![]() Even if only part of what he told us was true, it was awful. ![]() I survived being bullied, I’d think and then, I’d feel guilty. Part of me was angry at him for being bullied and wondered why he couldn’t just stand up for himself. I wondered if Josh was too comfortable in the victim role. Sometimes he seemed to stick with kids who were mean to him, waiting for acceptance that would never come. He constantly asked for advice on how to feel. Why me?Ī sensitive kid who is intelligent, handsome, and has always been a head taller than his classmates, Josh is often timid with other youths. But it was hard to tell if Josh was being targeted, exaggerating, or if this aggressive behavior was normal for sixth grade boys. I could see his confidence wither as abuse fueled his doubts.Īccording to statistics, approximately 77 percent of students have been physically or verbally bullied. But other times he responded that there must be something wrong with him. At times, he seemed happy to hear he wasn’t alone. I told Josh about my bullying experiences. Once his foot healed, he started playing soccer again. Josh’s mom enrolled him in martial arts to build his confidence and teach him self-defense. I learned that schools can’t disclose how they deal with other kids involved, and we should help Josh get involved in activities where he felt safe and could make new friends. I learned that instead of focusing on punishing the kids who were bullying him, I should figure out how to help Josh and understand what the school could and could not do. Like most of us living in this knowledge-obsessed Internet age, I tried to combat my fear with information. Then Josh told us kids were trying to step on his broken foot or saying, “When that one heals, I’m gonna break the other one.” He said he slipped on the stairs, but his mom suspected he’d been pushed. The third week of school, Josh came home with a broken foot. Kids insulted him, he said, and after recess he’d find notes on his back saying, “kick me” or “loser.” After being pelted with fruit in the cafeteria, he started eating lunch alone in the hallway. ![]() But then he started coming home with injuries from kids hurting him on the basketball court during lunch. Josh had been excited to start middle school, so excited that the first Saturday after school started, he was disappointed to stay home. Given my background of facing a leering mob in my middle school hallways, you might think I would have had the clarity of mind to be proactive when it came to Josh. ![]() “n bullying, as in any human rights violation, dismissing a person’s reported trauma based on too strict a threshold can inflict further damage.” In other words, it’s the child’s experience that matters. But Temkin warns against strict definitions. He defines bullying as being “exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself.” Olweus found that repeated abuse is what really affects kids. “The division between ‘normal’ childhood conflict, joking around, and bullying is a very thin, ever-changing line.”ĭefinitions of bullying vary, but the most commonly cited one comes from Dan Olweus, a Norweigan psychology professor who began studying bullying in the 1970s. “We are all against bullying until we have to define it,” writes bullying expert Deborah Temkin. ![]() But the sad fact is that the very definition of bullying remains somewhat in dispute. Since the days when I was bullied, there have been campaigns, dozens of books, a bumper crop of bullying experts, a presidential initiative, a feature-length documentary, and thousands of heartbreaking stories about kids whose bullying allegedly led to terrible consequences: suicide, mental illness, prison sentences. Every night, as we listened to his stories of getting insulted and roughed up in hallways, we wondered: is this the new normal? Bully pulpit Who had the time to slow down, figure out what was happening, research solutions, decide what to do, call the school, and demand action? It was the beginning of Josh’s sixth grade at a new school, so we didn’t know anyone. A true contemporary family - three parents with radically different parenting styles - we were all busy working and parenting other children, too. Twenty years later, when my 11-year-old stepson, who I’ll call Josh, came home with a sprained wrist and a head injury as a result of bullying, nothing seemed so simple. My dad looked up my main tormentor’s phone number in the phone book and told her dad to make his daughter stop or he’d contact the police. Finally, when a group of 20 kids threatened to beat me up at the carwash the next day, I told my older brother, who in turn informed my parents. It didn’t occur to me to tell my parents or teachers that I was being bullied at school. In my first year of middle school, kids taunted me and spit on me in hallways. ![]()
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