What anti-bullying measures work?

February 17, 2013 6:55 AM

Today I saw the 2012 film “Bully” and thought it was very disturbing, so I decided to start an anti-bullying campaign on facebook in collaboration with parents of bullying-victims. To help me understand the subject further, my question is: If you were a bully at any given point and had a moment when you stopped, what made you stop? Was it something someone said?
posted by omar.a to Human Relations (16 answers total)

I will say this, I don't think the way this question is asked is serving you, and maybe understanding why can be helpful for the project. I study aggression and peer victimization in children, and in my experience, only the most extreme and antisocial kids would admit or recognize themselves as a "bully." So I know you said "ever," but you're cutting down your potential contributors immensely here, because most people who bullied someone infrequently or mildly are not self-identifying as such.

If the question were framed as, "were you ever a bit mean to kids when you were younger, even once or twice? Did you ever gossip and exclude others on purpose? did you ever make fun of the dorky kids? that made you stop?" You'd get a lot more response. Occasionally, the problem is one or two big bad bullies, but more frequently it's that kids all bully each other a little bit. And victims become bullies too.

For example, I remember calling another girl fat for no reason in 6th grade once. What prevented that from happening again was pretty immediately feeling like a terrible person when I saw her fight back tears, and very much ashamed. Would I have called myself "a bully" if you'd surveyed me just now? No, that's the only time I remember bullying anyone.

Reframe.
posted by namesarehard at 10:36 AM on February 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

I wish this question was getting more answers. I've been bullied a LOT in my life and I'd really like to hear a response from the other side about why people do it (or stop doing it). I try to imagine a scenario where hurting someone else would make me feel good... and I just can't do it. Maybe there are just a lot of low empathy, low conscience people out there.
posted by jenh526 at 10:51 AM on February 17, 2013

namesarehard, do you have some other good resources on bullying, and what kinds of interventions do work?
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:55 AM on February 17, 2013

Lobstermittens, depending on the age of the child, there are definitely some treatments that are supported in the literature. There's multi-systemic therapy, which involves the home and community, for adolescents. There's parent training and "the incredible years" which is teacher and parent training both, for grade-school kids. Parent-child-interaction therapy for even younger ones, which is probably more preventive. Group therapy and social skills training of various sorts are also supported. It's also important to identify the reason for the bullying. Some kids are actually very anxious or depressed and they externalize - for them, there are child oriented CBT programs, like coping cat. Some kids are seeing a lot of violence at home, and family therapy is necessary. The vast majority of child therapies do have to involve parents or families.
posted by namesarehard at 11:30 AM on February 17, 2013

How about you ask the kids you're interested in working with? I assume you have a target audience that includes kids and want to incorporate them into this discussion because top-down dialogues rarely (if ever) work. As what namesarehard said, it'll be easier to get responses if you frame it as "said something hurtful" or "were mean". You can then ask them why they did that and listen to their responses in order to figure out a method of intervention for that particular child or group.

The most successful frameworks I've seen are those that focus on the underlying systemic issues that bullies merely bring to light. A bully is rarely original in their insults - they go for what is easiest and most hurtful; that means they learned it from somewhere and they know it's designed to hurt people. Comments about how you're fat, or gay, or a girl, are all tied into systemic discrimination (aka: fatphobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, etc.). Framing all of these conflicts as the blanket term "bullying" often has a neutralizing effect on the intervention because nobody is willing to call it what it actually is and they frame it exclusively as a children's issue when it's not. These frameworks also focus on the power systems involved as many bullies lash out because they feel helpless or powerless (this often means involving families and schools).

Anyway, I was both a victim and a perpetrator. I didn't have a period of enlightenment that made me stop lashing out, I simply hit rock bottom where I didn't care what anybody did to me anymore and fuck them, I was going to another school soon - I completely detached from the school social group. However, what drove me to that place to begin with was unaddressed depression and suicidal thoughts (yes, at 12) and feeling incredibly alienated by the classmates who kept putting me down. I would probably have stopped bullying sooner if somebody had listened to me instead of patronizing me, but hey, I was 12, so nobody took me seriously.
posted by buteo at 11:42 AM on February 17, 2013

Response by poster: Knowing that almost all kids are victims and perpetrators at different points in time, I am talking about the children who are constantly bullied vs. those who are constantly doing the bullying. True, bullies at school could be victims at home, but at this point I am more interested in that specific moment between a bully and a victim at school. We will address prerogatives and motivations in due time.

If you behaved as a bully at a certain point in your life and then changed course, chances are you have come to terms with the fact that you were in fact, a bully. If you haven't come to terms with that and you are the type of person who won't call it what it actually is, then chances are you will do it again because you haven't recognized and resolved the problem. I am interested in the responses of those who call it what it is, whether they've inflicted it unto others or suffered from it themselves.

I'm also interested in the viewpoint of the victims' parents. If your child was a victim of bullying, how would you proceed to advise him/her? Would you condone that your child hit the bully back? Would you go through the proper channels (file a complaint at the school administration)? Would you deal with the bully directly?
posted by omar.a at 12:00 PM on February 17, 2013

Well, good luck. But as a researcher of this stuff, I'd say the binary situation you're imagining is far from reality regardless of what the movies say.
posted by namesarehard at 12:10 PM on February 17, 2013 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks. How would you go about it?
posted by omar.a at 12:31 PM on February 17, 2013

I think it takes either a culture of anti-bullying or a couple strong voices to stand up to the bullies. Here are two anecdotes that worked for people in my family:

-My dad was one to stand up to bullies as the outside observer. He would see someone get bullied and stand up to the bully. He was a tough little kid. He was on a baseball team once where everyone on his team (except for him) was making fun of the kids on the other team because the other team was of a different religion. He beat up a couple of the bullies on his team and after that they never dared to bully the other team again. Another time, the kids on his block kept ganging up and teasing a girl who was mentally challenged. My dad beat up the ring leader and the bullying of the girl stopped.

-As a child, my grandma lost all her hair due to a very high fever. The nuns at her Catholic school told the students that my grandma was part of their school community and anyone who teased her because she lost her hair would be severely punished. The key in that case was for the nuns to make it seem like my grandma was part of the school community and create an environment where the kids wanted to protect her. It turned out that no one in her school teased her and when the kids from the other neighborhood school started taunting her, her classmates chased them away and formed a ring around my grandma.

Basically, for bullies to stop, they have to know that their behavior will not be tolerated and the consequences severe. Most people, including bullies, want to be part of a group. If bullying makes it so they can be part of a group, they will bully others. If they will be ostracized for bullying, it makes them less inclined to bully others.

I think a key moment for a bullies might be when they realize their behavior is making them outcasts from their peers.
posted by parakeetdog at 12:33 PM on February 17, 2013 [6 favorites]

If you are looking for anti-bullying programs that schools are implementing, our school uses the Olyweus Bullying Prevention Program. As I understand it, it emphasizes classroom discussions about what bullying is (including name calling, put downs, shoving in line, exclusion), what the children are experiencing on the playground and talks to the students about standing up for each other. If anyone sees another student harassing another, the students say something or go tell an adult. There's also a box for anonymous tips about bullying behavior that the teachers and principal deal with. From what I gather, the most effective part of this program is the regular class discussions about bullying, particularly if you have a teacher skilled at guiding the discussion.
posted by hellochula at 1:26 PM on February 17, 2013

I'm glad that seeing the movie moved you to want to do something. That is a good instinct. However, some problems can't be solved by a public awareness campaign or a facebook page. Can you find another way to make a difference?

I am the mom of a child you was bullied for many years. What I needed was someone who could say: here are the options, here is the science behind those options, here are pros and cons and here are local resources for implementing those options. A bunch of angry and upset parents on facebook are just too much reactivity and not enough thoughtful action.

At the same time as he was being bullied, my son got an award for standing up to a bully to protect another child. What made the bullying of him stop was we moved away, and started homeschool.

I think bullies stop bullying not because they had some awakening moment like you describe, but because they move into a different social environment where they don't have to bully in order to have a place in a group. But that is just my opinion, I have no idea about the science of it.
posted by SyraCarol at 1:48 PM on February 17, 2013

a different social environment

Yeah, transitioning from school where they are amongst kids of their own age and have their buddies to support them, into a work environment where everyone is more mature can have a big impact - and not just to bullies.
posted by Diag at 1:54 PM on February 17, 2013

This isn't exactly what you asked for, but you might find it helpful anyway.

In my dealings with a family member, whom I would term a 'serial bully', I realized what didn't work; talking (openly addressing the issue), politeness and "doing the right thing". I might as well have painted a target on my forehead. The best advice I got was "don't talk, just do". So what did work for me was this; I learnt how to be less passive, to be aggressive when I needed to be, to be rude to others when they were rude to me and to label and stigmatize bullying behaviour. Basically, I don't allow them to bully me anymore.


As far as I can see, this person does it and will keep doing it to others, because they can get away with it.

Good luck with the facebook campaign.
posted by praline at 3:31 PM on February 17, 2013

Sorry Omar, didn't see your question - you know, there have been some very successful buddy pilot programs pairing well-liked kids with unpopular kids. It's been good for both sides. I actually would want to pilot the same intervention with kids who victimize, too. Pair a bully with a well liked kid with social capital (that is, a "nice popular" kid who isn't a candidate for victim but is likely to be a good influence) for a lunch a week, see if behavior changes. (And of course doing the same with victims! Strengthening up victims is really the goal!)

As far as what I meant before, I think it's useful to be inclusive about it, and ask everyone to reflect about whether they personally were ever subtly but deliberately mean to others - surprisingly, it's very common, and the more we can honestly talk about it among all of the kids, the more empathy emerges. That is, sounds like jenh has had a lot of bad experiences and I'm sorry to hear that, but in a discussion where it's immediately stated that bullies have no empathy and no conscience and what kind of a horrible person would ever want to make anyone feel bad, people likely jump straight to agreement, distance themselves from the label, and refuse to reflect on whether they were ever part of the problem. (I think a bit about the Liz Lemon Reunion episode of 30 Rock as a comical but useful example of people not fully being aware of how their behavior may have actually been aggressive or victimizing).

That said, I understand now that you're talking about exclusively very severe bullying, so my thoughts may be tangential.
posted by namesarehard at 6:08 PM on February 17, 2013

Some thoughts - it seems to me that most anti-bullying programs focus on the bullies which makes sense until you consider that bullies are frequently also being bullied. What about general efforts to improve self esteem among populations that are potential victims of bullying? I say this because I was the recipient of a lot of negative attention as a child and it would have been very helpful if someone had told me when I was much younger that I deserved better than being pushed into lockers or being picked up and put in a trash can. People mock efforts to increase children's self esteem ("participant ribbons for all!") But low self esteem affects both the bullies and the bullied.
posted by kat518 at 11:28 PM on February 17, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks for the input everybody. The thing I got most from all of you is that a bully is enabled by his/her environment the most and that it is a struggle against the power structures. That isn't exactly good news for the victims and their parents, because sometimes they do not have the power to transform it, be it through starting non-existent school programs or participating in ineffective class discussions (I mean, do bullies really care if their teachers and classmates say it's wrong?), etc.. Of course the issue is very complex, but some feasible, take-matters-into-your-own-hands (so to speak) options are needed because even if they do not eradicate the problem entirely, they can at least improve the situation. For instance, the media in general seems to put forth the idea that if you beat the bully back, he/she would stop. The question is, what practical options do the victims and their parents actually have?
posted by omar.a at 5:14 AM on February 18, 2013