There sure is. And it starts with adults.
SEATTLE, April 26, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The issue of bullying is getting more attention than ever. Some of the biggest names in entertainment, from Lady Gaga to Sesame Street, from Cartoon Network to the Weinstein Company, are working tirelessly to raise awareness about what's being called a bullying epidemic.
But is it really an epidemic? Or could it be that people simply can't agree on what's bullying and what's not? "Bullying is unfair and one-sided. It happens when someone keeps hurting, frightening, threatening, or leaving someone out on purpose," states Steps to Respect: A Bullying Prevention Program. It's one of the first things adults and kids learn in the school-wide program, which happens to be the only bullying prevention program to show positive results from a randomized controlled trial among American school children.
Because of the anti-bullying legislation in place in many states, schools are under increasing pressure to identify exactly what bullying is. "There are some key elements that separate bullying from conflict," says Mia Doces, a nationally recognized bullying-prevention expert who works for Committee for Children, the nonprofit organization that created the Steps to Respect program. "One is repetition. Did it happen once and then stop, or is it ongoing? Another is a clear imbalance of power. Is one child older, bigger, or more popular than the other? If so, it could be bullying. A fifth-grader repeatedly taking a ball from a third-grader at recess is likely bullying. Two fifth-graders disagreeing over which of them gets to use the ball first—even if the conflict becomes physical—is not. Conflict is still a problem that needs to be dealt with through a problem-solving process or peer mediation, but can and should be dealt with differently than a bullying problem."
But you can always tell who is a bully and who isn't, right? Wrong, says Doces. "First of all, it's really important not to label children 'bullies' or 'victims.' Rather than labeling the children, we want to label the behavior in hopes that the child can move on to more positive behavior. To call a child a bully is to suggest that he or she may never break out of that role, whereas to say that the same child is bullying is to acknowledge that he or she is capable of stopping."
So if we just teach kids to stop bullying and report it when they do see it—a la Cartoon Network's recent special, "Stop Bullying: Speak Up"—then bullying will stop, won't it? Doces says it's not that simple. "Let's follow that plan of action to its logical conclusion. A child is being bullied. He remembers that he's been told to always tell an adult. So he tells the nearest adult—but what if that person does nothing? Do you think the child will ever report bullying again?"
That's why any best-practice anti-bullying program will start by training all the adults in the school. "Every single adult in that school building—from the principal to the bus driver—must know what bullying is (and isn't!), the process for taking or making a report, and strategies for effectively intervening if they witness bullying," says Doces. "Every adult who touches a child's life has a role to play in preventing bullying, whether it is setting up effective policies and procedures, teaching and modeling prosocial skills, or nurturing positive relationships."
"The fact is, most schools are working tirelessly to counteract bullying," says Doces, citing a recent Bullying Town Hall sponsored by Education.com at the National Association of Elementary School Principals' annual conference in Seattle. Sally Vilardi, Committee for Children's Marketing and Outreach Director and the parent of a child who was bullied, says, "Very often, through no fault of their own, adults don't know that bullying is happening. Adults can't fix it if they don't know it's happening in the first place. So when children report bullying, adults need to take them seriously. My son was lucky to be in a school where they did. When the adults are all on the same team, bullying prevention can be very effective."
The key is to come at it from the issue of basic safety. "There isn't a parent or school administrator out there who doesn't want a safe environment in which children can learn," says Doces, "So starting the dialogue by establishing that we're all on the same team goes a long way toward cooperation."
So what can we take away from all this talk about bullying? Yes, bullying is a problem, acknowledges Doces. "But it's not insurmountable, and it's important to recognize the tireless work that many people are already doing to solve it. And getting all the adults to agree on how to solve it is a huge first step."
About Committee for Children
Seattle-based nonprofit Committee for Children is the world's leading provider of educational programs for preschool through Grade 8 that teach social and emotional skills to prevent bullying and violence and promote academic achievement. Today, Committee for Children is helping more than 9 million students in 25,000 schools in 70 countries around the globe make friends, respect themselves and others, succeed in school today, and build a better world tomorrow. http://www.cfchildren.org/
The Committee for Children logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=12608
