Models of Bullying?

Bullying, obviously, is a hot topic these days, and it certainly should be. No child should feel sad, afraid or unable to learn because of bullying behavior by others. Unfortunately, though, I think some of the proposed solutions are too simplistic, and I'm feeling discouraged about current efforts to solve the problem. In my view, bullying is a complex problem, and one that will take all of us working together to solve. Let's begin with models of bullying -- as a society, we provide kids with models of bullying 24/7. As Derrick Jackson noted in his Boston Globe column on February 2nd, 2010, with the trash talk by professional athletes, "we adults have made it almost impossible for adolescents to know when they cross the line." He points out, "We glorify loud athletes, handsomely pay barking talk show hosts and accepted Presidents Bush and Clinton taunting military, political, and media enemies." Talk shows, blogs, and commentary on newspaper websites are rife with personal attacks and put-downs. (I'm feeling discouraged about those conversations, too, these days. Reasonable people can certainly disagree, for example, on whether a new police car is needed, but I'd love to see everyone treat others with respect, avoiding personal attacks and expressing disagreement in a manner that demonstrates respect for the other person and for his/her opinions.) Advertising, both print and media, frequently contains some sort of put-down or meanness played for shock value or for laughs. Then, let's look at television shows and movies, which, again, use disrespect, put-downs, and meanness for shock value and for laughs. Finally, if one reads the news, much of it is reporting who said what about whom, and much of that is "mud-slinging" or blaming someone for something -- again, disrespect and put-downs. All in all, kids are provided daily with a wide variety of models of bullying.


When kids see disrespect, put-downs, and personal attacks as models of public discourse, they will naturally assume that this is an appropriate way to talk to people outside their family. Hopefully, parents are providing good modeling of appropriate responses to others and are insisting on respectful interactions at home with family members, but kids may still conclude that what they see outside their family is the way it is with people other than family and close friends.

How do we -- parents, community, schools -- counter this and help kids learn to treat each other respectfully? My thoughts would be something in the nature of a major public education campaign, both inside schools and outside, and including broad participation -- either voluntary or mandated, if necessary -- by all organizations involved in any way in communication. For example, sports teams could explicitly model good sportsmanship and provide consequences for trash talking and other inappropriate behavior. Newspapers could require (as NPR does) full names on their online forums, and actively monitor and eliminate comments that include personal attacks. The media could be required to broadcast an example of appropriate respectful talk for each example of disrespect. Along with all of this would be a public education campaign and a school campaign for students. In his February 2nd column, Jackson opined that "legislation needs to coincide with a national crusade," and I completely agree. What a wonderful improvement would result from that!

Instead, unfortunately, we have some wonderful efforts on the part of schools and parents, coupled with new legislation that is being lauded as the solution to bullying, but which appears to me to fall far short of what's needed. My understanding is that the pending legislation would simply make bullying a crime and would require additional reporting by schools. As far as I can tell, that will only make it more difficult for schools to deal with bullying, both because making something a crime inevitably leads to focusing on definitions (is it bullying or isn't it?) rather than on helping students learn good behavior, and because adding more reporting requirements takes time away from working with students, teachers, and parents, and does nothing to help schools deal with the problem.

I hope that we will soon have a major public education effort that focuses on respectful interactions among people. Meanwhile, however, thank you to parents for your hard work with your children on this front, particularly in helping kids learn not to be bystanders but instead to find the courage to object to bullying and teasing, and we will certainly continue and strengthen our efforts in the schools to help kids learn to treat others with respect and have the courage to intervene when appropriate.