DEALING WITH BULLING
This, of course, means there is increased pressure on teachers and other supervisors during camps to ensure bullying does not occur, and to watch for signs of it.
By definition, bullying is aggressive behaviour by one child, or a group of children, who use a perceived power imbalance to hurt or intimidate others. It’s not the same as rough’n’tumble play on the oval or in the playground that occasionally results in more pain than was intended. Bullying is intentional and on going. American research indicates bullying occurs to 10 per cent of children; recent Australian research suggests as many as one in five students aged between eight and 17 are bullied.
As South Australia’s internationally acknowledged expert on bullying, Dr Ken Rigby, writes:
“As long as we are thinking about malign bullying, which is, for the most part, what concerns us as educators, we can reasonably think of ‘a wilful conscious desire to hurt another and put him/her under stress’ as a necessary but not sufficient condition underlying bullying.
“Most recent writers have conceived bullying as a kind of behaviour characterised by intentionality and hurtfulness. The leading figure in the war against bullying, Dan Olweus (1993), defined bullying as “negative behaviour” by which he meant behaviour intended to inflict “injury or discomfort.” Typically, we may add, such behaviour is repeated during successive encounters.”
As we begin the 21st century, teachers and other staff members will recognise that bullying may take many forms, including:
• Verbal abuse, including gossiping and name calling
• Acts designed to scare
• Remarks of prejudice, including racist, sexist or size-related comments
• Physical abuse, including hitting, pushing and kicking
• Organised social rejection
• Public humiliation
Increasingly, there is another form of bullying that until recently did not exist, and until even more recently was little known among students: cyber-bullying, which may take the form of comments emailed or texted to mobile phones.
While some parents may try to tell themselves, or others, that bullying is a normal part of the school years, experts say they are wrong. Bullying is not normal; those who bully are exhibiting an abnormal response to typical school relationships. The impact on victims can be long; any physical impact may be quickly healed but psychological effects can be long-lasting and in some cases only resolved through counselling.
Parents are often the first to notice changes in their children that are later discovered to be related to bullying. But on camp, it is the teacher or other supervisor who is entrusted to discern such behavioural changes. These may include a reluctance to participate in, or withdrawal from, activities in which the student usually participates; apparent insecurity; a change in “body language”, so that the student appears depressed, fearful or unusually quiet; a loss of appetite; complaints of illness that may be caused by anxiety or may simply serve to take the student away from the group; nightmares or sleeplessness.
As child development psychologist and author Dr Laura E. Berk reports, victimised boys are passive when active behaviour is expected; on the playground they hang around chatting or wander off on their own. Biologically inherited traits such as in introverted, anxious temperament can contribute to their tendency to become victims, but research has also shown they may have controlling parents whose parenting style produces a worried child who appears to others as vulnerable.
Experts say students should be made aware of what bullying is, why it is unacceptable, and what their individual and group responses to bullying should be. They should learn that it is expected they will help a child who is being bullied or excluded, rather than allow the victimisation to occur as “none of their business”. And they should know that when away from their parents, the teachers will listen to them and heed their concerns.
General tips for parents who discover from their children they have been bullied, at school or in a camp situation include:
• Support your child-bullying is not the fault of the child being bullied.
• Gather information about the incident-who, what, when, where, how?
• Praise your child for the attempts they have likely made for resolving the situation.
• Talk with the camp director about consequences for the child being bullied and help for your child with increased support from other campers and staff.
• Help your child understand that real friends are not mean to each other.
For parents of the child who has been determined as responsible for bullying behaviour:
• Try to get a full understanding of what happened.
• Ask yourself if there have been any recent changes or negative events in your child’s life.
• Discuss consequences of bullying with the camp director regarding specific episodes and the response from camp staff.
• Reinforce your rule that bullying must stop.
• Help your child understand how bullying affects others.
• Cooperate with camp director and staff to reinforce positive behaviors in your child.
Dr Rigby suggests that the “matey” atmosphere that usually envelops staff and students, particularly older students, in a camp, may put extra pressure on staff to be less formal. But still, he says, bullying should be dealt with according to school policy.
“One should treat cases of bullying in part according to degrees of severity,” Dr Rigby says. “Most bullying is not criminal behaviour, but some is, and it then it is appropriate to apply the law, as for example in serious or fatal assaults.
“With extreme and repeated bullying, especially after counselling has not succeeded sanctions are generally necessary. Some bullying – indeed most of it – is relatively mild – unpleasant name-calling, some rumour spreading, taunting, excluding for instance. Sometimes bullying is provoked and can be mediated by a skilled operator.
“Students engaging milder forms of bullying should generally be spoken to, discouraged, cautioned – and encouraged to treat others with respect – and kept a firm eye on!”
However, Dr Rigby adds, if bullying is – or becomes – moderately serious, the approach should be more systematic and formal, and he says several methods have been developed for this type of response. “One involves sharing with the bully or bullies your concern about the plight of the victim and doing so in the company of some other (selected) children who disapprove of bullying behaviour. Under such circumstances, given some positive peer influence, it is often possible to elicit – without the use of threats or blame – a sympathetic recognition of the unpleasant situation, promises to help overcome it, and a consequent an improvement in behaviour.
“But, of course, the situation must be carefully monitored. This is the so-called ‘social group’ or no-blame approach.”
Dr Rigby also refers to the “Method of Shared Concern” developed by the Swedish psychologist, Anatol Pikas, which he says may be applied in cases of medium severity bullying in which group members are involved, and which makes use of interviews with individual children who are suspected of bullying someone. “Concern for the victim is shared with each of them individually and their assistance to solve the problem is solicited,” Dr Rigby explains. “When progress has been made, the practitioner meets with the entire group – and later with the group plus the ‘victim’ to ensure that the problem has been resolved.”
Dr Rigby stresses that “no approach is perfect” – a point probably well known to those teachers and counsellors who have attempted to solve bullying in their schools.
“What is done must depend in part on the school’s policy and the capacity of the person dealing with the case to apply the method,” he urges. “With the more complex approaches some training is very desirable.”
