In an article entitled “Bully My Child, Please,” Rick Newman of U.S. News tries to argue that being bullied promotes strength in children. This strength and resilience, he says, is damaged by today’s “helicopter parents,” or those moms and dads that attach GPS locators to their kids’ shoes and hand them trophies just for participating in a sport.
I understand how Newman is concerned about such over-protectiveness. It can damage a child’s self-confidence and lead to hurt down the road, when just showing up to a 9-5 job is not cause for a trophy.
But Newman’s argument that bullying really isn’t all that bad shows a quite alarming level of disconnect from today’s bullying, and how it’s no longer just about getting your lunch money stolen.
So-called “cyberbullying” has become rampant in recent years, according to an i-SAFE America survey. That survey reported that 58 percent of youths claimed that someone had said hurtful things to them online, and nearly half of those kids have had it happen more than once. Thirty-five percent of the kids surveyed said they had received threats online.
What makes cyberbullying different from traditional bullying is the unavoidability of it. A 2010 Pew Internet and American Life Project study showed that 75 percent of kids ages 12-17 owned a cell phone, with 66 percent having received the phone before their fourteenth birthday. The last census revealed that 68 percent of U.S. homes have Internet access, and the U.S. Energy Information Association says that about a quarter of Americans have more than one household computer.
This means that even at home, victims of bullying cannot escape their bullies. Online, bullies can be anonymous. They can gang up easily and spread hate speech or rumors to more people quickly. They have no safe space, and that can be devastating to a depressed and victimized teen.
In his article, Newman claims that there is ample research showing that “age-appropriate hardship” helps kids learn how to confront challenges. But some of the taunting faced by the teens who have committed suicide over the past few years is far more than what I would call “age-appropriate.”
Ten-year-old Ashlynn Conner killed herself after repeatedly being called a slut, even when she didn’t know what the word meant, her mother told ABCNews.com’s Barbara Pinto. Fifteen-year-old Phoebe Prince, an Irish immigrant living in Massachusetts, was pelted with soda cans and called “Irish slut” and “whore,” according to court documents filed against three of her bullies. Ryan Halligan was 13 when a popular girl at his school pretended to like him, then copied her IM conversations with Ryan and distributed them to her friends, publicly calling Ryan a “loser” and “gay.” Ryan hanged himself shortly thereafter.
But who draws the line between “age-appropriate” harassment, and the harassment I mentioned above?
The answer is that no one can decide when bullying crosses the line from “kids being kids” to creating an intolerable life for the victims. No amount of legislation is going to stop adolescents from being jerks, and nothing will forever ban the popular-girl cliques or separation anxiety at sleepovers.
But some students may be especially vulnerable to depression, according to the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). These include LGBTQ students, who may be ostracized at home because of their gender identity, and students who face domestic abuse from parents or family members. Students with pre-existing mental conditions, including ADHD or a history of depression, can also be at greater risk of suicide when bullying is involved, says the SPRC.
Then there is, of course, the “free speech” argument proposed by some religious groups like Focus on the Family, which I talked about in my article from the April 12 edition of the Minaret. To that argument I have only one thing to say: the right to free speech does not guarantee the right to harass others. No one may be able to stop a person from name-calling, but they can be sure that such speech will be challenged, and punished where appropriate.
Unlike what Rick Newman seems to believe, those pushing for anti-bullying legislation are not overreacting to a bit of teenage angst. Numbers are difficult to pin down, but the website teendepression.org claims that between 15 and 25 incidents of bullying-related suicides are reported each year; true numbers may be more than that, but it is not easy to cite bullying as the main cause of many suicides.
There are several ways to approach anti-bullying actions: parents and school administrators need to realize that children and teens can suffer depression, and need to be treated for any mental illness, just like adults. Children should feel that reporting bullying to their schools will not make the bullying worse, but remove the bully from the situation. Parents and teachers should also never tolerate verbal abuse, and this includes telling children that “gay” is not an insult, and that insulting someone’s sexual orientation is as unacceptable as insulting their race or religion.
We should never make light of the effects of bullying, especially when it leads to the suicides of children. Playing it off as a rite of passage, the fault of the victim or “helicopter parents” only masks the problem: that we are all responsible for the existence of bullies, and for protecting their victims.
Kelsey Allagood can be reached at kallagood@spartans.ut.edu.
One thing that seems to never get mentioned is to ask teachers honestly what they feel would help promote multiple benifits in and out of the class room. A French and Spanish teacher in a Tampa High Schoo and friend of mine explained that on Parent teacher day, there may only be a dozen parents show up out of 100 students. The parents that show up is of those students which are the last to worry about and performing at a high level. When organizations like the ACLU stop publicly defending bullies and other mischievious behavior then the School board and principals would be more likely to support teachers who be to be able to exibit some type of disipline in the class room. I would be happy to introduce you to teachers who believe that parenting is the answer to most of these problems. From keeping tabs on your kids if they are doing the bullying or if they are being bullied, a closer relationship with the children and parents while not being the kids “freinds”,. This is as basic as any other human trait which manifests itself in unacceptable behavior when the lack of adult guidance and no presence of responsibility is not only encouraged but demanded of children today!
Many examples can be extracted from everyday life but the New York broken glass theory is as basic as it gets but ask the teachers who actually care and the glass is what we do to our children. If we show that they matter then adventually they will start understanding it and believeing it…
For now, kids will continue to flip thier nose and fingers at thier parents and teachers with no repercussions while appearing “cool” to fellow kids around them. There was a day in which any behavior like that would had sent everyone scurrying for cover as to not get caught up in the behavior which would end up getting them grounded (not beaten). That one kid who did this and got in trouble all the time because of a broken home has now unfortunely become the status quo….
One thing that doesn’t get reported enough is that adults can be cyberbullied as well. A member of my family was attacked on one of the websites. I support free speech but there is no true “free” anything. Libel is not protected by the Constitution and those that condone cyberbullying are simply trying to justify their behavior. Our forefathers did not foresee the internet and the first amendment was intended as a way to peacefully protest government not spread lies about your neighbor just because they don’t like them. I think our country has gone crazy with a lot of the laws we have, but one we strongly need (that also makes complete sense since most states are adopting cyberbullying laws anyway) is to make a federal law against cyberbullying. There also needs to be a push to revoke a law called the Communications Decency Act Section 230. The law, for those of you unfamilar, states a website company cannot be sued directly. This is why so many of the social media groups don’t do anything to curb the problem. If a website knows there is a problem and doesn’t have a strong Terms of Service and guidelines in place then they hold some of the responsibility and in some cases should be held accountable. I will give you an example. Backpage.com is allowing sex trafficking and they know it is going on constantly on their site (Craig’s List too and there was even a CNN report on it) Those sites claim they work with police but it has been discovered they don’t ever monitor or report it unless the media or a court calls them out. Those sites know illegal activities are going on and still aren’t trying to combat it. That makes them accountable. I also read that a website called Topix is allowing drugs to be sold on their site and they aren’t doing anything either. In fact, they don’t even make their users register for an account before posting and there was an ABC newsstory I saw about them. In those examples, those sites should be held liable.
I work with bullied and cyberbullied children and adults and cyberbullying seems to be even worse because it is never ending and even if you stay away from certain websites, others are seeing the damaging content. Words do indeed hurt.