Make Medicine Better

What can we do to repair the broken hearts, broken families, and broken lives caused by bullying – a different kind of heart disease that is affecting our country? Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, and Missouri are just a few of the states with more recent high profile bullying incidents ranging from cyber crimes to violent fighting to suicide. If a disease is defined as any unfavorable condition or environment that affects public health, then bullying has become an epidemic. Bullying can cause symptoms such as headaches, abdominal pain, depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety and sleep problems (Fekkes et al, 2004). The effects, however, are more deadly. Here are some facts:

• Children involved in bullying are more likely to get into fights, carry weapons, abuse drugs, fail/drop out of school, steal/vandalize (Olweus, 2010)
• Children who are the targets of bullying suffer from isolation, depression, poor self-esteem and school failure (Olweus, 2010)
• Forty-six percent of children bullied have reported thoughts of suicide (Long-term Effects of Bullying, 1999)
• Children engaging in bullying behavior are four times more likely to have three or more convictions by age 24 (Olweus, 2010)
• 6,250 teachers across the country receive daily threats by students (Lee, 1993)
• Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, and many experts agree it is inextricably linked to bullying.

This tragic cycle of pain, rage and revenge can be stopped, but the answers are as complex as the problems. As a writer and trainer for BJC School Outreach and a certified Olweus Bullying Prevention Trainer, our work in schools began with teaching emotional intelligence in 1999. Helping children learn to articulate distress and learn strategies for positive change, we have seen reduction in bullying incidents in schools throughout Missouri. Here are a few suggestions to get the conversation started in your home, workplace and community:

• Ending the bullying cycle is the responsibility of adults. By working together in community coalitions we can share the role of change agents. Teaching compassion, empathy, and kindness doesn’t cost a dime. Engage in thoughtful and soul-searching conversations about intentional and meaningful ways adults can help students. Form a coalition today – invite people to your home or office and ask them to bring their optimism!
• Blame won’t get us what we want – but shared responsibility with a solution-focus will. We cannot point fingers at parents, teachers, students, or school districts without offering to support meaningful solutions. Heart health is everyone’s business. Have you smiled at a child or your neighbor lately? Investing in kindness is the first step in solving the disease of bullying.
• Schools are a microcosm of society as a whole. Children do not lead the trend, they simply reflect adult behavior. Have you checked out the workplace bullying landscape? There was a 27.5% increase in workplace bullying since the global economic crisis hit in 2008 (Workplace Bullying Institute, 2008). Higher stress levels at home and at work lead to other problems that surface in classrooms.
• Schools that address name-calling, put downs, exclusion, negative humor and other destructive manners of verbal bullying have fewer incidents of physical violence according to the National Threat Assessment Center. Teaching productive communication skills and emotional literacy reduces verbal, emotional, physical, gender and cyber bullying, and creates a kinder, more civil culture at home and at school.
• Teach media literacy – helping young people dissect media messages can give them a deeper understanding of the way media violence impacts day-to-day behaviors.
• Teach Empathy: Allow children to articulate their distress or conflict and ask questions to help them see all sides. When youth expand their capacity to understand their emotions and the emotions of their peers, they are less likely to become involved in school violence. Empathy allows them to understand the impact of their offense and enables them to experience remorse, which prevents further offenses against their peers.

Additional key factors that prevent bullying include:

• Teaching and enforcing basic manners and courtesy at home and school
• Recognizing the power of the witness to lessen the impact on the target
• Teaching how to apologize for offenses with honest conversations about change
• Consider a restorative discipline model, focusing on repairing harm rather than a punitive approach
• Instructing students to report incidents to adults trained to respond appropriately

If you think bullying is the problem of society, the solution begins with you. We can begin today to change the climate in our schools simply by listening and caring beyond our own circumstances and contributing to a better future for all children.