Bully Prevention Partners gives some insight on who is most likely to become a target of a bully. While everyone can become a target, it is like a bully can smell out certain characteristics that say to them, “this person can be my victim’. Learn what they are here and in the coming days we will discuss more about the target / victim of bullying behavior.

What Should I Do If My Child Is A Bully?

In day 12 we answer the questions on the child displaying bullying behavior.  Should you punish them or is that counter to our ultimate goal of creating peace.  What do they need to practice and learn so they can stop the bullying behavior and have the courage to stand up for others?

Join Bully Prevention Partners as we tackle this issue with others.

Children can be taught important bullying prevention skills which are also important life skills. They can be used as a guide to solving social problems and help them to know how to be assertive while showing empathy.
Bully Prevention Partners presents Day 10 of 31 Days of Bully Prevention Messages. Join Bully Prevention Partners for more information.

Besides hurting others, bullies damage themselves, short term and long term each time they hurt others. The effects last long into adulthood and include some shocking findings. This is Day 9 in our series examining the effect of bullying behavior on the bully.

Teaching character and life skills to students

Integrity calls for doing what is right even when it is very hard or when there may be results that do not favor yourself.  The link below is about a girl that spoke up when it was difficult, because it was the right thing to do, and the results helped her classmate, but led to her being bullied.  Here is an excerpt from the story.

He’s a seventh-grader at Tripp Middle School in Turner, active in sports and school plays, friends would say a nice guy. And nearly every day classmates called him “fag,” “faggot” and “queer.” Nearly every day someone punched him, at least one time in the crotch. Nearly every day he was ridiculed, harassed, bullied.

Amanda Fields had never seen anything like it in all of her 13 years.
“Random people. People he doesn’t even talk to would come up to him and say, ‘Hey, fag’ or just kind of use very not good language,” the eighth-grader said.

The boy is a friend of hers. For months she watched his torment and feared for his safety. She worried he’d hurt himself if the harassment got too much.  Then, one day this spring, she and a small group of friends told a guidance counselor about all of it. The bullies — more than five, Amanda believes, and less than 15 — were suspended.
Citing student privacy concerns, school administrators refused to talk about the situation or confirm the suspensions. The boy and his parents declined to speak publicly. Other Tripp Middle School students wrote about the incident online, but would not talk about it to the newspaper.

But Amanda would. She agreed to tell the story that started out as the boy’s and has rapidly become her own.  Because since she and her friends told the guidance counselor, Amanda’s gotten bullied, too.

To read the whole story go to:  Standing Up: One Girl, One Friend, Many Bullies

Now I share this story because there will come times when we need that kind of courage.  Each of us can ask ourselves if we have that kind of courage.  Do I have the integrity for the principles, values, ethics, and morals that I stand for, that would make me stand up for what is right, just like Amanda?

Being a good friend is partly about standing up to peer pressure and for what is right.

“If you have integrity nothing else matters, if you don’t have integrity nothing else matters.”  Alan Simpson

If you are bullied as a young child will you continue to be bullied as you go into your teen years and beyond?  In 2009 there was a study done that indicates that for boys who were victims of bullying at the age between 6 and 9, they were no more likely to continue to be victims 2 -4 years later.  However this was not the case for girls.

“The researchers said that girls’ “tightly knit” friendship networks could make it difficult for them to “escape the victimization role”. *

As we look at the behavior of young girls even in pre-school developing habits of excluding each other, we need to recognize the long term affects on both of them.  For those who are the target of the exclusion with, “you can’t play with us”, this is a very confusing time.  This type of behavior is not just a ‘rite of passage’,  or ‘girls being girls’, anymore than a boy who continues to hit another boy should be allowed to do so.  This sort of aggression should be taken as seriously as any other type of aggression.  

If a young girl takes on a role of ‘victim’ this may be taken into all of her relationships including into who she dates and possibly marries.  So what can we do?

Parents and teachers should be aware of the formation of these close ties that exclude others and suggest that if they want a special time to play together, that can be arranged, but we are now going to play in a manner that is good for the whole group.

Teaching our young children to play together with respect is starting them off of the right foot.  If we as parents take a strong stand on friendships, exclusions, and respect for the feelings of others, our children will respond to those values.

Balanced Life Skills is working on bully prevention and more important on character building in all of our students.  Do you have a story about bullying that you would share with us?  The more information we have on what is happening in our community, the better we can prepare our children to be better citizens.

Social network: Stop Bullies Now

Forum question:  Has your child been bullied in school?

Thank you for your help and be sure to send these links to your friends as we work to build a community against bullying behavior.

*Wolke, D., Woods, S., & Samara, M. (2009). Who escapes or remains a victim of bullying in primary school? British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27 (4), 835-851 DOI:

The simple answer is YES!  Having said that though, some of the teasing that takes place with pre-school children is not bullying in the classic sense and definition.  It may be young ones just trying on their social skills and not yet having them honed yet.  The definition of bullying is the intentional use of power over another person to manipulate or hurt the target physically or emotionally over a period of time.  Therefore it is something that is taking place on more than one ocassion.

pre-school bullies hurt parents and children

Increasingly though we are seeing and hearing reports of pre-school children repeatedly picking on, teasing and physically hurting other children in their class or on the playground.  In an effort to understand what is happening to our children and then to offer suggestions to resolve these issues with parents and teachers I am interested in hearing the stories from you about what has happened to your child or to someone you have seen.  What have you done to resolve the issues?  How have teachers and administrators reacted when you have discussed the questions about bullying?  For the teachers, how do you deal with this conduct when you see it in your classes or playground?

What is your story?  Were you bullied as a small child?  Is your son or daughter being teased on a regular basis or being bullied in another way? Tell your story here as we work on changing the culture in our communities.

Continue to check back as we work on this subject of helping our children build the character and courage to be their best.

Bullying Prevention Begins with Knowledge About Bullying

Bullying is a relationship issue where power and aggression are used to affect another person.  The bullying behavior is done intentionally and is repeated over time.  This behavior is not a one time event that can be seen as a usual type of conflict between individuals.  The person who is the aggressor develops power over the person who is the target, and as time goes on if left unchecked, the target loses power while the aggressor gains power.  The target of this behavior can become increasingly powerless to stand up for themselves.

Bullying others may give some a sense of power over their target and a feeling of importance that they may be having a difficult or perceived difficult time obtaining with more positive social behaviors.

Bullying is not a problem that only children have to deal with.  Nor is it one that is limited to boys being the perpetrator.  While bullying behavior seems to peak in middle school, it begins as early as second grade.  Teachers and parents may even be able to see signs of bullying tendency in children as young as preschool aged children.  Do not mistake though that the behavior that affords dominance and social status stops when children leave school.  This behavior may continue well into adulthood and statistics show that 60 % of children who practice bullying behavior will have criminal convictions by the age of 24.

What is your knowledge of bullying?  Take a quiz and see how many myths about bullying you hold?     What Is Your Knowledge About Bullying Quiz

Following five kids and families over the course of a school year, the film confronts bullying’s most tragic outcomes, including the stories of two families who’ve lost children to suicide and a mother who waits to learn the fate of her 14 –year-old daughter, incarcerated after bringing a gun on her school bus. With rare access to the Sioux City Community School District, the film also gives an intimate glimpse into school busses, classrooms, cafeterias and even principles offices, offering insight into the often-cruel world of children, as teachers, administrators and parents struggle to find answers.

Balanced Life Skills is committed to helping our community face the issues of bullying by teaching and promoting peace and non-violence. Our Verbal Self Defense being taught in our classes helps bring confidence to our students.