After the shock of another school shooting, have you ever wondered,
how on earth did we not see the signs? How could parents, family members, teachers, and
neighbors not have seen a problem in the making?
Our best hope of preventing school violence
comes from understanding the bully-victim dynamic.
Bullying is a relationship
issue. Together let's see
how to make a bully from scratch.
It takes years to make a bully, in fact,
all bullies start out as victims. A child doesn't wake up one day and decide,
"I think I'll be a bully," any more than a child wakes up and says,
"I think I'll be a victim." Becoming a bully is a journey of specific life
experiences starting at birth. There are road signs along the way that signal
intervention is needed.
We must know the signs to effectively derail the bully life path.
To do this it's important to distinguish between normal aggression
and bullying. Children no longer say
"he teased me" or "she hit me" but
instead announce, "I was bullied at school." Even the President of the United
States, Barack Obama,
says he was bullied for having big ears. He probably was indeed teased,
but not bullied. Bullying is a specific and very serious type of aggression.
Let's travel together
on a five stop journey into the heart of how a bully is made
so we can learn to see the signs. Missing
them can be deadly. We will start at the beginning of human life,
years before you might have thought. Step into our
transporter.
First stop,
the mother's womb. Let's imagine these children to be
represent of all the kids in the world. Of these children,
a handful will experience some form a prenatal stressors
and develop a difficult temperament. These little ones are hard to soothe,
and have trouble sleeping or eating. You love them
deeply but they are a little hard to fall in love with.
When you play peek-a-boo, there are no smiles and giggles.
These children turn and squirm away.
A parent at this time might feel like, "You've been crying since you were born."
"I tried blowing raspberries and you cried."
"I tried rocking you and you cried. I can't handle this anymore.
Just shut up!" This parent is
really saying, "I love you but I'm having a hard time falling
in love with you. Help. This is so hard."
Some of these children with difficult temperaments with have very
out of control behaviors. They're defiant toddlers, and
later, hard to manage three year olds.
Feeling powerless, parents resort to chronic, punitive
discipline that victimizes their own children.
"I will count to three."
"You better get over here, or else. One, two...."
By age 3,
we start to see two different types or victims emerging.
One is aggressive, defiant and hot-tempered.
The other is passive, acquiescent and
anxious. Let's get back into the transporter.
Our next stop is pre-school and kindergarten.
During this time, our children find themselves in more complex social
settings, like school.
They have trouble playing with others from a lack of basic social skills and
the ability to regulate their own behavior. Other children often exclude them,
finding them boring, or being frightened by their aggression and outbursts.
Teachers don't have the skills either and further compound the problem
by using their own exclusion strategies.
"Go to time out!" "Go sit in that chair, now!" These kids are emotionally reactive
when things don't go their way. The aggressive child goes from
upset to rage in seconds. The passive child gives up just as quickly.
Since they cannot self-regulate, they're unable to learn appropriate social
skills.
The aggressive child hits, grabs, takes what he wants.
The passive child allows others to hit and grab
without saying a word. Their chronically stressed brain creates
mental distortions
in the way they perceive themselves and others.
The aggressive child sees hostile intent in others everyday
actions. The passive child believes he should be treated poorly
and expects poor treatment from others.
Adults tend to see the aggressive child as mean and the passive child as unmotivated or lazy.
These judgments blind us to the road signs
allowing the aggressive child to move one step closer
to becoming a bully, and the passive child
in becoming a victim.
All aboard, let's continue on to first and second grade.
Things get worse as our children move further into the world of friends.
All human beings require a sense of belonging. These children,
desperate for a connection, are often pushed to the side by classmates,
teachers and schools.
They have been excluded from connections with others since birth.
This immense social pain actually involves the same pathways in the brain
as physical pain in the body. Somewhere during this time,
the social pain of rejection becomes so great,
the brain undergoes significant changes. For both bullies and victims,
the brain compensates for a life of painful disconnection. Buckle in as we
continue to see what happens to these children
ages 8 through 12. Both our bully and victim are still searching for connection and a place
to belong.
Since the mainstream tends to exclude them,
they move towards one another. The bully says,
"You're mine. I own you. Now do what I say
or else" and the victim provokes or acquieses because a bad connection
seems better than no connection at all.
Both our bully and victim are now immune to consequences because they simply
don't care.
One of the changes their brain has gone through is to shut down the caring
system.
Adults might threaten with, "you're going to get kicked out of school."
"Go ahead, kick me out, I don't care."
"We are going to call your parents." "So what,
I don't care." "We're going to take away computer privileges."
"I don't care. I don't like the computer anyway."
"We are going to ground you, spank you, send you to an alternative school."
"Yeah? So what."
Since the part of the brain responsible for the motivation to care
is literally turned off, there is no punishment
or discipline that will help.
Rewiring this system can only occur
through connections with others.
When children say 'I don't care', their brain is unconsciously saying,
'I don't feel cared for by
anyone anywhere.'
Our final stop brings us to the teenage years.
Continually trying so hard to belong,
the bully may join a gang of tough guys or hook up with some mean girls.
They perfect their craft through cyber bullying,
spreading rumors, physical action and day-to-day
threats. At this point, the bully is now a
dangerous teenager who's brain has changed in two
very significant ways. The brain has become programmed
to biochemically experience pleasure from hurting others.
The bully's internal pharmacy provides him with opioids
that act like morphine to deaden the pain
of his life journey. The teenager is literally addicted
to causing others pain. The brain is immune
to rejection and ostracism. This teenager no longer feels a need to belong or care.
The skill of empathy is
offline.
Our victim, on the other hand lacks the internal pharmacy that our bully has to
provide him with relief. The teenager is prone to suffer in quiet
and then exploding, but the pain can become so intense
that he may kill himself for others, as we have seen play out
in school shootings. Bullying a bully with tough measures and excluding him with no
tolerance policies
compounds the problem. We are systematically
applying the exact treatment that created the bully
in the first place and then expecting it to help.
Effective discipline consists of two parts:
the slow building of bonds in healthy relationships,
and the quick strategies needed in the heat of the moment when conflict occurs.
Bully prevention and intervention can
only occur in the slow stages of relationship-building.
Our awareness of the five road signs and how a bully is made
will save countless lives. Conscious Discipline has effective research,
interventions for every road sign
along the way. Join us on a journey to a better world
we can walk this road together.
Are you willing?
ConsciousDiscipline.com