Shy Girls Social Club Handbook on Dealing with Bullies and Other Meanies Read online

  The Shy Girls Social Club

  Handbook for Dealing with Bullies and Other Meanies

  Kailin Gow

  Shy Girls Social Club Handbook for Dealing with Bullies and Other Meanies

  Published by Sparklesoup LLC

  Copyright © 2010 Kailin Gow

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, please contact:

  Sparklesoup

  P.O. Box 60834

  Irvine, CA 92602

  www.sparklesoup.com

  First Edition.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  ISBN: 978-1597489492

  DEDICATION

  THANK YOU TO THE SPARKLESOUP TEAM FOR YOUR HELP IN EDITING AND PREPARING THIS BOOK. ALSO THANK YOU TO AMY FOR SUCH A BEAUTIFUL COVER. THANK YOU PARENTS WHO HAVE ASKED ME FOR ADVICE ON TEEN ISSUES AND FOR SUGGESTING I WRITE A BOOK ON BULLYING AS IT GOES HAND-IN-HAND WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF-ESTEEM. LAST OF ALL, THANK YOU TO ALL THE TEENS I HAVE MET AND MENTORED FOR INSPIRING ME TO DO WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU. YOU GUYS AND LADIES ARE THE FUTURE. JUST DOING WHAT I CAN TO HELP MAKE IT BRIGHTER…

  What This Handbook Covers

  What is Bullying?

  Four Specific Types of Bullying

  Why Do People Bully?

  Why Do People Get Bullied?

  What to Do if You are Getting Bullied

  Why is Bullying Harmful?

  What to Do if You See Someone Being Bullied

  What Are the Lessons to Be Learned From

  Bullying?

  Turning Something Bad Into Something

  Good

  Conclusion

  Resources

  Introduction

  Bullying is as old as the child’s play that occurred on the first playground ever built. It has gone on since the beginning of time. But when did it change? What made it become so much more serious and violent? Have the media and the filmmakers created more violence that has contributed to the severity of bullying in today’s world? At what point in our society did the “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,” mentality become so much more serious?

  Bully and cyber bullying have become so intense and widespread that forty-four of the fifty United States, have recently agreed to develop policies and procedures for how they will deal with this ever growing dilemma.

  A 2001 study conducted by the American Medical Association reports that 30% of teenagers in America are involved in bullying by either being bullied or bullying others. Such bullying often leads to physical altercations.

  Bullying is so widespread that 16% of children in the United States say they’ve been bullied by other students during the current term. A survey conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Services (NICHD) reported that 13% of those children had been bullied but not bullied anyone else. 6% of those same children had both bullied and been bullied.

  In a second national survey of 1,500 young people age 10-17 while online received unwanted exposure to sexual solicitation and harassment.

  In 2005, 15,686 students in grades 6-10 (in private, public and parochial schools) were surveyed and asked the question, “What threatens your safety and emotional health?” Most answered “teasing and bullying,” according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and Children Now, 2001).

  Bullying has evolved from pushing and name calling to slander, stalking, torture and abuse. Bullying has even gone from child’s play to criminal charges resulting from a teenage girl committing suicide.

  A recent and highly profiled case occurred at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts in January 2010 when a 15-year-old girl, Phoebe Prince hung herself with a homemade noose.

  Fellow students reported that a certain group of fellow students at their high school had been calling her vulgar names, pushing her into lockers and threatening to hurt her.

  In addition to the physical, psychological and verbal bullying that occurred, cyber bullying was also used. One bully suggested to Phoebe Prince via Facebook that she kill herself.

  Some people speculate that it could possibly be that she was bullied because she was “different” in that she had moved into the 760-student high school from Ireland within the past year. Maybe it was a cultural difference, some believed.

  Another speculation is that some of the local boys who were going steady with other girls had paid special attention to Phoebe and their girlfriends were not very happy about it. On one such occasion, Phoebe did not know the boy making advancements toward her was dating someone else and when she found out she apologized, but to no avail. This happened with two different young men and their girlfriends.

  One of the bullies was seen throwing a drink can at Phoebe from a moving car and another stalked her and personally threatened to beat her up. It was alleged that she had been raped by a fellow student.

  Phoebe’s closest friends and family knew of the bullying that was occurring and were supportive of her, but obviously they had no idea of the severity of the way it made her feel.

  The mistreatment of Phoebe had gotten so bad that one of the bullies had even been suspended for a day due to reports of her bullying. Phoebe had sought help from school administrators, but it obviously did not come in time.

  Since that time, in an unprecedented case of six teenagers were arrested on felony charges varying from statutory rape to stalking of Phoebe Prince.

  The case in Massachusetts, while the most recent, is only one of many that have been reported. Even the high school massacres like those that occurred in Columbine, Colorado and Paducah, Kentucky the perpetrators were all described as “loners,” who were constantly harassed and taunted, but who took the bullying to another level and retaliated through orchestrating mass murders.

  Another case involved a teenage girl who had learned via a text message that her boyfriend was breaking up with her and she too, took her life.

  Then there was thirteen-year-old Megan Meier of Missouri who killed herself when she was made the victim of a cruel internet joke. Her neighbor, a forty-nine-year-old woman pretended to be a young man interested in Megan.

  The cruel joke combined with the ADHD and depression from which Megan already suffered was enough to lead her to hang herself.

  As a result, the state of Missouri was the first to make cyber bullying against the law and the “neighbor” received up to one year in prison and a fine of $100,000. However, it cost Megan her life and her family years and years of ongoing loss of her.

  Ryan Patrick Halligan was another victim of cyber bullying. He had been bullied most of his life. But when he was going through adolescence and was struggling with and questioning his sexual orientation, he started dating a young girl in an effort to stop the rumors from circulating.

  When he chatted online with the girl she shared the messages with others. He also discovered that she had been making fun of him behind his back and she called him a loser in front of other kids at school. The betrayal and deception was powerful enough that he committed suicide.

  According to the Huffington Post eleven-year-old Carl Joseph-Walker succumbed to suicide in the absolute worst possible way when he killed himself – as did Alexis Pilkington in Long Island, New York after ongoing cy
ber bullying.

  There have also been stories told of teenagers throwing acid in the face of a young girl they did not like because she had flirted with one of their boyfriends.

  Fierce competitions combined with jealousy and an unhealthy desire to win at all costs in beauty pageants and competitions have resulted in razor blades being place in ballet slippers and evening gowns being ripped or stained. There have also been reports of star athletes being physically harmed to keep them out of a championship game.

  So as is evidenced through the severity and escalation of bullying in today’s society, what was once considered “typical” has grown out of hand. Because of this, parents, teachers, school administrators and students must all become educated on what is considered bullying, what causes it and what the results of it can be from the least to the very worst.

  It is important that bullying is stopped before it grows into physical violence or severe emotional abuse.

  Bullying is no longer just a phase. It deserves more attention than “Boys will be boys,” or “Girls are just being girls.” It deserves the attention of parents, schools, neighbors and in some case, law enforcement.

  If you are being bullied, you are not alone and there is help.

  You can and will overcome it. Be encouraged and be strong!

  If your child is being bullied, here is the information that can help you help and protect your child.

  If you are a teacher or work with children in any capacity – here is how you can help deter bullying before it begins, and stop it if it does.

  This book will talk about what bullying is, why people bully, the signs of someone being bullied, how you can help someone who is being bullied and what you can do if you are being bullied. Awareness is the first step in helping defuse a bullying situation. Hopefully with more people aware of what are the signs of a bullying situation, there would be less bullying and more encouraging in the world.

  What is Bullying?

  Bullying is described as any act in which a person does or says things to have power over another person. It is intimidating someone else. It is an imbalance of power. It is an expression of power and control in which the victim of it is left feeling powerless. Meantime the bully is compensating for his or her own lack of self-esteem at the expense of another person.

  There are almost as many types of bullying as there are bullies. Some of the categories of bullying are as follows: name calling, kicking or hitting, writing vulgar things about someone, scaring them, stalking them, threatening them in a specific way, forcing them, damaging their belongings, taking their belongings and more.

  The stereotypical example of bullying on television is the little boy who walks to school and a big bully stops him on the way and takes his lunch and makes him give up his milk money.

  If the little boy tells, then the bully says he will hurt him. If he doesn’t tell, then he goes without lunch and milk every day. It is a no win situation.

  Now if the little boy had told others about being bullied, arrangements would have been made for him to be driven to school. He would no longer be bullied and he could eat his lunch and drink his milk everyday.

  See how awareness of a bully situation can bring about an action to defuse bullying? Which would you rather do? Easy answer isn’t it? If you are being bullied or know someone who is, tell others about it to find a way around it.

  There are four specific types of bullying:

  Psychological-

  This category of bullying includes but is not limited to: spreading rumors, giving the “silent treatment” and exclusion from groups.

  Many of the following methods of bullying are dual methods in that they are also psychological because of the fear they invoke in a person. For instance, if a bully makes a verbal threat it also has a psychological effect on the person being bullied. Just as name calling, hitting or embarrassing them over the internet.

  All categories of bullying could also be considered psychological in addition to their primary category such as any of the three below.

  Verbal –

  This category includes, but is not limited to: name calling, making threats, spreading rumors and using words to scare or intimidate.

  Physical –

  This category includes, but is not limited to: pushing, hitting, kicking and taking things away from others or throwing things at them.

  Cyber bullying –

  This is the newest category of bullying. It is also known as social cruelty or electronic bullying – using text messages, instant messaging, web pages, cell phones, chat rooms or other social networking sites to bully, mistreat or harass others.

  Cyber bullying is the use of information via any one or more types of technology to create or support deliberate, hostile behavior and a group or individual to harm someone else.

  This form of bullying is thought to be far more hurtful and harmful emotionally because of its ability to be widespread and have anonymity. Out of 3,700 middle school children nationwide, one half did not know who was cyber bullying them.

  Eighty percent of teens report being bullied via some form of technology. With the touch of a computer’s send button, almost anything said, sent, photographed or recorded in any way can be mass distributed – broadcast to the entire world. Once it is, it cannot be retrieved by even the best computer expert.

  This is proof that bullying no longer occurs only on the playground or in dark inner-city alleys at nights, it also occurs in your own home via your internet or your child’s cell phone. It is no longer reserved for Physical Education Classes outside or after-school activities; it is a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week opportunity for those who are bullies.

  Cyber bullying is a new form of bullying. It is sending threatening, vulgar, untrue, obscene messages or images via the internet, blogs, websites, text messaging or other electronic means.

  Years ago young people would write ugly, vulgar things about their peers on bathroom walls. When they did, it could be discovered and erased. But today, Cyberspace has taken the place of the bathroom wall and it can be distributed to thousands of people by an anonymous source and cannot be erased once sent. It cannot only be seen by other people, but forwarded to more and more people, making it virtually impossible to control, much less stop from circulating.

  Also included in cyber bullying is pretending to be someone you are not to hurt someone, excluding someone from a group, or posting private information online.

  36% of 12-17 year olds had been threatened or embarrassed by things sent to them electronically.

  19% of internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 years of age admitted being involved in online aggression. 15% had been aggressors and 7% had been targets.

  18% of students in grades 6-8 have been cyber bullied once in the last two months at least once.

  11% had cyber bullied another person at least once in the last two months, 6% had two or more times.

  62% of students who were cyber bullied said it was by another student at school while another 46% were cyber bullied by a friend.

  More and more school systems are beginning to form task forces to address the issue of all types of bullying. Parents and students are demanding an additional layer of safety at school and at home.

  The problem with cyber bullying is that it has multiple ways and places that it can occur: text messaging on cell phones, chat rooms, websites and email, via digital cameras and more.

  With cyber bullying there are ways to intimidate and embarrass people without their ever seeing you or even knowing who you are. You can also broadcast rude, crude and untrue statements about a person to hundreds or thousands of people with the touch of a button. Once messages are sent, just like words from our mouths, they can never be retrieved.

  With the increase in the power of technology comes an increase in the need for responsibility in using it. This needs to be stressed at home by parents and at school by teachers.

  Why Do People Bully?

  There are
multiple and various ways and reasons that bullies bully people. They may be seeking attention or popularity for being tough or they may be repeating behavior that is done to them at home. They may also be jealous of the person they are bullying or they have a desire to make people fear them. Many bullies also put other people down in an attempt to make them feel inferior so they themselves can feel superior.

  Bullying is a way to compensate for one’s lack of self-esteem and confidence. It is a dead give-away that this person is not a happy, well-adjusted person.

  Many bullies do not make friends easily and have serious problems knowing how to communicate with others.