Bullying. Do we have solutions?

I think earlier, I posted the link to "Memoirs of a Bullied Kid" in a post about bullying.  I can't remember my own posts half the time.  If not, you can find the link for that article on the blog Single Dad Laughing.  He's made some amazing posts on the topic and a lot of people are talking about the subject.  And that's the point really, to talk about and SOLVE the issue.  In his most recent post, Are We All Talk or Are We Going to Fix This?, he challenges us to keep the discussion of bullying alive and find creative solutions by working together.  He also challenges bloggers to blog about it.  So here I am.  And I don't know if I have solutions.  But maybe together we can discuss ideas and then move them into action.  Be sure to read "Memoirs of a Bullied Kid" and "Bullies, They're Not Even Human", which you can link to from the article link above.

I think our first impressions, heavily laced with our own memories of being bullied, are to stomp out the bully.  To punish, to, in a sense, bully him/her back.  But I think what Single Dad Laughing is trying to tell us is that bullies are a symptom of a much larger problem, and that they need love, attention and some careful sleuthing to determine what their needs might be and how those needs can be met.  The person who is bullied really doesn't want extra special attention, they/we, just want to get on with our lives.  We sometimes approach it a bit in reverse, like "here honey, you sit near me and I'll protect you", rather than "here honey, you sit with me and we'll talk (while I protect everyone else FROM you)".

Some years ago, I was passing a grade school and saw this little, tiny guy, bullying the crap out of a group of girls.  They could have easily whooped him, but there is just something about the intense energy of a bully.  I was incensed.  The mother bear in me came out in full force.  I stopped the car and walked up to the incident in progress and demanded that he stop.  He went toe to toe with me.  He maybe came up to my knee.  And he flat out refused to back down.  He was actually frightening ME!  Holy Crap!  But in my fear and confusion, I just got madder. I told him he either needed to knock it off or I would need to report him.  He didn't care.  Or so he said.  So I went into the school after asking others his name, and spoke to the principal.  She had had enough of him.  He had been terrorizing kids long enough.  She was going to call the police and just have him charged and kicked out of school.

Well, this was near the end of the school year and something interesting happened.  His little face would not leave the forefront of my mind.  Now, it may also be an important sidebar to tell you that I have a son with mental health, learning, and behavioral issues.  Despite my best efforts and all the help I could get for him, he remained often both bullied and bully.  So maybe that's what nagged at me.  That this kid needed something more than punishment.  And his face would not leave my mind all of that summer.

In the fall, I went back to that school and asked if I could be his "lunch buddy" (a program of mentorship).  I had to go through a bunch of "training" and background checks and they were going to then match me up with a person to "buddy".  I said, "No.  I only want him."  And that's how I became his lunch buddy.

Now, while this program was noble in theory, trying to bond with and mentor a wild-child in a public school lunchroom or on a playground is, well, not possible.  They are with their peers, they are overstimulated by the noise, and activity and multiple pulls on their attention, and mentoring just doesn't happen very effectively.  We have to do more than that.  We have to have a lot of quiet one-on-one time with them.

I found that he came from a chaotic family, with lots of drug use and had been removed from his home off and on.  Nobody really cared where he was or what he did.  I am the FIRST person to caution here, that not all bullies come from crappy circumstances.  Remember my kid.  I'm not Mother Teresa, but I think I did an OK job of parenting.  Some children also react from special needs that are far more based in biology.  Some kids react negatively to the over-stimulation and noise of public school.  Heck, when I would go have lunch there, I wanted to smack someone.  I can't function in all that choas.

I was not this boy's lunch buddy for very long.  I got there a bit too late (even though he was in early grade school).  He was removed from school and put in a treatment center for emotionally disturbed kids and the center refused to allow me to continue my relationship with him.  I wonder about him all the time.  His little face (which I'm sure is now an adult face), has never left me.  I think he was ANGRY, and crying out for love and positive attention but wasn't developmentally astute enough to know the best more effective way to go about it.

I think my point here is that our first reactions are to pulverize one who harms another.  And I reacted that way at first.  I think what we need to look at is, that it is possible to have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, while not letting the answer to zero-tolerance be about punishment per se.  We do have to intervene, to be watchful, to not teach the bullied how to "fight back" or grow a "thicker skin", and I don't think necessarily that kicking out the bully or punishment sanctions tend to be very effective, although I totally understand the desperation and lack of creative ideas that lead us there.

So what are some creative solutions?  I would love to hear your ideas.  And as we discuss them, I hope more ideas will be inspired, and it will lead people into positive action rather than negative reactivity.

I spoke with my mom just this week and relayed some of the ways I had been bullied.  I'm 49.  She didn't know these things about my life.  Her jaw dropped.  It made her angry.  She wanted to kick butt.  Even though there is nothing she can do for me now, it is never too late to have these conversations.  With our parents, with each other.  The bullied still need to heal.  And so do the bullies.

There are larger, systemic issues here...money, training, time, overcrowding, parenting, addiction etc which are all part of the problem.  Bullying, as Single Dad Laughing states, is a SYMPTOM.  So if we just focus on bullies, we miss the big picture.  We do sort of have to start there, with an awareness that as we take hold of that loose thread, the unraveling will occur that will lead us further and further down the rabbit hole and closer to issues we don't want to look at that require much more dedication to solve on a macro vs micro level.

One thought I had is about "the bully on the bus".  Sadly, we need bus drivers that are a bit more savy and trained in these matters, cuz everybody knows the cliche about the bully on the bus.  In fact, I was really happy I didn't ride the bus, because I thought that's all that ever happened on a bus.  So let's say, in a perfect world, bus drivers are decently paid, and have training in dealing with this issue.  What if, they are aware that they need to be watchful and that further, it IS their job to keep each child on their bus safe. It is not OK to let things slide, to look the other way or simply to say "hey, knock it off back there".  What if, the bus driver simply asks who the the child doing the bullying is.  Now, he can either speak with parents or school officials if he wishes, but perhaps, his authority as an adult will suffice.  Maybe he can call the bully up front and quietly say (pulling over to the side of the road if he needs to for road safety), "Ya, know, I have to keep everyone on my bus safe, and you are not going to be allowed to behave in this way.  You will need to sit up here with me every day until we can negotiate an understanding about how you will treat people on my bus."  Then, from that point on, it isn't about punishment, it is about keeping safety.  And, to use the opportunity to befriend and mentor this kid.  They sit there for how long every day?  How many minutes per week could the driver spend being a mentor, and just paying attention to them.  Talking about their day and school and life.  Would that be feasible?

What about more "lunch buddy" type programs that match challenging kids with a patient adult...and not just for lunch once a week.  Maybe, if people really get involved, we could have an army of volunteer mentors walking the halls, playgrounds, buses and lunch rooms.  Not as vindictive police, but as "redirectors".  Recognize, Intervene Immediately, Mentor.  Oh, sure, I know there are holes in my theory, but can we creatively predict them and solve them?  Well, I bet we could do a bit better than the anacranym of R.I.I.M but you get the idea, right?

What other positive ideas do you have that both intervene and disallow the activity of bullying while offering positive solutions that make a bully want to stop being a bully...to feel included and cared about enough to want to treat people well?  In essence, our current "solutions" seem to be to return tit for tat by bullying the bully, or strong arming them into compliance.  And if the bully is the symptom of a larger issue, that knee-jerk idea won't solve this ever-growing problem. 

There are books being written on the subject.  I don't know which ones are good, but would it not also behoove us to begin reading about creative solutions and policies that are being implemented in some places and then discuss the pros/cons and adjustments to make?  I think any policy must be constantly evaluated and tweaked.  It isn't enough to have a bullying or sexual harassment policy in place if it is ineffective.

And sadly, lawsuits by those who have been bullied while officials looked the other way are positive steps in the right direction.  Hitting institutions in their wallet gets them to pay attention and put policies in place toot-sweet.  Too bad it has to go that far, but often it is those first groundbreaking cases that cause a ripple effect throughout the system.  At first, the institution wants to avoid lawsuit more than they want to solve a social issue, but I guess you work with what you've got.

yeah the book list goes on and on and on.  Check out the search term "bully"  or "bullying" on Amazon.com or on Google.  Let me know what YOUR research turns up.