Profiles of a Bully: How to Make a Center Safe

1. Profiles of a Bully: How to Make a Center Safe Bradley Kohl, MSW Center Mental Health Consultant Shriver Job Corps Center Boston Region Health and Wellness Conference September 28, 2006

2. What is Bullying? Definition: Repeated physical, verbal sexual, or psychological attacks or intimidation by an individual who is perceived as being physically or psychologically stronger than another. Analogies include: sexual harassment and spouse abuse, i.e., all involve an imbalance of power. The perpetrator may blame the victim for the abuse, and the victim may blame him or herself. Ref: Olweus, D. (2003). A profile of bullying at school. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 12-17.

3. Relational Aggression (RA) Definition: the use of social relationships to hurt and/or dominate Examples include: • Rumors • Name calling • Excluding from social groups • Gossip Ref: Dellasega and Nixon, (2003) Girl Wars 12 Strategies That Will End Female Bullying, Fireside Books

4. A Look at Bullying Statistics 1/3 of all high school students report being involved in frequent and serious bullying: • 10% as perpetrators • 13% as victims • 6% as both • ?% as witnesses and bystanders Ref: Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R. S., Ruan, W. J., Simons-Morton, B., & Scheidt, P. (2001). Bullying behaviors among U.S. youth: Prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285(16), 2094-2100.

5. Bullying Statistics cont. • 77% of middle and high school students in the rural Midwest towns they studied reported having been the target of bullies at some point in their school career. • 51% of males in another study reported that they were afraid of someone in their school.

6. Bullying Statistics Cont. • 8 out of 10 high school students in one survey responded that they had been the target of sexual harassment. Ref: U.S. Secret Service & U.S. Department of Education. (2002). The final report and findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the prevention of school attacks in the United States, by B. Vossekuil, R. A. Fein, M. Reddy, K. Borum, and W. Modzeleski. Washington, DC: U.S. Secret Service.

7. Why Be Concerned About Bullying? • Bullies are 5 times as likely to become adult criminals as non-bullies • Targets of bullying are more likely to become depressed as adults • Preventing bullying improves the emotional safety of the Center Ref: Ross, D. (1996) Childhood Bullying and Teasing, ACA Press

8. What Is The Impact of Emotional Violence? The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that in some cases the psychological consequences of verbal abuse by peers may be more damaging than physical abuse.

9. Verbal and Psychological Abuse Tends To: • Denigrate and diminish the victim/target • Damage a person’s positive self-concept • Become accepted as normal behavior • Harm the perceived level of emotional safety in the school setting. This can apply to victims and bystanders/ witnesses.

10. Further Consequences of Bullying • Youth who are bullied have significantly higher rates of suicide, depression, PTSD, and substance abuse. Ref: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Mental Health Services (2003). Bullying is not a fact of life (CMHS-SVP-0052).

11. Further Consequences of Bullying • Almost 75 percent of students who used violent weapons at school (e.g., guns or knives) to attack others felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others prior to the incident. Ref: U.S. Secret Service & U.S. Department of Education. (2002). The final report and findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the prevention of school attacks in the United States, by B. Vossekuil, R. A. Fein, M. Reddy, K. Borum, and W. Modzeleski. Washington, DC: U.S. Secret Service.

12. More Findings Re: Weapons • About 50 percent of boys and 30 percent of girls who had bullied others in school reported carrying a weapon. • Thirty-six percent of boys and 15 percent of girls who had been bullied carried a weapon. • Youth who are bullied and who also bully others away from school were nearly 16 times more likely to carry a weapon. Ref: Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M. D., Haynie, D. L., Ruan, W. J., & Scheidt, P. C. (2003) Relationships between bullying and violence among U.S. youth. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 157(4), 348-353.

13. Adolescent Developmental Tasks • Develop independence and self-reliance • Develop a secure and stable personal identity • Move effectively toward a productive “role” in society, i.e., mainly with respect to work and relationships

14. Interference with Developmental Tasks • Decrease confidence/perceived competence/sense of mastery • Disconnection from emotional experience and development • Disruption in normal identity development • Increase reliance on unhealthy coping skills, e.g., drug and alcohol abuse

15. Typical interventions • Denial: “That’s just boys being boys, it doesn’t mean anything.” • Blaming the victim or expecting the victim to solve the problem: “If you just didn’t react like that, they would leave you alone.” • Seeing it as character-building for the victim: “It just might toughen him up.”

16. Myths About Youth and Bullies Myth: Youth always refuse to tell adults about what they see or experience that concerns them. Reality: It depends on what they think we will do with the information.

17. Myths About Youth and Bullies Myth: Bullying can’t be stopped, it’s just the way young people act; always has been, always will be. Reality: Very effective interventions have been developed and can be implemented which significantly diminish bullying in schools and other settings.

18. Myths About Youth and Bullies Myth: If a kid isn’t either a bully or a victim, he or she isn’t really affected by bullying. Reality: Bullying affects everyone’s sense of emotional safety.

19. Myths About Youth and Bullies Myth: Kids have to learn how to deal with bullies on their own, it teaches them how to be tough. Reality: If they had the ability to effectively handle bullying, they wouldn’t be the victims of bullies. We are obligated to intervene on several different levels.

20. Focus on Bullies Bullies: • Tend to rely on belligerence and intimidation • Enjoy dominating other kids • Have learned that using aggressive behavior achieves desired results • Tend to misinterpret neutral interactions as an affront or attack. • Tend to come from homes with little expressed affection and harsh inconsistent discipline. Males more likely to use physical intimidation Females more likely to use psychological intimidation

21. Bullies as Adults: Have a one in four chance of having a criminal record by the age of 30. (vs. one in 20 chance for non-bullies) Ref: Ross, D. (1996) Childhood Bullying and Teasing, ACA Press

22. Focus on Victims Victims tend: • to be physically weaker • to have some “difference” from other students (although difference in itself is not sufficient or necessary) • to feel they may deserve the abuse • to display attention-seeking behavior which serves to encourage the abuse

23. Responding Effectively to Bullying • Involves development and consistent enforcement of effective consequences for verbal and physical aggression which are predictable, inevitable, immediate, and escalating, and based on uniform expectations for all. • Consistent use of consequences will reduce bullying and are a necessary component of effective prevention. • Inconsistent enforcement makes the problem worse. Ref: Stan Davis, http://www.stopbullyingnow.com

24. Counseling Bullies Bullies need to learn to: • Acknowledge their own actions • Acknowledge the results of their behavior on themselves • Connect actions and consequences: ("I broke a rule and got in trouble. I don't want to go through that again!") • Change their actions to stay out of trouble • Find other ways to get their needs met • Acknowledge the results of their behavior on others • Develop remorse ("I hurt someone") • Learn to trust and delay gratification • Form relationships with helping adults

25. What About The “Silent Majority?” • Ongoing education should be aimed at the silent majority of students (the +/- 85% who are neither victims nor bullies), asking them to: stand up to bullies, get adult help, and reach out in friendship to peers who are excluded. The goals of this education are to build peer pressure against bullying, to stop copycat bullying, and to increase support for victims.

26. Witnesses May: • Be afraid of associating with the victim for fear of lowering their social status among their peers, or fear retribution from the bully and becoming victims themselves • Fear reporting bullying incidents because they do not want to be considered a "snitch," "tattler," or "informer" • Experience guilt or helplessness for not standing up to the bully on behalf of their classmate • Be drawn into bullying behavior by peer pressure • Feel unsafe, a loss of control, or unable to take action

27. Some Ideas about Preventing Bullying • Discuss with students alternative ways to respond and prompt them to use them • Reward kindness • Address the environmental factors • Help students recognize and reinforce healthy relationship boundaries • Help to start an “anti-RA” campaign • Develop the most positive staff-student atmosphere possible