A few weeks ago I was asked to write an article on bullying.
Something kept jumping off the page as I attempted to write the
piece…the word "Bully.” The more I tried to finish the article, I just
couldn't. Something was eating away at me as I tried to write. I felt
like I was labeling a child by putting a stereotyping
name on a person as opposed to a behavior, albeit a very serious and
concerning behavior. I was taken back to my Junior High School English
class when we were reading The Scarlet Letter. I remember
reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's deeply written book thinking,“that's not
fair, that's not right, people shouldn’t do that to her (Hester).” That
same feeling that was stirred in High School found its way back to me
today. "What am I doing?" I asked myself. I have labeled a child "Bully"
and yet, I know that bullying is a behavior not a person. Many of these
kids come from broken homes, they cry out for acceptance, they lack
social skills, they need anger management, but most of all they need love…
With this relevation I placed the shoe on the other foot and stepped
into the world of the child who bullies…I tore the label off of the
child and wrote an article from a child's perspective, a hurt child.
Although the current piece does not duplicate the article that I wrote,
you can access it at the link below.
"What About Those Doing the Bullying? They Deserve Our Help Too: A Child's Plea" at http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/what-about-those-doing-bullying-t...
Why we need to be careful not to label a child
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children with mental health disorders are three times more likely to be identified as children who bully.
Did you know that children who bully are at risk of:
- suicide
- academic problems
- substance abuse
- mental health issues
- family violence
Children who bully are more likely than peers who do not bully to live in single parent households and to live with extended family members
or with foster parents. Children who bully are also at an increased
risk of criminal involvement. In a study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence approximately
half of the men sampled reported they bullied other children during
their teen years engaged in some form of criminal activity (i.e., theft,
burglary and assault) when they were adults. Early intervention may
help deter these children from going down the wrong path in adulthood.
Skills children who bully often lack include:
- how to appropriately communicate with one another
- how to express their feelings without belittling or putting someone down
- how to make good decisions and learn how bad choices result in negative consequences
- how to work through anger effectively
- how to cope with frustrating and stressful situations
- how to be empathetic to others
- how to care for self and others
Not
only does it take a village to raise a child, but it will take a
village to change how children treat one another. Bullying is a very
real problem plaguing our youth and it is all inclusive from those
children who have been targeted, to those who have watched it happen, to
those who have initiated it. No child is unaffected by the grasp of
bullying.
Bullying is a learned behavior and behaviors can be
changed. So rather than using the word “bully” to describe a child
perhaps a more appropriate way to phrase it would be, "the child who
bullies.” Hopefully, we can collectively agree that our words have
power. And as many anti-bullying campaigns point out…"words hurt."
Disclaimer
—Since writing the article I have worked hard to not use the word
"bully" to describe a child. Some may claim it as an attempt to be "PC,"
but there is no "PC" it's simply the right thing to do…
by Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, M.S., L.P.C., the author of The Anger Workbook for Teens.
;) Abby
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