Breaking the Cycle of Bullying

When I was in “junior high school,” which is what middle school used to be called, I struggled to find a group of friends who felt like a fit. My parents were educators and I grew up while they were in graduate school; I never experienced wealth, and yet, their teaching jobs allowed me to attend a private school in Beverly Hills for free. They wanted me to have a private school education, but it came at the cost of me fitting-in. It wasn’t just class and status, I was pretty different from the other students in many ways. I had a broken home and family life was strained; I was used to embracing counter-culture and the school was very mainstream, and of course, I hadn’t started out at private school. The academic work wasn’t easy. 

I ate lunch with a girl who also didn’t fit in well, for completely different reasons. She just hadn’t grown up yet. She still liked to play with dolls while everyone else was planning their “look” for the next dance and eating rice cakes and fancy bottled water for lunch (it was LA, in the eighties). 

After a few months at the school, I found friends in the grade above me who had much more in common with me. They also had divorced parents, wanted to dye their hair blue, and liked punk rock music and art.

I did not have the skills to share how I felt at the time with anyone. I knew I wanted to be with these new friends, but I did not know how to talk to the girl I had been sitting with about it. I didn’t know how to behave or what to say. But I did not want to “hang out” with her anymore.

When I look back, I know now that what I did was become a bully. It was brief, but I can still feel the pain of that in my heart and my body when I think about it. While the two of us did not make much sense as friends, I know that I hurt her very badly by excluding her and even finding ways to push her away that were clearly mean. 

There are as many forms of bullying as there are human beings. We tend to think about it as a problem on the playground in schools, but research shows that adults are bullied in the workplace at the same rate that kids are bullied in school. For the purpose of addressing this widespread problem, experts divide bullying into four categories: physical, verbal, social/emotional, and cyberbullying. When I have encountered bullying as a parent or teacher or in my own life, I see that it often crosses boundaries between all of these things. The common thread is that a person with more power than another uses their power to hurt.

Children who are involved in bullying from either side, victim or bully, have a higher chance of encountering many types of problems later in life. Schools must face the issue head on. In rural schools, 27% of students report being bullied. This could mean that over half of students are involved in bullying, because in each of those cases, someone was also doing the bullying.

The most recent research on bullying shows that many common methods of addressing the issue do not work. Simple punishment and traditional behavior modification are the least effective methods of resolving bullying behavior. Placing the victim and the bully on equal ground and having them “talk it out” is also ineffective and sometimes backfires and makes the issue worse. The two most effective ways to combat bullying are creating an overall positive school culture that honors childrens’ feelings and emotions, and to have a school-wide understanding and language for social emotional learning (SEL).

While recent political discourse has shown to increase bullying (it is true that groups targeted by politicians experience higher bullying in school), it is true that all fifty states, red or blue, have mandates that schools must have an anti-bullying programs. While social scientists have many instruments to show that a program claiming to reduce bullying is effective, there are few mandates to show, and report, that these programs work. 

How can we support our kids so that they do not become bullies, or victims of bullying? Research shows that honoring their feelings, and helping them to give words to their feelings, is very helpful. Taking the time to communicate and check-in, and paying attention to how they are doing in school is also important. Noticing that teachers and adults working with them in schools and elsewhere have the ability to greet emotional dysregulation with empathy and coaching rather than punishment is also important. 

Native educators offer us the “sweetgrass method” for bullying prevention. The idea is that communities prevent bullying by weaving together a strong metaphorical basket made by family and schools, using self-reflection, coaching, values, songs, and stories that fit the culture of the community, with continuity and follow-up. Familes must partner with schools to support kids’ resolution of issues that arise from power differentials. All children are powerful, if we allow them to be so.

When I look back on “junior high,” I wish I had had that metaphorical sweetgrass basket of community to dwell in during my experiences. I wish I’d had the language and the mentors to use it with, so that I could look back on that time of my existence with pleasure instead of sadness. I love that my school now has adults who honor upper elementary and middle school students, who are in the most common years for bullying behavior to emerge, as powerful individuals with agency and important feelings. The truth is, we can end bullying in a split second. We all just have to decide to stop it.