04-07-2007, 12:32 AM
IN TERROR OF THE RECESS BELL
TheStar.com - Health - Prey grounds
Prey grounds
Shutterstock Photo Illustration
School children are easily ostracized and bullied in playgrounds which are the initial breeding grounds for aggression, international experts agre
What to do when a bully lurks
Find help and information at:
# media-awareness.ca
# prevent.ca
# cpra.ca
# cayfo.ca
# peacefulschoolsinternational.org
# bullying.org
# Kids Help Phone 1-800-668-6868; kidshelpphone.ca
Guns and knives? Try dignity and respect
Youth gangs are growing in Canada and the U.S., and the "tough on crime" agenda is not stopping them, says Canadian gang expert Michael Chettleburgh.
School recess and lunch breaks are prime times for bullies who target victims out of range of their teacher's sight, writes Trish Crawford
Apr 06, 2007 04:30 AM, The Toronto Star
Trish Crawford
OTTAWA–Jennifer Martin is 28 years old but she is only now getting over the bullying she experienced nearly two decades ago while in Grade 5.
There were seven girls in her class but she was consistently cut out of the pack during recess by one bossy girl who ruled the roost. Occasionally, a little Asian girl was the one excluded. But mostly it was Martin.
"I went home and cried every day."
The blond, friendly woman with the shy smile dreaded the unsupervised time at her Toronto school so much that she came home for lunch all through elementary school. She blesses her mother for being kind and supportive, and for dishing out comfort food – "It was mac and cheese, hot dogs. She told me, `You're a good kid.'"
The bully moved away in Grade 6, but for years afterward Martin dealt with the fallout. "Not until last year did I have female friends."
Recess and lunch breaks have a much darker side than simply being energy-busting romps in the playground. This largely unsupervised mixing of children is the breeding ground for the worst types of physical and social aggression, and causes heartache for thousands of school kids, experts agreed at I Am Safe, this week's third international conference on bullying, held in Ottawa.
For many, it is the first heady taste of the power and control of bullying which can lead them on a trajectory to more serious aggression. For the victims, it can mark them as targets throughout their school lives.
Noting that there is an incident of bullying in a Canadian playground every seven minutes, the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association has launched an education program – Making Recreation Safe – for parents, educators and coaches. Bullying is seen to be such a major problem that the federal government has created a national Centres of Excellence, PrevNet – one of the few in the social sciences – to sponsor research and find ways to promote safe and healthy relationships for youth.
York University psychologist Debra Pepler, co-founder of PrevNet, says, "The school playground is a cruel place for children. It's a lonely place."
Children need to be taught how to play well and feel compassion for others by example, she says.
"Why do they (bullies) feel they can hit somebody or kick sand on somebody? We think they'll learn social skills by osmosis. The playground is one area where they need support the most, not the least, especially for the higher-risk kids."
Educators and social scientists have stopped trying to solve the problem by dealing with the bully alone, she says. They have come to realize it is "a relationship problem" that includes victims and onlookers.
Anonymous cyber bullies are the latest twist with social bullying, Internet gossip and postings, text messaging and photo phones which transmit pictures of people without their knowing.
Third-year University of Toronto student David Knight, 22, found himself bullied and ostracized as the new Grade 4 kid when he moved to a rural school in Kilbride, Ontario, south of Milton.
Currently with the Canadian Armed Forces and training to be a pilot, Knight said his dream of flying kept him going through the tough years of teasing.
It all began at recess, with students grabbing his hat and making him chase it all over the schoolyard.
"The teacher said it was just a game. But it was not a game I wanted to take part in," said Knight. In Grade 6, things got nastier with homophobic slurs "but luckily there was a lunchroom supervisor, who was one of the parents," to protect him.
Grade 9 wasn't the new start he dreamed of – bullies followed and spread the word through high school that he was a loser, and that they should stay away from him. The bullying graduated to the Internet, with a web page devoted to his humiliation.
When he was physically threatened in Grade 12 by a boy who had been tormenting him since primary school, he finished his studies at home. His family has launched a lawsuit against the school board involved.
Knight says that many of the principals and vice-principals he went to for help told him there wasn't much they could do because there weren't actual death threats.
Contrary to popular belief, says York U's Pepler, bullies aren't sad creatures but people who enjoy "power and status" within the school community. The victims are usually picked "from the margins" such as children with a disability, are a racial minority or who are gay.
Victims have to come forward and tell a teacher or a parent in order for the situation to stop or get turned around, she said, adding, "We cannot stand by and let children be victimized."
While the bullies and their gangs are making the lives of weaker students miserable, the majority of other kids are witnesses. What concerns researchers is that, over time, bullying will harden bystanders.
And, she notes, once a bystander steps in the bullying has been reported to stop in more half the cases.
The role of the bystander is at the cornerstone of anti-bullying programs in England, says Helen Cowie, director of the Observatory for the Promotion of Non-Violence in the U.K.
When an incident occurs, 87 per cent of those in the vicinity are onlookers while just 17 per cent "spontaneously act as defender," she says. This may involve going to the principal or teacher, comforting the victim, telling bullies they're wrong, and physically helping the victim.
Anti-violence experts want to harness this goodness, Cowie says, and spread it to more of the bystander group. Adults can never be everywhere kids are but "if we can galvanize these bystanders to spontaneously help the victim in a conflict," bullying would decrease. "The power of the peer group is that they can actually do something."
And not just when trouble starts, she says, but when the shy kid sits alone, when a new student arrives, or when a child struggles at sports. Cowie's group has instituted peer leadership programs in elementary schools to harness the "altruism" young kids seem to have naturally but which is erased in high school.
"A best friend is a best protection from bullies and social aggression," she says.
Two societal forces in Canada have caused bullying to rise, says Alan Mirabelli, executive director of the Vanier Institute of the Family.
First, in the 1950s, families started moving to find better jobs and economic prospects. Today, half of all Canadians will move every five years within neighbourhoods, cities or provinces, he says. There is little continuity within communities that would shelter and sustain a vulnerable child or provide those close friends.
But the culture of privacy is also to blame, says Mirabelli, as people say, "I don't know my neighbour and I don't want to."
He notes that his childhood misbehaviour would be corrected by any neighbourhood parent who caught him. Today, people keep quiet when kids act up.
"We just fail to teach them," adds Mirabelli. "We are missing opportunities to teach them something important – empathy."
TheStar.com - Health - Prey grounds
Prey grounds
Shutterstock Photo Illustration
School children are easily ostracized and bullied in playgrounds which are the initial breeding grounds for aggression, international experts agre
What to do when a bully lurks
Find help and information at:
# media-awareness.ca
# prevent.ca
# cpra.ca
# cayfo.ca
# peacefulschoolsinternational.org
# bullying.org
# Kids Help Phone 1-800-668-6868; kidshelpphone.ca
Guns and knives? Try dignity and respect
Youth gangs are growing in Canada and the U.S., and the "tough on crime" agenda is not stopping them, says Canadian gang expert Michael Chettleburgh.
School recess and lunch breaks are prime times for bullies who target victims out of range of their teacher's sight, writes Trish Crawford
Apr 06, 2007 04:30 AM, The Toronto Star
Trish Crawford
OTTAWA–Jennifer Martin is 28 years old but she is only now getting over the bullying she experienced nearly two decades ago while in Grade 5.
There were seven girls in her class but she was consistently cut out of the pack during recess by one bossy girl who ruled the roost. Occasionally, a little Asian girl was the one excluded. But mostly it was Martin.
"I went home and cried every day."
The blond, friendly woman with the shy smile dreaded the unsupervised time at her Toronto school so much that she came home for lunch all through elementary school. She blesses her mother for being kind and supportive, and for dishing out comfort food – "It was mac and cheese, hot dogs. She told me, `You're a good kid.'"
The bully moved away in Grade 6, but for years afterward Martin dealt with the fallout. "Not until last year did I have female friends."
Recess and lunch breaks have a much darker side than simply being energy-busting romps in the playground. This largely unsupervised mixing of children is the breeding ground for the worst types of physical and social aggression, and causes heartache for thousands of school kids, experts agreed at I Am Safe, this week's third international conference on bullying, held in Ottawa.
For many, it is the first heady taste of the power and control of bullying which can lead them on a trajectory to more serious aggression. For the victims, it can mark them as targets throughout their school lives.
Noting that there is an incident of bullying in a Canadian playground every seven minutes, the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association has launched an education program – Making Recreation Safe – for parents, educators and coaches. Bullying is seen to be such a major problem that the federal government has created a national Centres of Excellence, PrevNet – one of the few in the social sciences – to sponsor research and find ways to promote safe and healthy relationships for youth.
York University psychologist Debra Pepler, co-founder of PrevNet, says, "The school playground is a cruel place for children. It's a lonely place."
Children need to be taught how to play well and feel compassion for others by example, she says.
"Why do they (bullies) feel they can hit somebody or kick sand on somebody? We think they'll learn social skills by osmosis. The playground is one area where they need support the most, not the least, especially for the higher-risk kids."
Educators and social scientists have stopped trying to solve the problem by dealing with the bully alone, she says. They have come to realize it is "a relationship problem" that includes victims and onlookers.
Anonymous cyber bullies are the latest twist with social bullying, Internet gossip and postings, text messaging and photo phones which transmit pictures of people without their knowing.
Third-year University of Toronto student David Knight, 22, found himself bullied and ostracized as the new Grade 4 kid when he moved to a rural school in Kilbride, Ontario, south of Milton.
Currently with the Canadian Armed Forces and training to be a pilot, Knight said his dream of flying kept him going through the tough years of teasing.
It all began at recess, with students grabbing his hat and making him chase it all over the schoolyard.
"The teacher said it was just a game. But it was not a game I wanted to take part in," said Knight. In Grade 6, things got nastier with homophobic slurs "but luckily there was a lunchroom supervisor, who was one of the parents," to protect him.
Grade 9 wasn't the new start he dreamed of – bullies followed and spread the word through high school that he was a loser, and that they should stay away from him. The bullying graduated to the Internet, with a web page devoted to his humiliation.
When he was physically threatened in Grade 12 by a boy who had been tormenting him since primary school, he finished his studies at home. His family has launched a lawsuit against the school board involved.
Knight says that many of the principals and vice-principals he went to for help told him there wasn't much they could do because there weren't actual death threats.
Contrary to popular belief, says York U's Pepler, bullies aren't sad creatures but people who enjoy "power and status" within the school community. The victims are usually picked "from the margins" such as children with a disability, are a racial minority or who are gay.
Victims have to come forward and tell a teacher or a parent in order for the situation to stop or get turned around, she said, adding, "We cannot stand by and let children be victimized."
While the bullies and their gangs are making the lives of weaker students miserable, the majority of other kids are witnesses. What concerns researchers is that, over time, bullying will harden bystanders.
And, she notes, once a bystander steps in the bullying has been reported to stop in more half the cases.
The role of the bystander is at the cornerstone of anti-bullying programs in England, says Helen Cowie, director of the Observatory for the Promotion of Non-Violence in the U.K.
When an incident occurs, 87 per cent of those in the vicinity are onlookers while just 17 per cent "spontaneously act as defender," she says. This may involve going to the principal or teacher, comforting the victim, telling bullies they're wrong, and physically helping the victim.
Anti-violence experts want to harness this goodness, Cowie says, and spread it to more of the bystander group. Adults can never be everywhere kids are but "if we can galvanize these bystanders to spontaneously help the victim in a conflict," bullying would decrease. "The power of the peer group is that they can actually do something."
And not just when trouble starts, she says, but when the shy kid sits alone, when a new student arrives, or when a child struggles at sports. Cowie's group has instituted peer leadership programs in elementary schools to harness the "altruism" young kids seem to have naturally but which is erased in high school.
"A best friend is a best protection from bullies and social aggression," she says.
Two societal forces in Canada have caused bullying to rise, says Alan Mirabelli, executive director of the Vanier Institute of the Family.
First, in the 1950s, families started moving to find better jobs and economic prospects. Today, half of all Canadians will move every five years within neighbourhoods, cities or provinces, he says. There is little continuity within communities that would shelter and sustain a vulnerable child or provide those close friends.
But the culture of privacy is also to blame, says Mirabelli, as people say, "I don't know my neighbour and I don't want to."
He notes that his childhood misbehaviour would be corrected by any neighbourhood parent who caught him. Today, people keep quiet when kids act up.
"We just fail to teach them," adds Mirabelli. "We are missing opportunities to teach them something important – empathy."