Bullying On All Sides!

Introduction

No matter where we find ourselves in the West, of all the issues facing students, bullying is THE subject of the moment in education in 2017! I hear people of my generation say, "It happened in our time too, but we didn't talk about it so much!" Others even say that "If we talked about it less, there would be less of it", "That young people today can't tell the difference between teasing and bullying." What these people forget is that times change, as does the type of bullying. Yes! In our day, there was bullying. If we were a little different, too small, or too tall, if our ears stuck out, if we had an unusual style of dress, we were "picked on" in the schoolyard or in the park, we were called names, and had to fight, and so on. However, once we got home, everything was calm again.

Why are we talking so much about bullying today?

With the advent of the Web, social media and texting, if young people get "picked on" at school or in the park, it will follow them home and it will spread rapidly. When a negative comment is written on your Facebook wall, everyone sees it, some will share it and others make comments. People can harass you incessantly with texts, even at night ... The screen provides a distance and gives a young person the impression that he or she can say anything that comes to mind. Moreover, the screen protects him or her from the victim's reaction, and so they do not see the hurt they have caused. It quickly degenerates into bullying. This is something my generation often forgets!

Today's young people must face the virtual world in addition to braving the real world. It is a daily occurrence, and a teenager might be bullied 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I don't mean to downplay my generation's experience as children or as teenagers. But, during the summer holidays, or after going home in the evening, we had holy peace! This is no longer the case for young people today.

What is bullying?

Bullying is more than just being "picked on" or "teased". It is when a person or group of people repeatedly and continually act in a manner that undermines another individual. This is done to hurt or harm. It is often more or less long lasting, over time.

This is a social phenomenon and it is essential to be attentive to the effect of this behaviour on the targets. If it causes distress, insecurity, low self-esteem, a feeling humiliation or helplessness, it very much resembles bullying. Conversely, for some people, the same behaviour may not be intimidating, because the targeted person does not feel affected by the situation. The feelings of the individual must provide a warning signal, here.

We must be careful about our adult judgments when a young person says they are being bullied. We often mistakenly believe that he or she is exaggerating, that it's not so serious, that the situation is not so bad as they think. Children or teenagers who constantly have negative comments directed towards them, whether about them physically, or their personality, their general appearance or abilities, and this even in their home on social media, are being bullied. If they feel they are being treated like that, then they are being bullied. That's it. Period. As adults, we owe it to ourselves to be attentive to what they are experiencing, to their perceptions and emotions. We also have to welcome them as they are, to open the discussion, to avoid making them feel guilty, to facilitate a healthy and open communication that emphasizes the relationship. The goal is to help the young victims of bullying recover by using their relational experience.

The statistics speak for themselves.

Or rather the statistics shout that bullying is a topic to be taken seriously. More than 20% of young people between the ages of 12 and 18 are being bullied as are from 20% to 28% of young people aged 6 to 12 years old. One in five young people say they have been the victim of bullying. When one considers that around 64% of young people who are bullied do not tell, one can easily believe that the percentage of young people actually being bullied is greater. Only two out of five children reveal what they are going through and this is often because they suffer from physical bullying or that their intimidators have broken their will to do so. Of the young people who were bullied, 15% experienced bullying through the web or through social networks.

If we look at statistics from the other side, we see that 30% of students have admitted that they have bullied other young people, and that more than 70% had seen others bullying. But the question we have to ask is, of this percentage of bystanders, how many have dared report it? How many dared to intervene between the bully and their victim? Perhaps there would be more reporting of the bullies if these bystanders realised that when they intervene, the intimidation ceases in less than ten seconds. If these bystanders knew the importance they have and their potential influence in stopping the bullying, that could greatly contribute to their inclination to intervene in abusive situations and help to put an end to this situation, as the statistics show. Bullies often want to impress bystanders, so their intervention is paramount. When bystanders know their power, it becomes easier for them to intervene.

School workers in all this

What can we do as adults working in schools? First, it should be noted that more than 70% of school workers admit to having witnessed bullying. A large number of adults have witnessed violence during at work. I think, first of all, we have to react to situations where young persons are being bullied. We must never let this kind of behaviour pass without responding, even if it is not our particular student in question, even though we might have misunderstood, even though we were not there… It must be stopped on the spot.

We will deal more in depth with the role of school workers in the second text in our dossier on bullying in schools.

To be continued...