Dealing with School Bullying

Dealing with School Bullying;

Australia’s Educational Disgrace

Roberta Cava

Published by Cava Consulting

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2005 - 2010 by Roberta Cava

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ISBN 9780975766 118

Dealing with School Bullying – Australia’s Educational Disgrace! is an expose about the lack of attention paid by educational systems internationally to the horrific ongoing epidemic of school bullying.  It shows that there is an appalling lack of protection for students against it.  Laws must be put into place so all students are protected by zero-tolerance school bullying policies and have laws to back them up with severe punishment for the abusers and counselling for both the victims and abusers.

Dealing with School Bullying – Australia’s Educational Disgrace is an absolute must if you’re being bullied at school, are witnessing it, are a parent of a bullied child or the parent of a school bully.

Roberta Cava is the owner of Cava Consulting in Australia and has presented her seminars worldwide, including her most popular session:  Dealing with Difficult People that has been presented to over 53,000 participants.  She is the author of 23 books and will be writing more.

BOOKS BY ROBERTA CAVA

Dealing with Difficult People

(22 publishers - in 16 languages)

Dealing with Difficult Situations - at Work and at Home

Dealing with Difficult Spouses and Children

Dealing with Difficult Relatives and In-Laws

Dealing with Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

Dealing with School Bullying

Dealing with Workplace Bullying

What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

Before tying the knot - Questions couples Must ask each other

Before they marry!

How Women can advance in business

Survival Skills for Supervisors and Managers

Human Resources at its Best!

Human Resources Policies and Procedures

Employee Handbooks

Easy Come – Hard to go – The Art of Hiring,

Disciplining and Firing Employees

Time and Stress – Today’s silent killers

Take Command of your Future – Make things Happen

Belly Laughs for All! – Volumes 1 to 4

Wisdom of the World!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Tim Field (of website Bully OnLine in the UK) for his valuable contributions.  Many thanks to the victims of school violence who took the time to tell their horror stories about the abuse they had either observed or as a victim.

Many thanks to Doreen Orion, MD, I Know You Really Love Me; David Kinchin Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Invisible Injury;  Dr. Stanton E. Samenow, Straight Talk about Criminals and Inside the Criminal Mind; Edmonton Police Services and Constable Rick Cole "School Resource Officer Program;"  Citizens Against Bullying Association of Northern Alberta (CABA);  Bully B’Ware Take Action Against Bullying;  Professor Peter Smith, Goldsmith’s College University of London Bullying - Don’t Suffer in Silence;  Ted Brierley of Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals Guidelines on Countering Bullying Behaviour in Primary and Post-Primary Schools, September 1993;  Ken Rigby, University of Southern Australia;  VicHealth Together we do better Campaign;  Restorative Justice;  Maroochydore School High School "Process for Dealing with Issues Related to Bullying;"  Centre for Adolescent Health Gatehouse Project;  Department of Education Employment and Training Victoria Student Code of Conduct;  The Alannah & Madeline Foundation Buddy Bears Schools Program;  Get Your Angries Out Web page;  Department of Education & The Arts, Victoria, "Bullying.  No Way!" New Zealand Police New Zealand Stop Bullying Guidelines for Schools;  Rod Lumper and Vereniging voor Openbaar Onderwijs for Netherlands - Bullying at School:  How to deal with it for giving me permission to use their information in this book.

Memorial to Tim Field:

Tim Field died on January 15, 2006 at the age of 53 from cancer.  He was a world authority on bullying and psychiatric injury, and author of the best-selling Bully in Sight (1997). His vision was to attain a bully-free world, and he campaigned in schools, further and higher education, and the workplace to achieve this.

He lectured all over the world and worked personally on more than 5,000 bullying cases, highlighting the lack of understanding for victims. He revealed patterns showing how trade unions often failed to deal effectively with the problem among their members.

Field believed that bullying was the single most important social issue today.  His work inspired and influenced international anti-bullying organisations, while his personal energy, commitment and knowledge restored sanity and saved lives.  The world misses this dedicated anti-bullying campaigner.

Dealing with School Bullying – Australia’s Educational Disgrace!

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - What is Bullying?

Chapter 2 - Health Disorders related to School Bullying

Chapter 3 - Bullying at School

Chapter 4 - Case Studies - Australia

Chapter 5 - Case Studies - United Kingdom

Chapter 6 - Case Studies - Canada

Chapter 7 - Case Studies - United States

Chapter 8 - Case Studies - Japan and Germany

Chapter 9 - How to Prevent and Stop School Bullying

Chapter 10 - How to Prevent and Stop School Bullying - Australia and New Zealand

Chapter 11 - How to Prevent and Stop School Bullying - United Kingdom

Chapter 12 - How to Prevent and Stop School Bullying - United States, Canada and The Netherlands

Bibliography

Web Connections

INTRODUCTION

Abuse of any kind is abhorrent to everyone except the bullies that use it.  Bullying behaviour, more often than not, starts in the home.  There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that people who are bullies as adults were bullies at home and at school and learned they could get away with it.

Children watch how their parents and siblings settle disputes.  Children copy what they see - and if they see their role models settling disputes with violence, they will copy that behaviour.  They will likely bully siblings, friends, those in day-care facilities and ultimately at school.  If conflicts at home are settled by negotiation and discussion, children learn to use their heads instead of their fists or bullying behaviour to deal with difficult situations.  However, if the parents (their role models) deal with disputes by having shouting matches or use aggressive behaviour - their children are likely to clone this behaviour.

If this unacceptable behaviour is not stopped - it will naturally go with the child into our schools.  Do all children from such homes become bullies - of course not, but the apple seldom falls far from the tree.  Under most circumstances, the bullying child will have bullying parents.

And then there’s the school system.  Slowly, but surely government bodies have taken the control away from teachers and administrators.  These teachers are forced to teach at the level of the lowest common denominator in their classes and spend much of their valuable time trying to re-channel the energies of their hyperactive or bullying students.  There are too many students per teacher, so teachers spend less time with each child.  School curriculum puts heavy emphasis on knowledge and little on how to work co-operatively with others.  Also, sometimes teachers and schools find it easier to look the other way when faced with a bullying episode. 

This book stresses that if we don’t start at the beginning (in the home) the problem will not change.  Unless we stop bullying in our schools and give teachers more authority to deal with these bullies - the message will remain that bullying behaviour (although not condoned) is allowed.

These bullying cowards know of no other way to live life except to overpower others.  Until legal zero-tolerance school bullying laws are enforced, children will not be properly protected from the bullying behaviour that seems to permeate our schools.

Back to Top

Chapter 1

WHAT IS BULLYING?

Although this book is about school bullying, it’s important to know the different kinds of abuse, because bullies are often abusive in many areas of their lives.

Bullying is a pattern of constant, daily faultfinding, criticism, segregation, exclusion and undermining that occurs for weeks or months.  Each incident can be trivial, and on their own do not represent an offence or grounds for disciplinary action.  The average bullying episode is brief, approximately 37 seconds long, but emotional scars from bullying can last a lifetime. Recovery from a bullying experience can take between two to five years, and some people never fully recover. Bullying differs from harassment and assault because the latter can result from a single incident or a small number of incidents, whereas bullying tends to be an accumulation of many small incidents over a long period of time.

The most despicable bullies on this earth are terrorists, murderers, rapists, paedophiles and pimps.  These dregs of the earth all have one insatiable and obsessive need - to control others.  They know of no other way to live life except to overpower others.  However, they’re cowards and have yellow streaks down their backbones.  Anyone who feels confident about him- or herself does not need to use power to influence or control others.

This control is gained through terror, intimidation, harassment or just plain aggressiveness.  The extrovert bullies tend to be shouters and screamers - are highly visible and bully from the top.  A discussion becomes a debate and often ends up in a shouting match.  They manipulate others into believing that they caused the bullying behaviour.  Introverted bullies (the most dangerous types) tend to sit in the background and recruit others to do the bullying for them.

Bullies are cunning, conniving, scheming, calculating, sadistic, violent, cruel, nasty, ruthless, treacherous, pre-meditated, exploitive, parasitic, obnoxious, opportunist, ominous, menacing, sinister, ferocious, forceful, annoying, and aggressive.  They are experts in the use of sarcasm but lack communication, interpersonal and social skills.  Some rely excessively or exclusively on memos, emails or third parties and other strategies for avoiding face-to-face contact.

Rational human beings strive to coexist with others.  Bullies don’t understand this concept.  Their need to control can reach obsessive heights and they can even have panic attacks if they feel they’re not in control of every situation.  These are sick people.

Bullies like pimps, relish having control over other human beings. However, they are insecure cowards whose only source of confidence is to be in control of situations and of others. This control is gained through terror, intimidation, harassment or just plain aggressiveness.

Bullies lack emotional intelligence.  Emotional intelligence helps people understand and control their own emotions.  It also helps them recognise and respond correctly to others’ emotions.  Those with emotional intelligence recognise emotions in others and know how to control their reactions to those emotions. They also know their own emotions and how to control them when they are getting upset or angry. Bullies are either born without emotional intelligence, or they suppress it by copying their defective role models. Often extensive counselling is the only way to change their destructive behaviour.

Abuse is defined in the dictionary as an evil or corrupt practice; deceit, betrayal, molestation, violation and comes in many forms.  The common denominator of all abuse is the collection of behaviours related to bullying.

Abusers choose to abuse,

Molesters choose to molest,

Rapists choose to rape,

Harassers choose to harass,

Paedophiles choose to abuse children, and

Bullies choose to bully.

Symptoms of bullying

Being belittled, demeaned or patronized especially in front of others. This chips away at the person’s status, self-confidence, worth and potential;

Being disgraced, shouted at and threatened, often in front of others;

Making snide comments to see if the person will fight back;

Finding fault and criticising everything the victim says and does or twisting, distorting and misrepresenting the victim. The criticism is of a trivial nature and often contains a grain of truth. This can dupe the victim into believing the criticism is valid.

An unvarying refusal to recognise the victim’s contributions;

Treating them differently by showing favouritism to others and bias towards the victim.

Forms of bullying

Terrorism and murder;

Child abuse; child sexual abuse and child neglect;

Pimping (selling of prostitution);

Wife battering (domestic violence);

School bullies;

Armed forces bullying;

Elderly abuse;

Sports sexual abuse;

Prison bullying;

Road and queue rage;

Stalking;

Email abuse (on-line dating abuses);

Neighbour abuse;

Phone abuse;

Cyber bullying;

Workplace bullying;

Sexual harassment: at work, at home, at school, in public (such as restaurants;

Discrimination:  age, sex, disabled, culture or nationality, religion;

Mobbing (group bullying)

Where are people bullied?

At home; (by parents, siblings or partners through bullying, assault, domestic violence, wife/child abuse, verbal abuse, neglect, emotional abuse);

At school; (by other students, teachers or school staff);

Under the care of others;  (at child- or aged-care facilities – retirement villages – in hospitals, care homes, group homes, convalescent or rehabilitation facilities);At work;  (by managers, clients, co-workers and subordinates through bullying/harassment, mobbing, falsifying time sheets, pilfering, embezzlement, fraud, malpractice, conspiracy, breaches of health and safety regulations, sexual harassment and/or discrimination);

In prison; (by guards or other prisoners - by bullying, harassment, discrimination, assault);

In the armed forces; (bullying, harassment, discrimination, assault);

By those in authority; (harassment, abuse of power);

By neighbours, landlords and even friends; (bullying, stalking, harassment);

By strangers in restaurants and in line-ups; (that can involve harassment, stalking, assault, sexual assault, rape, grievous bodily harm, and even murder).

On the road; (road rage).

What’s behind the bullying?

Why do bullies bully?

Some bully because their role models (often their parents or older siblings) bully.  It’s natural for children to mimic the behaviour of these role models.  Others seem to be born with a lack of empathy towards others or a feeling that they are superior to others.  It’s almost impossible for these individuals to understand what their bullying behaviour does to their victims.  Only professional counselling (lasting sometimes for years) can reverse these flawed individuals.

Who are the targets of bullying?

It is often assumed that victims of bullying are weak and inadequate. Targets of bullying are assumed to be loners, but most are independent, self-reliant and have no need for gangs or cliques. They have neither a need to impress nor are they interested in office politics. Bullies select individuals who prefer to use dialogue to resolve conflict and who will go to great lengths to avoid conflict. They constantly try to use negotiation rather than resorting to grievance and legal action. Targets are chosen because they are competent and popular. Bullies are jealous of the easy and stable relationships targets have with others.

Many targets are so traumatised by the bullying that they need professional help or take stress leave until the incidence of bullying is investigated.  Bullies love this because they can claim that their target is mentally ill or mentally unstable or has a mental health problem.  It’s much more likely that this allegation is a projection of the bully’s own mental health problems which have not been treated.

Kinds of abuse

Bullying occurs in virtually all situations of life in which people interact with others. Thus we have bullying at home, at school, by caregivers in various situations, at work, in prison, in the armed forces, as neighbours interact and in public places through stalking, assault and road rage.

In terms of abuse and criminal acts in general, there are glaring differences between the genders. Young men are more likely to commit murder, arson, assault, fraud and sexual and drug-related offenses. For such acts, male offenders typically outnumber female offenders 4 to 1. As many of the factors causing bullying and abuse also lead to these behaviours, we need to give proper guidance to our boys and young men.

Although this book is about school bullying, it is important to know the different kinds of abuse, because bullies are often abusive in many areas of their lives. There are many kinds of abuse:

Violence: this includes wife and child battering, violent crime such as murder and road rage. Intimidation and threats on the telephone or from neighbours are also a form of violence.

Bullying: This form of abuse occurs in schools, in prison, in the military and at the workplace. Elderly people and children may also be bullied on account of their age.

Sexual abuse: Sexual harassment occurs at work, home, school, and in places such as restaurants. This form of abuse also includes child sexual harassment, rape in all its forms and online dating abuse.

Discrimination: This is done on grounds of age, sex, disability, culture, nationality and religion.

Other forms of abuse: These include child neglect, stalking, pornography, road rage, queue rage and arson.

Kinds of bullies

Adult bullies in the workplace;

Abusive and violent partners;

Abusive and violent parents;

Abusive and violent children (abuse their parents and others);

Abusers of those in care;

Bullying neighbours, landlords, authorities;

Con artists and swindlers;

Cult leaders;

Child bullies who can grow up to be adult bullies;

Racial and sexual harassers;

Sexual abusers and paedophiles;

Rapists (also date rape) and those who commit acts of sexual violence;

Advocates of hard pornography;

Stalkers;

Arsonists;

Violent offenders including organised serial killers.

They are also found in a variety of situations:

Physical Bullies:

They act out their anger in physical ways. They resort to hitting or kicking their victims or damaging the victim’s property. Of all the types of bullies, this one is easiest to identify because his or her behaviour is so obvious. This is the type of bully our imagination conjures up when we picture a bully. As they get older, physical bullies can become more aggressive in their attacks. As adults this aggressive attitude is so deeply ingrained in the bully’s personality that serious long-term counselling is required to change the behaviour.

Verbal Bullies:

It is quite difficult for a victim to ignore this type of bully. They use words to hurt and humiliate, resorting to name-calling, insulting, teasing and making racist, chauvinistic or paternalistic comments. While this type of bullying does not result in physical scars, its effects can be devastating. It is often the easiest form of attack for a bully. It is quick and painless for the bully, but often remarkably harmful for the victim.

Pornography:

Pornography has been a traditional outlet for sexual frustration, and probably always will be. Its acceptability is determined by current social values. Most people do not object to soft pornography, and may even secretly indulge occasionally in order to see what they are missing. The harder the pornographic content, the more abusive it tends to be. The individual’s need, and hence dependency on pornography is directly proportional to that individual’s feelings of sexual inadequacy.

Female Bullies:

Society makes the assumption that in a violent situation, there is a male aggressor and a female victim but females can be as vicious as males. Female bullies are spiteful, devious, manipulative and vengeful. These individuals use gossip and backstabbing to undermine, discredit or devaluate other’s contributions. They have poorly-defined moral and ethical boundaries and put others down to make themselves feel important. They are experts in the use of sarcasm but lack communication, interpersonal and social skills.

Group Bullies:

These are predominantly female bullies who exclude their victims from feeling part of a group. They exploit the feeling of insecurity in their victims, by ambushing their victims and convincing peers to exclude or reject the victim. They often use the same tricks that the verbal bullies use with their victims to isolate them. Spreading nasty rumours about the victim is part of the pattern. It can be an extremely harmful form of bullying especially in children when they are making their first social connections, because it excludes the victim from his or her peer group.

Bullies who were victims:

Some bullies have been bullied or abused themselves. There is evidence that many murderers, especially those involving serial killings, have received brain damage from parental beatings. Those beatings can leave them with the inability to control their violent tendencies.

The first time bullies get a taste of their own medicine, they run whining to authorities for protection. They bully to feel competent, to get some relief from their own feelings of powerlessness. They are stuck between the state of a victim and a bully and are usually the most difficult to identify because they, at first glance, appear to be targets of other bullies and fiercely attack their bullies. They are usually impulsive and react quickly to intentional or unintentional physical encounters, claiming self-defence for their actions. Rather than lashing out at his or her bully, this victim needs to learn how to avoid other bullies.

Many abusers, molesters, harassers and bullies who end up in court because of their actions insist they were victims too.

These bullies seem to rely on their past problems as a victim to gain supporters. Such do-gooders will take advantage