Bullying and Self-Esteem

I have been talking a lot to colleagues about this issue and felt it might be an interesting issue to put out here for some discussion. I will kick off by stating my personal position: we have got this wrong for years. The linking of people who bully to low self-esteem and a belief that improving children’s self-esteem when they have been bullied is all we need to do, is taking us down the wrong path.

The focus and almost universal acceptance of self-esteem as the singular capacity we all need in order to have better lives and experiences doesn’t ever really stand up to scrutiny. So what is self-esteem?

Definitions tend to cover the following –

How you feel about yourself — your self-worth or your pride or confidence in yourself; A person's overall sense of self-worth or personal value that involves beliefs about the self, such as the appraisal of one's own appearance, beliefs, emotions, and behaviours.

We have for years seemed to accept that we must make sure nothing we do ‘damages’ a child’s self-esteem. From the mythically ridiculous beliefs that awards for excellence in participation and non-competitive sports days will help our children and young people flourish, to some genuinely helpful learning, like being able to identify and talk about how you feel.

‘People who bully have low self-esteem’. This is a generalisation, it can sometimes be the case but a lot of children who bully possess very high self-esteem, they feel great about themselves, are confident in how they feel and look to the point they can identify and target others. It is a truly unhelpful generalisation to suggest children who bully are secretly all cowards who have low self-esteem and are scared of the people they bully. Some are of course but most are not. When we start to believe the stereotypes we then ignore people who are bullying because they don’t fit in with how we think they should look or act. Children who bully need to have their behaviour challenged, their prejudices challenged and their values and beliefs that what they are doing is okay challenged.

Do we ever talk of ways to help lower self-esteem in children? ‘Oh that child is far too confident and thinks they are the bee’s knees, they need brought down a peg or two’. Now I am not suggesting some adults don’t think like that but it’s definitely not in the self-esteem workbook. So could a focus on improving self-esteem of some children who bully really do anything other than make them worse? Or does this lead to the absurd notion that they can perhaps get bullied a bit to lower their self-esteem to the required level for acceptable social functioning? I am not suggesting this but merely that our approach to self-esteem is a one way street.

‘Bullying can cause low self-esteem’.  Of course it can, being bullied can make you feel terrible about yourself, it can affect your confidence, and how you see yourself. If you are bullied it will impact on the self-esteem you have, high or low. Bullying affects your agency, your ability to feel in control and make choices – we need to help restore that feeling, you need this whether you have high or low self-esteem.

The challenge is when we focus solely on self-esteem as the answer to or the cause of bullying. Trying only things we believe will improve a child’s self-esteem might not work. Telling a bullied child they are wonderful and the person picking on them is just horrible and envious of who they are can satisfy how we feel as adults but does little for the person being bullied. It’s not focussing on solutions.

Involving them in what they want to happen, exploring ways to manage these risks and to take steps to feel better and identify the ways they want to cope and respond is far more effective. They will be learning great life skills, learning how to manage relationships and difficulties. A focus on trying to make sure all our children and young people have high and/or improved self-esteem will not make them immune to bullying. They need to know how to respond, to explore choices and find ways to cope that they can have control over.

This improves their resilience and it might improve how they feel about themselves but they may still go through life with low self-esteem. They may still not boast about their skills and wonderfulness and may continue to underplay any achievements and take a while to get to know people, but that might be just fine for them. This is not a deficit that always needs corrected.

A few years ago I spoke at a school awards ceremony and genuinely struggled with what to say to a bunch of 14 year olds and their parents and grandparents. Some would feel bored, some would feel awesome and some might not have had anyone there to celebrate their achievements with. Everyone gets something though! No one leaves without an award of some description. So after a bit of thinking I decided to go for the message I have always believed in since I was a teenager and also one that has helped me through work and study as an adult.

I said ‘There will always someone who is infinitely better at something than you are, at playing the guitar, at singing, or at English, Maths or football. As good as you are, and it is good to be good at something, it is great to excel at things but if you can accept someone somewhere will be a bit faster, a bit smarter or just a bit better - you will do just fine’. I encouraged them not to judge their own success by what others achieve but by how hard they worked. This input actually went down quite well with the children and young people but with many parents and especially their grandparents.

For some pupils getting a B in English is a huge achievement, they have made sacrifices, worked as hard as possible, overturned challenges and that B signifies a developing growth mind-set, the beginning of a new belief that they can achieve things through hard work.  It is a success. They may sit next to someone who has always got an A, will always get an A and it seems to come naturally to them. These pupils should not be judged against each other or one simply gets more praise for the higher mark, it’s the effort we must praise. The pupil with the A might have low self-esteem, they might be quiet and withdrawn and would never tell anyone that they think they are great at anything but they listen, they study hard and do well.

This is not about making these pupils ‘feel better’ about themselves, nor is it about improving their self-esteem. There is research that shows quite clearly there is no link between high self-esteem and academic achievement. In fact very high self-esteem has been shown to be a barrier to achievement in later life as these people find criticism harder to take and cannot reflect that they may have done poorly. I would always at this stage direct people to Jean Twenge’s wonderful book ’Generation Me’ to look at her extensive research and wonderful discussion of the impact this has had over the last 30 years.

There are two examples I use a lot from popular culture that I think highlight where we have ended up in relation to self-esteem as the be all and end all.

The first is X factor. It is an easy target I know and I have enjoyed watching it at times as much as the next person, although not for a few years to be fair! . I know it makes great car crash telly but what is interesting is the mantra given out by the judges and contestants and crucially by their families that ‘if you believe it and follow your dream and you can do it’ ‘How much do you want this?’ ‘I want this so bad and will do anything to get it, I will work so hard, and I am passionate and desperate’ ‘I want to make my mum proud’.

‘Yes, but can you sing?’ would be my response. You can want it all day, you can feel entitled to it, inspired by people, desperate for success and fame and fortune as a singer but if you cannot sing a note, you won’t win it. There is real devastation on the faces of contestants who sing as badly as I do which if I may quote Billy Connelly, is ‘like a goose farting in the fog’.  The disbelief on their mums faces while wearing a t-shirt with their child’s face on it saying ‘X Factor champion 2015’. A parent who has always said they were a ‘wonderful singer and could easily win the X Factor with a voice like that’ has seen some people genuinely unable to accept the critique that they sang badly. They assume the problem is the judges not spotting the brilliance and potential their mum has seen.

I am a parent of three and I am guilty of not wanting to do anything that makes them feel bad, it is a perfectly natural thing to want to do but if I felt any one of my children was in fact a terrible singer, I am not sure I would go along or even encourage a televised audition! All in the hope that encouraging them to believe in themselves would improve their self-esteem and they could be immune or less susceptible to negative experiences. I’m just setting them up for life to give them a few slaps in the face.

The other is from Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City

‘The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself’ and also she has reminded us ‘Don’t forget to fall in love with yourself first.’

I remember at the time watching this and feeling ‘what a dreadful line’ I had discussed a few times at home that I though the character of Carrie is, well ‘a bit selfish’ and of course should have kept Aidan rather than Big but that’s not the point here – the advice given appears just so self-centred. It is ‘me first then I can cope with others’. I think that if people do feel like this they may never be truly ‘happy’ or feel their self-esteem is at the required level. How about focusing on how other people feel? Or seeing things from their point of view? Be challenged on things or help people who it more, and then you need might find that relationships aren’t as difficult as you might have thought.

The point if all this, I suppose is, that the focus on self-esteem and indeed on the ‘self’ may actually contribute a lack of empathy, a lack of compassion or in some cases the belief that all we have to do is try things we are told ‘improve your self-esteem’ and all will be well. It is possible to go through life with low-self-esteem and excel, to lead your field academically, or in music or arts or just in your own house. Low self-esteem doesn’t mean you lack ability or competence; you just frame these things differently and for some, they may decide to give some things up early as a result or for others they may persevere and work harder because they are self-critical.

None of this negates the impact of bullying; it can and does have significant long-term impacts on people and how they feel about themselves and their ability to trust or sustain relationships. All I want to do is reframe it a little and move the focus away from the self and onto teaching empathy and compassion. Our job is to help our children to develop the skills they need to manage relationships and to deal with adversity. A focus on making everyone feel great about themselves is unfair on those who go through life a bit doubtful and self-critical and it implies they are in a deficit of some sort. It can imply that all the really successful happy people in the world have high self-esteem, or that it is a pre-requisite of success. This just oversimplifies who we are and the way we relate to each other.

All children and young people need adults who love them and who thinks they are wonderful, someone who accepts them and is there for them. We do this because we need love, praise and recognition to develop properly and not get lost on trying to imbibe a false or misleading sense of who you are and what you need to be like to be happy and safe or that if you do have lower self-esteem you are somehow immediately at a disadvantage.

Brian

Parents and carers - responding to bullying

This blog contains some of the supporting advice we have given to parents and carers about how you actually respond to bullying - the processes we need to go through and to include children and young people going forward to help them regain a sense of control ands influence over their lives.

How do I know if it’s bullying?

When we talk about bullying we are talking about something that is both behaviour and impact. Behaviour that can make people feel hurt, frightened, scared, left out or worried - and the impact of this behaviour leaves them feeling less in control of themselves.

We know that bullying takes something away from people; that is one of the things that makes it different from other behaviours. It takes away people’s ability to feel in control of themselves and to take effective action.  We call this our agency. Bullying strips away a person’s capacity for agency.

It’s important to remember this when we respond to bullying behaviour.  If we can accept that it takes something away from someone, our focus has to be on helping them to get it back; helping them get back that feeling of being in control and being themselves again. That’s why we have to involve young people in what they want to happen, what they would like to happen, and what they are worried about happening. 

And sometimes we need to take a lead from them as to what pace we go at. If we can do that, we can help restore that feeling of being in control. 

We are teaching children very important life skills.  We are teaching them to negotiate difficult relationships and that’s a factor of life for everyone.  It’s a skill we all need as adults, to learn how to get on with people and to learn how to dislike someone in a respectful manner.  That’s how we approach bullying.

What advice should I give?

Hearing that your child is being bullied brings out an understandably emotional response. It’s difficult for parents and carers to hear.  It’s difficult because you feel so strongly about it and when you hear your child is being bullied, you are not always at your best.

Sometimes the advice we give children and young people at this time isn’t necessarily the best advice. Being told to hit someone back if you are being bullied is actually a common response; children and young people have told us this is something they hear. We know it exists as an option to use but we know, by and large, it’s not necessarily the best or safest option to take.

It doesn’t take into account people that can’t or won’t hit back; people that have mobility problems or who are too scared, or people who won’t like the thought of violence.  So there always has to be an alternative to it. We don’t go through life answering challenges and relationship difficulties by resorting to violence, yet we tend to tell children if they are being bullied they should hit back - whether they are being physically bullied or bullied online, that’s the advice we tend to give.

There is never one, single, answer when it comes to bullying, it’s about knowing how to think about it and how to approach it.

Sometimes you have to ask your child, ‘what do you want to happen?’

‘tell me what you have done so far?’

‘what would you like me to do?’

‘what do you think would happen if, say, I was to go up to the school and talk to them about it?’.

If they are worried that you would make it worse, you might have to try something else because most children want bullying to stop with the minimum of fuss.

‘What do you think would happen if I spoke to someone’s mum?’ or

‘is there someone else you can talk to?’

It’s about exploring options; thinking about what you can do and sometimes having to say, as a parent, ‘look if I’m worried and I don’t think you’re safe, I’m going to step in’, and explain why you are doing it.

This process of exploring what you can both do role models a way of thinking and the aim is to agree a way forward - a plan you can agree to and agree to review if it's not working. You will have a positive impact on their anxiety levels as they can discuss things with you and they can see your desire to help rather than you being angry or upset. It is not about as a parent or carer having all the answers - it is about asking each other questions, talking and most importantly listening, to get closer to an answer together.

Listening isn't always easy - especially if we are emotional but the one thing children and young people have told me consistently over the years is that they want listened to when they are being bullied.

The temptation to run off and solve it is an understandable one, but we should always take a moment, pause and think, ‘how do I give my child back a sense of being in control?’ because it’s that sense of being in control that has been taken from them, and that has to focus your response. Sometimes your child might ask you not to do anything straight away - to give then the chance to go back into school and see how things are.

 

What if my child is bullying someone else?

If your child has been accused of bullying or you suspect your child is bullying, you have to address their behaviour and the impact that it has had. Children who are bullying others need help to repair relationships; they need help to understand that what they’ve done is wrong. Sometimes they know the impact of what their behaviour is; that’s why they’re doing it, but sometimes they need help to understand the effect their behaviour is having on someone else.

It’s important when we deal with children who are bullying that we don’t label them.  We talk about their behaviour and we talk about the impact that it has, we don’t label them as bullies. There isn’t any one stereotypical ‘bully’.  Bullying is behaviour that makes people feel a certain way – and many of us will have acted in a certain way that made someone feel hurt, frightened or left out. It’s much easier to change your behaviour if I say, ‘when you did that to him, that was bullying’. I’m much more likely to get a better response then if I say, ‘because you did that, you are a bully’.

People won’t recognise that label, parents will object to that label and you don’t change behaviour by labelling people. You change behaviour by telling people what they did, why it was wrong, and what you expect instead.

What do we mean by bullying?

This blog summarises and improves on a couple of the speeches I have made on this issue lately - I hope you find it useful.

What do we mean by bullying?

There have been many different definitions and theories about what constitutes bullying, but it’s not helpful to define bullying purely in terms of behaviour, bullying is both behaviour and impact.

Bullying is not about just any kind of injury, nor just any negative impact. It involves a particular kind of harm. It is aimed at engendering a kind of helplessness, an inability to act, to do anything. It is an assault on a person’s agency (Sercombe and Donnelly 2012)

Bullying is a mixture of behaviours and impacts which can impact on a person’s capacity to feel in control of themselves. This is what we term as their sense of ‘agency’. Bullying takes place in the context of relationships; it is behaviour that can make people feel hurt, threatened, frightened and left out.

 This behaviour can include:  

• Being called names, teased, put down or threatened

• Being hit, tripped, pushed or kicked

• Having belongings taken or damaged

• Being ignored, left out or having rumours spread about you

• Receiving abusive messages on social media or phone

• Behaviour which makes people feel like they are not in control of themselves

• Being targeted because of who you are or who you are perceived to be

This behaviour can harm people physically or emotionally and, although the actual behaviour may not be repeated, the threat may be sustained over time, typically by actions: looks, messages, confrontations, physical interventions, or the fear of these. Bullying is both behaviour and impact.

Online bullying

Online bullying, or Cyberbullying, is often the same type of behaviour but it takes place online, usually on social networking sites. A person can be called names, threatened or have rumours spread about them and this can (like other behaviors) happen in person and can happen online.

Advances in technology are simply providing an alternative means of reaching people – where malicious messages were once written on school books or toilet walls, they can now be sent via social media sites on mobile devices making their reach greater, more immediate and much harder to remove or erase.

Some online behaviour is illegal. Children and young people need to be made aware of the far-reaching consequences of posting inappropriate or harmful content on forums, websites, social networking platforms, etc.  If a child or young person is being treated or threatened in a sexual way or being pressured into doing something that they don’t want to do, this is not bullying.  There are laws to protect children from this very serious type of behaviour.

Persistence and Intent

Bullying is not defined by persistence or intent. This is relevant because if you were to look up definitions online and in peer reviewed articles, the vast majority of these will refer to bullying as persistent and deliberate behaviour.

We would argue that these are unhelpful criteria to apply to all situations. So much time can be lost trying to apply a range of situational factors, many of which are in fact subjective. Many incidents of bullying will include deliberate and repeated behaviour but these are not in our view, essential criteria to define bullying. 

Making these an essential criteria to be met excludes a significant amount of incidents of bullying that are not deliberate or necessarily repetitive.  We know from our work with children and young people , that bullying takes many forms and something need only happen once to have a severe impact.

Let’s look at intent – if you tell me bullying must be deliberate and then accuse me of bullying, what is my first response? -  That I didn’t mean it. Intent is difficult to prove. It can tie situation up in knots and the focus on responding to what someone did and the impact it had is lost.

Schools can waste a lot of time trying to prove intent –I have been involved in examples when intent is denied the adults are stumped and do not know how to proceed. We must look at what someone actually did and the impact it had. If it wasn’t deliberate then they may be in a position to apologise or make amends sooner – of it was it may merit a more serious response.

Bullying is usually deliberate but not always – sometime children use language they hear at home and have no idea of how offensive or inappropriate it is. We should not get caught up in using this as qualifying criteria though – it’s too easily re-framed

Let us now consider persistence – that the behaviour must be repeated before it can be considered bullying – again this is something we do not agree with and neither do most young people we have spoken to. Persistence is difficult to define and also, is it more than once? twice? daily? weekly? Who defines when it’s persistent enough to intervene? Me, the person it is happening to or the intervening adult? Something need only happen once and the impact can be severe; a child may not get changed for PE after one incident were they were picked on, humiliated or threatened.

Is being humiliated by having your shorts pulled down in front of a class with 15 people laughing and pointing, some possibly taking a picture, bullying? Of course it is, is it repetitive? It doesn’t matter, we focus on the behaviour and the impact it had.

The fear of repetition can be sustained through looks or perhaps threats or just the fear of it happening again.

What you do about bullying is actually more important than how you define it.

We respond by asking;

What was the behaviour?

What impact did it have?

What do I need to do about it?

Every situation is unique. You might over hear some name calling in the corridor and discover this is chat between to close friends who are ‘winding’ each other up; it is not part of any power or dominance game.

What was the behaviour? Name calling

What impact did it have? None – made them laugh

What do I need to do about it? Nothing – perhaps remind them about language or being overheard

You may hear the same name calling ten feet further on but the person on the receiving end is upset and embarrassed in front of her peers.

What was the behaviour? Name calling

What impact did it have? Left someone embarrassed and fearful – who ran off

What do I need to do about it? Help this person get back into her routine, listen to how she feels and decide on next steps – you will need to challenge the people who called her names and look at possible consequences too

This does not mean we only focus on the impact behaviour has – this means that if someone shouts a homophobic or racist slur at someone and it bounces off them and they don’t care –this does not mean you do not need to do anything about the language used and the attempt to bully. Just because a person is not affected does not mean the behaviour they experienced should be ignored.

Just as not all attempts to bully are successful, people can feel bullied but not be – it is possible some people over react –you still need to deal with their reaction and their feelings but you might not need to do much about the behaviour the experienced – it could have been a harmless comment not aimed at them but they have assumed it was and got into a terrible state over it.

Focussing our response

Bullying and Agency

So when we look at impact – things like feeling hurt, angry, scared, frightened, that knot in your stomach- what is happening there? What do these reactions tell us?

Young people have reflected to us over the years in a range of ways that they feel unable to speak out and feel trapped when bullied – they draw pictures of themselves in large rooms feeling caged and so on. This learning helped us articulate the notion that bullying actually takes something away from people.

All of these feelings which are regularly articulated reflect a loss of being in-charge of yourself, of being capable of taking effective action, of making choices and of being an effective actor or agent in your own life.

When we use our agency, we have a degree of choice over what we do and how we respond within structures like families, communities and schools.

Young people get this notion  - as it can be a bit if a head scratcher the first time you hear it - though when you explain a ‘typical day’ of meeting friends, going to school, laughing, joining in and knowing what is happening and how you’ll respond most children and young people recognise this day. Bullied children don’t have the same kind of day. Someone else is in charge of how they feel, where they go even or how they will participate in certain things, if they get on the bus or eat alone. They cannot exercise the same choice nor have the same autonomy as when they were not being bullied.

We learn from our past experiences, from imagining what we would do in future similar situations and what is happening to us now – these elements combine and enable us to make choices and act – this is agency.

Managing change and responding to challenges requires hope, a belief you can handle things - and agency and these underpin resilience.

If we re-visit the quote -

Bullying is not about just any kind of injury, nor just any negative impact. It involves a particular kind of harm. It is aimed at engendering a kind of helplessness, an inability to act, to do anything. It is an assault on a person’s agency (Sercombe and Donnelly 2012)

- we can see bullying is not even the establishment of dominance. The person bullying is not satisfied with dominance. Bullying can involve the attempt to deny another any settled place, even a subordinate one. It goes beyond subjection. In bullying, the goal is abjection

What does this mean for how we respond?

Considering that bullying is both different types of behaviour and a particular impact this should re-focusses our understanding of the dynamic - this can re-define an approach to bullying in a way that helps practitioners’ responds to feelings and actions. This is always more effective than checking off criteria and having uniform sanction based responses based on our view of the person who is doing it.

If we can accept that bullying takes something away from people, that they can no longer take effective action our response must focus on helping get that back.

This is the real shift in anti-bullying practice – how do I help someone get back a feeling of being in control of themselves and in a place to take effective action to feel safe and get on with their day?

Things like moving desks or even just excluding people won’t on their own help restore agency – young people must be included in what will happen next and given the chance to steer what direction it goes in. They need to be asked what they would like to happen and we need to take that seriously.

This is not always easy but it must remain our goal with every intervention – to help young people get back to a place where they are in control and can take effective action.

In reality – what does that look like? What does it sound like? You will need to ask questions like

What would you like to happen?

What do you think will happen if I tell his or her parents?

What will happen if I tell your teacher?

What are you worried about?

Be prepared for them to say

Don’t tell my dad – you will out me to him and I’m not ready for that

I just want you to know what is happening and if I need you I will come and get you

If you talk to his dad he will get a doing/beating and it’ll get worse

So you explore what options they do have and sometimes that means pointing out that you need to do something as not doing anything is dangerous

Open conversations like these promote communication – this promotes positive relationships and they promote and role model problem solving behaviours –these relationships can become stronger and children become more resilient to what is happening because of this strong purposeful relationship – even with just one person.

The process of listening and consciously trying to get back agency – a sense of being on control – won’t always lead to a perfect outcome but it will help the person being bullied

Labelling

Bullying is not defined by the type of person who did it either

Care needs to be taken because labelling is not without its risks, labelling a child or young person on the basis of bullying behaviour can result in a confirmed identity as a ‘bully’ or ‘victim’ resulting in ongoing behaviour patterns based on this identity.

This is not to dilute behaviour but is to keep the focus of the adult’s responses on the behaviour that is problematic, rather than the assigning characteristics to those involved. This is a solution focussed approach that is designed to help people change the way they behave, rather than attempt to change who they are. We help people change by telling them the behaviour that is unacceptable, being clear that what they are doing is bullying and that it needs to stop.

It is a fundamental part of behaviour management that we tell people what the behaviour was they did, why it is not acceptable and help them figure out what to do the next time they feel that way.

All of this promotes respectful relationships, this approach builds a young person’s capacity to respond more effectively, when we are helping young people learn to negotiate tricky relationships and when we involve them in finding solutions and repairing those that can be fixed, we help them to become more resilient.

Brian Donnelly

Resilience - Bullying and Agency

Here is a copy of the speech I will be giving at UWS on 30 may 2014. The conference theme is resilience and I will be making the link to how we define and respond to bullying in terms of agency. It also reflects recent input to PGDE Students in Glasgow this week.

 

Good morning everyone – I am delighted to have been asked to come along here today and share some thoughts with you and also to hear from some of the other speakers.

I will be talking this morning about bullying and agency, covering the core theory that underpins our anti-bullying work – in terms of how we recognise and how we define bullying.

I will make the link between this and today’s theme, resilience and lastly how this influences our responses to bullying.

respectme is Scotland’s anti-bullying service – we build confidence and capacity in adults to recognise and respond to bullying. We provide training, policy guidance and support as well as campaign and develop resources for parents, children and professionals.

 

I will not be starting today by offering our definition of bullying, it is only once we explore agency will the definition be worth sharing.

It is vital that we understand that bullying is both behaviour and impact –never always one and not the other. It is itself a relationship between certain behaviours and particular type of impact.

Bullying is not defined by persistence or intent. This is relevant because if you were to look up definitions online and in peer reviewed articles, the vast majority of these will refer to bullying as persistent and deliberate behaviour.

I would argue that these are unhelpful criteria to apply to situations. So much time can be lost trying to apply all the various factors, many of which are entirely subjective.

Let’s look at intent – if you tell me bullying must be deliberate and then accuse me of bullying, what is my first response? -  That I didn’t mean it. Intent is difficult to prove. It can tie situation up in knots and the focus on responding to what someone did and the impact it had is lost.

Schools can waste a lot of time trying to prove intent –I have been involved in examples when intent is denied the adults are stumped.

It’s usually deliberate not always – sometime children use language they hear at home and have no idea of how offensive or inappropriate it is. We should not get caught up in using this as qualifying criteria though – it’s too easily re-framed

Let us now consider persistence – that the behaviour must be repeated before it can be considered bullying – again this is something I do not agree with and neither do most young people have I spoken to. Persistence is difficult to define and also, who defines when it’s persistent enough? Me, the person it is happening to or the intervening adult? Something need only happen once and the impact can be severe; a child may not get on the bus in the morning again or get changed for PE after this.

The fear of repetition can be sustained through looks or perhaps threats or just the fear of it happening again.

These two factors are present in the majority of definitions of bullying across the globe; both of which, we feel here in Scotland are unhelpful. What you do about bullying is actually more important than how you define it.

The questions we need to ask are;

What was the behaviour?

What impact did it have?

What do I need to do about it?

Every situation is unique. You might over hear some name calling in the corridor and discover this is chat between to close friends who are ‘winding’ each other up; it is not part of any power or dominance game.

What was the behaviour? Name calling

What impact did it have? None – made them laugh

What do I need to do about it? Nothing – perhaps remind them about language or being overheard

You may hear the same name calling ten feet further on but the person on the receiving end is upset and embarrassed in front of her peers.

What was the behaviour? Name calling

What impact did it have? Left someone embarrassed and fearful – who ran off

What do I need to do about it? Help this person get back into her routine, listen to how she feels and decide on next steps – you will need to challenge the people who called her names and look at possible consequences too

This does not mean we only focus on the impact behaviour has – this means that if someone shouts a homophobic or racist slur at someone and it bounces off them and they don’t care –this does not mean you do not need to do anything about the language used and the attempt to bully or dominate.

Just as not all attempts to bully are successful, people can feel bullied but not be – it is possible some people over react –you still need to deal with their reaction and their feelings but you might not need to do much about the behaviour – A useful workplace analogy might be a boss saying something as simple as – ‘you’re a bit late today’ and the staff member over-reacts and assumes this is an attempt to exert power and control and may then claim they are feeling bullied. They may panic, become restless, loose sleep and this will have an impact on them but the boss’ behaviour was perfectly legitimate and reasonable. This person needs help to work through their response but they have not been bullied.

 

So when we look at impact – things like feeling hurt, angry, scared, frightened, that knot in your stomach- what is happening there? What do these reactions say to us?

Young people reflect in  a range of ways that they feel unable to speak out and feel trapped – they draw pictures of themselves in large rooms feeling caged and so on. This learning helped us articulate the notion that bullying actually takes something away from people.

All of these feelings which are regularly articulated reflect a loss of being in-charge of yourself, of being capable of taking effective action, of making choices and of being an effective actor or agent in your own life.

 

This is where agency came into our thinking. Lister calls agents ‘autonomous, purposeful actors, capable of a degree of choice’

Giddens talks about how we have agency within structures and our agency is utilised when we consciously alter our place in the structure’

Young people get this notion  - as it can be a bit if a head scratcher the first time you hear it - though when you explain a ‘typical day’ of meeting friends, going to school, laughing, joining in and knowing what is happening and how you’ll respond. Bullied children don’t feel that. Someone else is in charge of how they feel, where they go even or how they will participate.

The ‘structures’ this dynamic takes place in is schools and communities. When they can exercise choice in what happens in these ‘structures’, they are utilising their agency.

The ability to negotiate relationships and difficulties is something all children and young people need to learn and develop – it is a life skill many adults still don’t always get right

We learn from our past experiences, from imagining what we would do in future similar situations and what is happening to us now – these elements combine and enable us to make choices and act – this is agency.

 

Managing change and responding to challenges requires hope, a belief you can handle things - and agency and these underpin resilience.

 

Bullying is not about just any kind of injury, nor just any negative impact. It involves a particular kind of harm. It is aimed at engendering a kind of helplessness, an inability to act, to do anything. It is an assault on a person’s agency (Sercombe and Donnelly 2012)

 

It is not even the establishment of dominance. The person bullying is not satisfied with dominance. Bullying involves the attempt to deny another any settled place, even a subordinate one. It goes beyond subjection. In bullying, the goal is abjection

Considering that bullying is both different types of behaviour and a particular impact that re-focusses our understanding of the dynamic - this can re-define bullying in a way that helps practitioners’ responsd to feelings and actions. This  is always more effective than checking off criteria and having uniform sanction based responses.

 

Bullying is not defined by the type of person who did it either

 

Care needs to be taken because labelling is not without its risks, labelling a child or young person on the basis of bullying behaviour can result in a confirmed identity as a ‘bully’ or ‘victim’ resulting in ongoing behaviour patterns based on this identity.

This is not to dilute behaviour but is to keep the focus of the adult’s responses on the behaviour that is problematic, rather than the assigning characteristics to those involved. This is a solution focussed approach that is designed to help people change the way they behave, rather than attempt to change who they are. We help people change by telling them and naming the behaviour that is unacceptable, being clear that what they are doing is bullying and that it needs to stop.

It is a fundamental part of behaviour management that we tell people what the behaviour was they did, why it is not acceptable and help them figure out what to do the next time they feel that way – I did get asked recently if not labelling children as ‘bullies’ is gobbledygook at parliament

With this in mind – we offer up a new definition for people to consider

Bullying is a relationship of violence involving practices of domination that strip another person of the capacity for agency, using interventions carrying the sustained threat of harm.(Sercombe and Donnelly 2012)

The actual intervention may not be repeated, but the threat at least needs to be sustained over time. Typically, the threat will be sustained by actions: looks, messages, confrontations or physical interventions.

Lastly, if we can accept that bullying takes something away from people, that they can no longer take effective action our response must focus on helping get that back.

This is the real shift in anti-bullying practice – how do I help someone get back a feeling of being in control of themselves and in a place to take effective action to feel safe and get on with their day?

Things like moving desks or even just excluding people won’t on their own help restore agency – young people must be included in what will happen next and given the chance to steer what direction it goes in. They need to be asked what they would like to happen and we need to take that seriously.

This is not always easy but it must remain our goal with every intervention – to help young people get back to a place where they are in control and can take effective action. Where not all attempts to bully are successful – this can see you continue to challenge people’s behaviour but you may need a lighter response to the young people they are attempting to unsettle.

In reality – what does that look like? What does it sound like? You will need to ask questions like

What would you like to happen?

What do you think will happen if I tell his or her parents?

What will happen if I tell your teacher?

What are you worried about?

 

Be prepared for them to say

Don’t tell my dad – you will out me to him and I’m not ready for that

I just want you to know what is happening and if I need you I will come and get you

If you talk to his dad he will get a doing/beating and it’ll get worse

 

So you explore what options they do have and sometimes that means pointing out that you need to do something as not doing anything is dangerous

Open conversations like these promote communication – this promotes positive relationships and they promote and role model problem solving behaviours –these relationships can become stronger and children become more resilient to what is happening because of this strong purposeful relationship – even with just one person.

The process of listening and consciously trying to get back agency – a sense of being on control – won’t always lead to a perfect outcome but it will help the person being bullied

 

So in conclusion, I would suggest that we have in fact re-framed our approach to and understanding of bullying based on children and young people’s experiences – that this understanding compliments the significant and long standing work on resilience, and on how we promote and enable this in our children and young people.

When we are promoting respectful relationships, when we are building capacity to respond effectively, when we are helping young people learn to negotiate tricky relationships and when involve them we help them to become more resilient.

Brian Donnelly

Making a difference internationally

This month I had the real pleasure of delivering two days of anti-bullying training to colleagues in Vienna. Samera is a project based in Austria dealing with violence against children. Their team is made up of psychologists, social workers, and educators that focus on kindergarten and social pedagogy. They have over 20 years of practical experience in the prevention of violence against children and adolescents. Their approach is ‘trans-cultural’, they recognize the changing face of European countries and they use this term to explain the focus on respect, appreciation, collective action, openness, and engagement with other cultures.

Representatives visited Scotland last year and as part of their visit I met with them to discuss respectme’s approach to bullying and how our approach reflects the culture and how we are governed in Scotland. They were I am pleased to say, very impressed with our approach. Despite their years of work around violence and relationships they had never focused on bullying or ‘mobbing’ as the behavior is known as across Central Europe. They were becoming increasingly aware of this behavior and were looking for a framework or approach that they felt could help compliment their work and they chose ours.

I was invited to deliver two days training to around 30 members of their network in Vienna. My challenge was to put together a program that covered all of the core messages that underpin our approach, the national context and a critique/reflection of some other anti-bullying approaches they knew a little about and this also had to be translated into German for the benefit of the audience.

Perhaps the biggest challenge faced was my tendency to speak very quickly and when I get going on a subject, to speak even quicker. Many of the delegates spoke English very well but did not take the Glasgow dialect classes! I have discovered just how different the word ‘parents’ can sound. An Austrian will learn to say ‘Paa-rents’ where as I would say ‘Pay-rints’- which to them is another word altogether.

The delegates were an eclectic group of social workers, teachers, psychologists and youth workers. They responded very positively to the approach we use. They found our definition of bullying as it impacts on a person’s agency, to be one that made a lot of sense. Many of them felt the notion that bullying took something away from a person and their role was to help get it back, was one they found very useful. Many of them deliver training to teachers and commented on this being something they would use. They, like most people do I have to say, get the notion that intent and persistence are not they key defining factors in recognizing and importantly responding to bullying. Responding to behavior and the impact it has is what matters.

The issue of labeling was an interesting discussion. The word ‘bully’ has made its way into their language. They liked our take on not using terms like ‘bully’ or ‘perpetrator’ when talking about bullying but feel many in their country do use this word. What was interesting though is that when bulling was translated, the word they use is ‘mobbing’. When I asked what word they use to describe someone who is mobbing someone else, they have no word. The concept of calling someone a ‘mobber’ was strange to them; they would talk about mobbing or people who mob. We agreed this was the right approach and that they should challenge the growing use of the word’ bully’ especially as it contra to what they would normally do.

The other area where we learned a lot from each other was when talking about gender based bullying and sexual violence. Sexual violence was the main area of work for over 50% of the delegates. I wanted to share my concerns over the increased use of the umbrella term ‘sexual bullying’. As respectme has stated many times, we feel this is an unhelpful term to use and the guidance on this in other parts of the UK is not something we would support. We agree there is a link between gender based bullying and sexual violence but to label behavior such as a boy putting his hand up a girls skirt or forcing her to do something sexually she does not want to as a form of bullying is concerning. This is abusive behaviour. Sexual violence and sexually aggressive behaviour is not bullying, it is far more serious and needs to be treated as such. This is an area that in the UK opinion is still divided, there are many who are happy to use this term as an umbrella term that includes behaviours that are way beyond gender based bullying.

I am not suggesting that gender-based bullying does not lead to sexual violence or sexually aggressive behaviour, far from it. Rumours and names calling used in person and on-line toward girls in particular should and do concern us. We need to intervene in this behaviour to stop it escalating and become more abusive.

What was interesting was that none of the delegates would even consider using the term ‘sexual bullying’ they were able to make a clear distinction between sexual violence and abuse and bullying behaviour. To put these behaviours together seemed absurd to them. That was no doubt down to the fact most of them work with children who experience sexual violence and they have considerable experience and expertise as practitioners, councillors and teachers in this area. They too see a link between gender-based bullying and how, for some, this can lead to sexual violence but they are distinct behaviours. I welcomed their take on this issue and will use this learning as we take our work in this area forward.

What really helped the two days to flow for the group and for me was having the services of an extremely competent translator. I am always embarrassed when visiting other countries that most locals will speak very good English but our interpreter put that to shame with her four languages. I was able to plan and deliver a greeting, some limited personal information and finished off with ‘dies ist der einzige Deutsche satz den ich weiß‘– ‚‘this is the only German sentence I know‘– it did get a few laughs.

Vienna is a beautiful city (I even took in the ballet one afternoon – only 8 Euro for some culture) and I was made to feel very welcome by my hosts. The feedback was very warm and complimentary. I left a number of resources that will be used as part of a new practice manual for Austrian teacher in the year ahead. I am always very proud to see our resources and our approach being used and spoken about internationally.

I learned a great deal about the cultural differences between Scotland and Austria, how their Government structures differ and the similarities they face in ensuring they get funding every year and stretching this as far as they can. Similarly though, when visiting Slovenia and Ireland recently, I can see that we benefit from having a National Approach to anti-bullying in Scotland, a framework like this is a model for developing consistency and while we are getting there, many colleagues across Europe are looking at this as a model that does makes a difference. A national approach that is underpinned by values, promotes children’s rights and one that challenges inequalities makes sense but there are not many of them around. Hopefully we can keep contributing to changing that.

 

Brian

Thought's behind this years campign...

As we prepare to launch our new video next week, I find myself , reflecting on how bullying is an emotive and at times a complex issue. It can bring about extreme reactions in people, from genuine anger and aggression to a dismissive ‘never did me any harm, it’s all part of growing up’ attitude.

I still encounter both attitudes and believe that how some people choose to frame bullying is not at all helpful. Bullying does not build character. Trust, love and good role models build character. This helps us deal with things like bullying, it helps build resilience. I find the attitude that bullying is ‘normal’ and builds ‘character’ in practice leads to very poor responses form adults when dealing with bullying.

Young people have always been consistent in what they tell us about bullying. For the most part they want it to stop with the minimum of fuss and when they are being bullied, they feel like they have lost something, lost the ability to feel in control and in-charge of themselves. Bullying is about relationships, relationships that are not working in the way they should. It’s about relationships that are not being managed or role modelled effectively.

We are taught about’ being friends’ at a very early age, I have witnessed this sometimes with children as  young as three year olds being told they’ need to be friends’. This just isn’t the case; where else in life are we told we all have to be friends? We should really be telling children that when they are together they need to be nice to each other, respect each other but that they need to be friends? It is unrealistic and gives children the first currency to barter with at school or nursery.

Learning to navigate relationships in the community, at home or in school is a journey we all go on. We learn to manage or even avoid conflict, that friends can fall out and it doesn’t mean things will never be fixed. It was this thought process that gave the service its name. It was while explaining the that it was okay to say ‘listen, you don’t have to like me but you do have to respect me’ and that respecting me does not have to mean you try to connect with me and learn about me – it can just mean ‘leave me alone’.  There are ways to behave when you do not like someone or agree with someone that is respectful. Our response to this does not need to be to bully or intimidate, to exclude and cause fear and anxiety.

As part of this year’s anti-bullying week activities (November 19 – 23), our campaign will use a video to deliver this message; a message spoken by young people to their peers and to the adults in their life.

That message is this ‘You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to agree with me or like doing the same things I do but you do have to respect me. So leave me be, don’t just try to bully me, talk to me even and hey, you do your thing and I’ll do mine’.

This very straightforward message is one we want people to share across their social networks; it is how we want adults to talk to children about how they get on with their peers, how they approach anti-bullying work and how children should learn to set the parameters for relationships in their lives.

This message translates into anti-bullying training and policies that promote respectful relationships that value diversity, equality, and children’s rights.   If you don’t agree with someone or think they are out-of-step from how you think or feel – you do not need to respond in a way that makes them feel hurt, frightened or left out. You can learn about what makes us different, or, you can learn to leave the people you might not like or agree with alone.

That action alone would make a great deal of children and young people much happier and feel much safer than they currently do.

 

Brian Donnelly

This year’s anti-bullying week competition – what have we learned?

It has been such an interesting experience to go through each of the entries into this year’s competition – as it is every year. This year we have around 2,000 entries. That’s 2,000 individual pieces of feedback on ‘What bullying means to me’.

The question posed is very deliberate – it’s not about finding out what children and young people think about bullying or what is a good message or poster for your peers is but what does it mean to you. Having been involved in every competition we have ran in the last 5 years, I have always paid attention to the emerging themes and issues from the thousands of submissions. A couple of years ago the theme of loss and helplessness emerged very clearly and helped us understand the impact bullying had on a person’s agency, their capacity for self-management.

It was very clear that bullying took something away from children and young people; we took this notion and discussed it further and how effective responses gave something back, so emerged our thinking on agency. (See initial blog)

When explaining agency to young people I have often used the analogy of a ‘typical day’. A day where you get up, have your breakfast, you know you are off to the bus-stop to meet friends, what classes you’ll enjoy, pay attention in or even avoid and have a good idea of what you’ll be doing after school. Children and young people recognise this scenario and that they will have experienced this.

When a person is being bullied, they say that is not their day. They are not in charge of how they get to feel, someone else is. It affects how they felt when they wake up, if they eat anything, the nerves heading for the bus perhaps or what someone will say to them if they walk in this door at school. Will they be asked to go out tonight or ignored again? Again, some of them recognise this day too.

There are so many of the entries this year, especially in the creative writing category that have reflected this very clearly. There are many stories where children and young people reflect a feeling of nervousness, fear and a lack of control over situations that sometimes starts the moment they get up. They describe in vivid detail days and experiences they have where others make them feel worried and scared, where people affect their ability to learn.They descibe physical responses too, legs shaking, hands trembling and feeling very cold.

This writing reaffirms what we believe about bullying and agency, they describe individuals who are not agents in their own lives; they are not in charge of how they feel and our responses must focus on restoring this loss.

When children and young people are asked to reflect on what bullying means to them, they describe feelings of hurt, fear, loneliness, worry and anger. They describe scenarios where friendships turn sour, where people are left out and where being new to a school or a group can intially be a very difficult experience. They also express a real desire for people to return to being friends. It is the most common solution put forward, one where relationships are repaired and people ‘get on’. They offer very little by way of wanting to see people ‘punished’.

 The art work submitted, ranging from posters to drawings and sculpture reflects many of the same issues. Images of feeling trapped, having your mouth zipped up, feeling caged, dark colours and feeling very small in large rooms or spaces. These all reflect a sense that they are prevented from being themselves and how they look, act and feel. What they are asking for is the chance to get back to that feeling.

It is a huge pleasure to get to do this and every year we receive incredible entries, I have never doubted and have always championed the creativity and the contribution children and young people make. These entries are a significant contribution to what we do because of the question we ask and the incredible way they respond.

We will be announcing the winners very soon as well!

Brian