Saturday, July 30, 2011

Mothers as Bystanders to social bullying

Mothers as Bystanders
Mothers, who can identify relational aggression and take positive action to stop the bullying, demonstrate to their daughters, sons, and other girls the power of the bystander.  I recently had a conversation with a young girl helping her practice the words she could use to stop bullying when she saw it occur.  Her response to me ‘But you’re so self confident, I can’t stop a bully.’  It takes courage, whether you are a mother or a daughter or a son to respond to social bullying.  Practice helps.  When girls see mothers stop bullying with gentle and positive direction, they too can build the confidence in refusing to remain neutral.

Without role models, to demonstrate how girls can resolve conflicts and deal positively with negative emotions, bullying will continue to exist in a social form.  On numerous occasions mothers have come to me complaining about how another mother behaved toward them.  Often this behavior was the form of bullying and while daughters and other mothers were present.  I often review the issues with the offended mother and suggest strategies to re-build relationships.  However, frequently the offending mother does not want to discuss her role nor her impact; leaving the offended mother with few options and the observing girls left to wonder how to deal effectively with bullying.  Mothers can have the confidence to speak up in the moment and stop bullying as both a bystander and as a victim.

Mothers cannot be bystanders to the relational aggression and bullying of other mothers, especially if done in front of girls.  We cannot expect our daughters to behave any differently in a bystander situation if mothers cannot also remove themselves from the protection of neutrality and take a vocal stand against the bullying of another mother or of themselves.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

List of effective responses to social bullying

Ignoring a bullying situation does not make it go away.  Girls/Boys need tools: to deal with the pressure of being a bystander, being a victim as well as being the bully.  For example both the victim and the bystander need examples of words to use to be assertive.    Practicing these words in a variety of safe scripted environments, similar as practicing a fire drill, allows girls to be prepared and have their tools easily accessible.  Having tools at the ready means that girls and boys can respond immediately, just as if they were responding to a fire.   

In developing your own skits each response should include three elements: state a clear description of the behavior, state directly that the bystander or victim does not like the behavior, and state clearly that the behavior must stop immediately.  

Examples of direct responses for bystanders and victims can include:
  • That’s bullying and you should stop.     
  • I can see what you are doing and I don’t like it, stop hurting her feelings.      
  • She feels bad about herself when you say that, stop.                                           
  • You may not want to be mean but you are saying mean things, stop.              
  • When you exclude her from the group I don’t like how she feels and I don’t want to be a part of this group.                                                              
  • You are trying to make yourself feel better by making her feel worse, stop it.       
  • That’s a rumor.  It would hurt her feelings if she heard us and we should not talk about her like this.                                                                        
  • You only want to be friends with me now because there is no one else around.  I don’t want a part-time friend.
  • You say that you are kidding but the words you choose hurt.  It doesn’t matter whether this is kidding or teasing - it needs to stop.
  • That joke was embarrassing, stop.
  • Those texts are harassing, stop them now.
  • When you shrug your shoulders and roll your eyes while I’m talking I feel disrespected and I get the message that you don’t like me.  You don’t have to like me but when I’m talking to the class, pay attention and do not encourage others not to listen to me.
  • You are competing with her and she is being hurt, she doesn’t feel good about herself.  Compete with yourself instead of competing against her.
  • I think we should include her opinion too.  It’s not fair to exclude her from the group.

Please notice that in these responses the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ were not used.  Please can be perceived, in the moment, as asking rather than telling.  The bystander and victim must firmly tell the bully to stop the behavior of bullying.  Gratitude and appreciation for the cessation of bullying may occur, when the bullying finally comes to a complete halt.

Explaining why the victim or bystander does not like the behavior or exploring the emotional impact, other than naming it as bullying, is unnecessary in the first moments that bullying takes place.  It is critical that the response be clear and immediate from the victim and bystander.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Impact of Bystanders


The Impact of Bystanders
There is no neutrality when it comes to being a bystander.  I recently witnessed a girl yelling and shaking her finger at another girl in public in front of other girls.  She felt she was justified; she felt she had caught the other girl doing something wrong; she wanted to make sure others knew and that there was a public apology.  I overheard another girl say “I’m neutral.  I’m not taking sides.”  This was a form of ‘justified’ bullying and the bystander actually participated in the bullying by being neutral.

Bystanders are as responsible for bullying as the bully herself.  Bullying demands an audience; girl relationship aggression requires support and compliance from others.  Bullying would not exist in its strongest form were it not for the bystander.  The victim perceives both the bully and the bystanders as against them, even though the bystander may profess to be neutral.  The victim becomes even more isolated and more hurt when no one steps in to help.

There can be no neutrality from peers, from teachers, from parents, from schools when it comes to bullying.  Studies show that if girls jump into the role of socially encouraged peacemaker during a bullying conflict, the bullying will continue.   To defeat bullying, the position of bystander must be thoroughly examined and an active response by the bystander encouraged.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

List of phrases identified as social bullying

Words
“Words do hurt” was on one of the cards recently held up by a young girl on YouTube in 2011 trying to explain how she felt about being bullied.  "Think before you say things. It might save lives," was another card.  The list of names that she was called is long and random; the only things the words had in common were that they were designed to hurt.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37_ncv79fLA
Phrases, such as:
  • "If you don't do this (give me something, steal, lie, sit next to me at lunch) I will not be your friend."    "You can't be my friend if you are also friends with them".  These phrases hold the friendship hostage, are bullying, and are a sure sign of a part-time friend.
  • "I don't know why you're getting so upset - I'm just kidding."  This leaves the victim in a confused state, if she is just kidding then what she thought just happened did not happen and she begins to doubt herself and her own feelings of hurt and rejection.  Kidding can be just as emotionally violent as any other form of bullying and needs to be directly addressed to be stopped.
  • "No offense, but could you leave?" An insult guised with softening words such as ‘no offense’ to soften the blow of the message and validate that the bully is trying to be nice.
  • "I don't want to be mean, but my parents said you talk too much."   Again the bully can feel good about her statements because she is just repeating something she heard and does not take responsibility for the words themselves.  She also protects herself with the softening words as she ‘doesn’t want to be mean’; she feels safe that she is still in the cloak of socially required niceness.
  • "I didn't mean it so you can't get mad at me."  The bully can feel safe by taking back her words that she did not really mean to say them.  But by defending herself she admits to the real intention.
  • "Now see what you did?  That's all you fault."  Blaming another for a problem allows the bully to escape from responsibility and shift the public focus onto the victim who may or may not have contributed.
  • "I'm not mad at you" but then talking behind her back about why she deserves to be mad.  Lying is an easy escape to avoid directly addressing feelings and then justifying the lie and the reason for talking behind someone’s back.
  • “I heard she did this.  Can you believe it?”  Rumors are hurtful and can take on a life of their own in person, texting, or in some form on the internet.
  • “The reasons that your feelings get hurt are so lame.”  Sharing feelings of sadness or hurt puts the sharing girl in a position of vulnerability and when criticized for these feelings she will feel further hurt and doubt the validity of her own feelings.
Two areas which deserve special note are indirect verbal aggression and justified bullying.  Indirect verbal aggression is when every sharp comment is quickly followed by the disclaimer, "Just kidding" or "I didn’t mean it, no offense." These are words to soften the blow.  Simmons writes that every person is entitled to set clear boundaries by establishing "a no joke zone."  Girls can inform their group that at the lunch table or in the classroom they do not want jokes or teasing.

‘Justified bullying’ is when the bully finds a reason that has some logic, for bullying.  Whether the bully chooses to use the phrase ‘they deserved it’ because the victim is too cute, too clumsy or whatever the reason, that has an element of truth.  Justified bullying can be deceiving at first to recognize because the element of truth which exists within the bullying.  Of course there is no justification for bullying.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Difference between Boys and Girls - Bullying

The Difference between Girls and Boys
Boys have been taught from an early age that they can express their aggression, anger and frustration in physical ways.  There are many positive ways in which this is done as in sports and competition.  There are also negative ways, with negative impacts on others, such as fighting, bullying, or hitting.  Our society can more easily accept boy’s aggressive behavior and mothers can still be heard to say “boys will be boys”.
Both boys and girls can be socially aggressive and bully through relationships and both girls and boys can bully physically.  The difference is in how society accepts or tolerates each type of bullying and the unique pressure on girls to be caretakers and ‘be nice’ without resources to appropriately express anger.

Bullying is not only for boys.  Girl bullying is just as hurtful, destructive, and violent as their counterparts but needs to be named as such and addressed differently.  Although the behavior of girl bullying differs from the physical boy bullying, the result and impact on the victim is the same.  Some would argue that the social and emotional bullying that girls or boys do is far more destructive and profound as the wounds cannot be seen and may take a lifetime to heal.  

Girls have been taught from an early age, that anger is not a valued attribute for girls.  Our society tells girls to be ‘nice’, to play ‘nice’ and be the ‘peacemaker’.  Girls who are assertive can often be labeled as bossy but the difference between assertive or bossy and bullying is clearest in the substantial negative impact bullying has on its victims and bystanders.  

Bullying can be difficult to see as girls are instructed to be nice without negative feelings at the expense of being her real self.  Bullying is hidden so the bully can still be a ‘nice girl’, have the socially accepted appearance of being a ‘nice girl’, while still releasing her aggression.  

From kindergarten on, girls learn the importance of social relationships and often will do things and say things in order to protect their sense of wellbeing in these relationships.  When girls are willing to say anything, or do anything to protect their social relationships, status in these relationships, or to gain further importance or acceptance in these relationships, that is when bullying takes place.  Girls become desperate to hold on to their ‘social currency’.

"Our culture stigmatizes assertive (direct), professional women, casting them as cold, frigid b...s doomed to failure in their personal lives.  I want to emphasize how this particular stereotype communicates to girls their worst fear: that to become assertive in anyway (or to have negative feelings - anger, jealousy) will terminate their relationships and disqualify them from the primary social currency in their lives, tenderness and nurturing.  When competition and desire cannot be enacted in healthy ways and when girls are expected to give priority to care and relationship, resentment, confusion and retribution follow shortly behind." Rachel Simmons Odd Girl Out

The most socially adept girls in class, who say the right things publicly, appear to be most popular, or appear to have many friends, are often the girls who can be most skilled in bullying.  Because of their advanced social skills they know how to hide the bullying from the watchful eyes of parents and teachers.  Often very attentive to subtle cues, they are able to bully unnoticed if the observer does not know what to look for in bullying behavior.  And because of these skills know how to use relational bullying where it will do the most damage to egos and friendships.

Monday, July 11, 2011

When does relational aggression begin?

Relational Aggression and Emotional Violence

Bullying is prevalent in our society.  Whether it is the physical bullying of a young boy for his lunch money, a group of girls socially isolating another girl, or a mother, feeling in the right, publicly yelling at another mother; these are all examples of bullying.  As a society we have agreed upon rules regarding physical bullying, touching, hitting, pushing, or tripping.  We have not agreed upon what constitutes girl social and emotional bullying, how to recognize it, and what to do about it.

In addition, we need to separate the bullying behavior from the bully.  Really there is no bully; there is just the behavior.  She is not a bully; it is not who she is; but rather behavior that can be changed. When the term bully is used it is not a description of who she is as a person, but as a way to abbreviate the description of behavior.

When Does Bullying Start
“Girls absolutely exclude one another in kindergarten,” said Michelle Anthony, a psychologist and co-author of the new book “Little Girls Can Be Mean.”  When one girl excludes another from playing or prohibits access to other girls, this is a form of bullying and can be seen at a very early age.