Bullying

[r45 4]

A friend of mine has a child at an elementary school and says that theres been quite a bit of bullying going on at school - involving their child a bit as well. Partly due to the "half" factor. There seem to be quite a few people with young children on here - any bully tales or everything going smoothly?

[Ocean11 0]

At the playschool sports day, they had a joint do with another local playschool, and my boy was a bit upset to be called 'igirisujin, igirisujin' by an oik from the other school.

 

We explained that because he wasn't technically an 'igirisujin' the oik had his facts wrong, but that being English wasn't anything to be ashamed of anyway, so he should ignore it. For good measure, we suggested a few handy put-downs that he might use in future if he felt the need. His mum also mentioned it to the school and they took prompt action by asking the other school to ask its oiks to refrain from saying such things at future events.

 

We later came to suspect that our boy was actually quite unconcerned to be called 'igirisujin', is somewhat pleased with the individuality it confers, and occasionally uses the 'bullying' thing as leverage to get attention and also to cover up his own misbehaviour.

 

All sorts of bullying and nastiness goes on at school, and it's necessary to ensure that your child has a few defenses against it, and isn't inflicting it on anybody else. It also pays to check out stories very carefully before taking any action, because children's accounts of events can be both entirely fanciful and extremely credible at the same time.

[Karnidge 2]

So what is your son technically - nihonjin?

[nzlegend 1]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2946621a10,00.html

 

Bullying the flavour of the month, Ones of NZs most prestigious schools in the news for it.

I used to be a housemaster at Boarding school when I was at University, incidently the arch rivals of Christs College the school in the headlines.

Bullying went on, not as malacious as the claims in that article but it was prevalent.

Its hard to stomp it out completely, I dont think you ever will. Physical bullying is much easier to contain than pyschological bullying.

I had the numbers of all the notorious physical bullys and watched them like hawks when I worked there, had a few meetings with the principal and parents of the bullyboys, its amazing how a boy will re-adjust his attitude when he parents threaten to pull him from the school. but "mind games" bullying is a a whole another story very hard to monitor and stop.

[rach 1]

There wasnt much bullying at my school that I knew of. Maybe a few geeky types who got a bit of hassle but nothing major.

 

I have only limited experience in Japans schools, but saw quite a lot of nastiness going on. The teachers seemed to know about it but do little which always concerned me.

[Ocean11 0]

Lots of serious bullying at my school in Bristol.

 

You couldn't go into the toilets without getting hassled by the smokers. There were 'fights' in which a circle of supporters formed, preventing intervention by teachers. The PE teacher came up with the suggestion that to prevent playground scrapping, he would provide gloves and a boxing ring (no takers for that one). People got wedged as a birthday treat (bounced up and down by their underpants until they broke). There was daily bitchiness and rumour-mongering.

 

As I didn't want to get wedged or be involved in a losing fight, I always took a knife to school. Having seen my friends humiliated, I thought it was the best way to preserve some dignity.

 

The Japanese schools I've seen compare quite favourably with my experience at least.

[Error404 0]

Lots of bullying in my school too - I was in the majority, not one of the bullies or the bullied.

 

Many of the bullied have gone on to be the most successful and the bullies the dropouts. I suppose it's often like that.

[snobee 0]

Australian friend here had serious bullying problems with youngest (10yrs old) son a couple of years back. You know, the ruff & tuff type - bruises, black eyes etc.

Met with class teacher & principal on numerous occasions, even tried to get principal to set up a meeting with all involved and their parents to sort it out with a bit of nouse & dignity.

No meetings eventuated, no intervention occured and no stop to the bullying.

Friend went to school one day and entered son's class by the rear door and quietly walked over to the main offenders desk, knelt down beside him and said 5cm from his face that if his son ever came home again with anything resembling a mark on him then "I'll be back." The teacher half acknowledged his presence in the room but turned away. Half the class didn't even know he had entered the room. He quietly slipped out.

The bullying stopped from that moment and has never re-appeared.

Piss-weak inaction by staff created a dangerous environment spiralling out of control. One of the bullies (not the one spoken to) father was/is a semi-prominent city councillor. Japan!

[indosnm 0]

I'd do the same as above. Scare the crap out of the little pricks & if their parents have a problem with it they could come and sort it out with me.. But it's japan and they wouldn't be into a face to face confrontation, unless the family is yankee or yak.

[sunrise 0]

I've heard a number of stories of 'double' kids getting bullied (as opposed to calling them 'half') at school. One woman pulled her daughters out of school and home schools them. It seems to be common here.

[Ocean11 0]

That half/double thing is daft. "Half" isn't meant as an insult, and by training kids to see it as such, you're setting them up for grief. (I wonder how many children who are trained to say "I'm not half, I'm double" are called Ken and Hannah )

 

The home-schooling thing is sad for the kids too. It's no solution to a problem that people have to face in later life as often as not. Most people aren't qualified to give children a balanced education all by themselves, and it's arrogance to think that they can.

[sunrise 0]

I try to be politically correct with the word 'half' since it's often used in derogatory ways..... if the person doesn't mind it then I feel safe to use it without them feeling insulted.

 

The woman who did the home schooling was using some kind of 'reputable' correspondence course/s, I assume. She certainly wasn't making the curriculum herself. It was her daughters that chose to opt out of school to do it due to bullying issues. I'm sure by now they're off at some international university somewhere. I don't know the ins and outs of home schooling, at the time I knew them the girls (teenagers) seemed bright and intellegent and happy. Of course they wouldn't have to deal with peer group pressure in the way we schoolkids had to and that would effect them, as well as not having direct interaction with teachers, etc.... I guess it depends on what they want to do for their careers later on. They were both artistically inclinded and very bright. Who knows what they're doing now. I wonder if it helps their self esteem when having to deal with adult bullies in adult-hood or is detrimental because they never got to experience the school of hard knocks as so many of us here were forced to in our school years.

[miteyak 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by sunrise:
I wonder if it helps their self esteem when having to deal with adult bullies in adult-hood or is detrimental because they never got to experience the school of hard knocks as so many of us here were forced to in our school years.

I doubt it. Bullying is abuse and children are much more likely to be damaged by abuse than adult, due to under-developed coping strategies, and the ways they learn to 'cope' often lead to long-term psychological issues.

Children, unlike adults, have little control over their environments so need adults to protect them. If they are allowed to grow up 'strong' they have a fighting chance in the adult world. Growing up strong doesn't mean covering up your weaknesses to protect yourself from a good wedgy (which I, for one, have never been threatened with in the adult world) but being allowed to develop your strengths fully as you see fit, in a controlled environment, not affected by peer group anomalilies that'll no longer cross you path once you get to college.

That's not to say a bullied child can't appear to become successful...a little psychosis can go a long way...

[montoya 0]

Timely article for this thread:

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/nyregion/28CAMP.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

 

June 28, 2004

Hot Topic at Summer Camps: Ending the Rule of the Bullies

By JANE GROSS

 

WEST COPAKE, N.Y., June 24 — Camp Pontiac's 540 campers were still at home, eagerly anticipating Monday's reunion with friends from summers past or queasy at what might await them as first-timers in the spiffy red and white cabins here.

 

But their counselors, midway through a weeklong orientation, were way ahead of them, learning from a visiting psychologist how to handle an encounter between a popular, domineering repeat camper and a trembling newcomer. This is the quintessential bullying scenario, and bullying prevention is this summer's hot topic at America's sleep-away camps — more popular than disaster planning, watercraft safety and dealing with homesickness.

 

Seasoned counselors know that camp, the summer home to 10 million of the nation's children and the adults supervising them, can be a breeding ground for bullies if the grownups let them have their way.

 

So they listened intently to this typical situation: An 11-year-old girl, new to camp, is encouraged to e-mail a bunkmate before the start of camp to get acquainted. The longtime camper, like a character in the movie "Mean Girls," sends back a vicious message: "I'm the boss of this camp, and if I don't like you, you're in trouble."

 

Rachel Degler and Jon Martinez, both 21-year-old returning counselors at Pontiac — in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, about 100 miles north of New York City — played out the story line along with Kris Fucillo, a 20-year-old first-timer, and then made suggestions for remedies.

 

Put her in touch with other, nicer girls. Contact the bully's parents, with a record of the e-mail exchange in case they say, "My child? No way!" Demand an apology from the offender and a signed contract about future behavior. Put the girls in different bunks.

 

The visiting psychologist, Dr. Joel Haber, and one of Pontiac's owners, Dr. Kenny Etra, a Long Island physician, nodded approvingly at the ideas. Their mission was to teach the counselors to recognize potential bullies and victims, and defuse the behavior if they could or bring it to the attention of their superiors if they could not.

 

"We can do a better job of creating an environment that isn't `Lord of the Flies,' " Dr. Haber said. Calling himself the Bully Coach, Dr. Haber has found a ready audience at camps in the Berkshires, the Catskills and the Poconos, where antibullying training is "very `in' now," according to Dr. Etra, who owns Camp Pontiac along with his twin brother, Ricky, also a physician on Long Island.

 

Camp directors are motivated by a stew of reasons, including increased consciousness of bullying's long-lasting impact and bottom-line issues like camper retention and fear of litigation. Dr. Haber said that most of the dozen camps that have hired him this year, for fees ranging from $500 to $1900, cited camper retention as the main reason, since bullied children rarely return.

 

At places like Pontiac, it is no longer O.K. to call someone "pizza face" or to run a bunkmate's underwear up the flagpole, once summer rituals as entrenched as color war or general swim. Short-sheeting a bed? Not if the joke is played on a shy first-time camper, alone among lifelong friends. Cliques once considered age-appropriate are now considered cruel. And cruelty is not considered character-building.

 

"In our culture, there used to be a belief that this was just the way it is," said Larry Dieringer, executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility, a group devoted to social and emotional education for children. "Columbine changed all that."

 

Preventing bullying became a national preoccupation after the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo., where two misfit teenagers killed 12 fellow students and one teacher and then turned their weapons on themselves. With child development experts in agreement that sustained bullying increases the risk of homicide and suicide and that even garden-variety mistreatment undermines children's mental health, educators decided that the stakes were too high to let victimized youngsters fend for themselves.

 

The antibullying movement came more slowly to camps than to classrooms, according to Marla Coleman, president of the American Camping Association, which has 7,000 member camps. Even now, some incorporate it only fleetingly in staff orientation, then let summer take its usual Darwinian course. But more camps, which generally open today in the Northeast, are teaching prevention and intervention to its young counselors in a sustained, intentional way, Ms. Coleman and other camping experts said.

 

Exporting school programs to camps is welcome and overdue, said Frank C. Sacco, one of several researchers called upon as consultants by the F.B.I. after the Columbine shootings. Dr. Sacco said sleep-away camps could be either "social war zones" or the ideal place for a culture change because of the intense experience of living together, under round-the-clock adult supervision, for an extended time.

 

Many camp directors bring in a well-known trainer, like Bob Ditter, a Boston social worker, to discuss common problems of contemporary childhood, including eating disorders, divorce and psychiatric medication. Dr. Ditter has been on the summer camp circuit since 1982, charging $1,600 to $2,200 for a full-day presentation. In the past few years, as bullying became a hot topic, Dr. Ditter has expanded that part of his presentation, he said.

 

Other camp directors, including Ms. Coleman, who owns Camp Echo, in the Catskills in Burlingham, N.Y., use a multimedia curriculum that is built around songs, rituals and role-playing activities. The program, named for the song "Don't Laugh at Me," has an activity guide, a music CD and a video that have been donated to 2,500 camps in the last few years, including Camp Echo.

 

Ms. Coleman said she did not know how many were actually using it, but for the first time a training session will be part of next winter's national conference of camp directors.

 

Dr. Haber has trademarked his title as the Bully Coach, but he goes beyond gimmicks, teaching counselors the key role of the bystander, the different bullying styles of boys and girls, and how to distinguish between tattling and reporting incidents of bullying, which rarely take place in view of adults.

 

The 185 Pontiac counselors, most of them former campers, needed little explanation of how children tease and taunt each other, the boys more often in physical ways, like tripping a punier bunkmate as he makes his way awkwardly around the base paths; the girls by exclusion from the "in" group or through insidious gossip.

 

Dr. Haber began his presentation by asking the group, on benches in the camp's rustic theater, about their familiarity with bullying. How many had ever been victims? Almost all raised their hands. How many had bullied others? The same result. And how many had observed bullying and not spoken up? Again, a flurry of hands.

 

"Pretty unbelievable," Dr. Haber said at the nearly unanimous response.

 

When he asked the counselors, even at a camp that takes bullying very seriously, for examples, they had them at the ready. Jon Martinez told of one 14-year-old in his bunk last summer, popular and athletic, who demanded to be first in the shower. The other boys feared his ridicule — "Don't be a girl" and more direct challenges to sexuality were common taunts — so they meekly waited their turns.

 

Rachel Degler, another seasoned Pontiac counselor, said that in her bunk of 14-year-olds, the alpha girls all had boyfriends. They ignored their bunkmates, except to whisper behind their backs about their clothes and weight. To many adults, she said, this might sound harmless. But it is the motivation for some girls to behave promiscuously or diet to excess.

 

The owners at Pontiac invited Dr. Haber to their 150-acre campus during a week when staff members were busy planting beds of flowers, painting fences, and delivering duffel bags to cabins. Their intent was to supplement a broad array of changes they had already made to deprive bullies of their normal arenas and give special attention to the typical victims, children easily humiliated because they are unathletic, timid, disabled or less attractive than their peers.

 

"Even if we just get one new idea, it will be worth it," Dr. Etra said. "Plus, the foot soldiers — the bunk counselors — need to learn. They are our eyes and ears."

 

Unlike most sleep-away camps, Pontiac's bunk counselors are rarely teenagers themselves, with an average age of 21. In addition to the bunk counselors, there are 75 adults, some in their 30's and 40's, who work as experts in certain activities, as well as six directors. That works out to be 2.5 children per adult, an unusual ratio. A seven-week session at Pontiac costs $7,750, at the high end of camp tuitions in this region.

 

Since the bunk is the primary stage for bullies, and a prison of sorts for victims, Pontiac has tried to enlarge a child's circle of potential friends. Children are divided up for activities by age group and in alphabetical order, not by cabin. In the mess hall, seating is not by bunk, and rotates every two weeks. "That way the bullies can't entrench themselves," Dr. Etra said.

 

The 11-year-old camper who sent the e-mail message in Dr. Haber's role-playing exercise was probably an entrenched bully, Dr. Etra guessed. If the girl had never behaved this way before, she should get a second chance. If she was a repeat offender, she should not be permitted to return.

 

`If we're going to err," Dr. Etra said, "we must err on the side of the victim." Her vicious words, he said, "will stay with that child for a very long time."

[sanjo 2]

I was bullied a bit at school (before I joined the rugby team and became a star!) for being brainy.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

When I first moved back to the mainland in the midst of my first year in high school I went to an inner-city school. About 85% black. I was, probably still am, a scrawny, little weakling. After about 2 weeks at school a group of guys would come running around the corner and hit me on the head with something, anything from a banana to a water balloon. Yup, got it all. My ****ing home room teacher, the most ignorant and racist teacher Ive ever come across, would turn his back like he never saw it. I complained to him every time for deliberately ignoring the situation and not punishing the guys.

 

I reported the incident to the principal who was sympathetic but nevertheless didnt see anything and didnt know who it was. I told them that if they are not going to do anything to punish the offenders or to keep students safe then I will take matters into my own hands.

 

Next day, I was ready. As they came around the corner I pulled some matrix move outta my ass and kicked the first guy right in the face and broke his nose - gave him a good bloody nose. The other guy I punched him once in the stomach and then kicked him in the nuts. The other bloke took off runnin. They never came around again

 

I think making a stand works. Its funny how people will back off if you act like a pit bull.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

Its funny, I use to get bullied in Hawaii sometimes too because I was white and not Hawaiian, or Japanese enough. Strange eh? Maybe at first it was cuz I didnt speak pigin - but after learning the lingo it changed and never got messed with.

 

Im just a looser, Ive been bullied and picked on my whole life for being different

[amandanism 0]

did anyone ever end up being friends with their bullies? is it something someone grows out of? in school i mean...

 

i remember in 6th grade when i was living in singapore another australian girl decided that she hated me (weird because we were actually really alike) and called me names. a few years down the road she was wanting to be my friend. like they do . we were sort of friends for a while, but turned out she actually really was the royal b*tch i knew in 6th grade, so that ended pretty quickly.

[rach 1]

Seems we went to different schools then Ocean11.

[Ocean11 0]

Things changed even while I was there rach. They put in nice new bogs, and did away with some of the institutional bullying. After I left, they got far more attractive uniforms and hired pupil counsellors.

 

Once when I bumped into a teacher while running from a lynch mob, his advice, after giving me a detention, was to 'Fight it out amongst yourselves'. (I didn't go to detention, and my parents paid several of their extremely irate visits to school soon after.)

 

When I was at school, there was still a lot of Victorianism in the air, although I think a lot of that disappeared soon afterwards.

[scouser 4]

There was a fair bit if "bullying" where I was - mostly just light stuff. From what I've heard from friends, pretty much average I guess.