Victims, Bullies, and Bystanders
Jane Tuttle
Lawrence KS USA
Report from 2001 LLLI Conference
From: NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 18 No. 5, September-October 2001, p. 175
Marjorie Kostelnik, PhD,
dean at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, said that bullying is
serious and should not be discounted. Victims remember bullying for
a very long time. Dr. Kostelnik defined bullying as an aggressive act
that causes physical or emotional harm to another person or that damages
property, and includes an imbalance of power.
Kostelnik became interested
in bullying when she saw how ineffectively parents and teachers around
her dealt with this behavior. Her practical approach is based upon her
personal experiences as an educator as well as her years of research
in the field of child development.
Bullying involves three parties:
the bully, the victim, and the onlooker or bystander. Most victims are
passive often physically weak or small, timid, with few friends. Other
victims may be provocative-their behavior annoys others, perhaps because
they lack social skills.
Victims, bullies, and bystanders
must all be involved in ending bullying. Kosteinik suggested these four
guidelines for building a sense of community and changing behaviors,
in groups of children.
- We will not bully other people.
- We will help children who are being bullied.
- We will include children who are being left out.
- We will report bullying when we see it.
Doing something about bullying
is important. When adults do nothing about bullying, children believe
that adults do not care about them or worse, that the adult approves
of the aggressive behavior. Doing something, even when the bystanders
don't know what to do, is important for all three parties of the bullying
(the bully, the victim, and the bystander). Bystanders can do many things
when they intervene: they can comfort the victim, distract the.. bully,
support the victim's rights, and/or use humor. As adults work with bullies
and victims, they should teach children verbal assertiveness to help
them find the words to express what they want.
Making sure that children
understand what we are asking them to do in response to bullying is
important. Dr. Kostelnik illustrated this by giving the audience a simple
command in French. Most of the people there just stared at her. She
then repeated the sentence more loudly, more slowly, and even had the
audience repeat it to her. By this time people were laughing. But no
matter how she said the phrase, anyone who didn't understand French
still didn't know what to do. She asked, "How often do we as parents
do this to our children?"
Children need to know that
telling an adult about bullying is not the same as tattling. The phrase
she used was "bullying is like blood." If someone is bleeding,
children know they need to get help from an adult. Bullying does not
need to draw blood to cause serious harm. Dr. Kostelnik offered Conference
attendees much food for thought.
Last updated Friday, October 27, 2006 by njb.
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