Introduction
Littleton, Colorado, April 20, 1999. Teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School armed with assault weapons and homemade bombs. The boys opened fire randomly on anyone they saw. They killed 12 classmates, a teacher, injured 18 other teenagers, and then shot and killed themselves. The people of Littleton had only one question: Why?
Investigations revealed that Harris and Klebold were constantly ridiculed and bullied at school. Another student falsely reported that they brought marijuana to school; their lockers were searched, bringing more ridicule upon them. The boys were surrounded by schoolmates who doused them with ketchup and called them “faggots” while teachers merely watched. They wore the ketchup all day, unable to change clothes. In his suicide note, Eric Harris indicated that he and Dylan Klebold had been continually bullied at school and were completely isolated from other students. “It’s payback time,” Eric wrote.
Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007. Twenty-three-year-old Seung-Hui Cho opened fire on the students and faculty at Virginia Tech University. After shooting at least 174 rounds, he killed 32 and wounded 25, then he took his own life. He made history for being the cause of the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.
Investigations revealed that Cho was a loner at school. He was declared mentally ill in 2005 and required to seek out-patient treatment. When he was in middle school and high school he suffered bullying for his speech defects, causing him to develop selective mutism, an anxiety of speaking. Cho’s suicide note showed his repressed anger toward “rich kids,” “debauchery,” and “deceitful charlatans.”
In a video Cho sent to NBC news prior to the shootings, he declared, “You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.”
Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 8, 2002. Fourteen-year-old Emmet Fralick, an outgoing, popular student, shot and killed himself. His suicide note stated that he could no longer tolerate being bullied by his peers. Investigations revealed that, on a regular basis, Emmet had been bullied by extortion, threats, and beatings from other students.
Not every case of bullying makes headline-grabbing news like these tragic incidents. However, ask any child who is a victim of bullying to explain candidly how this experience feels, and no doubt the child will describe feelings of helplessness, despair, rage, depression, and dread. These feelings have a distinct, uneasy similarity to those expressed in the suicide notes of Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Emmet Fralick.
Most adults can recount stories of being “picked on” at school at one time or another. Something made them different in some way: they were too short, too tall, too smart, too dumb, too rich, too poor — the list of reasons why kids are often cruel to each other is endless. Adults can now laugh as they recount their most embarrassing school moment. One characteristic separates being picked on and being bullied: Children are picked on for a specific personal difference, usually for a limited period of time until the perpetrators grow bored with their own game, whereas bullying can continue for years with no let-up by the tormentors.
The bystanders of bullying are silent witnesses to the physical and emotional assaults upon their schoolmates. It is usually presumed that, because they watch in silence, they condone what they see. In fact, fear is what keeps them silent; fear that if they report the systematic physical and emotional battery of the victim, the bully will turn on them. They remain silent to keep from becoming targets themselves.
Perhaps the oddest result of bullying is that, to end the attacks upon themselves, a victim will aid and even encourage the bully in targeting another child. This behavior is pure self-defense, a diversion tactic; if the bully finds another, fresher victim, the original victim can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing the bully will be preoccupied by the “new toy.”
The face of bullying has changed. Where once the stereotype of the mean schoolyard bully prevailed, today’s bully can just as easily be female as male, since violence by teenage girls has taken a disastrous rise in the past decade. Children are not safe even in their own home; “cyber bullying” via online chat rooms and other technology is a new form of aggressive behavior that has only recently been identified and studied.
According to the award-winning weekly PBS teen series, “In the Mix,” up to 25 percent of United States students are bullied each year. As many as 160,000 children stay at home from school on any given day out of the fear of being bullied. At least one out of three teenagers said they have been seriously threatened online. Sixty percent of teens say they have participated in online bullying. Researching bullies and their victims in the modern age is disheartening and alarming; emotional turmoil, physical assault, and social isolation leads all too often to severe psychological harm, suicide, and homicide by the tormented victim. Unchecked, bullies are likely to enter adulthood with perilous narcissistic and anti-social personality traits that lead to unstable, chaotic personal relationships, multiple divorces, child and spouse abuse, assaultive behavior, and violent criminal behavior.
If Americans are ever going to prevent and eliminate bullying among school-age children, there are some hard facts to be faced. Since change depends primarily upon recognition that a problem exists, adults must relinquish the myth that defending oneself from a bully builds character and that being bullied is a normal part of growing up. Aside from the suicides and homicides, being the victim of a bully is sheer psychological warfare, and many victims carry the emotional scars from these battles for the rest of their lives. It is disturbing to note that many victims share the same long-term life consequences that the bullies experience as adults. Helpless rage, bitterness, and low self-esteem are only a few examples of the price victims pay.
The case studies included in this book portray real people who were seen in mental health clinics for psychotherapy regarding a number of different issues ranging from depression, anxiety, marital and interpersonal problems, personality disorders, and substance abuse. Their names and personal information have been altered for their privacy, but the facts of each case are genuine. Cases that are fictional are clearly noted as such. Relevant information about being the victim or perpetrators of bullying covers eleven essential questions:
(1) How old were you when you began bullying others or when you became the victim of bullying?
(2) Describe the bullying that was done to you or that you did to others?
(3) Describe the person(s) who bullied you or the person you bullied?
(4) Did you tell anyone that you were being bullied? Why/Why not?
(5) What effects did bullying or being bullied have on you?
(6) Were you ever a witness or bystander when someone was being bullied? If so, what if anything did you do about it?
(7) Did you try to stop yourself from being bullied? How? Did it work?
(8) Have you had fantasies or a plan about wanting to harm the bullies?
(9) Did anyone ever intervene on your behalf? Who? What happened next?
(10) Have you ever bullied anyone? If so, who and why?
(11) Do you currently have any criminal history, domestic violence history, or substance abuse problems?
In the book’s Appendix are many sample documents suggested to help students, teachers, and parents make their school a safe environment for all students. These documents can be customized to fit any school’s needs.
This book’s purposes are to expose bullying in all its forms among school-age children; identify characteristics of bullies, victims, and non-reporting bystanders; examine the short- and long-term consequences of bullying for the victim, the bystanders, and the bully; and provide practical, essential information for the prevention and elimination of bullying. With this purpose accomplished, the lives of many children, now and in future generations, can be free of fear.
“You don’t have to behave the way you have behaved just because you always have.” – Dr. Wayne Dwyer