Kids confront next generation of bullies
By Michael D. Clark, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 4October 2014 (adapted)
(source)
1CINCINNATI — Don't feed the bully. That's the message Jim Bisenius hammered home to hundreds of elementary students sitting on a Lakota school's gym floor in rare, rapt attention. Almost every young hand – boys and girls alike – had gone up when the anti-bullying expert asked who among them had been bullied. And then Bisenius explains why it happened to them: "You fed the bully what they wanted – fear, attention and things."
2 Nearly one in three students across America reported being bullied in 2013, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, and nearly 15 percent of high school students were bullied online in 2014. And the problem is worsening—so much so that October is designated nationwide as "Bullying Prevention Awareness Month.""Parents and schools are really struggling and, with social media, we are still in untested waters" in combating electronic bullying among youths, says University of Cincinnati professor Keith King.
3Despite years of aggressive efforts by local schools, such as bringing in nationally recognized anti-bullying experts like Bisenius, the verbal and physical abuse inflicted on school children continues and has morphed and expanded through new social media sites.Bullying, by its nature, is hard to measure, but everyone agrees they know it when they see it.Unfortunately, it often goes unseen by adult eyes, because while the bullies can be verbally or physically abusive, they're not necessarily stupid when it comes to avoiding the adults who might catch them in the act.
4Josh White broke down and cried himself recently when his seventh-grade son came home in tears from his Boone County school.“There's always been bullying, but it's different now. There is a whole new level of violence.”White said some of his son's classmates had tried to ambush the 12-year-old and were going to film his beating with cellphones, presumably to post online. He is frustrated with school officials who said they need more proof and are slow, in White's opinion, to make busing and classroom changes to separate his son from his abusers.
5Anti-bullying expert Jim Bisenius’s approach differs with the ages of the students, but he mixes plenty of practical advice on the best ways for potential victims to react. He tosses in tough talk, urging kids – and parents – to be vigilant and aggressive in reporting bullies to school officials, but doing so in ways that don't result in the victims putting a larger target on themselves.
6"One of the main things I'm seeing in recent years is the tools to get at other kids have changed pretty drastically, but the basic idea of bullying is still the same," said Bisenius. "It's always been a power imbalance between kids – where one kid might have more social power or more physical power – and they pull fear from the kid they target in order to scare their peers into doing what they tell them to do."
7Prior to social media, school bullies were limited to physical proximity in their abuse but, he explains, "they can reach them 24/7 now – through Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Snap Chat and Yik Yak – and are using those to do the same thing."Bisenius said parents shouldn't fool themselves into thinking bullying can ever be eliminated. It's part of the human condition, he said, and while there are strategies and resources available in schools and online, such abuse will always be with us. "We're going to be 90 years old and there will be bullies waiting for us in the nursing home."