Peers, Parents Urged to Help Stop Bullying

By Ben Feller

Dec. 14, 2003 12 AM PT

Associated Press Writer

Off campus, Matt Cavedon doesn’t mind the names that he is called: helper, hero, dreamer.

But inside school, students for years have used uglier terms to taunt the 14-year-old, who is in a wheelchair because of a condition that prevents him from fully extending his limbs. It’s bullying, he said, and it happens in different ways to children all the time.

“It just lingers on your mind,” said the ninth-grader in Berlin, Conn., who works with a group that creates playgrounds for children with disabilities.

“You can’t think clearly. You’re preoccupied trying to figure out why they would say this,” he said. “It can distract you from your schoolwork, your community, even from your friends. It really does start to get to you.”

Bullying was long shrugged off as an afterthought, chalked up to kids being kids.

But in recent years, it has gained serious notice as a factor in deadly campus shootings. More and more states and schools have taken steps to prevent bullying, from class discussions about peer relations to reaching out to parents about the kind of behavior that is expected in school.

But health and safety officials say the country still doesn’t realize how pervasive bullying is, how it hampers learning and engenders violence -- and how it can be prevented.

In response, the federal government is planning a $3.4-million campaign to combat bullying, drawing support from more than 70 education, law en- forcement, civic and religious groups. With an expected start next year, the effort will frame bullying as a public health concern, targeting youngsters and the adults who influence them.

The goal is to create a culture change in which bullying is not seen as cool, parents watch for warning signs, kids stand up for each other and teachers are trained to intervene.

Among the campaign’s tools are a Web site, animated Web episodes, commercials, and a network of nonprofit groups to help raise awareness and offer tips.

Bullying is aggressive, and repeated behavior based on an imbalance of power among people. It ranges from slapping, kicking and other physical abuse to verbal assaults to the new frontier: cyberbullying, in which children use e-mail and Web sites to humiliate others.

Millions of students -- about three in 10 -- are affected as a bully, victim or both, according to a 2001 study of students in sixth to 10th grade. The research was done by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

And that does not include huge numbers of students who witness bullying, are fearful that it may happen to them and are unsure what to do, experts say.

Students such as Matt Cavedon helped shape the upcoming prevention campaign, which will focus on children in the middle-school ages of 9 to 13, when most bullying occurs.

Brielle McClain, a seventh-grader at Millikan Middle School in Van Nuys, also helped campaign leaders understand what bullying feels like.

She has been belittled for being biracial and, in turn, she has tried to intimidate other girls by spreading rumors.

“It’s like a never-ending cycle,” said Brielle, who turns 12 this weekend. “It just makes you feel really bad and sometimes really angry. I even walked out of class one time I was so mad. You don’t ever really get your mind off it.”

Students who are bullied are more likely to be depressed and miss school, while bullies are more likely than other students to carry weapons, get into frequent scuffles and get hurt in fights, research shows.

“Bullying has been around forever, and I think the attitude among many adults is, ‘Well, we survived it, and we’re probably more resilient people for dealing with it,’ ” said Sue Limber, a Clemson University researcher who has helped the government campaign. “But if you look at research and listen to kids, there are good reasons to deal with this.”

After the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, in which two frequently bullied students killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before killing themselves, the Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education led a study of school violence.

It found that many of those who attacked others had been bullied in ways that would amount to assault or harassment if it happened in the workplace.

“You can’t learn at high levels when you’re being humiliated and thinking of how you’re going to get your butt kicked in the boy’s bathroom,” said Bill Bond, a national safety consultant for school principals.

He was principal at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., when a freshman who had been bullied shot eight students, killing three of them, in 1997.

“The solution is, everyone involved has to have the courage to say, ‘This isn’t right,’ ” Bond said. “The biggest group that can stop it is the peers, if they just have the courage to say, ‘Hey, leave him alone, that’s not cool.’ But you can’t ask someone to tell a bully to leave someone alone unless the principal has shown the courage to take action too.”

At James H. Bean elementary school in Sidney, Maine, bullying has dropped significantly over the past five years, said counselor Stan Davis, a specialist in bullying prevention.

Among many other steps, the school created friendship teams, in which three students invite another one into activities to prevent the exclusion that many youngsters dread.

When students join the school, children regularly volunteer to help them.

Bullies face increasing consequences for repeat offenses but also get individual help in finding other ways to express themselves.

More parents must help too, said Cara Mocarski of Shelton, Conn., whose son, Derek, was taunted, slapped and punched on a bus ride.

Derek, who was trained in karate, did not retaliate. The bully later apologized at the behest of his appalled parents.

“A lot of parents won’t get involved or they’ll say, ‘Not my child,’ ” Mocarski said.

“But you can’t do that. There will just be continued violence.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Signs of Trouble and What to Do

Health and safety experts say that preventing bullying among children requires awareness and intervention among adults. Some signs to watch for and ways to help:

A child may be getting bullied if he:

* Returns from school with damaged or missing clothing, books or belongings.

* Has unexplained cuts, bruises or scratches.

* Has few, if any, friends.

* Appears afraid of going to school.

* Has lost interest in schoolwork.

* Complains of headaches or stomachaches.

* Has trouble sleeping or has frequent nightmares.

* Appears sad, depressed or moody.

* Appears anxious or has poor self-esteem.

* Is quiet and passive.

Tips for parents in helping children deal with bullies: