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- Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
We have to change the perception of girl bullying as 'just girls being girls' and a normal part of growing up; in Girl Bullying, Dr Sam offers practical suggestions to do just this. As a society we can work towards a truly embedded anti-bullying ethos, through policies, education, socialisation and involving everyone. We all know that bullying can have a detrimental effect on the academic attainment, self-esteem and day-to-day lives of all the individuals involved; the victims, bystanders and, of course, the bullies themselves. The voices of the young people who have informed Dr Sam's research are testimony to this. Relational aggression, social exclusion, cyberbullying, these are just some of the issues which can affect girls' peer relationships and severely impact on their own self-esteem. Healthier coping strategies are skills that help us all to function effectively not just in a school environment, but throughout life. Dr Sam's aim is to help adults working with girls to develop a toolbox of pro-active, pro-social strategies and understanding. This book does not offer a one-size-fits-all solution of how to stop girl bullying; indeed, such a thing does not exist. Dealing with these issues takes the time and patience, trust and knowledge of those involved, and most of all it takes the willingness to appreciate the world around girls today. Increase your understanding of modern girl bullying, including the fallout and psychological impact for both victims and perpetrators and discover support strategies to help. The essential guide for school staff, parents or any adult working with girls of all ages.
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PRAISE FOR GIRL BULLYING
The negative impact of bullying on both bully and victim is well documented. It permeates their emotional states, academic progress and future behaviours. The subtleties of girl bullying are rarely unpacked in such detail. Dr Sam has got to the very heart of the matter in this very practical book. As we strive towards a more enlightened age and to understand the nuances of human behaviour this gem is certain to guide us on our way. Thank you for the focus this book brings.
Stephen Cox, Managing Director, Osiris Educational
Bullying is a thorny subject that can make or break a school’s reputation. Reading Girl Bullying has given me a greater insight into the issue and enabled me to look at my school’s policies and their effectiveness with fresh eyes. The book takes much more than a reactive approach and offers suggestions and ideas for developing and maintaining a supportive and healthy school community where young people thrive. As a whole school community we will certainly be working together to develop our policy and ensure it is embedded in all that we do.
Beverley Dandy, Head Teacher, Outwoods Primary School
This book makes for urgent reading. Dr Sam dissects the issue of girl bullying with chilling clarity and takes us from understanding the issue through to her compelling rallying-cry for action. The author is an expert who writes with extraordinary power in a style that is as illuminating as it is readable. We finish the book knowing that here is an issue in multiple guises that we need to address. Girl Bullying is a book that all of us working in schools should read and act upon.
Geoff Barton, Head Teacher, King Edward VI School
This amazing book is extraordinary and very much an easy read. It goes all out to highlight not only the victims but the bullies themselves. Dr Sam has spent eighteen years researching the impact of girl bullying and has given us an in-depth understanding of why it happens and what scars are left with the victims. This book isn’t about the author’s view or her clinical input but the voices of seventy-eight children, young people and adults who participated in a project called ‘Do I Look Bothered’. The book talks in depth about the alpha female, the role she holds and all the behaviour traits associated with it. When bullying leads to death, then concerns have to be raised as to safeguarding and anti-bullying laws. There is also a chapter on bullying and the law, from which those who don’t know their legal position will gain so much information and learn what resources are available. I will be more aware of the telltale signs after reading this book. She has not only highlighted the experiences of victims but also the bully’s persona, so that we can be more aware if our children are bullying. Dr Sam highlights that parents/carers or people in responsible positions can teach their children empathy, so that they understand another’s hurt.
Statistics are also provided on different effects that bullying has on individuals and also the ratio of those who have committed suicide due to girl bullying. While reading this book, I was very much surprised how high these ratios were. Parents shouldn’t be under the illusion that trouble at school is just a part of growing up, but to be aware that when bullying becomes ingrained as fear in the mind of a child, who then feels worthless and isolated, it can trigger psychological effects which can create long-term damage, which can extend into adulthood.
Dr Sam has highlighted the telltale signs for adults to notice when their child is going through a turbulent time, such as depression, self-harm, absences from school, change of behaviour and so on. ‘Bullying is behaviour by an individual or group, repeated over time, that intentionally hurts another individual or group either physically or emotionally.’ It couldn’t have been put in simpler terms.
Dr Sam provides perfect examples of children who grow to be bullies and mistake it for leadership skills. That is why the role of parents and carers is essential in providing guidance. She touches upon every angle to provide a good read and educate those who are in a position to reduce any sort of bullying. Cyberbullying is the new trend so there is an in-depth chapter on how parents/carers can monitor this.
Jas Bassi BSc, Clinical Hypnotist
Some may question why this singular view on bullying is necessary in an age of ‘equality of opportunity’ and ‘equal rights’. This book goes straight to the heart of the matter: girls practise and rehearse social relationships with an intensity unmatched by your average boy. Personal and intimate information exchanged ‘in confidence’ and ‘in friendship’ can then become a weapon more brutal than a fist or a hammer.
The author develops compelling imagery of girl-on-girl bullying through the enrolment of others as akin to how a wolf pack operates. This may seem extreme; in my opinion, it needs to be said. Bullying is personally experienced and personally wounding. The psychological damage is profound, life-lasting and life-changing.
The author goes on to explore the impact of bullying when ‘manipulation of friendship’ seeps into cyberspace. The number of young females taking their lives because of cyberbullying is increasing: we must develop a sharper and more nuanced view of the problem before we work towards effective solutions.
The book does a good job in this respect. A call for the modelling of pro-social behaviours, building a school or college community with built-in reporting structures, proactive peer support, victim support and developing an ethos that breaks the code of silence are all sound anti-bullying strategies.
I also agree wholeheartedly with the moral imperative that runs through this book: some schools are frightened to exert their influence and authority beyond the classroom, the playground or the school gate. It is time for courageous, open leadership to reduce the impact and incidence of bullying on the well-being, life-course and achievement of young people. This book will help.
Marius Frank, Materials Director, Achievement for All
Dr Sam has a wealth of experience in responding to bullying and in providing support, training and development to parents and those working with young people. Her warmth, empathy and knowledge is evident in Girl Bullying. This will be reassuring to readers who are seeking to understand and tackle the complex and dark world of bullying children, particularly girls. Readers will be given confidence to tackle this difficult subject.
In Girl Bullying, Dr Sam is taking a fresh approach in focusing on girl bullying and analysing the experience of both girls who are victims and those who are perpetrators. Gender is a key factor in social interactions and it is helpful to consider this in the context of bullying. It is also useful to spotlight girls because we know from the children and young people contacting ChildLine that more than twice as many girls are counselled by the helpline as boys about bullying and online bullying. ChildLine has seen a very significant increase in the number of girls talking about feeling excluded or isolated as a result of being bullied. Confirming Dr Sam’s approach, ChildLine has also seen a large increase in concerns about cyberbullying. Girl Bullying addresses these issues in detail in relation to girls, emphasising that young people do not differentiate between the online and offline worlds.
A strength of Girl Bullying is that the author relates the experience of bullying to child and adolescent development. This provides important insights into why bullying can have such a significant and devastating impact on the well-being of those affected. Bullying can affect a child’s development, self-esteem, confidence and capacity to form relationships. Sadly, too many professionals and others working with young people lack a good understanding of child development and Girl Bullying will help meet a real need.
Using case studies and the results of consultations with children and young people, Dr Sam offers a comprehensive approach to tackling bullying. She rightly argues that bullying needs to be addressed holistically at a number of different levels and there is a vital need to be proactive in preventing bullying happening in the first place. Dr Sam provides detailed strategies based on placing victims’ views and experiences at the centre.
Christopher Cloke, Head of Safeguarding in Communities, NSPCC, Former Chair, Anti-Bullying Alliance
Dedicated to children everywhere.
You can go from being a victim to surviving and then thriving.
FOREWORD
Right from the start, this book engages us with a convincing mix of pupil voice, personal experience and thoughtful comments on the important topic of girl bullying. The author brings many years of experience in anti-bullying work, and in educational and therapeutic work with schools and with young people. This pays off in terms of the range of thoughtful advice she gives on dealing with the issues. However, the book is also enlivened and enriched by the material from interviews and focus groups with pupils themselves, making for a vivid narrative.
The book is about girls bullying, primarily. To some extent girls bullying is different from boys bullying, tending to be more focused on shifting relationships, denigration and exclusion, rather than the more obvious physical forms. Social relationships in middle childhood and adolescence are now transformed by the widespread use of the internet and social networking sites. The majority of this is enjoyable and can be educational, but as the book makes clear, it can provide opportunities for relationship-based bullying too. The more recent forms of cyberbullying occur with both boys and girls, but there is some evidence that girls are relatively more involved in this than in what has now been called traditional or face-to-face bullying. Nevertheless, there is overlap. Although focused on girls bullying, much of the material, including suggestions for intervention, will apply to bullying generally, whoever is involved.
Whatever forms bullying takes, it is concerned with power and the abuse of power. Leadership, when exercised well, can be a beneficent use of power. But its systematic misuse or abuse signals bullying. Experiences of being bullied in childhood can have traumatic effects. This, of course, depends on many factors – the kinds and extent of bullying, how long it goes on for, how the victim tries to cope, and what support they get. Some children and young people can cope effectively in some circumstances. But the imbalance of power in bullying makes this difficult. Large-scale and longitudinal surveys have shown how victim experiences can bring about loss of self-esteem, depression and difficulties of trust in relationships – both in the short term, but also, and especially if nothing is done about it, in the longer term. Cases of suicide due – in large part at least – to bullying or cyberbullying bear tragic witness to what can be the outcome. Such cases are thankfully rare, but must be the tip of an iceberg of suffering that many victims experience.
A strength of this book is that nearly half of it is devoted to ways in which young people, parents and schools can work together to reduce bullying and deal with it effectively whenever it occurs. A variety of sensible suggestions are offered, together with a helpful range of materials in the appendices. I believe the author is right in emphasising the importance of leadership from the senior management of the school. Combining this with a clear school anti-bullying policy (including cyberbullying), adequate ways of reporting bullying, thorough follow-up of incidents, a good relationships curriculum and harnessing the support of the majority of pupils and parents, can make a great difference in levels of bullying and in pupil happiness. This book will surely be a very useful and supportive resource for this endeavour.
Professor Peter K. Smith, Goldsmiths College, University of London, author of Understanding School Bullying: Its Nature and Prevention Strategies
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I first began to research into the long-term impact of girl bullying eighteen years ago. Sometime after that, I started to run courses, seminars and workshops with school staff on the key issues involved: the cultural aspects, the communication breakdowns and the consequences of bullying. To support this work I also developed a variety of proactive and reactive strategies for schools to implement to deal with the challenge.
At the same time I have also worked therapeutically with young girls and women who have been psychologically damaged by bullying. And that’s not just with victims of bullies, but also with the bullies themselves, who often find that their manipulative and calculating behaviours don’t serve them well in building satisfying long-term relationships or in matters of self-concept.
Over the years I have often been asked to write a book on the subject, but never quite got around to it for a whole raft of very good reasons. And then two incidents occurred almost simultaneously. The first followed an intense training day I delivered to delegates from many different schools. Most of them were trying to deal with the pack mentality of girl bullying: they were all struggling to tackle the issue of girl bullying and how they could deal with it effectively. After the session, they overwhelmed me with requests to write a book on the topic. The second incident was a series of newspaper reports headlining the increasing number of girls committing suicide as a result of being cyberbullied.
I had long been deeply concerned about girl bullying and the damage it causes. These two incidents were the triggers that made up my mind. No more procrastinating. The book was an idea whose time had come. I determined to find the time to complete it and show just how bothered I was by the issue, and that I was prepared to do something tangible about it.
Having made up my mind, I wanted to be sure that this book would have real meaning to young people affected by bullying and all its ramifications. I wanted to speak to, and hear the real voices of, bullies, bystanders, and victims alike. I knew it was essential to include the contemporary voices of real young people and adults; those who live with, and deal with, girl bullying, day in and day out.
My research work has always focused on ensuring that the authentic voices of young people are properly represented when it comes to welfare and safeguarding issues. Too often these voices are drowned out by adults and experts, no matter how well-meaning they may be. To this end, I designed a research project called ‘Do I Look Bothered? Voices’. Seventy-eight children, young people and adults volunteered to share their views, ideas and experiences about bullying in a variety of different formats. The project took place during the winter and early spring of 2014/2015 and consisted of a survey, focus group discussions, interviews and case studies. All British Psychological Society ethical guidelines were adhered to and consent given for anonymous quotes used here with pseudonyms. Fifty-eight children and young people aged between eight and fifteen took part in the survey. Sixteen thirteen- to fifteen-year-olds participated in various focus group discussions, while others contributed through in-depth case studies and interviews. The latter included two young people aged fifteen and eighteen, a parent and a school staff member. All the young people engaged in the project attended schools in England. Where anonymity has been guaranteed or requested, names and identifying features have been changed.
THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank every child, young person and adult who, over the years and throughout the writing of this book, has freely given their time and opinions in order to help me remain focused on their perspective, their needs, and their understanding of the issues involved in girl bullying.
Also, I would like to thank my editor, Nick Owen, for his endless patience and thought-provoking comments; Zak Zarychta, for his amazing brain and quantitative analytical skills; and, last but by no means least, my daughters, for accepting that I have had to hide away with my computer for months on end to write this book. I know that I became a virtual mother during this process. Now I can finally re-emerge into the daylight and be a real-life mum again, and a loving Meme to my beautiful granddaughter.
INTRODUCTION
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.’
Folk wisdom usually has something insightful to say. But not in this case. This sticks and stones stuff is about as devoid of sense and psychological awareness as it’s possible to get. There’s a crisis going on in our schools and in cyberspace that needs our attention – now. Informed action is needed to prevent another generation of young people from becoming distrustful, defensive and psychologically damaged. This situation affects girls and young women in particular.
Here are some statistics. Ditch the Label’s Annual Bullying Survey (2014) reported the following:
45% of young people have experienced bullying by the age of 18.26% of children report being bullied every day.56% said bullying affected their studies.30% said bullying had led to self-harm.36% said they were bullied about their weight or shape.40% said they were bullied about their appearance.82% had been indirectly bullied (for example, through deliberate social exclusion).30% had had suicidal thoughts.10% had attempted to commit suicide.An earlier study, BeatBullying (2009), further reported: ‘44% of child suicides are said to be due to bullying, and 65% of those suicides are committed by girls.’
Bullying, and girl bullying in particular, has to be addressed. We have to begin to understand and learn its real nature.
It’s just an ordinary school day like any other. Imagine you’re there, one of the students. You’re standing in the playground, looking around to see where you can fit in. Have you ever felt that fear? The fear that you just might not fit in? It’s not so bad in primary school playgrounds, because in primary schools parents and teachers try to determine and engineer friendships. But in secondary school that doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it isn’t adults who manage the social hierarchy among pupils – it’s wolves.
The alpha female dominates the pack. She alone decides who’ll be accepted and who she’ll reject, who’s in and who’s out. Perhaps she’ll choose you as her beta wolf, her second in command. Perhaps you’ll think that’s a very safe position to hold. But you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. Nowhere’s a safe place to be in the wolf pack’s hierarchy. Even the alpha’s terrified of demotion. No one’s secure. The beta’s particularly vulnerable: always at risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of being accused of stabbing the alpha in the back rather than supporting her. Disloyalty, even if only perceived, is one of the worst ‘crimes’. The ‘beta wolf’ is in a precarious position. She’ll be used and abused. Her fear of rejection will drive her to do anything to secure her precious safety a little while longer. And make no mistake – the beta wolf’s capable of doing anything at all, no matter who gets hurt.
But maybe you’ll get passed over for the beta role. Don’t worry too much: the alpha female, if she’s feeling inclusive, might make you a pack member … but only so long as you’re useful. She might trick you into believing you have some important rank in the hierarchy; a titled position, something worth having. And you’ll believe it. Even if that title is ‘omega’, the lowest ranking wolf in the pack, you’ll buy into it for all you’re worth because there’s no alternative. Let’s face it, there’s only one rule that matters in the jungle of the playground: it’s better to be in than out.
Out means out – ‘out there’, isolated, all alone, abandoned. No one wants to be a lone wolf. Lone wolves are left alone by everyone … everyone except her. The alpha female needs the lone wolf’s isolation to remind others what could happen to them. She needs the lone wolf’s fear to be sensed, be seen, be felt. Viscerally. The victim shrinks away from the alpha female’s glare, her defeated body language unmistakably marking her status as outcast. For the pack, these signals powerfully reinforce who’s in charge. And so the alpha female reigns supreme.
Sometimes, to reinforce her power, the alpha likes to toy with her victim. She’ll circle her prey, and look her up and down a couple of times. She’ll lick her lips, toss her head and then move in, all sweetness and light, making her intended target feel so special as she receives the full force of the alpha’s attention. Caught off guard, the victim lets her guard down, trading her fear for her need for friendship. And the alpha will take that trade all day long. She’ll let the lone wolf bathe in the glow of her attention; let her bask for a while in the false sense of security that she takes from her proximity to power.
To the alpha, the victim is useful for just as long as she chooses, for as long as it serves her purpose. She’ll wait. She’ll watch. And when the time is right, and she’s ready to feed off the power she craves, the alpha will cut her down. She’ll crush her and then walk back to her pack, grinning. She won’t need to look back. She’ll know how utterly destroyed her victim is. No one will help her, afraid that if they do it will be their turn next. The victim is labelled, marked and, their confidence shattered, cast adrift to their lonely and fearful fate.
No one wants to be a lone wolf, and so the alpha female has many supporters. Some are silent, some skulking in the shadows, some prominent and visible right next to her. They’re all hanging in there. Waiting for the order to take the next victim down, to reassert the alpha wolf as queen of the social hierarchy once again. She’ll carry on ruling this way just as long as those around her accept the pack and its values – or remain too afraid to challenge her or the system.
Until that happens, more victims will pay the price that she demands. More tragedies will happen; some that will even end in death. They’ll happen because our excuses and denials allow them to. They’ll happen because too many people who could, and should, take action hide in the shadows, refusing to intervene or take responsibility.
Lack of action creates the vacuum the she-wolf needs to feed on her prey, tells the world that this culture is tolerated and fails to acknowledge the fear that holds the pack in her thrall. ‘If only’, pack and prey might say, ‘she’d been turned around, if only her power had been challenged, if only she’d been stopped.’
We all know that turning a blind eye allows the pack mentality to continue. Yet even with our ‘good’ eye there are too many times when we just look on as the lives of those outside the pack, and even those within it, are put at risk and damaged, or even destroyed. And the great irony is that this scenario also includes the seemingly untouchable one, the alpha female herself.
If we don’t act soon, the consequences will be stark and the price to be paid will be high: young women lacking a healthy self-concept, unable to develop healthy social interactions, never learning that it is mutuality and trust, rather than power, that forms the basis of healthy, long-lasting relationships.
When children and adults begin to think that nothing can be done about the abuse of power, the ritual humiliations, the in-group domination, the abusive friendships and the social ‘punishments’, including isolation and physical harm, it’s clearly time to challenge the trend and take decisive action. It’s the very prevalence of inaction that maintains the culture of girl bullying. And this creeping normalisation is why it’s so important to tackle it.
PART ONE
GIRL BULLYING
Chapter 1
GIRL BULLYING: WHY ACTION MATTERS
Childhood is central to our personal and social development. The way adults in particular respond to children who are in need of support plays a vital role in helping them understand social and cultural norms: what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Every time girl bullying goes unchallenged, and is allowed to continue, it sends out the message that it’s OK.
When this becomes the new ‘normal’ we have a serious cultural problem on our hands, and one that won’t be confined only to school playgrounds. We need to understand that this is not only a problem for girls and young women. As they take their place in society it will affect all of us: their families, the culture, and society as a whole.
On a case-by-case basis, it can all seem so ordinary, so everyday, so below the radar. And after all, we’re all busy dealing with problems of our own. It’s so easy to miss how small, yet deftly timed, acts of power play can cause such confidence-wrecking damage to the integrity and self-belief of an individual. Here’s part of Jodie’s story. Jodie was one of the lucky ones – she was able to get support and move beyond the paralysis of social isolation.
JODIE’S STORY
When I look back, I was a manipulated fool. I enjoyed being friends with the bully because she was pretty and popular – or so I thought. Throughout our friendship I never knew when I went into school in a morning if she’d be speaking [to me]. It was something I expected. She constantly kept me down, telling me she had been invited to parties and made a big thing that I wasn’t invited. I now know the parties didn’t exist.
I was at a low time in my life when I needed her support and she chose to ignore me … I wanted her to stop her treating me like this … She told everyone that I’d told her not to speak to me. She followed me at break times saying nasty comments, turned my friends against me, bringing me to an all-time low. I felt the teacher blamed me for everything. I dreaded going to school and my life was a misery. She told people not to invite me to parties and excluded me constantly. I was isolated … I felt worthless.
Jodie was bullied to the point where she lost all her confidence. She hated school, began to work on a reduced timetable and study at home. She never knew when those friends she thought she had would turn on her. She was in high school. She was just at that stage in her life when she should have been learning about who she was and where she fitted in to her social world. Instead, that social world became her worst nightmare. Trying to work out who she was just left her confused and angry.
Every day, girl bullying destroys healthy friendships, self-confidence, self-belief and self-concept. For Jodie, it also affected her trust in those she believed should have been most there to support her at school: the teachers in her life. When she tried to speak to her teachers she got the distinct impression that she was being blamed for not being able to solve the problem herself. Worse still, they led her to believe that she was the cause of the problem.
Such confusion and lack of support can make a young person feel invisible, unimportant and incredibly powerless. Like every other child, Jodie should have had the right to feel safe at school and to have had any welfare issues heard with respect and without judgement.
If this lack of due diligence occurred in an adult workplace it would shake our belief in the culture and leadership of that organisation. It would raise serious questions and challenges that could well end up in a court of law. A healthy society is based on safety and trust. Workplace law exists to protect adults from abuse and bullying, and the detrimental effects these behaviours have on our psychological health. If this is true for adults, how much more should it apply to vulnerable young people who are just beginning to develop a sense of identity distinct from that of their family? The high school years are the very ones where young people need most support in learning that trust, mutuality, integrity and respect for self and others (based on shared ethical principles) form the core of healthy, long-lasting relationships and form the basis of a healthy, civilised society.
Sadly, Jodie’s experience is not at all unusual. Those of us who have been victims will have been played for a fool, like Jodie, in a social power game. Let’s name bullying for what it is: a particularly unpleasant form of social and emotional abuse. At school, many of us were pawns in these games, competing for power and social status. Some of us were victims, while some of us may have been the alpha female or a member of the pack. Whichever role or roles we played – and some of us may well have played both – there can be no doubt that we were diminished or damaged in some way by the roles we took or were given. For the victims like Jodie – manipulated, belittled, isolated, made to feel worthless, held accountable by those she looked to for help, dreading the start of each new day – is it surprising that so many turn to self-harm, or even suicide, to simply have their pain heard and be acknowledged?
Jodie was one of the luckier ones. She found the courage to speak to her family. But even with their support, life at school continued to be difficult. Her faith and trust had been betrayed. Her faith and trust in the loyalty of friends, and her faith and trust in the authorities to act against abusive behaviour and vindictiveness, had been significantly damaged. Above all, she was left with an impression that nothing changes; that the silence and inaction of teachers and other adults are tacit invitations for the wolves to continue their predatory ‘games’.
I have learned a lot of lessons in the last few months. It’s been hard but I am stronger. As for [her], she will always be a bully, as no one has ever told her that she is a bully.
Jodie
