such an assault to see yourself through the eyes of those who love you.’
Questions HWB 4-02a, HWB 4-07a
1. If someone is saying negative things about your appearance, what would ‘tactically ignoring’ them be?
2. Are there any potential issues with this approach?
3. When your mum says, “They’re just jealous”, she really means it. And she’s right: they’re just jealous! Why does your mum tell you this? How many different layers of meaning are there in this piece of advice? Why do you listen to the voice that says, “She’s my mum. She would say that”?
4. The main character in Say Her Name, Bobbie, wants to see herself as ‘The off-kilter-hipster-girl-with-issues that guys wanted to rescue’. Is this an unhealthy or healthy view of the self?
5. She suspects, however, that she is really ’neither pin-up sexy nor adorable-kooky-funny’. Is this a representative attitude of how all young people suspect they are viewed?
6. What does, “It is really best when under such an assault to see yourself through the eyes of those who love you” mean? Why is this good advice?
What kind of person becomes a bully? Answers
1. Most bullies are ‘morally competent’. This is a phrase used by psychologists to describe someone who can judge moral issues (such as bullying) in a logical and intelligent manner. Bullies know what they are doing is wrong.
2. Most bullies also have what psychologists call a good ‘theory of mind’. They can recognise that they have views and that other people might have different views. Their bullying is not taking place because they have a condition that does not allow them to understand that other people have feelings.
3. Bullies have insufficient moral compassion. They can see or cause another person to be in distress without wanting to help them.
4. Bullying is often proactive to achieve social goals: popularity, high status.
5. In the instance of male bullies, they are usually people who are unpopular socially and have been socially rejected a number of times.
6. Female bullies are ‘controversial’ socially: they are unpopular with some, very popular with others.
7. Bullies can sometimes suffer from what psychologists call ‘hostile attributional bias’ which is thinking that people did things to harm you when they didn’t. (They might decide to have this bias as a technique to justify their bullying).
The Madness of Crushes and Falling in Love
‘Grace is super-hot.’
‘You think?’
‘You don’t’
Caine’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘She’s Team Hot, but she’s not Team Fun, you know what I mean?’
Thankfully, although physical attractiveness is all very nice and all very well and good, it is not the real thing; and different people find different things attractive.
‘It’s hard to say, ain’t it – why you fancy some people and not others? You just sort of do or you don’t.’
One of the key themes of Say Her Name is the move from the first crush to falling in love, and how love itself seems a form of madness. Well, in fact, it is!
What exactly is romantic love?
‘Love is merely a madness.’ (Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2)
‘In her head, she played the almost-kiss on repeat. Imagination-wise, the moment has taken on cinematic proportions: sweeping violins; her dissolving into Caine’s arms.’
Some psychologists believe love to be a drive rather than an emotion and conclude that falling in love is a version of temporary insanity caused by hormonal changes. When you have a crush on someone and want to ‘win’ them they occupy almost the whole of your thoughts because other parts of our brain become deactivated (the ones that would see your beloved for what they really are): you become obsessed with them and your critical faculties, along with some elements of healthy fear, dissolve. In Say Her Name Bobbie, after her first kiss with Caine, realises, ‘She estimated she’d jettisoned approximately twelve percent of her brain functioning to lingering memories of the kiss.’
What is interesting is that even if you marry the object of your desires this honeymoon period last only two years, at best before ‘passionate’ love turn into ‘compassionate’ love (companionship).
Questions HWB 4-04a
Why do you think that nature and evolution make the ‘honeymoon’ stage of love last only two years?
What are the evolutionary reasons for this?
Crushes
“Bobbie’s heart flung around her chest like a gleeful Labrador puppy.”
“Their bodies were close now, too close, closer than you ever would be to a friend… She’d always wondered what her first kiss would be like.”
We have two versions of crushes: identity crushes and romantic crushes. Identity crushes are where someone (one of our peers probably) appears such an admirable role model for us that we become platonically smitten with them. Romantic crushes are mad feelings of infatuation with an (often inappropriate) person. Like passionate romantic love, crushes are a form of temporary madness that we grow out of as there is no way that the person we are ‘crushing’ on could ever be that perfect and eventually we start to see them as they really are. But, while a crush, lasts it is very serious indeed in the heart and the mind of the person experiencing it.