Recently, the Maryville Daily Forum printed a headline, “North Nodaway Bullies Shamrocks in Transition for Victory.” We expressed our disapproval of the headline on Facebook and got over 40 likes from people in all three of the school communities that we cover, North Nodaway, Worth County, and Northeast Nodaway as well as a few from North Harrison. This shows that bullying continues to be a major issue for the area as well as the country. The website NoBullying.com is part of a worldwide movement against bullying and has 650,000 monthly visitors, with the stated goal of reaching 1 million in the near future. They are an online community for anyone who needs help dealing with all kinds of bullying.
Stopping bullying depends on recognizing it for what it is. Bullying does not necessarily involve physical violence, although it can include that. The US Department of Health and Human Services has a website, stopbullying.gov, which defines bullying as unwanted aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance that is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated over time. This includes such actions as threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. It can include telling someone, “Go play by yourself!”
The site breaks down bullying further. Verbal bullying includes such actions as teasing, name-calling, inappropriate comments, taunting, or threats. Social bullying includes leaving someone out on purpose, telling people not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors, or embarrassing someone in public. Physical bullying can include hitting/kicking/punching, spitting, tripping/pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things, or making mean or rude hand gestures.
With the rise of social media such as Facebook and Snapchat, cyberbulling has become an increasingly important issue. It can be just as harmful as other kinds of bullying. The Cyberbullying Research Center has a website, www.cyberbullying.org, which is specifically dedicated to addressing it. Two testimonials on that site demonstrate the harmful effects of online bullying:
I'm sure you've all heard about this new site formspring.me. It's a truly horrible site. It gives bullies a chance to verbally insult people without putting a face or a name to them. It wears people down after a while and only causes drama. I was harassed for a good amount of time on it when I had one. It caused drama between a good friend of mine and me. Thankfully we resolved it. People also thought it was their business to know about my boyfriend and I, and would constantly ask questions, and my parents also saw these too. Formspring.me should be deleted. It will only cause hurt for teenagers around the world." - 15 year-old girl from CA
"I have been friends with this person for 3 years now. Well best friends. I never thought she could do this to me. She's lying and getting our friends on her said. All i can do is watch. She's called me " Ugly RagDoll , Useless , Babied all my life , Jealous , I need to grow up , unpopular , I can go and riot under a rock! Who says these kinds of things? Only someone that is heartless and that has never been bullied before. They don't know how it feels i guess." - 12 year-old girl from MI
The site notes that cyberbullying causes victims to have low self-esteem, suicidal ideation, anger, frustration, and other emotional and psychological problems. It is related to other real world issues such as school problems, anti-social behavior, substance use, and delinquency. While the Centers for Disease Control reports that cyberbullying has declined from 2011 to 2013, with 14.8% of students reporting that they had been bullied in 2013 as opposed to 16.2% in 2011, it continues to be a problem in this country.
The site PACER.org is a Minnesota-based site that focused on disabled children and has a section on bullying. Possible warning signs that your child is being bullied include depression, anxiety, sleep difficulty, and poor school adjustment. Children who bully others experience problems as well, including substance use, academic problems, and violence later in adolescence and adulthood. Youth victimized by peers are 3.3 times more likely to report a suicide attempt than youth who reported not being bullied. The site suicide.org has a Suicide Prevention Hotline for this area; it is (888) 279-8188. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911.
PACER notes that intervention from others makes a significant difference in the occurrence of bullying and that proper support from others makes a positive difference. Some of the most helpful things teachers or other adults can do include listening, checking in with the child to ensure that it has stopped, and constructive advice. Some of the least helpful things an adult can do is tell the child to solve the problem themselves, tell the student that bullying wouldn’t happen if they acted differently, ignoring the problem, or telling the student to stop tattling. Supportive actions from peers and bystanders can make an even bigger difference in stopping bullying than actions by adults.
If you or someone you know is a target of real-life or online bullying or violence, the State of Missouri has a school violence hotline at (866) 748-7047 toll free. You may fill out a form online at schoolviolencehotline.com, download a free Mo ReportIt app from your App store, or text to 847411 using keyword “Reportit” and include your school name and city.
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