Stop Bullying

I. Introduction

A. Image a ten year old boy with a Multiple Sclerosis and requires two walking canes to help him move, and because of it he gets bullied.  The child tells the teacher and his parents, and the bully gets punished.  The bully is upset and because of it and torments the boy more still torments the boy, and the boy ends up committing suicide by putting a plastic bag over his head and suffocates.  This is a true story and it isn’t the only one about children committing suicide, or attempt the deed.

B. Bullying in today’s society has become an epidemic and by educating everyone, specifically focusing on bullies, this would be a safer society.

C. I have my Associate of Science in Early Childhood Education,  I’m working on my Bachelor’s of Science in Child Development.  I work in the child center at college of  the canyons.  I was a victim of being bullied, and I’ve done extensive research on this subject.

 D. Today I’m going to be discussing with you that there is a problem with bullying, what  to look for in both bullies and victims, and the effective methods that are used to help both bullies and the victims.

II. Body
 
 A. There is a problem of people bullying others. (Show video of the different types)
  1. There is more than one type of bullying and it is easy to bully others.
            a. Physical is where another person beats up another person
                i. Example: A person goes up to another person and starts punching, hitting, and kicking.
            b. Verbal is name calling and joking at another person’s expense
                i. Example: Calling someone loser, or using demeaning names;  Jap, N word, fag
            c. Indirect is spreading rumors about another person, or exclude certain people from groups.
                i. Example: “Did you hear that Susie slept with Joey.  She is such a  slut.” 
            d. Cyber is bullying another person through text messages, facebook/emails. Which make                       bullying a lot easier to do
                i. Example: Threading someone, calling them demeaning names, spreading rumors about                      another person through emails, facebook messages, or text messages

        2. It has become a problem for both the bully and the victim.
            a. According to Englander and Muldowney, 2007 “42% of students surveyed reported make              they had been cyber-bullied via instant messaging.”
            b. Another survey by Englander and Muldowney, 2006-2008 “22% of the subjects admitted                  to cyber-bullying someone else, with 20% admitting to bullying during school hours.”
            c.  According to Claire L. Fox, The article, The social skills problems of victims of bullying:    Self, peer and teacher perceptions “A small number of studies have found that victims of school bullying tend to exhibit poor social skills.”

        3. Victims commit suicide from the result of being bullied.
            i. In the article Behavioral Disorders, Bullying and Students with Disabilities:  Legal and Practice Considerations, Feb 2012 by John W. Maag “In Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999), the Supreme Court  established a litmus test to determine whether peeron-peer harassment       results in district liability. This case involved a girl who was sexually harassed. As a result, her grades plummeted and she contemplated suicide as school officials took no action despite being informed of the harassment.”
            ii.  The victims are usually the ones with a certain disabilities, and they tend to have depression and anxiety. This effects their self-esteem and how they see themselves and others, and how they function in school.
            iii. Ken Rigby in Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior "that approximately 1 male in 6 and 1 female in 8 is bullied by peers on a  weekly basis." and later in the article he states " Those who repeatedly engage in this behavior (on a weekly basis) are relatively few, comprising about 8% of boys and 4% of girls."
           iv. On the website bullyingstatistics.org 2012 "Suicide continues to be one of the leading causes of death among children under the age of 14. Bullycide is a term used to describe suicide as the result of bullying.  New bullying statistics 2010 are reporting that there is a strong connection between bullying, being bullied and suicide, according to a new study from the Yale School of Medicine. Suicide rates are continuing to grow among adolescents, and have grown more than 50      percent in the past 30 years."  it also said " 56% witnesses a bullying crime at school and that 1 out of 10 students drop out, or changes schools because bullying."

  
Next I’m going to discuss with you,

    B. What to look for in both bullies and victims.
        1. Characteristics of a bully:
            i. Bully/Victim Problems Among Preschool Children: a Review of Current Research Evidence Sep 2011 Educational Psychology Review  By Maria Vlachou described a bully to be "“(1) it is an aggressive behavior of intentional ‘harmdoing’ (2) which is carried out repeatedly and over time         (3) in an interpersonal relationship characterized by an imbalance of  power” (Olweus and Limber 1999:31). He also added that “the bullying behavior often occurs without apparent  provocation,” and “negative  actions can be carried out by physical contact, by words, or in other ways, such as making faces or mean gestures, and intentional exclusion from a group” (Olweus1999: 11). Bullying may, therefore, take a variety of  forms including physical (i.e., hitting, kicking, or punching) and verbal      abuse (i.e., threatening, mocking, name-calling, or spreading malicious rumors), social isolation, and/or exclusion (Lagerspetz et al.1988)."
            ii. A bully may have some sort of problems like psychological problems, or family problems.  A bully also has low self-esteem themselves and will pick on others to make them feel better about themselves, and  this will make them think they are better than others and boost their moral.  In some cases, a bully may be jealous the victim, or they may have little to no respect for other people.  A bully may be annoyed with the victim in some way like; the way the victim looks or acts.  Peer Pressure is another reason why someone would bully another person, so they will impress other people, or to be accepted in social groups.  Lastly, people tend to bully other people because the bully is afraid that they maybe bullied themselves.

        2. Characteristics of the Victim.
            i. The victims will have low self-esteem, depression, poor grades, keep to themselves, helpless, and lonely.
            ii. "Victims perceive their families as characterized by high levels of cohesion (Bowers et al., 1992) and low scores on negotiation (Oliver et al., 1994; Rican et al., 1993). An association was found between victimization and ambivalent attachment relationships. Compared with a group of controls, victims of bullying reported that their fathers had more power than did their mothers. They perceived siblings as being slightly less powerful compared to themselves (Bowers et al., 1992).         Furthermore, it was found that victims perceive small differences on parental monitoring compared to control children, thus revealing a less accurate monitoring style (Bowers et al., 1994). Clear differences were found between boys and girls. For boys, it was found that victimization                   is associated with a negative relationship with the absent father in single-- parent families. Victimized girls reported more negativism and hostility (Rican et al., 1993) and a negative relationship with the mother (Rigby, 1993). It was found that the family encourages less autonomy in girls (Rican, 1993). " according to Stevens, V; De Bourdeaudhuij Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2002) in Relationship of the Family environment to children's involvement in bully/victim problems at school.


Next I’m going to share,

    C. The effective methods that are used to help both the bullies and the victims.
        1. Educating children from an early age.
            i. Children notice the difference at a early age, as young as 4 years old.
            ii. Example: Child notice another child has curly hair.  Child A “Your hair is funny looking.”  Child B seems upset by this comment.  An adult (parent, teacher) can do is to sit with both children and teach them that everyone is different and that is okay. This will help children find more          effective and less hurtful ways of pointing out differences.  This method is used at my work, and it has been successful.
            iii. Back to the article Bully/Victim Problems Among Preschool Children: a Review of Current Research Evidence Sep 2011, Educational Psychology Review By Maria Vlachou shares "Entering formal preschool education is a crucial developmental step in many children’s lives mainly because it is within this context where they participate, for the first time, as members in a stable peer group and well-organized team activities. Consequently, preschool may be the first context beyond the home environment where children’s difficulties in social interactions with peers can be primarily detected and assessed by adults and professionals. The early identification and elimination, therefore, of these problems at this young age prevent their escalation in later years and minimize their negative impact on children’s social and emotional development while foster their successful adaptation in     school."

        2. Getting Parents involved.
            i.  Parents are great allies and if both teachers and parents can work together help both the bullies and the victims. This can be a positive and a very effective.
            ii.  Having this repetition both in homes and schools will help the bully understand and get them to stop . 

        3. Talking it out with the bullies.
            i. Do not just punish the bully without communicating with them and letting know why they are being punished.    
            ii.  Don’t make the punishment or time out too long depending on the age and the development of the child.  If it is too long then the child will more and likely forget why they are being punish and they are going to feel angry because they got punished.
            iii. Give them warnings.  Example: If a child is hitting another child, go up to the child is doing the hitting and let them know that they need to stop, and if they don’t that a punishment will be enforced.
            vi. Communicate with them in a kind and loving tone.  Be approachable.
            v. Work and communicate with the parents of both sides.
            vi. Start helping children at a young age.  The younger you can help children the easier it is going to be for them to not bullying others.
           

III.  Conclusion

    A. I have just discussed with you that there is a problem, what to look for in both bullies and victims, and the effective methods that are used to help both bullies and the victims.

    B. Bullying in today’s society has become a n epidemic and by educating everyone, specifically focusing on bullies, this would be a safer society.

    C. Now that we know that there is a problem with bullying.  If we can get teachers and parents of both the bullies and the victims to work together we can help reduce the suicide rates and we might put an end to bullying.