Chantal Morin received the dreaded phone call from her son’s kindergarten teacher last fall: He’d been bullying another boy, pushing and saying mean things until the victim of his taunts didn’t want to go to school.
Her mind spun. She was shocked that the situation had progressed so far, and she was fearful that, at the age of 5, her son was now destined to spend his school career sitting in the principal’s office, friendless and delinquent. That would not happen, she vowed.
In a meeting with the teacher, her son confessed to the behaviour. At home, he lost his video games, television time and candy. The teacher had sent notes home, but the clever boy had tossed them. So his mom now receives a daily journal, reporting infractions and praising positive behaviour. On good days, he receives a quarter. On bad days, he goes to bed without his snack.
“I was very adamant about nipping it in the bud,” Ms. Morin says. “He needs to know we mean business.”
A leading Canadian researcher on bullying says the Morins are on the right track, responding firmly to their son’s behaviour, communicating with the school and keeping a close eye on how he progresses. The evidence suggests that reacting strongly to bullying when kids are still kids is essential to stopping the behaviour before it progresses from “I don’t want to play with you,” to public humiliation in high school.
Such a response can possibly avoid situations like that in St. Thomas, Ont., where a 13-year-old girl was charged with criminal harassment this month after allegations of bullying at her elementary school. And it can prevent the pain suffered by the victims, who, too often, struggle with depression and anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. But educators and experts says that’s not always a parent’s first reaction when the call comes. More often, it is denial, or, especially in the early years, dismissal.
“Most kids have engaged in some kind of bullying behaviour in elementary school,” says Wendy Craig, a Queen’s University psychologist who studies the issue. According to one study involving the early grades, only 36 per cent of girls and 17 per cent of boys said they’d had no involvement in bullying over the course of the school year.
“The message for teachers and parents is to identify them early,” Dr. Craig says. “If you get a call twice in the school year, you need to be vigilant.”
And yet, says Cindi Seddon, a principal in Coquitlam, B.C., most parents don’t react like the Marins. Ms. Seddon says she’s had to hang up the phone on abusive parents or leave the room when meetings turned hostile – often with their child watching mom or dad’s own bullying behaviour. “Parents are incredibly upset,” she says, when they learn their child is being accused of bullying. They don’t always agree with the school’s interpretation of events.
Tracy Vaillancourt, a psychologist at the University of Ottawa who studies aggression in children, says she understands why parents have trouble believing the allegations. “We hold a very stereotyped belief about who bullies are – that [it’s the] big kid who steals a person’s lunch money, who doesn’t have a lot of friends.”
A small percentage of bullies, usually most consistently vicious ones, may fall into that category – the outcast child who struggles in school, comes from a troubled home, and whose behaviour, more often than not, will require serious intervention. But 50 per cent of children who bully look just the opposite: They are pretty, smart, popular – and nasty.
