Shy Girls Social Club Handbook on Dealing with Bullies and Other Meanies Page 3

  · Unexplained cuts, scratches or bruises

  · Staying home and not wanting to go out

  · Crying frequently for no apparent reason

  · Displaying poor social skills

  · Bedwetting

  · Sudden changes in their behavior

  · Losing interest in school and in their grades

  · Displaying anxiety or a low self-esteem

  · Avoiding walking or riding the bus to school

  · Not participating in social clubs in which they have talents or interests

  · Taking the long way to school or going out of their way to avoid seeing people

  · Appearing upset or scared for no apparent reason

  · Dreaming/nightmares or trouble going to sleep or trouble sleeping too much

  · Changes in their appetite

  · Falling behind in their class work

  · Complaining of physical symptoms such as stomach aches or headaches

  · Missing toys, electronics, books, money or clothes

  · Showing signs of depression or withdrawal

  · Unusual and unexplained weight loss or weight gain

  What Parents Can Do if Their Child is Being Bullied

  · Communicate with their teacher and other school authorities

  · Stay involved in the child’s life

  · Watch for further warning signs

  · Let them know that you care and are concerned about them

  · Ask your child open-ended questions to encourage conversation

  · If your child reports being bullied to you do not minimize it or make rationalizations regarding it

  · Empower your child by telling them that it is not their fault

  · Do not let embarrassment, being shy or passive keep you from calling or visiting school authorities to report the bullying

  · Do not let privacy issues get in the way of your child’s safety and protection

  Take your child’s complaints seriously. They usually minimize their experiences in getting bullied. They are much more likely to keep it from you than to tell you. So if they tell you, be sure to hear them and respond.

  Talk with your child when you are driving somewhere. They can talk openly to you without having to make eye contact with you and it may be more comfortable and easier for them to do.

  If your child appears to be having problems or withdrawing in any way, check their text messages, emails and phone messages without them knowing it to make sure they have received no threatening messages. Teens may complain this is invasive, but parents do have a right to know what is going on with them.

  You can also call your child’s teacher and ask for a confidential conversation with them. You can express to them that your child has been acting a little unusual, withdrawn, etc. and ask them to keep an eye on them to see if they observe anything unusual occurring before, during or after class. Ask them to contact you if there is anything unusual that you need to know about.

  If you feel your child may be being bullied by a specific person, you can share that with the teacher as well and they may be able to intervene by separating the students or standing closer to the desk of the one bullying, etc.

  Things you can work with your child to do is to block the bully’s cell phone number and block them from your child’s Facebook page so they cannot send messages to your child.

  You can also call your cell phone company. Most of them have “malicious calls” helpdesks via customer service. You can consider changing your child’s cell phone number, but make sure that they understand you are doing it to protect them, not hurt or punish them for what some bully has done.

  Advise your child to give their cell phone number and email address only to their friends and ask them not to share them with other people and to keep them private. Ask them to be careful about whom they give that information to, as well.

  Ask them to think before they link and to keep their passwords safe and secure from anyone. They need to incorporate case sensitive passwords with at least one or two numbers in it.

  If they receive information from bullies, advise them to notify you and not to respond to the bullies. That is exactly what most bullies want – to have control and power. They want to disrupt someone’s day and upset them. They want someone to argue with them. It only fuels their fire. Don’t.

  If your child continues to receive cyber bullying, keep the evidence of it. Cyber bullies cannot run like the bullies on the playground can, they leave a trail of evidence. Keep it, you may need it later.

  The good news is that when cyber bullying occurs it’s no longer just your child’s word against the bully’s word, there is proof. The bullies think if there is no face or name on their trash that they can’t get caught. Wrong!

  What are the General Characteristics of Bullies?

  (These are some of the characteristics of bullies per the United States Department of Health and Human Services research studies.)

  Bullies don’t make friends easily. Imagine that! They are also excluded from activities with other kids because they make it that way. They also tend to become law breakers and gang members in their future.

  Boys are more likely to bully than girls. Boys bullying is more likely to be of a physical nature such as kicking, hitting, etc.

  Boys bullying is more direct and obvious than girls bullying tends to be. Girls bullying is more indirect and subtle. It is more than likely to be more emotional such as teasing, sexual comments, name calling or starting rumors, etc. Girls seem to have more of a problem with another girl taking their boyfriend away, flirting with their guy, competition for a guy they’re interested in, feeling threatened about their “social status”.

  Male bullies tend to bully both genders whereas female bullies tend to only bully other females.

  Male bullies are usually physically larger than their peers that they are bullying. How many little guys have you ever seen bully a big guy? None.

  Younger teenagers are more likely to bully or be bullied than older teenagers. This is more than likely an issue of maturity and life experiences combined as they grow older and learn more social skills and negative consequences to bullying.

  What are the Specific Characteristics of Bullies?

  They tend to:

  · Break rules

  · Express no empathy

  · Act impulsively

  · Be argumentative

  · Seem depressed

  · Dislike school

  · Act domineering

  · Resent authority

  · Have problems at home

  · Be rebellious

  · Don’t have parents that are involved in their lives

  · Easily frustrated

  · “Act out” in various unhealthy ways

  · View aggression as a positive thing

  · React to things with a short temper

  · Have parents who are permissive and provide little supervision

  · Have parents who don’t discipline much, but when they do, it is with a very harsh punishment

  · Have been or are being bullied by someone else, so they bully others

  Behaviors by Bullies

  Behaviors as a result of bullying can range from vandalism, theft, truancy and fighting to talking back to adults, teachers and virtually anyone in authority over them.

  Bullies tend to use and abuse alcohol and drugs and smoke cigarettes.

  They are known for misbehaving in and outside of the classroom at school. They are disruptive in class.

  Because of their behavior, they are more likely to get involved in crime as an adult.

  Bullies if not disciplined and controlled, can and usually do continue their life of bullying other people even into adulthood. They simply learn new ways to do it.

  As adults, bullies are the people who cause constant chaos in the offices in which they work and constantly disrupt organizations they are in be they civic clubs or charity events. They are also the people who constantly hurt
other people’s feelings and argue over seemingly nothing.

  What Teachers Can Do

  Teachers and educators at all levels play a vital role not only in the academic life of the children they teach, but in the social life of them as well. With time in the education field comes the ability to discern between what is teasing and what is bullying. Obviously, a great deal of both occurs among school age children of all grades and ages. As a result, there are many suggestions from child psychologists and career educators that can be used as a guideline for your specific situation.

  Set ground rules – do’s and don’ts for your classroom There needs to be ground rules for every classroom situation regarding what is and is not acceptable: when students can talk, how you prefer they ask questions, or be recognized, when they can leave their desks, etc. Address with them the social requirements that you enforce in addition to the academic ones.

  While you may have those rules and regulations implemented in your classroom, it is important to ensure that your students know them and to ensure that you follow the school system’s policies and procedures given they have them and they should. Each parent and student should have received and been required to sign a copy of them at the beginning of the school year. If not, be sure that they do. If your school does not have policies regarding how to handle bullying, take the initiative to recommend them.

  If for any reason they do not feel the need for such a policy, then create one for your classroom and make sure every student and their parents or guardian sign it with them. Keep the signed form on file.

  Explain the difference in teasing and bullying, encourage sharing and kindness and empower your students to stand up for themselves. Ask students to think before they speak.

  Make sure to verbalize the policy and procedure in order to remind the students of the consequences of bullying. If you observe tension between students, or hear rumors of a couple of students who are having problems, go ahead without saying anything to them and separate them by placing them as far away as possible and hopefully toward the front of the classroom so you can keep your eyes on them. This should make it harder for them to have confrontations and easier for you to watch them too. Prevention is always the best policy.

  Stop even the slightest indication of a potential bullying. It is much easier to prevent it than to stop it. If you see or hear bullying in progress, immediately step between the children. Use a calm but stern matter-of-fact voice with them.

  Try as best as you can to break the eye contact between them. This alone will go a long way toward defusing the situation. Separate them first and find out the details later.

  Communicate incidences with other staff members to be on the look out for problems and possible confrontations between the students involved. Be sure to call in the appropriate authorities for the specific incident. That may be their parents, the school principle or even the Police.

  When it has all blown over, you will want to follow up on what happened by supporting the child who was bullied to help ease their pain and embarrassment, and by talking with the child who was doing the bullying and deciding the consequences of their actions.

  If there were bystanders during the confrontation that tried to break it up or reported it to you, be sure to thank them and if there are better ways they could have handled it let them know.

  If there was no intervention, consider later explaining to your students how they could intervene or report such an incidence in the future that would be in the best interests of

  everyone involved.

  Whatever you do, do not tell the students to “work it out’ between themselves. Bullying is all about a power imbalance, so “working it out,” won’t work, and they will only be set up for failure.

  Investigate all allegations of bullying. Have a zero tolerance for any mean or ugly words or name calling, much less any inappropriate physical contact.

  Ask them to consider how they would feel if they were talked to or treated the way they are treating someone else when they bully.

  When heated discussions of a controversial nature occur in the classroom, teach your students to be tough on issues, but soft on people. Inform them that they have a right to their opinions, but others do too, even if they are extremely different. Teaching them to be passionate about the issues and learning to defend those issues instead of tearing apart the other person’s can drastically cut down on sarcastic and ugly remarks which often result in verbal if not physical bullying.

  Picture the baseball coach and the umpire. What happens when the coach kicks dirt in the umpire’s face and calls him a vulgar name? Does it hurt the umpire? No, it makes the coach look like a spoiled rotten little brat and gets him kicked out of the game. Discuss with your class some of the ways the coach could have expressed his dislike without making himself look so ridiculous while embarrassing his family, players, team and their fans.

  Teach your students the Golden Rule. It is not taught as often in school today as it once was, but its importance has never faded. It still holds true today. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

  A classroom built on this rule and run accordingly should have many fewer incidences of bullying.

  Make the classroom a safe place and a place that is off limits to bullying. Once your class is over, take the initiative to walk to the door and open it for the students, watching them walk down the hall to change classes. Just the presence of your eyes in between classes can deter bullying that could usually occur in the hallways.

  Create a positive and respectful classroom atmosphere where all your students participate in a friendly environment and one that respects inclusion and diversity.

  When to Report Bullying to Law Enforcement:

  There are times when reporting bullying to law enforcement officers is very important. If your school has a Resource Officer, that would be the place to start. Many people say it is just child’s play or typical bullying and that the Police cannot be called every time a child gets bullied at school – so how do you know when it is time to report it?

  If it makes you feel any better, remember that bullies as children usually turn out to be bullies as adults. They are also more likely to participate in criminal behavior. That means that it is an innate part of their personality and if there have been repeated incidences of bullying from this person of just one or multiple people, and the school has tried to intervene with no results or support from the bully’s parents, then it may be time to report him.

  If the above paragraph is accurate for your situation, understand that you are not tattling or overreacting – you are doing something that needs to be done before you or anyone else gets hurt by this bully. You are not the problem, the bully is the problem. However, you could become part of the solution and save a lot of other people from having to tolerate such unfair and inappropriate bullying.

  Any time there is pornography involved in bullying or any physical threat of violence involved such as, “I am going to kill you,” or “I promise I will get you back when you least expect it,” need to be reported.

  Stalking falls in that same category as well. If a person bullies you at school, you have some layer of protection and safety between you and them. If they follow you home or to the park and harass you then that is a totally different story. You have a right to be safe no matter where you are. If the bully is obsessed enough with going out of his way to follow you to bully you, he has to be reported to the Police.

  Extortion is a criminal act that involves coercion or a threat of violence if something specific isn’t done. An example would be if a bully told you that he would hurt you if you didn’t give him $100, your bicycle or something else of worth. Extortion must always be reported to the Police.

  Threats of physical violence are always serious and need to be reported to the proper law enforcement officials immediately upon receiving them. Many people want to know how to tell if the threats are real or not. If they have been made then they are real.
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  The greatest urgency in reporting a bullying incident to the Police is when the bully makes specific treats such as, “the minute you walk out that door today I’m going to hurt you,” or “You just wait until the ball game Friday night and I’ll show you.”

  Any physical contact or threat that has specific information accompanying it is extremely serious. For instance, if a bully says, “I’m going to get my dad’s gun and shoot you.” Or “I’m going to cut you into a million pieces,” or “I am going to break into your house and strangle you,” would indicate that he has actually thought about the how and when of hurting you. It is critical that you report that to school officials and law enforcement officials both – immediately! Do not take a chance with those kinds of threats. Being safe is always better than being sorry!