Bullies! Bullying in school has a major impact on teachers, administrators and students. With documentation of one incident of bullying every seven minutes, it pays to look at the characteristics of bullies and the causes of bullying.

Bullies can be male or female, though male bullies are generally more physically abusive to their victims while females tend to be more verbally abusive. While formerly believed to be an outcome of low self-esteem, (therefore victimizing others in an effort to make themselves feel better) new research has shown that most bullies generally have very good self-esteem. Their behavior, it seems, stems from a feeling of superiority and lack of compassion. Bullies are generally physically bigger and stronger than their peers. They tend to have poor impulse control and inferior social skills. Bullies lack the ability to identify the possible outcome or consequences for their behavior. They blame and use others and do not accept responsibility for their actions. Bullies lack empathy and are contemptuous of weak or different children. Their main concern is getting others to focus on them.

The causes of bullying it appears are learned behaviors. Bullies often come from homes where a parent may not be available to supervise them when they need a listening ear. They tend to watch more violent T.V., spend less time with adults, have fewer positive adult role models and either come from very permissive or overly punitive homes. In addition, bullies have fewer positive peer relationships.  Bullying in school is exacerbated by bullies receiving the attention they crave from other wannabe bullies who lack the same social skills. They are really in a no win situation!

This does not mean that the bully must now be thought of as the victim of a difficult environment and therefore excused for his bullying behaviors. What it does mean is that new behaviors can be learned. The causes of bullying are complex. Bullying in school does not have to be a foregone conclusion. Bullies can be taught new coping skills. They can be shown that while there will be no tolerance for their bullying; they have other qualities that people admire. Even their leadership skills, when properly channeled and used appropriately, can be valuable. It takes time to build a bully; we need to invest the time in rebuilding them to help them become productive members of our schools and future society.

Next up: Administrators Confronting the Bullying Epidemic

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As the use of technology both in and out of the classroom has increased, so has the students’ ability to bully others electronically. Cyber bullying in schools has become a major concern over the past few years with students, who were perhaps the victims of traditional bullying themselves, reveling in their ability to take revenge from a distance.   As cyber bullying is a distinctly different form of bullying, one must look at cyber bullying facts to develop an approach to halt this insidious form of bullying.

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Bullying is defined as repeated aggressive, negative, unwanted behaviors which involve a disparity in strength or power. It can take the form of verbal or physical aggression, humiliation and embarrassment, destroying a person’s property or social relationships, graffiti and now for the technically savvy generation, cyber bullying through e-mail, text messages, voice mail and social networking.  Perpetrators choose their victims according to perceived a weakness or difference in areas such as size, weight, skin color, sexual preference, or physical/learning ability.

Most students state that they do not report school bullying due to fears of retaliation and observations that rarely is anything done to alleviate the situation. School bullying statistics show that much of the bullying takes place when students travel to and from school and in the halls ways, bathrooms and playgrounds where often it is difficult to provide adequate adult supervision. The only witnesses to the incidents are fellow students. These fellow students may: join in the bullying; receive vicarious pleasure through observation; or are fearful of becoming victims themselves and therefore do nothing to stop the abuse.

Bullying statistics show that boys bully more often in a physical way while girls use their strength in language by belittling their victims with words. The mass use of social media networks and cell phones has made cyber bullying a particularly easy way to intimidate, alienate and humiliate victims. One click of a button and a whole group of individuals can be party to the school bully’s actions.

Though bullying often decreases in high school age students, there is a high correlation between a history of school bullying and later criminal actions. School bullying while at one time thought to be an outcome of the bully having low self esteem, is actually quite the opposite, with most bullies actually having an overly grand image of themselves. It is the victims of the school bullying whose self esteem often plummets and bullying statistics show that many bullying victims become depressed and sometimes suicidal.

We, as educators, have a responsibility to our students to do whatever we can to provide a safe environment for learning. Both the bullied and the bullies need our help. Bullying statistics show that bullying is on the rise. Some simple steps we can take to assist our students are: making our students aware of the problem and teaching them assertiveness techniques to deal with bullies; provide students with a message box to the teacher to report concerns and other observations; develop projects to promote class/school unity; and, most importantly, make it clear to our students that we have a no tolerance policy for school bullying.

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